Dizzy shows up for work on a cloudy Friday morning. Dizzy isn t his real name, but since no one seems to be able to pronounce his last name, and for some reason his first name doesn t do the trick, everyone refers to him as Dizzy.

Dizzy isn t actually what you call an early bird. He is more like the late bird that finally gets the worm because the early bird was eaten by a fox. But that s okay. As an administrator at a major university, you aren t really expected to report for work at oh seven hundred sharp.

The first thing Dizzy does when he comes to work is unlock his personal system, a Sun UltraSparc, and check e-mail. For Dizzy, mutt does nicely. He can t really understand all those dudes clicking around in Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, or whatever. The next thing is to join some Internet Relay Chat (IRC yes, admins do that too) and greet some friends.

Then Dizzy gets a call from one of the student labs. Hi, this is Professor Tarhanjan. I m giving a lecture at the mathematics computer lab, and my students can t print. I tried to print myself, but it doesn t work. I even power-cycled the printer, but it still doesn t work.

Sure thing, prof, I ll come over and see what I can do. Frowning, Dizzy locks his screen and starts the long walk to the lab.

In the lab, most students behave as if their entire career...