"You’re talking to me? I was giving my low down 'bout y'all to JIT to counter your unnecessary preaching which had a stink of treacle to it."

Your preaching is necessary. It smells like a rose.

"Ah well, you are not a student and I am not your prof. I am at times a critic, but not a diagnostic or constructive one outside the academic world. My description and interpretation of much of your contributions is in line with your own assessment of what you add and subtract here to the final appearance of a grid level. What’s the beef?"

Where's the beef? There is no beef.

"You and I agree about your talents. I value collaboration. It takes me outside myself, leading to new directions. So often I find your work appears to only lead back to your concerns and damn to other leads given to how pictures work."

You and I agree about my talents? I don't think you have the slightest clue about my talents.

"Criticism of art seen online is so banal. So much of ''I like it'' and such nice nice. Students need to be encouraged but we are way beyond that aren’t we? This is an open question."

Students need to be encouraged, and who better to encourage them than you? This is an open question.

"I realize it's better that a critic ignore the work they find lacking. In a collaborative setting that is not productive of better results, results that can actually make a difference in the world given a chance."

Gridcosm was hot stuff in 1997. Now it has competitors--and none of them are actually making a difference in the world.

This is not the heady wired age of the WELL and Howard Rheingold. The High Tech Boom went bust, and U.S. programmers are now outsourced, jobless and on the street.

Gridcosm is no longer hot stuff but it could be fun given a chance. Like UNIX, it's aging but still functional and ever-increasingly refined and versatile.

But if y'all insist on continuing to endlessly play the blame game, it might be better if Gridcosm got shut down. Jon and Ed probably don't have enough spare time to keep it going. Especially if it's a toxic waste dump in which obscure MENSA genius artistes get revenge on the world for not showering them with love, fame and fortune.

If Gridcosm goes belly-up, I'm NOT your scapegoat. Got that? Blame Ken Lay's buttboy George W. Bush. Sorry if that hits close to home. While you're at it, blame the sleazy hustlers who bloated NASDAQ into an overvalued bubble. So many good people got hurt when that bubble exploded in 2000.