Here's another story to illustrate how I see this time-warp thing:
I “retired” in 1984 in New York City where I ran a graphic arts studio. I was one of the first to use computerized phototypesetting some 15 years (?) or so earlier. That first machine, at Kingsport Press in Tennessee, took up a huge room. My typesetting machine in New York took up the space of a large desk. I leased it on a lease purchase plan for $15,000 (for comparison, my huge, 4 room apartment on 55th street three blocks from Bramson and two blocks from Rockefeller, cost $200 a month in 1975, by 1984 it was up to $400), and I had to buy the fonts separately. In 1984 the machine had completely broken down and was just exactly paid for. If I wanted to keep it, I would have to come up with another $5000. At that exact same time, an old friend of mine (now dead and gone) who, at this point in the story, ran his own publishing company, was boasting to me that he was making an old rival of his go crazy because his rival had just spent $50,000 on a computer system for his publishing company and my friend had set up a system that did the same thing with a thing called an “Apple,” for $5000. He had an old one which he gave me to try and hook up to my typesetting machine as a bandaid, but the thing felt so much like a toy that I just thought it was a joke.
At that point I disappear and do not reappear until a couple of years ago.
Now, if you look carefully, you will see that I present with my name. The last name is Olds. I am familiar with the history of the automobile. (Old Olds also made a great truck, the REO which is used to this day to pick up the garbage in New York. . . from whence, I believe, the great rock group emerged.)
I am saying that the computer, although not yet as easy to use as the automobile, is nearly at that stage of development after 10 years, compared to 40 for the automobile. 4 to 1. And that is not exactly what I see. I see that the acceleration itself is accelerating.
So when I say that a straight line development of a thing is going too slow, it is the scale of the projection that I am referring to. For example: TVontheWeb is growing rapidly now. 1 year from now (four time warp years) it should be a mature company or it is a failure. If we are looking at this company as a model of what we are to be doing 3 years out, we are already thinking 8 years behind the times.
That's what I am talking about. The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
AWK PAWK PAWK
Of course I am talking my position!
If not Us, Who? If not Now, never.
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