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C00002 00002	Hello Gianfranco!!
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Hello Gianfranco!!

     Greetings from the zoo!  I'm starting to get  back to "normal"  after
six weeks of writing --and pestering others to write-- papers for the West
Coast Computer Faire. Yes,  I volunteered to  do another conference;  this
time only a special session on  LISP and object oriented stuff. I'm  still
trying to convince the computing world  that LISP has something to  offer.
So far, the results have been dismal.  A good part of the depression stems
from the lack  of support from  the LISP community  itself. After all  the
shit from the LISP conference experience  I should have learned; my  three
major sets of people who had promised  to write papers for the Faire,  and
who I had proudly announced to the Faire people as participants, well they
said "sorry but ..." and so I  go into panic mode, writing papers to  take
their place. I'm a bit pissed off.
     TLC is going down  the tubes, what with  all this "missionary"  shit,
and little response from the market, I'm going to lose money this year.  I
thought I'd gotten a bite from Olivetti a few months ago. A friend of mine
works at the Cupertino R&D Facility and told me that his boss (Roberto Del
Moretto) was interested in LISP for the Z-8000; I talked with Del  Moretto
a few times on the  phone and he wanted to  see a proposal to do  TLC-LISP
for  the   8000.    I   didn't  say   anything   about   your   sugggested
LISP/AI/Olivetti work in Italy,  but naturally, I  figured there was  some
connection. Anyway  I put  a detailed  proposal together,  telling how  to
gracefully move from the Z-80 to the 8000 and what markets there were  for
LISP-based products; I even gave them  a free copy of TLC-LISP. I  finally
heard from them; Del  Moretto was interested in  LISP, it turned out,  but
Olivetti wasn't. Have things changed? or is Cupertino wedged?
     The year has been a lot like that:  time consuming proposals, lots of
bullshit, but no money. So  what do I do? go  off and spend weeks  writing
papers to convert the world --almost as dumb as running a LISP  conference
in my living room.
     Enough complaining; On the  good side, Ruth  is expecting in  August,
and will be taking a leave of absence from Santa Clara to do research with
a small firm in Santa Cruz. I'm firmly entrenched in the missionary  mode;
I'm teaching  part-time  at Santa  Clara,  trying to  write  another  book
(introductory level LISP, computation,  and culture --religous tract)  and
getting some  courses together  (1)undergraduate course  "art of  Computer
Science" this spring:  using LISP, 2001, Godel,Escher,Bach, O.   Spengler,
and Zen  and  the  Art  of Motorcycle  Maintenance,  plus  an  interactive
programming lab consisting of a  net of z-80's (I  have no idea where  i'm
going to get  the money for  the machines!!)   (2) a LISP  course for  the
santa cruz summer  CS institute (3)  a computer literacy  course (same  as
above but  different  emphasis) for  the  humanities and  social  sciences
faculties at SCU. Finally,  i'm trying to get  this program into shape  to
attack the high schools, rooting out the shit-basic,barf-pascal mentality,
replacing classical geometry  and algebra with  computation theory.   That
should take a few weeks!  Anyway, if i stay sane and out of bankruptcy, it
should be interesting.
     I never did get  to talk to  you after the  conference. I was  really
pissed about the Moses power-play to move the next LISP conference to CMU.
Moses was a total asshole in everything  I saw him do at that  conference.
That bangeut scene was the  final straw.  Between the  Moses/Friedman/Wise
play and Lockwood pissing about the banquet, I had totally had it. I left,
went to work  on my car,  and told  Ruth I wasn't  coming back  Wednesday.
Wednesday morning, I decided  that it would really  look bad to not  show;
most people there were really very nice and to let a few assholes fuck  it
up wasn't fair: "Nil Bastardum Carborundum" --don't let the bastards grind
you down.
     Hope you're  doing well,  and you'll  have to  come back  to the  US,
'cause there's no way we'll get to Italy the way I "make" money!!

     john