Six Degrees of Separation
By Bob Kaehms
When I was eight or ten years old, I got this big gun for Christmas, or nearly did. It was a Mattel Sonic Blaster. Pump it up 50 times and you could knock out the cat from across the yard. It also made kids deaf. Recalled before Christmas, it sat in my attic for many years. Throughout my youth, I would sneak upstairs, pump it up five or ten times, and aim it at a pile of cards. It was a blast, and looking back, the excitement came from not opening it on Christmas.
This year's Web Tools awards were also a blast. With only a half an hour to make our presentation of eight tool awards, and one Special Award of the Year, I was reminded of the words of Mark Twain. "If you want me to talk for five minutes, give me a month to prepare. Talk for an hour, well I can do that in five minutes." I put my watch on the podium to ensure that we would be finished in time for the night's next big event-a panel discussion including Mark Pauline from the Survival Research Laboratory, or SRL. You might be familiar with his work: Ten-foot-tall dueling robots, jet rocket go-carts, machines that spew molten metal, burning-man pyrotechnics...you get the picture.
Talking quickly I presented the framework for our two publications.
Born under the editorial direction of Dr. Dobbs' Jon Erickson (not enough time to mention Michael Swaine, Ray Valdıs, and others), nurtured and evolved through the guiding hands of Michael Floyd. Now smurging with the primordial ooze of O'Reilly, our authors are the best, and our readers are the true developers and innovators.<>
