Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
This isn't just any New Year's Eve, nor is it just the turn of the
century.  We're turning the *millennium*, and we ask WELL members to join
us in Inkwell.vue for a New Millennium Party and Online Community
Jam.  Post your thoughts, any weight or multi-vis, about the old and new
millennium and the state of world as seen through your eyes and your
life.  And while you're at it, feel free to post top ten lists, best and
worst, all the kind of stuff we're prone to share when the calendar flips!

This topic will be frozen in a few days, our millennium time capsule for
the world to view...
  

    
The trouble with this turning of the millennium is that, a few computer 
bugs, most of which struck already, aside, tomorrow is very probably
going to feel like just another day, like the old, jaded interpretation
of SSDD - Same S###, Different Day.  Almost takes the fun out of New Years,
when you think about it, to see one 1000 year period come to a close and
another begin with little more than a hiccup.

Of course, we could have arranged for some excitement, say by declaring
that all constitutions, governments, laws, titles, contracts, and so
forth, established prior to the end of the millennium, would become null
and void at the stroke of midnight.

Hard even to think about, isn't it?  Nasty business it would have been,
too.  Kind of glad we didn't, even though it would have meant a new start
in many ways.

So, instead, we muddle on, business as usual...
  

    
I had all the exitement I need in a new year, when, after the 
traditional New Year's fireworks, about 3 hours ago here in 
Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, I discovered that I had locked 
myself out of my appartment building. All my neigbours being 
out, I had to start the New Year by bashing in the window 
beside the front door. Auspicious, I tell you...

Anyway, I'm glad 2000 is over and done with. A false 
century and millennium start, lots of emotional and 
financial turmoils, oodles of red tape. So it will be 
on it's place on the trash heap of history. Let's hope 
the new year will offer some stability for those who 
need it ... 
  

    
> false start

Let's hear it for second chances!
  

    
        I feel kind of funny, because of having accepted that 2000 has not
really been the beginning of the 21st century, nor the end of the 20th,
so it's like leaving a buffer zone now.
                
  

    
Cheers
  

    
Welcome to the third millennium, CE.
  

    
Sympathy for the bashed window light <levant>, but you may have rid
yourself of bad moves for the next millenium. There's a positive for
you.
  

    
My new millenium resolutions involve finding more balance in my own
life and hoping that it will radiate out to my friends and co-workers,
and random acquaintances.  Happy New Millennium everybody.
  

    
Great one, Honoria!

I'm wondering whether the human race is going to get serious about space
exploration. I understand there's a plan to build a "string" into space, a
kind of tube or tunnel constructed so that you could drive a car to the
space station, even the moon! I'm blanking on the title of the Arthur
C. Clarke book that foresaw this... but it would be a cool development,
though not in my lifetime, I suppose.

I'd like to see a resolution by the human race to deal with global warming
before it deals with us, and to build some kind of defense against stray
asteriods.
  

    
>I'd like to see a resolution by the human race to deal with global 
>warming before it deals with us

so would I jonl!
The weather has been so awful awful here; and the predicted effects on
Italia - floods in the north and a desert in the south - are due to
our own stupidy in messing with the planet.
Planet's revenge.
  

    
I fear that we're starting the new millennium bound for trouble in
that regard. With a simpleton in the White House, and a crew of
head-in-the-sand, knee-jerk-pro-biz oil millionaires advising him,
we're going to continue to hear that "science disagrees and is
inconclusive on the matter". Those folks understand neither science nor
the consequences of their idiotic stance on global warming.

Anyhow, at least I got to ring in the new year in the company of my
best and oldest friends, great food and music, in the Catskills. We
were also joined by a large family of skiers from Shangai, who got
stranded by the blizzard. I think they were greatly entertained by our
drum circle's great racket as the clock counted down to 00:00 1/1/01.

Oh, and I'd like materials and space scientists to perfect the
Bucky-tube Space Elevator, foreseen in Clarke's 3001, and let's get on
to Mars, already! My wife won't tolerate my taking such a long trip,
and doesn't like to fly. I'll have to content myself with a jaunt to
low earth orbit on a thread to the heavens, if I live to see the
technology deployed.

While I'm wishing for outlandish things, let's bring learn to be
peaceable, and may all the children of the world be more generous with
their cousins.
  

    

I feel a profound sense of gratitude for having survived the
20th Century.

If I live to be 91, I'll make the Centenary of the Atomic Bomb
in 2045.  I really feel that civilization has the potential
now for a whole new set of awful troubles.  The 20th Century'
and its wacky obsessions are going to look as weird and corny
as those of the 19th.  It's good to be alive!  Every day
is a gift!
  

    
> I'm wondering whether the human race is going to get serious about 
> space exploration.

Nearby space, a.k.a. the solar system, almost certainly, but the distances
involved in going on from that to the stars will probably prove daunting.
Even sending probes to the nearest star will be a multi-generational
project.  But the asteroid belt (almost certainly a rich source of
materials) is relatviely close at hand, and between that and the abundance
of energy available from the sun, taking the step out into the solar
system will be relatively straightforward, almost easy.

On the other hand, large telescopes and arrays of antennas in high solar
orbit will allow us to explore without actually travelling beyond the
confines of our own solar system.

Of course that all could change depending on developments in physics...and
even without any surprises from that direction there will probably be
manned craft sent into deep space -- one-way.
  

    
Right after posting that I remembered seeing an article about a proposed
interstellar probe that would use light pressure to accelerate a
gauze-like sail to a substantial fraction of the speed of light.  This
sail would be composed of a fault-tolerant network of identical units that
together would perform energy storage, computation, imaging, and
transmission, allowing it to assay the system of whatever star it was
aimed at as it approached and send the data back.

> I'd like to see a resolution by the human race to deal with global
> warming before it deals with us,

The first thing we need to do, aside from desisting from making the
problem worse by increasing the output of greenhouse gases, is to figure
out what to do about the many millions of people who are going to be
displaced from their homes as ocean levels rise.  (Bangladesh, in
particular, comes to mind.)  And reliably predicting how climates will
change is essential to that planning process.
  

    
The very first time I went on the Internet, I did a search of
gopher-space. I needed a keyword to search for, and there was a CD
sitting by my computer. It was by the band Sea Level. I typed in Sea
Level, and was surprised to get a bunch of hits from a university on
the island nation of Singapore, I think. 

The documents cited were all about the evidence for, and the
consequences of, global warming for folks near the coasts of islands
and continents. Reading thru summaries of the first few files, my skin
crawled. I think this was back in 1990 or '91.

Jezuz-kerriste, there's plenty of money to be made making clean fuel
and attenuating the damage that we've done.Can we get busy making money
and doing good in this new century? 

If that meme doesn't work out in practice, I hope it just seems to be
one of those whacky 20th Century notions that gets replaced by more
grounded and informed reasoning in the next.
  

    
Steve, you've gone Viridian!
  

    
For a definition of "viridian" see...

   <http://www.viridiandesign.org/>  &
   <http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/viridian/>
  

    
<11> we're going to continue to hear that "science disagrees and is
> inconclusive on the matter".

Which translates (more or less) to "The preponderance of evidence is
insufficient to compel us to acknowledge it in abrogation of our
habitually-conceived self-interest."
  

    
A single asteroid impact will fix all that. *8-)