Site Organization

Updated September 25, 1998

 

As of April, Digital and Compaq are still working on their merger. We thus don't know the fate of Millicent, and won't for a while. When Millicent gets a broker and is available, John Dvorak and I intend to do this; until then, what I said before holds, but "not just yet."

There are now signs that Millicent won't happen. On the other hand, with BYTE's demise, I no longer have any restriction on selling ads to a web site, so the option of doing a web site with the Chaos Manor column, and a Dvorak/Pournelle debate, open to all without subscription hassles, becomes much more attractive.

FLASH (September 1998): Millicent is coming in 1999 according to DEC. When that happens, things will change: we will have areas, particularly discontinuity.com, where it will cost you a dime or so to see what Dvorak and I are yelling at each other about this week. The dime will be collected painlessly.  Stay tuned.

This site was reorganized in September, 1997. In October, 1997 I added the Hopper links. The BYTE debacle makes it much more likely that we will get something going sooner than we thought. Darnell Gadberry, a computer web guru, thinks he can make it happen. We will see. The idea is to have weekly major additions as a minimum, and our plan is to have something new every day. We will also have reports from staff, such as Eric's game observations. We also plan to have RealAudio discussions so you can hear us natter at each other, in addition to written essays.

All this was planned for Millicent, which is a means by which we'll be able to collect a small amount--at present the plan is a dime--each week from those who visit. Now we're not sure how it will work.

The present notion is a model like a carnival Midway. We hope to have several prominent artists displaying works on the site: some of those will be for sale, as screen savers, or even more expensively as prints. We will not pressure anyone to buy anything, and we intend to give everyone much more than their money's worth. Our staff people will also do backgrounders. If we have advertisements (we probably will have to) we will use some means of insulation of editorial from advertisements. I have for years paid no attention to who advertised. The problem of assuring editorial impartiality is one of the reasons I may just go back to writing books and get out of the journalism business...

ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME.

I won't be closing this site, but once we get our new one up, this one won't be updated very often. I just won't have time. (I don't seem to get this updated as often as I should even now.)

Until Millicent works with a broker, use this site. And stay tuned.