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This is even more off-topic but here goes... :) From: James Pearce <jamesrp@statenet.com> > Ok, the assumption that internet delivery will replace cd's is absurd to me. > Computer's haven't replaced paper (like everyone still thinks'll happen) and > never will in my opinion (I have a stack of legislative documents here on my > desk that I KNOW won't change). Absurd NOW, that is. The concept of the Paperless Office has been a Holy Grail of sorts to me (and countless others) for quite some time! It's only been the last few years when the feasibility of this concept has clarified for me, though. And it came about because of (surprise!) an AS/400 gig. Short Version: I was working at a music publishing company. Needless to say there are issues with royalties etc. that are more than just crucial to keep track of, and for this they had hired a pair of accountants in the beginning, who stayed with the company until the End; that is, they both died within months of each other and were brothers as well. Weird, yes, but true. Anyhow, I got quite a lot of overtime tending to the AS/400 and its screaming printer, producing a printout of some 250,000 pages - all of it sent FedEx to an incredible shipping cost! When I asked why we couldn't have just given them a dial-up to access the data, I found several basic truths: * They believed that the data "could have been altered before getting to the screen" (as if this is less possible on paper!) * They wanted physical proof, and for them screen images didn't constitute "physical"; * They wanted something in their shaking, aging hands. * They were technophobic (fairly normal for folks in their 80s who still work). After this experience, you know, I was fairly convinced that the following applies: * The Paperless Office will not be possible until the current crop of Accountants, Lawyers, and other paper pushers have either died or retired permanently, and the people THEY trained have died or retired permanently. And possibly the folks that this last group trained as well! Well, I thought of it as a bit of an informational milestone, and was relieved to be done with it when it was through. Then the accountants died, and in a flurry of movement, the Big Printout was shredded or otherwise disposed of. Guess what? We didn't find this out until another suit came up, and we asked to get the printout back. Coda: We had to print all 250,000 pages AGAIN! This more than "fairly convinced" me that I was right. Right now I and a cohort are pulling data off of the '400 to CD-ROM, in a queriable form; and the only reason this is possible is because of the Y2K non-compliance of the unit (on the hardware level!). Otherwise I'm sure this bunch would be maintaining status quo forever. So I figured that the Paperless Office won't be possible for perhaps 100 years - by which time, unless one figures out how to recycle paper effectively, the trees will have been eliminated from this orb. Probably because of some report about the declining population of paper-bearing trees! Stephen Goodman * It's the free Loop Of The Week! EarthLight Productions * http://www.earthlight.net/Studios.html * (Hear the NEW "Star Spangled Banner" here!)