[Lowfer] Lowfer Final Transistors-Switching Time

[JD]

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Instant gratification? Sounds more like sour grapes on your part.
>>>

No need to get personal.  I'm not saying that in a pejorative way or to be 
argumentative.  Lee asked "what happened," and in the fewest possible words, 
that's the plain, unvarnished answer as I see it.  The lure of the Internet 
took over; that's hardly sour grapes on my part.  I, of all people, 
certainly recognize the many good things about the Internet.  Who gave the 
club its online presence 15 years ago in the first place?

What I'm saying is, when somebody puts up something on their own Web site 
and gets immediate feedback and everything, that's undeniably gratifying. 
But it's also very limiting.  Instant communication...but with whom and how 
many?  Only people who already know enough to go looking for that 
information.  What print offers--or a central portal site, for that matter, 
such as we used to have before folks' interests became so fragmented by the 
lure of instant "communication" in so many forms--is the opportunity to 
expose an entire group of folks at the same time to something they may not 
have previouslt suspected they were interested in!

That's what we give up when people don't ever join in a cooperative effort 
any more, but ONLY go their own way...don't take the time to write for 
publication, don't bother to say "here's something I've been working on that 
might be worth adapting to a larger audience," don't even take the briefest 
moment to e-mail a link to their interesting material that we could show on 
the Web site to direct more traffic their way!

Why is this an either/or situation?  If you want direct unfiltered contact 
with your potential readers, that's fine, but why not also use all available 
routes to get important information out... print and electronic, your own 
site AND the portal site?  Why should anyone wanting to publish 
electronically just assume going solo is the ONLY way to do it?