CyberBabble
Site-Seeing on the Internet

Stand Firm In The Downturn

Duff MacDonald
Mirror contributing writer

   We don’t need a sixteenth-century soothsayer to prophesize our future. It seems that it’s very easy to foretell the financial road ahead. All that is necessary are some vague doubts and voila, our self-fulfilling prophecy is set in motion. If someone chats it up on the Net or off, about how the economy is in a downturn, it downturns. It’s amazing how just a few short weeks ago, when the election was still stymied, the economic outlook of the country was pretty bright, with Tech stocks leading the way. Now that president-elect George W. Bush is in place and picking his cabinet, the fiscal doomsayers are muttering about a recession. 
   The conventional wisdom that a Republican president is good for the economy is being blown to smithereens, even before Bush’s inauguration. After eight years of prosperity under President Clinton, with the emphasis on the Internet and the "New Economy," it seems that Silicon Valley is going to take a back seat to the "Old Economy" and Bush’s friends in Big Oil. During his campaign, Bush formed his "Information Technology Advisory Council," comprised of people like James Barksdale (ex-Netscape) and Dell Computer’s Michael Dell as a way of shoring up his high tech image. But apparently it doesn’t matter to the Nasdaq, the dot com economy arbiters, as the last gasps of 2000 spelled the end for the high-rising bull market. The Nasdaq (www.nasdaq.com), which rates itself with the Nasdaq Composite Index measuring change based on market value, gave itself its worst rating in its 29-year history. 
   President Clinton established the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) on February 11, 1997 to help guide his "administration's efforts to accelerate development and adoption of information technologies vital for American prosperity in the 21st century." The PITAC (www.ccic.gov/ac) meets for the last time on February 8, 2001 and disbands forever tomorrow unless Bush extends its mandate. PITAC’s Web site has a wealth of cutting edge thought on the state of the Internet and its place in our culture and economy. 
   The Report to the President on Open Source Software for High End Computing (www.ccic.gov/ac/pres-oss-11sep00.pdf) examines how the future of software development as well as the possible security of our nation is in the cross-platform open source movement. This raises an important and valid question about the technology we all depend on. Is it really in our best interest to have the government’s computers rely so heavily on proprietary software that they might be put in a vulnerable position just because of an Outlook virus-laden email or Microsoft Word macro virus? 
   The 2000 report to the President on the Digital Divide is also here, which you can download as an Acrobat PDF (www.ccic.gov/ac/pres-2feb00-ddfinrep.pdf) or you can listen to the Real Audio files of several of the speakers from the Digital Divide Conference. If you need the free Acrobat Reader go to (www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html) and to get the free Real Player go to (proforma.real.com/real/ player/player.html). 
   Bill Joy, Chief Scientist & CEO at Sun Microsystems, is just one of the heavy hitters who contributed to the Digital Divide Report. Joy is also the author of the groundbreaking essay "Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us" (www.wirednews.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html) published in Wired magazine. He tosses the gauntlet down to other scientists regarding the moral and ethical decisions that need to be addressed because the unprecedented advances in "robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech are threatening to make humans an endangered species." 
   The advances in genetic engineering from DNA mapping via the Human Genome Project (HGP) (www.ornl.gov/ hgmis) bring to mind an absolute flood of possibilities, running the gambit from exciting ways to save people lives and ending in nightmarish scenarios of eugenics. The U.S. HGP started in 1990 and is coordinated jointly by the Department of Energy (www.science. doe.gov/ober/hug_top.html) and the National Institutes of Health (www .nhgri.nih.gov). The way the HGP is reported on the six o’clock evening news you’d think that it was a done deal and that all that was left was to start cookie cutting out people. Yes, the project was slated to last 15 years and it’s ahead of schedule, but the expected completion date is 2003. 
   Nanotechnology is our future ability to build things on an atomic molecular level. This idea may seem far-fetched or ho-hum, but it is nothing short of being revolutionary and capable of changing our lives in ways we cannot even foresee. The Federal government’s Nanotechnology Initiative Web site is at (www.nano.gov). Far from being like the failed "future" predicted in the 1950s, nanotech proposes changes so radical that the government is putting out research papers slating nanotechnology as "Leading to the Next Industrial Revolution." You can get this paper as HTML (www.nano.gov/nni.htm) or as a PDF (www.nano.gov/nni.pdf). For links to additional governmental nanotech sites go to (www.homestead.com/nanotechind/government.html).
Rather than using nuts and bolts to put things together, nanotechnology posits the promise of building things, potentially EVERYTHING, atom by atom. The government has published a free PDF brochure (itri.loyola.edu/nano/IWGN
.Public.Brochure) for the layperson explaining nanotech and its implications that I highly recommend. Horst Stormer of Lucent Technologies, Columbia University, and a Nobel Physics Prize winner has talked about nanotech in a way that shows scientists' excitement at trying their hand at God-like creation, "Nanotechnology has given us the tools…to play with the ultimate toy box of nature -- atoms and molecules. Everything is made from it…the possibilities to create new things appear limitless."
   From the old pulps and comic books to Fritz Lang’s "Metropolis" (www.persocom.com.br/brasilia/metropo.htm), TV’s "Lost in Space" (www.lostinspacetv.com) and Ridley Scott’s "Blade Runner" (www.devo.com/bladerunner), robots have littered our imaginations for decades. We’ve read about them and seen so many images of robots in our pop culture that no explanation is necessary. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/people/welch/other-
robotics.html) has an exhaustive set of links to robotic sites all over the planet. 
   There are even real robots available commercially; Sony’s second generation of robotic dogs (www.aibo.com) made its debut this Christmas season. In its awkward English, Sony claims that Aibo learns from its experiences, "It responds to the treatment of its owner. Therefore, how its personality grows depends on your care." At its U.S. site (www.us.aibo.com/2d/electronics/aibo/index.html), Sony explains how Aibo is NOT a toy and how it "actually has emotions and instincts programmed into its brain."
   Even though Bill Joy has looked into the future and seen that it doesn’t need us, it's to be hoped that people everywhere will see our potential future as a call to arms. Sure, we’re in an age of instant gratification so we have limited attention spans, but rather than lying down and taking it like electric sheep, let’s utilize the Internet’s wealth of resources and create a future with and for human beings.