chuck! remember gopher?!
but first, a tidbit: A modern US Navy cruiser now requires 26 tons of manuals. This is enough to affect the vessel's performance.
-- `New Scientist' article on the paperless office -----------
Probably not directed at me, but I remember gopher. There were a couple of other internet search and retrieval systems that I've forgotten the name of now (Archie?). Probably nostalgia, but I seem to remember they worked about ten times faster and were a lot less loaded with shit. Speaking of shit, sounds like the cruiser runs on NT.
As for worrying about doing semi-conductors after the revolution. Jesus. How about some creative thinking here folks.
For example, start with uniform standardization of system concepts and system design using rationalized and open consensus standards. Democracy or some collective equalization process begins at the conceptual level and works outward, across to the material and concrete.
Without the false need for proprietary protection schemes, I would guess something like 30-50% of the labor in high tech would disappear. We forget that capitalism, hierarchies, authoritarian, and managerial control systems demand incredible amounts of labor and resources just for their own pointless maintenance.
I think of it something like the anti-drug laws, the control of prescription drugs, and the privatized rationing of medical care. Tossing these system alone would probably deflate the prison population by what 50%(?), erase the HMO/med insurance business entirely (and indirectly cure maybe 20% of all disease), and knock out hundred of thousands of meaningless jobs in control and paper work. This is the real paperless office---call it saving the trees.
Chuck Grimes