Jim Nelson
19 January 1997

I'm throwing rocks from a glass house. My closet is stuffed full of ancient junk, out-dated equipment, and old software. Every few months another box or another compact disc gets thrown on top of the heap. Fortunately, the 9-pin dot matrix printer at the bottom is made of sturdy plastic.

Here in California, one of the sorest topics of conversation among the young adult up-and-coming-into-debt crowd is the price of real estate. Just when you thought that college degree was going to finance a new house -- <buzz> -- try again, townhouse-breath. No dice. If you're lucky, you get your parents to front the down payment and co-sign the mortgage ... which means you're back living with your parents, legally and contractually if not physically.

But the astronomical rate of real estate prices in the 80's have nothing on the lead balloon valuation of computer equipment. If I wanted to clean out my closet, I'd have to pay someone to cart it away.

The promise of telecommuting got me to thinking about the excruciating extinction we face with technology. Telecommuting. Here's something potentially much more expensive than my stack of 5 1/4" floppies and my old single-speed CD-ROM player. The equipment and leasing costs are astronomical. But the benefits are targeted right at the very heart of corporate America's soft spot: you'll make more money using this shit. Somehow, companies are supposed to believe that productivity will go up if they let their employees stay at home.

Maybe that statement should be emphasized to increase its humor quotient. Employee productivity will increase if they stay at home.

The telecommuting advocates quickly rush to point out the tangible benefits. Employees will spend less time commuting to and from work. (Company perception: we don't pay people while they sit in rush-hour traffic.) Telecommuting is a win for the environment, since fewer people are using their cars. (My perception: more people will stay home home burning oil-generated electricity.) Stress levels will decrease, translating to happier, healthier workers. (Anyone-with-a-brain's-perception: Being locked up in a house for forty hours a week isn't exactly therapeutic to one's sanity or cardiovascular system.)

And yet, there are more and more companies leasing ISDN lines and having top-of-the-line workstations overnighted to employee's homes. With the dawn of videoconferencing and HTTP whiteboards, why should anyone have to leave their house to make an honest living?

Fooey. Only the most isolated of cubicle-dwellers can perform behind a 128 kilobaud link. Business, fundamentally, is about people talking to people. Occasionally, after talking a lot, you might get to go sit down and try and complete the task you talked with someone else about. Maybe you only talk to one person, maybe you sit in a big room around a faux wood table and talk with a bunch of people. But generally people have to interact. Humans are funny that way.

I can hear the ISDN people rushing to the mailto: link. Hear me out, though. If none of this is convincing you, let me propose a sure-fire acid test for evaluating future technologies. Once you buy into it, the world of networking and computing seems so much more clearer. Purchasing decisions become a snap. Hype melts away, leaving only bareboned truth behind. After hearing this Buddhistic revelation, the sun will shine a little brighter and the air will smell a little cleaner. You will understand.

The test, simply put, is this: if the technology in question is commonly used in Star Trek, it is good and valuable. All other technology is pointless.

No wait, don't click away yet. Think of it from Star Trek's perspective first. Warp drive is cool, right? Teleporting around -- pretty sweet, eh? Phasers, doors that slide open when you walk up, talking computers, the holodeck, and that really cool line about "the final frontier" are just plain awesome. A tempting future, eh?

Being locked up in a house for forty hours a week isn't exactly therapeutic.

Now look at it the other way. Computers -- yes, they're cool and they're used in Star Trek. They're worthwhile, then. The Internet? Well, everything is networked in Star Trek, so yes, the Internet is a good thing. No home pages in Star Trek though -- and whaddya know, home pages suck. Incredible!

But wait, there's more.. Classical music and jazz are still popular in Star Trek. Rock music is no where to be found and hippies get a bad rap aboard the Enterprise. I guess that first-edition of the White Album won't be worth too much.

So, what about telecommuting? Watch the test work its magic. Sure, videoconferencing is used everywhere in the twenty-third century, but does anyone just stay at home and work? You think Kirk orders warp speed sitting in bed? Does Riker assemble an away team in his pajamas? Does Sisko skip shaving his head because "no one's gonna notice anyways"? I think not, mister. Oh well -- telecommuting was a nice idea and all. Maybe they can peddle the idea to Babylon 5.

Go forth and utilize this new knowledge. Look around right now -- what on your computer is headed for extinction? You can kiss your mouse goodbye, but in exchange you get really cool touchscreens and voice recognition. No more pagers and cellular phones, but who needs them with those little touch-and-talk badges? And considering the number of Starfleet captains now sporting smooth heads, get your stock out of Rogaine -- it ain't selling three hundred years from now.

I don't see a Microsoft or Netscape or Apple logo anywhere in the future either -- proof of mankind's ultimate salvation.