Then I starting thinking about the PowerMac G5 and that 64 bit PPC 970, and the next thing you know, I was wishing for a 64 bit PowerBook. I just can't seem to shake that Macintosh thing... Could it be that 64 bit + client software = Mac OS X?

In any field, you can find segments that are close to maturation and draw a conclusion that the field is homogeneous. Carr is saying commercial-transaction processing in the U.S. and some parts of Europe has reached the top parts of an S-curve. But instead of talking about that segment, he put a provocative spin on it -- that information technology doesn't matter -- and suddenly the statement is grossly wrong. It couldn't be further from the truth.

It's like saying: "I have an old three-speed bike, and Lance Armstrong has a bike. So why should he have a competitive advantage?" Besides, it is outside of traditional commercial-transaction processing where info tech will have the greatest impact in the future.

This weekend there have been a bunch of articles from people who are not bored. They are excited.

Adam Bosworth wrote about a web services browser where a slightly smarter browser talks to the server using web services. Instead of presentation data being exchanged, real semantic data is exchanged and processed on the client side.

John Robb had two posts on Web 2.0, a system that

moves the power of the Web/Internet to the desktop

Dan Gillmor believes RSS is hitting critical mass.

A common them in all of these is client software integrated with access to internet data and functionality. Recent history has seen a "client software winter" as everyone has focused on browsers and web applications. The trend that I see emerging is for clients and internet applications to collaborate. For the first time in years, I'm interested in building "regular apps".

Of course, as Phil points out, LISP s-expressions have both of these properties. This doesn't necessarily imply that s-expressions would be a good substitute for XML. One of XML's great features is that its parsers work as interpreters rather than being compiled. That is, they update their syntax on the fly as they work rather than having a syntax compiled in, as is the case with s-expressions or other representations

Joey Gibson has discovered that Lisp Macros Are Very Cool. Wait till he sees some of the cool stuff in R5RS...