It will be a simple new year as usual, and how it passes fast as you get
old...

It will be a special new year. For several people like me, it still not
yet the beginning of a new millennium, but what a heck, for almost 99%
of the 6 billion people it will be, so what matters if we all can enjoy
and commemorate it as best as we can.

I will be out of the net until January, so I will unsubscribe this list
for a while but I will be reading my email.

I also want to say that it has being a remarkable gift to share my time
with you all, and see you doing the same with other piclisters, and
mostly knowing that we all will cross together this so much important
event, a new millennium, a door that opens to a complete bright and
marvelous future.

You can be sure that in this new millennium you can not blink your eyes
anymore. The new discoveries and technologies will be happening so fast
that you will be able only to follow a little piece of it.

The Mars Lander experience should be accounted as one more success of
our technology. It doesn't matter so much if it landed or not, and if we
can communicate with the device or not, well, it would be great if all
the mission was a complete success, but we need to remember that our
knowledge is based in failures.  One can only acquire knowledge from
failures, there is no other way.  Congratulations to the Jet Propulsion
Lab and all the technicians and engineers involved in it.  If you feel
bad when your PIC project doesn't work well, or when things are so bad
that you think it is better to kick it and take a beer and turn on the
TV, imagine what those guys are feeling about the Mars Lander, without
any possible way to find out what is happening... Hey guys, you did
great, better luck next time.

We need to remember that in less than a single generation time, we went
from the first documented airplane flight with Mr. Alberto Santos Dumont
in Paris (by the way another brazilian fellow) up to send robots to
Mars. It is very few time of evolution, and we did it all.  We should be
proud of it, and we will do much more, wait and see.

Right now because the information technology, China is consuming 30
thousand new phone lines *daily*, at this rate, if each family of 3 or 4
plans to have one phone line, we are talking about 250 Million phone
lines, and it will take 10 thousand days, or 30 years. Of course it will
be faster, so they (and we) should be prepared to an astronomic silicon
and software invasion in our lifes, much more than what is happening
already.

The word here is:  Be Prepared. Things will change.

I guess that Internet will be one of the most important vehicles that
will change the world, countries bounderings and money exchange.  It
will not make sense anymore why I can not pay my bills via Internet, or
do everything I want, shopping, super market, food, movies, cinema,
school, working, and things we don't even imagine yet.

I guess that we are just at the dawn of the technology age, and this
time will be remembered forever.

It is a remarkable gift to be part of it.

See you guys at the next millennium, it is knocking the door already.
Merry Christmas and Happy new Year.

Wagner Lipnharski & family.