My dear friend Alfredo regales us with yet another excellent story.  This one is about RAF pilots engaging penguins.  I must confess that if I were to see one of those Panavia Tornado F3, of 1435th Flight, based at RAF Byron Heights, in West Falkland Islands, flying low and slow, I would also be gawking, though not falling on my back.

They are wonderful machines and you can see a few pictures of these Tornados at the following sites:

For a view from the penguins perspective, try this one:
www.enae.umd.edu/~fencer/images/aero/tornado.jpg

This German magazine site has a nice picture also:
www.flug-revue.rotor.com/Frtypen/Frfotmil/F3Torn.jpg

However, I believe Alfredo is mixing his metaphors when he wants us to equate the behavior of lemmings with that of the RAF-enthralled penguins in the Falkland Islands.  Everyone has heard of lemmings and probably also believe they commit mass suicide every four years.  To dispel this myth, I suggest you visit the following web site: www.doe.ca/envcan/docs/lemming/lemming.html and learn more about this furry little mammal that lives in the Canadian Arctic.

But I must agree with Alfredo when he equates the above-mentioned penguins with some people listening to recent announcements.  I submit that the users at the recent MacWorld would fit in this category.  Here we have the CEO of an embattled high-tech company with a vary large following, giving a 3+ hour keynote speech at what was billed as the revival of the company, and saying next to nothing.  I read the reviews in Mac-centric press, Windows-centric press and we-will-sell-anything-that-sells press, and I must say the speech was a debacle.  Yet, many starry-eyed devotees lapped it up as the road to the future and are following like the lemmings to which Alfredo alluded.

The offshoot of the speech was that Copland will never be.  Apple will release bits and pieces of that OS over the next little while as everybody is now supposed to wait for. . . Rhapsody.  This is the OS which will be co-developed with NeXT (the acquisition of which cost Apple a cool $400Million) (At least they got Steve Jobs back, even if only as a consultant.  Maybe he should replace Dr. Amelio as CEO, because he seems to be the only one who knows what is going one and what Apple should do.) 

Now I strongly suspect that Alfredo, Apple fanatic that he is, was not making a reference to MacWorld in his latest epistle.   Rather, I suspect he was making a sly remark about the fact Apple is now shipping NT Servers, and rather good ones at that (so I hear.)  Or perhaps he was making a reference to the recent announcements from HP-CSY and the positioning of the HP 3000.   I am sure Alfredo will enlighten us shortly.




Kind regards,

Denys. . .
[log in to unmask]     http://www.hicomp.com/hicomp
(800) 323-8863    (281) 288-7438    Fax: (281) 355-6879

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From:   F. Alfredo Rego[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Saturday, 01 February, 1997 9:42 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Recent announcements

Bruce Hobbs sent me this clipping, which I thought would be enjoyed by all
who are swayed by any "recent announcement", regardless of the source.

>From the Audubon Society Magazine:

"A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on
the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game.
Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots
search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at
the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison
watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back,
the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a
slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, "The pilots fly out to
sea and directly to the penguin colony and over fly it.  Heads go up, up,
up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs."

This is a refreshingly new approach to the old-and-tired lemming metaphor.

 _______________
|               |
|               |
|            r  |  Alfredo                     [log in to unmask]
|          e    |                           http://www.adager.com
|        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego               Tel 208 726-9100
|      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs           Fax 208 726-2822
|    d          |  Adager Corporation
|  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
|               |
|_______________|


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