[humorix] Will Silicon Valley Become A Ghost Town?

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Will Silicon Valley Become A Ghost Town?
April 17, 2000

Back in the 80s, businessmen hoped that computers would
usher in a paperless office.  Now in the 00s, businessmen
are hoping that paper will usher in a computerless office. 
"We've lost more productivity this last decade to shoddy
software," explained Mr. Lou Dight, the author of the
bestselling book, "The Dotless Revolution".  "By getting
rid of computers and their infernal crashes, bluescreens,
and worst of all, Solitaire, the US gross domestic product
will soar by 20% over the next decade.  It's time to banish
Microsoft crapware from our corporate offices."

Lou Dight is the champion of a new trend in corporate
America towards the return of pen-and-paper, solar
calculators, old IBM typewriters, and even slide rules. If
"dotcom" was the buzzword of the 90s, "dotless" is the
buzzword of the 21st Century.  

We at Humorix took a tour of Bob's Mobile Home Factory, the
first company to hop Dight's Dotless bandwagon and become
computer-free.  Productivity and profits have soared since
the company instituted its "Microsoft-free, Crash-free,
Solitaire-free, Headache-free Policy" last year.  The
owner, Bob Hunter, showed us his office where the only
electronics to be seen include a Selectric II typewriter, a
digital clock, and an old fax machine.  

"I could write a whole book of horror stories I've
experienced while working with computers," said Bob.  "I
don't fear Hell now that I've lived through Microsoft
Windows.  The move to a computer-free working environment
was the best thing we've done since we switched to
manufacturing double-wide trailers instead of
single-wides."

Employee morale and productivity has increase
substantially.  One worker beamed, "I can type out a memo
on this typewriter -- or heaven forbid, write it out
longhand -- much faster than I could with Word.  Especially
when Word would always crash right in the middle of saving
to disk."

The changeover wasn't without problems, however.  "I had to
give everybody a deck of cards so they could play Solitaire
during their coffee breaks," said Bob.  "They started
suffering withdrawl symptoms without it.  Oh, and I
installed some flatscreen panels in the hallways that would
randomly display a Blue Screen of Death or other common
error. This way employees will still feel at home."

We of course asked why the company didn't adopt Linux
instead of eliminating all computers.  "Oh, Linux has some
advantages over Windows, but I don't feel like editing a
textfile everytime I want to do something new. I still
haven't quite bounced back from that first horrible
experience I had with vi.  No, Linux wasn't the answer, and
neither was BeOS, Mac OS, *BSD or OS/2.  Computer operating
systems all suck.  Pen-and-paper is the best platform as
far as I'm concerned."

Bob's isn't the only company to go dotless.  Indeed, Lou
Dight has founded a consulting firm to help other
businesses re-enter the Old Economy.  Ironically, Dights's
company is expected to IPO next week.  He admitted, "Well,
my company _has_ turned a profit, so I don't expect the IPO
to do very well. These days investors only touch
unprofitable companies like Amazon, but hopefully my
Dotless Revolution will end all that."

---

James Baughn
http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/


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