From: dillo@giga.or.at (Dieter Baron)
Subject: untitled
Date: 2 Nov 1995 01:10:24 GMT

The green glow of the VDT is the only illumination in the windowless
room,  bare but for a mattress in one corner and a pile of junk food
boxes in another.  

He sits cross-legged in front of the VDT, leaning against a wall,
keyboard resting on his knees, fingers flying over the keys.  It is an
old CRT text terminal, heavily modified though; no VR deck for him.

``I want no part of those blinkenlights interfaces,'' he said to me
once, ``a useless waste of bandwidth.  To process all those signals,
that's what we have computers for; why should i have them dumped onto
me raw?''

Lines of text scroll by on the terminal, too fast to be read, but he
knows what he's looking for.  Unerringly, he halts the output, types
lines of response.  It's like two old friends who know each other
well, know what the other thinks -- they need not talk much to
communicate.

``All those pretty blinking graphics and synthesized sound they're
polluting their minds with!  It's absolutely content free.  A few
lines on my screen tell me more than they get out of gigabytes worth
of high resolution VR.''

Thus he navigates through the networks, largely unconcerned by
congestion: what little bandwidth he needs is easily obtained.  He
moves with the swiftness and certainty of one who knows his
surroundings well.

``I don't look at pretty facades, I look at the bytes underneath.  You
can't gloss over details on that level; I know the system's quirks,
its strong points, and its weaknesses.''

He knows its rhythms and patterns, easily noticing when something is
amiss, easily patching it up.

``It's like a parody on those stories about nano robots keeping care
of your body; only I'm the robot and the net is the body.'' He laughs,
``looking for tight spots, fixing them and moving on; yes, that's what
I am.''

``I like the net.  Those using it, they don't see: its beauty, its
elegance -- it's a miracle in its own right.''