[LINK] Time Zone info maintainter retires....

[grove at zeta.org.au]

....to be replaced by a committee...

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/03/03/2143249/Timezone-Maintainer-Retiring

The thing is, all these people are pioneers.   We have our own 
even here in Australia.   Some of these people designed systems, or 
technologies we take for granted today.   Some tech, like  the space 
shuttle, shows we have peaked and it is all downhill from here.

When people like Arthur David Olson retire and it takes a committee
to replace them, you really know it's going to be a crazy ride.

My theory is that the best years of our era are coming to an end
and it will be "peak everything" including intelligence. All this talk 
of flash drives and ephemeral data is another contribution to the great
dumbing down.   We as a species obviously do not know how to manage 
technology yet, as stone enscriptions. vellum and parchment and the printing 
press are already outliving some of the most popular media storage formats.

And then last night I see, as well as human brains apparently shrinking 
over the recent decades, now the same thing is happening to dogs - as they 
rely on our brains to think for them.   So it must be an ever dwindling 
pool of great minds we are relying on to provide the lifestyle to which 
we have become accustomed.   Arthur David Olson is an example 
of a system coming to an end!    That's my Friday rant - I'll get back 
in my box now.....


rachel

-- 
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove at zeta.org.au                http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
    "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum." - Finagle's Law