Even as I write this, however, I find that I have to stop myself and clarify that even in a Pirandello play it's not the characters who take on "real" lives, but the author who uses that ploy. I don't have to allow the date link to flow into six pages, and I can stop it from doing so if I so choose. Essentially this is a trick, a conscious decision on my part to create a certain amount of tension between the column and the date link. At any point before uploading this I can choose to change the emphasis of this column, perhaps even making the central issue being examined the issue of how e-mail can compliment information found on the web, and in that way make the date link the column.

But ultimately I've chosen not to do this. One central part of my reason for not doing this is connected to the magic of hypertext. The date links to these columns are physically connected (if that's the right word for a virtual medium) to the column by a small asterix. It's easy to overlook it, and for all I know the readers of these columns may do just that. If they do, they'll ordinarily miss what is at most an interesting aside. This time, if they do they may even miss the bulk of the column. And all because of a little asterix that didn't seem to demand much attention.