Dr. Dobb's Journal April 2001
My guess is that Alan Greenspan's worst nightmares aren't just about interest rates and fickle oil potentates. No, what also keeps the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board awake at night are dreams of a guy in a clown suit hawking apartments in Silicon Valley. You can slice and dice the numbers any way you want ("lies, damn lies, and statistics"), but at ground zero, the new economy is exhibiting some old problems.
For instance, after years of skyrocketing housing costs in Silicon Valley, availability and prices for residential rental units are tapering off. After all, where else could you find $1500-per-month studio apartments and upwards of $1700 one-bedroom apartments — and be happy about it? That's starting to change, as vacancy rates have risen to as much as 4.5 percent, up from slightly more than 1 percent a few scant months ago. Consequently, apartment-laden landlords are peddling discounts, bonuses, and lower rents to attract tenants. And, of course, the once-familiar sign-waving street-corner Saratoga Avenue clowns are back in business.
So what's up? Probably a number of factors, ranging from renters buying houses (or not being able to afford California electricity), to rents being artificially high and a general slowdown in Silicon Valley's job market. But then the slowdown isn't limited just to Northern California. Lucent has announced workforce reductions of 10,000, AOL of 2400, Chrysler of 26,000, Sara Lee of 7000, Excite@Home of 250, J.C. Penny of 5000, Boeing of 8000, Go.com of 400, Amazon.com of 1300, WorldCom of 11,500, Xerox of 6000, Hewlett-Packard of 1700, Gateway of 3000, Nortel of 4000, and Hungry Minds (formerly IDG Books) of 130. Gee, maybe Greenspan does have more to worry about than clowns on the corner.
But chin up Alan, there's no reason for despair, at least according to E.L. Kersten, COO of Despair Inc. (http://www.despair.com/). Read it and weep, Despair has been granted a trademark (Registration number 2347676) by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=75502288) for the :-( "frowny" face emoticon. With a :-) on his face, Kersten announced his intentions to sue "anyone and everyone who uses the so-called 'frowny' emoticon, or our trademarked logo, in their written e-mail correspondence. Ever." He also claims to have used the FBI's Carnivore Internet wiretapping technology to surreptitiously monitor e-mail to compile a list of over 7 million people who have used :-(. And finally, Kersten claims to have bested Patent 5,443,036 (a means of exercising cats using a handheld laser) as "the most ridiculous intellectual property filing in history." I don't know about that, Amazon.com's 1-click shopping and CMGI/AltaVista's Internet searching/indexing patents are still pretty high on my stupidity list, but you have to give Kersten his due — the man knows how to give a press conference.
In truth, Despair's trademark was granted for published products, as opposed to electronic services. So feel free to continue to use :-( in your e-mails, but I wouldn't advise making up posters for sale.
One person I really hope is laying awake at night and wondering how he's going to turn his next buck is John McCullough. This is the guy who, in elementary school, used to beat me up two or three times a week for: 1. my lunch money; and 2. the sheer pleasure of it. Although I've blessedly lost touch with him, I'd bet he's now either in jail or involved in politics.
Of course, I suppose if we knew then what we know now, young John would have had to find a line of work other than junior extortion and general mayhem. What we know today is that biometric technologies would have kept John's hands out of my face and my pockets. For instance, school districts like Pennsylvania's Penn Cambria (http://www.pcam.org/) are launching fingerprint identification systems whereby parents can set up lunch money debit accounts that can only be accessed by fingerprint recognition. Students enter their fingerprint into the cafeteria payment system database. The system, manufactured by Sagem Morpho (http://www.morpho.com/), plots 27 unique points on a grid corresponding to the individual's fingerprint ridges. The image is then discarded, and only the unique numeric values associated with the student are stored. As students go through the lunch line, a two-second scanning and identification process takes place and the kiddies are on their way to another hearty meal of limp green beans, dry hamburgers, and warm milk (yes, but there's lots of it). On the upside, there's no more lost money or little Johnny McCulloughs tap dancing on someone's face. Who says technology can't accomplish great things.
Jonathan Erickson
editor-in-chief
jerickson@ddj.com