I followed the thread that started with Tom Loeber's posting with great
interest, especially that interesting sidebar involving an innocent acronym
gone awry (i.e. ROFL).
Maybe things will be a little more effective when we can post the equivalent
of an HTML/VRML page as a posting instead of just some text and smileys.
Tom's toroidal cosmological model might have prompted more discussion if
we'd actually seen it. A movie clip of Richard actually rolling on the floor
laughing would have left no room for misunderstanding or bad feelings.
Putting names to faces (if the author chose to include a picture of
him/herself in the "signature" of the HTML page) could eliminate some of the
"dehumanizing" nature of the discussion as well that I think Feather was
referring to. For example, ever since I visited Stephen's home page
(http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/2446/index.html) I feel like I actually
know him (though he has no idea who I am...).
(This is probably heretical to those who consider the personal anonymity of
BBS's and mailing lists to be a virtue ... but I prefer actual people with
interesting ideas to textual representations of them.)
The list has become realy exciting! Look forward to more.
Cheers!
Deron Stewart
Merak Projects Inc.
Houston, TX
(I'd include a picture if I could... :-)