To: douglas808@aol.com
From: Darryl Lee x3884 <lee [at] library.ucsb.edu>
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 13:33:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Microserfs v1.0 bug check...

Well, after poking around on the net and reading your AOL Auditorium
transcript (from whence i got this e-mail address), i feel that perhaps
i'm coming to the party a wee bit late.  Damn...  [And i can't BELIEVE
that i missed the party at the Tech Museum.  i'm in Santa Barbara now,
but i would've driven up for THAT!  (My home home is in Alameda)]

Ah well, here's my bug list anyways.  Hope it helps:
--
Just finished the book last night, and well, loved it.  
Interesting that you/Wired chose to run nearly the entire last 
chapter in their magazine.  Thankfully knowing how things went at 
CES didn't ruin the rest of the book for me.

Per your request, here's what my bug check came up with:

p. 153 - "Michael nods."  That's odd.  From p. 151, "Everybody's 
flu-ridden today exept for Ethan and me."  i read that it was just 
Ethan and Dan (from Oop!) at that meeting.

p. 187 - "...monitors, which are coaxial'ed into the Habitrail."  
This makes it sound like the monitors were in the garage, and the 
systems (CPU's) were in the Habitrail.  But then you talk about 
"the two systems in the garage" (p. 188).  Remember 
monitors‚systems.

p. 231 - Everybody loves the office, but their tech moment is that 
the _house_ is wired directly to the Net?  Why would their house 
be wired, and not their office?

p. 257 - Dusty says, "Lego is...populated by bland limbless 
creatures with cultishly sweet smiles." Dan corrects only her 
terminology (minifigs), and not the fact (as detailed on p. 277) 
that it's the Fisher Price minifigs that have no limbs.

p. 313 - Abe arrives with 10,000 plastic drinking straws.  It's 
been over a year since he bought those from Costco (p. 11).  
Hasn't he even used a _few_ of them?  Weird.

p. 350 - Hm...i was trying to find out whether the kid's name was 
actually Anthony, but the Twilight Zone episode guide (on the net) 
didn't have the name.  i _liked_ your interpretation of that 
episode though--"Focus group of one."(!)

i _did_ find that the actor was Billy Mumy--Will Robinson from 
Lost in Space (also half of Barnes and Barnes, who did that cool 
"Fish Heads" song).  That's kind of cool trivia.

And...damn...my e-mail never has _that_ many typos.  You'd think 
that they'd be able to use the backspace key or something.

That's about it.  Oh, i don't have your _real_ e-mail address, so 
i guess i'll have to snail-mail you.  Damn.

Oh hey...do you know if Ian Ferrell is still somewhere on the net?  
i used to love his Melrose Place Update, and when Microserfs: the 
original Wired piece came out, i mailed him and asked if it was 
true-to-life.  He told me that he was the one that gave you the 
tour of the campus, and that it was basically his old house that 
you described.  Cool!  And THEN, i happened to see the photo essay 
in SPIN about Microserfs, and noticed in one of the pictures a 
nametag with Ian Ferrell's name!  (Ian Verchere?  Ha...i think 
not!)

Anyways, pity that his MPU isn't out there anymore.  It's sorely 
needed, i think.

Oh, and aside from the bugs above...well, like i said, i loved it.  
Michael/Amy relationship was really cool, and man...the Dan/Karla 
stuff just made me so envious.  About love being like the 
beginning of Get Smart if all the doors were open?  Blew me away.

Well...keep it up.  Now i have to go back and read Gen X, and all 
the rest.

Thanks for a great read.
--
Darryl Lee <lee [at] library.ucsb.edu> | "Systems Guy" | Davidson Library Rm. 1571