justin hall links.net
july 26, 1999

user URLs
from webzine99:

freeguide.org
iskip.com
www.uia.com.br
mdma.mit.edu
it-quiz.com
sfgirl.com
vizbang.com
transitlounge.com
pigdog.com
edaily.com
sezg.com

i know i lost some - please send 'em along!

i did have a chance to emcee for webzine99 - which was a great time. the people
on the panels were fantastic, seeing phil agre speak was like an electric
charge of academia - i've forgotten how stimulating good schooling can be. the
people from the audience who wanted to come up and seize the mike - they were
so full of the true oddities and largely unprofessional lusts that fueled the
event to start with that it was nice to witness their ascent. as emcee, i
assumed a white tuxedo and acted to honour the participants of the conference,
and to lubricate the goings on - ensure smooth transistions. i felt like i did
a good job, largely because i was surrounded by competant excited people.

i did get a chance to question san francisco mayor willie brown a bit. he read
a proclimation affirming "internet independence" in san francisco and then was
about to leave the stage. i asked him a bit about his own internet usage - i
was curious whether his words came from a place of personal knowledge, or ready
recognition of the booming business around him. eventually i wormed out of him
that he does actually communicate with some grandchildren in new york "through
the system" which was nice, especially as punctuated by his mimicing his single
finger hunt-and-peck typing style. but later someone reminded me that i had not
held willie brown to any answers to pending political questions - whether
AT&T/TCI should be granted a cablemodem monopoly in the SFBay area. That was
kind of an instictual notion of mine - the questions were in my head, but i
felt that willie brown was not going to have useful answers, and i felt that he
was doing a nice thing to come and act political and celebrate our event and to
press him would not be polite. i guess i have not always been polite? so i'm
either aging selling out or both. boy, selling out sure pays. willie brown said
he liked my suit.