Your discourse on who will remember you and how is full-mid-life crisis and you're right on schedule. Fear not, the sun will rise tomorrow somewhere, whether you come to grips with this puzzle or not.

My favorite Zen koan regarding the man seeking enlightenment...

First there is chopping wood,
Then there is enlightenment!
Then there is chopping wood.

I can honestly say I am horrified by what you've written today.

How dare you denigrate your contribution to journalism, to your readers, and to the people you have met along the way.

I truly do understand you may be at a turning point in your life, but I cannot let several comments go unanswered.

1) I refuse to believe your journalism career is over. Your voice is too vital and your vision too clear to stop covering technology in specific and anything else you want to write about. You may talk about yourself as a journalist in the past tense, but I won't... I know you, Paul; you are, at heart, a journalist. You may cut back--or even stop--creating from time to time, but I know a day will come when you'll be drawn back to this. It's what you are.

2) Awards are stupid, meaningless, and journalism awards are especially so. To measure your career based on how many awards you have is ludicrous. Did you get into this profession to win awards? Of course you didn't. So why measure your contributions by whether someone else deigned to give you some meaningless designation?

3) How dare you say you won't be remembered for anything you've written or edited? First of all, no one knows what (or if) they will be remembered for. Besides, again, who cares? The measure of a journalist's success is the same as the measure of success for anything: Did you go out there and give the best you could every day you did your job? Did you play fair and act a gentleman? Did you tell the truth? Did you help the people who worked for you? Did you give the best to the people who employed you? These are the things that matter. If we base importance on "being remembered," then, well, 99.99 percent of the people who have ever walked the planet have been a failure. I reject that as a measure of anything.

4) The measure of your impact as a journalist is the number of people who've been somehow changed or enlightened by what you've done. And that, as you have so clearly said at the beginning of PSACOT, is unknowable. But I can assure you that you have impacted many. How could you not have? You have spent large swatches of your career to date explaining and guiding people through one of the most dramatic periods of technological upheaval the human race has ever known. How many people know how to use computers--and thus do a job and thus feed their families--because of you? How many people made a product better--and thus helped society at large--because of something you wrote? How many journalists have you trained or helped--and how will their contributions help society? All these things are unknowable, I admit, but I'm willing to guess with confidence that you have touched far more people than you could ever guess.

Johnny Carson made a generation of Americans laugh... During much of the same time, you have made technology understandable, productive and affordable for countless readers. I don't see the difference between the two of you--except maybe he's got a few more bucks than you, and you still have another generation's worth of time to continue to make a difference.

Your statement, "The magazine was not a moneymaker when I was there, so my work had no value" sounds like a twisted Zen exercise, along the lines of "If a tree falls in an empty bank vault, does it make a noise?" Your job was to contribute professional writing to the magazine's content, which I saw you do. If you wrote 200% more and 500% better there's no reason to believe that Information Week would have been a success.

But that's a marketplace question. What is the value of acquitting yourself honorably, by doing the job you were paid to do? If that isn't "valuable," then Enron has won.

The awards that God has given you are the blessings of a loving family and amusing friends, and talents in your children that, we assure you, will surprise you yet, and talents in yourself still to be developed and shared. Would you not rather have these awards than wooden plaques upon the wall? Wood falls to dust, but believe us, Love endures, even when there is no conscious mind to "remember" a name or a word or a deed.

Step 1: Know what you want. Have a desire.

Step 2: Ask for what you want. Ask God, the angels, the Universe. You are asking a power greater than yourself to assist you in creating.

Step 3: Believe you can have it. Have faith, free of any doubt, that what you desire and have asked for is going to be manifested to you.

Step 4: Let go and allow. Basically get out of your own way and allow the spirit to be in charge of bringing your desire to you.

Step 5: Express gratitude.

It will be techno-very-brief this week; we took a family vacation so my web scouring was curtailed.

MacCentral and the NY Times report on a lawsuit files against the major music publishers over copy-protected music CDs. MacCentral says: "The class-action suit alleges that the copy-protected discs are 'defective' and aren't being distinguished effectively enough from their regular audio CD counterparts. The suit also contends that the copy protection employed prevents buyers from exercising their 'legal rights to back up, play or transfer' the music for other non-commercial use." Rather than "non-commercial" I would have said "legal" or "non-infringing".

Following up on the Librarian of Congress' earlier sensible decision, things have now gone from hopeful to discouraging: Cut in Webcast royalty rates angers both sides. Making both sides unhappy is often seen as the mark of a good compromise. But cutting in half a proposed fee that was perhaps ten times too high seems to be leaning too far towards the profiteer.

Reuters reports on Sun's proposed free alternative to .NET in Sun Micro Free Software Aimed to Undercut Microsoft.

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Administratium". Administratium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Administratium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of 3 years; it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization, in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons and assistant deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."

You will know it when you see it.

16> Three times this week she's come over to borrow a cup of uranium-238.

15> Daily muffled booms and the constant smell of charred hamster.

14> Her every outfit is coordinated with a matching lead apron.

13> There's a large pile of dead Jehovah's Witnesses at his front door.

12> The box-office total for the first weekend of his new movie, "Bill and Monica's Excellent Adventure," was only $4860.

11> After listening attentively to your Amway spiel, she asks if you sell bomb cleaner.

10> Always kind of squirrelly, his son Skippy is now completely indistinguishable from one.

9> A 20-foot pineapple just ate your dog, kennel and all.

8> The nearest nuclear plant is 300 miles away, but your goldfish just started quoting Aristotle.

7> You see a mushroom cloud in his back yard, yet his BBQ grill is covered.

6> Before: Whines about how nobody likes him. Now: Cackles about how everyone will fear him.

5> You no longer step in your dog's poop now that it glows like neon.

4> Before you can even load the bong, that weed he grows in his basement fires up all on its own.

3> None of his other bombs press you for anal.

2> You're a day late returning his hedge trimmer and he gets all "Hulk smash!" on you.

and Topfive.com's Number 1 Sign Your Neighbor Has a Dirty Bomb...

1> When CNN airs spy-plane footage of the suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist compound, you spot your kid's Frisbee on the roof.

June 21, 2002

16> Sure, Winona shoplifts clothes, too -- but not from Wal-Mart.

15> Penthouse refuses to run topless photos of you, even after you offer them $1,000,000.

14> Everyone who introduces you puts air quotes around the word "talent."

13> Your mom hasn't been available to drive you to auditions since she died back in '83.

12> Your latest commercial has you pitching 10-10-14:59.

11> Mr. de Mille hasn't returned any of your calls in the last 40 or so years.

10> Producers have begun demanding you use a body double, even for voice-over work.

9> Critics be damned, you're about to start shooting "Glitter II."

8> Your first publicity photo was a daguerreotype taken by Matthew Brady.

7> You run into Shatner at the cleaners, and he says you look like crap.

6> Twenty years as an actor, yet you still can't be traced to Kevin Bacon.

5> Contestants choose to concede the game rather than pick your Hollywood Square.

4> The Directors Guild is building a fence around your house.

3> You get axed from your 1-800-COLLECT commercial gig as soon as Screech becomes available.

2> Your agent politely informs you that it looks like talkies are here to stay.

and Topfive.com's Number 1 Sign It's Time to Get Out of Show Business...

1> Thirty seconds into your bout, Gary Coleman is standing triumphantly on your chest with his gloves raised in victory.

Just thought I'd throw a few rhetorical questions your way.

About frightening women in the White House, though: how 'bout a first lady who brought a fortune teller into the White House? Or a former prospective first lady who staunchly believes in the first amendment except if someone publishes music that offends her ? One Demo, one Republican. The important thing about both of them is neither one was or would have been President. Anything a president does must be laid firmly at his feet.

I do enjoy your columns. The topics, especially the personal ones, provide excellent fodder for dinner table conversations. That is not to say that we discuss the Schindlers- rather the topics addressed, such as kids leaving home, competing in sports, trying different careers, etc.