Even LL never went on a binge this wild. It's like some kind of core dump LOL

-- WD-40 (wd40@squeak.not), September 09, 2000

Answers

Stand back

We're gonna plug him in

-- 1 (2@3.4), September 09, 2000.

He was in great need of confrontation about this protective delusion he has been living in, and it appears my analysis has reached him. This fit of hysterical spamming is his last grasp to reinforce his delusion because he does not want to emerge from it, but nonetheless this is a good sign. The truth has struck a chord within him, and he is now aware that his delusion no longer has any relevance in reality.

-- cyber freud (his.delusion@is.shattered), September 09, 2000.

Does that mean that once he gets over his spamming fit he'll morph into someone more interesting, like D.D. Firstlight or RC?

-- (raven@never.more), September 09, 2000.

Once he has accepted reality, he will completely repress the embarassing roles he played as crusader against "Doomzies" and guru of oil knowledge, since that was also another of his failures.

Though not very intelligent, he is obviously a fighter. My guess is he will join forces with another lost cause, though a more realistic one, such as the campaign team for George W. Bush. This is a good role for an aggressive imbecile like him to rebuild his ego by convincing himself that he is once again serving a useful purpose.

-- cyber freud (dubya@provides.hope), September 09, 2000.

GAWD!!! cpr having a core meltdown is one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen on TB2000...the old or the new one. Best laugh I've had in a long time!

-- (I'm a@little.teapot), September 09, 2000.

YOUR DIETY DE_BUNKED by PEER:

http://www.ercb.com/brief/brief.0112.html

---

Soothsayers of Doom

Time Bomb 2000, the "revised and updated" edition of noted software methodologist and industry pundit Ed Yourdon's New York Times bestseller, is 600 pages of absolute nonsense. Open anywhere, shake the book upside down, and out billows a smothering cloud of horsefeathers. Where does the overwhelmed reviewer start?

How about with the back cover.

"Will your bank open? Will your car run? Will your money be there? Will medical devices work? Will social security checks arrive? Will there be electricity? Food? Water? Will your PC work? Above all, what can you do to prepare?"

There's a photo of Ed with daughter and coauthor Jennifer; Ed in a sleeveless sweater and open-necked dress shirt, looking like an East Coast teevangelist touting his latest family self-help book. Next to the photo is a credit for Ed Yourdon's Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer. He's not exactly dodging responsibility for his more famous opus, The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer (it's mentioned inside the book on his authorship credits page), but he's not bragging about it.

The techniques of argumentation used inside the book are reminiscent of millennialist literature from many centuries and from all over the world. There are fancy geometrical diagrams looking like the Qabbalah scholar's bad dream. The diagrams describe "Interaction between various worlds" and prove that something could happen if somebody doesn't do something, and it could be pretty bad, if it did happen, because everything is connected. The book implies very strongly that Y2K is the pin that just might puncture the balloon of industrial society.

Things become a little more clear on the back flyleaf, where we find an ad for another of the series, Ed Yourdon's Year 2000 Home Preparation Guide, "featuring [sic] preparedness expert James Talmage Stevens, author of Making the Best of Basics: A Family Preparedness Handbook and Don't Get Caught With Your Pantry Down!".

In fact, it's perfectly clear. The medicine show is in town. Let's flip open this literary road apple, this monument to the shamelessness of fad surfing. On page 78, we read:

"It's also possible that certain careers or professions will vanish because of sharp changes in the fashion, taste, or hobbies of society, following a massive Y2000 failure. Maybe we'll abandon baseball as the national hobby - a change that will not only be catastrophic for today's highly paid athletes, but also for those who sell peanuts and beer in the stadium."

This is not computer science, nor economics, nor sociology, nor any other kind of science. It's Swami Salami burbling prophecy through a glass darkly to the credulous unwashed ` la Hal Lindsey and Salem Kirban. Here's a particularly phatic passage from page 80:

"Even more sobering is the impact that a pervasive Y2000 problem is likely to have on different generations. Just as the Great Depression had a different impact upon the generation of children, young adults, middle-aged people, and the elderly, we're likely to see a similar range of reactions to the Y2000 crisis ... a younger generation ... may find a Y2000 crisis liberating ... An older generation is likely to have more to lose."

"On the day you cross that river, a great empire will fall." They charged Croesus several golden tripods for that one at Delphi back when Moses was still in knee-pants.

There's a fairy tale I read to my daughter when she was four years old called "The Three Simpletons" and it starts something like this:

A maiden was, at her betrothal party, sent to the cellar to fetch more wine for the guests. It happened that she saw an ax hung from the ceiling near the cask. "Suppose," the maiden thought, "my betrothed and I were to marry, and have a son, and he were to grow up fine and strong, and be at age twenty himself betrothed, and come down fetching wine, and the ax should fall on him and disfigure him before his wedding!" And she sat at the foot of the stairs and wept in anguish at the thought.

The maiden is eventually joined by her mother and father, both of whom in their turn are overcome by the same hideous anticipation. The future bridegroom discovers them weeping in the cellar and sets off to wander the wide world until he finds three people sillier than his fiancee and parents-in-law.

I similarly pledge myself to read assiduously the books I come across, ever seeking something sillier to read than pere et fille Yourdon's Time Bomb 2000. I may be at it well into the millennium.

-- Jack Woehr

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 09, 2000.

You go, Charlie! Don't stop now...you've got 'em on the ropes! You're winning, Charlie! It's a first round knockout! I'm laughing so hard my somache hurts! More SPAM, Charlie!

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!! Revenge is a dish best served cold. Come one, Come all...watch cpr SNAP!! BWAHAHAHAHA!!

-- (ghost of@milne.com), September 09, 2000.

Try and help the campaign of Bush, heck he's so out of it he might just vote for Gore.

-- Al Bore (blame@me.stupid), September 09, 2000.