Re: <nettime> gordon, ted, your Homework Assignment

[t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

mf@mediafilter.org (Sun 08/17/97 at 03:04 PM -0400):

> The following is a homework assignment for Cook and Byfield (and 
> anyone else who subscribes to their baseless mutterings):

Feel free to specify which of my mutterings were baseless. The prefab
list of URLs and bureaucrats' names is pretty much limited to proving
that people take name.space seriously. While I agree with Gordon that
you've mostly used nettime as a dumping ground for name.space's press
releases, how seriously the press or the government takes it isn't so
much my interest; in fact, I went out of my way to point out that you
are playing with some awfully big boys, so the fate of your effort is
largely out of your own hands. Instead, my remarks focused on whether
name.space will actually end up delivering on its promises of support
to the people whose support it has relied on. You're quite quick with
the evidence that name.space is technically viable and that officials
know about it, but a bit slower when it comes to showing how you have
helped or will help artists. Frankly, I don't believe one word of it.
But what I think isn't of the slightest importance, and I'll be quite
happy to be proven wrong in this regard. So if there's a single shred
of evidence that name.space has made progress on this matter, please,
by all means post it or give us a URL or something. Or if you've been
devoting your limited time and energy to other things--and that would
be quite understandable--say so. But if it's turning out, for reasons
good or bad, to be so much vaporware, then bloody well just admit it.

> 4.      Go to the name.space website (since you probably
>         have never even checked it out) and register a name,
>         create an address record (full administrative access
>         for user via web) and mirror your homepage while
>         creating a virtual host on the fly...all functioning
>         in less than 10 miniutes.

I don't need a virtual host or a mirror of my homepage. Clever sales
pitch, that--but you'll have to do *much* better to get my $25, Paul. 

> 7.      Send in your own comments to the USDoC.  Instead of being
>         the curmudgeons scowling in the corner waiting for and
>         opportunity to piss on everyone, try and do/say something
>         constructive for a change.

Now, now, name.space will never succeed if you take such a negative
attitude toward prospective clients who say no. Have you considered
setting up a system to review your sales efforts systematically? As
a matter of fact, for a very modest fee, my company can help you to
get your message out more effectively. Imagine the benefits: all of
those starving artists will thank *you* for having the foresight to
hire me to help you help them. Do it for the good of nettime, Paul:
get your checkbook out right now and say "yes!" That tiny amount of
money--say, $100,000 as a rough estimate--will help name.space take
off. And whatever's left on my end will go toward getting a project
aimed at publishing technical lit and academic journals cheaply all
over the ex-East--*for* ex-Easterners. Come on, Paul, do it for us.

Ted
--
"If by any stretch of imagination I could accuse you 
of being literary, I might accuse you of sponsoring 
this illusion that one comes to grips with reality 
only through the commission of evil. It's all the 
rage."     -- William Gaddis, _The Recognitions_
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