Without a doubt contemporary SciFi authors such as Vinge and Stephenson have produced great thought provoking works. Always a good read. But sometimes I'm drawn back to the rollicking rampages of EE Doc Smith or the playful frollicks of Harry Harrison. While not presenting a plausible vision of our future they do offer a significant amount of enjoyment. Pure brain candy! So will some exceptionally creative sort spend 3 or 4 hundred pages exploring BlackNet and the future of global networking? Or has anyone looked at what has happened to trivial networks like IRC's EFnet to see a potential model for how global networking will become balkanized under bandwidth constraints, server cycle shortages, and over worked sysadmins? One physical connection and many virtual, private networks with limitted interoperability and crossover. The internet of the near future may not be the open paradise it is today. I read in InfoWorld that the Telco Dereg act may destroy the local loop market for T1 lines from LD COs. As many as 900,000 new T1's may become available at bargain rates on the order of $40 per month with end point hardware under $700. Watch PairGain Technologies as they are the leader in this hardware market and have some real interesting vox/data over twisted pair toys. Sheesh, I start out talking SciFi and end up talking PairGain! I guess the future is now. diGriz