On Sun, 7 Jul 2013, Brian Wood wrote:

>> Strange that you managed to work GW Bush into this, but I'll bite: 
>> What did Bush do?  I was a reasonably cognizant adult during his term 
>> and I don't remember being encouraged by him to put anything on line.
>
> In some speeches he encouraged people to develop on line services.  I 
> probably picked up on that because that's what I was working on.

I guess we'll never know when that happened, what he actually said or why 
he said it.  We'll also never know if it had a positive effect on the 
economy.  It's a funny idea, isn't it, that the President can shout out 
some business models and then the economy improves because of it.  "Hey, 
develop more local landscaping businesses!"


> I'll defend the on line approach more by saying that I think it's more 
> interesting technically.  I prefer working on servers and clients as 
> opposed to other kinds of software.

Related to this topic, here's a really amazing person...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaron_Lanier

...whose most recent book just came out...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1451654960/

...and who was interviewed about it here:

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/jaron_lanier_the_internet_destroyed_the_middle_class/

Extracted from the book description: "Lanier asserts that the rise of 
digital networks led our economy into recession and decimated the middle 
class. Now, as technology flattens more and more industries—from media to 
medicine to manufacturing—we are facing even greater challenges to 
employment and personal wealth."

One more on Lanier:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/06/why-government-should-be-paying-you-for-your-information.html

Mike