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Comment Of The Day But, sometimes not every day. |
There is an editorial
in The New York Times today, entitled Amazon.you. You can click on that link I just put there,
but first let me give you my twist on it. The author makes the
case that ( and he indicated that Alan Greenspan agrees with
him) that the exciting nature of the Internet stocks is really
way irrational because of the very nature of the Internet. Take
amazon.com, for example, and, at the same time, take Lyle Bowlin,
one of amazon's tiny, do-it-yourself competitors. Lyle, because
of his "no overhead" situation, can buy books at between
10 percent and 5 percent lower than amazon. He has a shopping
cart that costs $30 ![]() Wow. Could we then say, applying all of Mr. Freidman's logic, that for the cost of one share of TheNewYorkTimes(.com) -- $32.00 -- you could BE The New York Times? Why not, ![]() And, now we come to the point. There are people who have a prejudice against the Internet and people who love it and live it. Like all prejudice, it rears its ugly head as reasoned opinion, or as a "personal preference," and finally as a self-reassuring dismissal, creating wounds and resentfulness, sometimes animosity and anger. But, Internet prejudice is as wrong as all the other types and permutations. The same thing happened when the automobile came out, the telephone, the computer and now the vast and significant Internet. Today, you can have almost all of the knowledge of the human race at your fingertips. You don't need to take anyone's word for anything. You still can accept facts as they are given to you, but no one is held hostage to information anymore. And, yes, we all have equal access as of now, although there are censorship and other plans afoot to change that. I have made the case that the word Internet shouldn't be capitalized any longer, it's now like "air" and "entertainment," not like The New York Times. It's non-specific, ubiquitous and without a clear location. It's more like a living thing than a proper noun. It grows. It moves. It has the properties of intelligence. And as this new life force moves along, guess what, people resist the change, the challenge. Some hate it. "I'm too old." "You're too young." "I don't have cable." And, all of it is summarized in the normal human sequencing of a new element: "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of." "Don't need it." "You do it." "It's too much trouble." Then looking over your shoulder, "What's that?" "How'd ya do that?" And in time, "Can't live without it." "You don't have it? What's wrong with you?" "Try to keep up, will you?" Human nature is what it is. But why can't it be what could be? That is the question. And speaking of the downside of human nature.... Lee Williams, a student at Wayne State University, walked into a Roseville, Michigan tattoo parlor and ordered a tattoo that included the word, "Villain." As the artist and ![]() And, if it were us, rather than go have someone erase that lemon of a tattoo, we would have turned it into a lemonade of a tattoo...perhasps like the one here depicted. That's a forearm to think about... if you like tattoos. |