Rants & Raves
Holy Cow?
I'd like to congratulate Wired on another journalistic first: the fictional corporate biography. As an employee of Paul Allen's Starwave, I was amused by Paulina Borsook's hard-hitting investigative profile, "The Accidental Zillionaire" (Wired 2.08, page 94), which clearly establishes her as the Geraldo Rivera of the information superhighway.
Borsook deserves a Pulitzer (Roxanne) for revealing the following true facts: 1. Allen's successful outside investments (AOL, Egghead, etc.) result merely from the "quantities of money he holds," and by influencing other investors, he "contaminates technology markets." (News flash: Investors tend to prefer making quantities of money.) 2. Starwave pays "hush money" to former employees, threatening that if they talk they will lose their remarkable severance packages. Only about 10,000 corporations in the US in their termination agreements ask employees not to make disparaging remarks. 3. Starwave isn't entirely clear "whether we're supposed to make money." That's news to those of us who moved thousands of miles with our families and left high-paying jobs because we believe in the future of a new media start-up. 4. Employees are being forced out. This is a serious charge to make without any detail about the level of the employee or any hint of a reason behind it.
Thanks for an entertaining story. I wonder what's next for Wired - "Warren Buffett: Accidental Investor," "Sam Walton: Accidental Entrepreneur," "Bill Gates: Accidental Partner of a Guy Who Developed Windows"?
Alex Alben
Starwave
I think you read my mind for your latest article in Wired. I recently left Asymetrix. Everything you put in the article about the company is right on target. I have had a hard time explaining to people why I left. Now I can refer them to your article.
All the Asymetrix employees I've talked to think the article is great - the most truthful they've seen. Most concur that it's one of the first honest views of the Allen companies.
A flood of people are leaving Asymetrix right now because of the problems mentioned in the article. One local recruiter told an Asymetrix employee that he was the only one who wasn't circulating his résumé.
I'm glad I'm not working there anymore.
Name and e-mail address withheld on request
As a five-year veteran of Asymetrix's early days, I feel Wired owes Paul Allen an apology for the spiteful tone of its recent article about him.
Whether or not Paul's start-up companies turn a profit, whether or not Paul is as good a manager as Bill Gates, Paul above all deserves praise for choosing to reinvest his wealth in our society. Paul has created hundreds - and by now maybe thousands - of jobs with enormous potential for professional growth in cutting-edge technology.
Paul makes these investments not because of his "hippie trappings," but because he believes that capitalism is the best way to do good for everybody. Paul's investments express a deep and genuine goodwill toward his fellow human beings.
Whatever rules of engagement apply, Paul deserves respect and gratitude for choosing to stay engaged.
Adam Novick
Seattle, Washington
I congratulate you on writing the first article on Paul Allen that rings true. Other magazines are afraid to write anything negative about industry heavyweights, but Wired has the courage to support writers such as Paulina Borsook.
Harvard Business School would find a gold mine in Paul Allen for case studies on how not to run a business. Borsook never did mention the high turnover at Asymetrix; the average length of employment is on the order of seven to nine months. The annual rate of turnover there is in excess of 25 percent and has remained so for at least the last three years. And Starwave is already seeing a number of people bail out because of the bullshit; that company has become very much like Asymetrix. Also, you would not believe how many suppliers the Allen estate has screwed over, monetarily and legally.
By the way, Virtual Vision is in Chapter 11 right now....
Name and e-mail address withheld on request
Three e-cheers and a virtual attaboy to Paul Allen! I have heard far too many judgments of technologies and technology investments rendered solely in terms of marketability and profitability. Remarkably, we have in Allen a fabulously wealthy techie who hasn't lost his soul to market research, PR, and The Wall Street Journal. So what if Paul's investments are primarily motivated by the elegance of a hack or the coolness of an idea rather than how many soft-widgets he can sell? Fragile new technologies need patient cultivation to survive until they are ready for prime time. Allen's commitment to nurturing great ideas gives me strength to continue in this wacky business, just knowing that such romantics still exist in the shadow of such bad role models as Bill Gates and his ilk. And while we're on the subject, may I suggest a name for Microsoft's nascent online venture? E-ville.
Dave MacNeill
davemac@netcom.com
Off with His Head
Thanks so much for torturing Edward Tufte ("Envisioning Interfaces," Wired 2.08, page 60) by presenting his interview through an amusingly busy layout that replaces the name of the "information design guru" throughout with a decapitated head icon. The designers of Wired do electronic publishing for a living, use imperfect equipment and programs, maintain a manic level of creativity, meet monthly deadlines, and - judging by Wired's healthy demographics - seem able to please staff members and audiences. You don't talk; you produce. Designer wannabes can learn much more from your magazine than from the staid professor and his vanity press.
Too bad, then, that the content of the article wasn't up to the irony of its visual style. More pronouncements like "A good design has a wholeness, an integrity, and a oneness that comes from a single intelligence.... I try to, that's what my work is.... A great design really has the quality of a revelation," we don't need.
Wendy Robinson
robin001@mc.duke.edu
Copy That
I just read "Art, No Waiting" and couldn't wait to respond (Wired 2.08, page 100). The sample work of art included with the article is positively Boschian but much more beautiful in its composition. I thought I was the only nut who dared to stick my head in various copy machines - waiting until no one was looking in public libraries before quickly pressing my face up against the glass, covering my head with a coat to shield the light from the outside. The results are hanging proudly on my wall. But I cannot conceive of walking into a professional photocopy business and asking, "Excuse me, but can I stick my head in your color copier, please?" So I'm glad that someone as decidedly gifted as Lieve Prins is taking this medium to its extremes of artistic possibility. But whoever owns those mammaries better get a mammogram - all that radiation! Just kiddin'.
Carol E. Mariconda
rcmaric@ritz.mordor.com
Every (Rasterbated) Picture Tells a Story
I was appalled and outraged by Benetton's "rasterbated" (the perfect word) depiction of an AIDS-ravaged Ronald Reagan ("How Reagan Got AIDS," Wired 2.09, page 31). To appropriate for one's selfish ends the image of an identifiable, living person in this manner is indefensible. I am not an apologist for Reagan, but I do have an interest in fairness, common sense, and decency. Apparently I am unlike Benetton management in this respect.
A simulation of this worldwide human tragedy's direct affliction of an actual person demeans everyone concerned, assaults the victim, and insults actual PWAs (Persons With AIDS), who do not have the luxury of choosing "undo" on their image-manipulation software.
More unsettling, though not unexpected, is Benetton's misappropriation of the truth. The glib, self-assured, painfully simplistic implication that the Reagan administration was ossified in its response to AIDS and that any action "early in his presidency" would have averted "a global catastrophe costing millions of lives" is almost too outrageous to need a response.
Keep this in mind: Benetton is a for-profit corporation and, as such, exists solely to earn money for its owners. As with any for-profit corporation, Benetton's management does nothing that is not intended to benefit the company's bottom line. One of the scratches on the other side of the digital generation's coin is that, while the legal and moral aspects of misappropriating the work or images of others is still being debated and defined, simulated reality and the means to disseminate it are in the hands of entities like Benetton's PR department, not just Cyan and Voyager.
H. L. Ritter, MD
rhoward@BIX.com
An Idea Whose Time Is Present
Universal service is hardly, as John Browning suggests from his eminent and unworldly economic loft, an idea whose time is past ("Universal Service," Wired 2.09, page 102). If anything, it's an idea whose currency has increased with the importance of telecommunications media in daily life.
Let me admit my bias up front: I helped to write California's "Universal Telephone Service Act," which became the model for a less rigorous, more compromised federal program - one easier for the economists to criticize because it is so wishy-washy. It may come as a surprise to Browning (whose research leaves something to be desired) that California's universal service provisions actually started with "open access" as the movitation. I heard all of Browning's arguments in the process; they are just as flawed today.
You see, open access to communications services means nothing if you can't afford the basic technology to gain access. Throughout the US, where deregulation reigns, huge subsidies flow from small businesses and residential customers to large corporations and government agencies, largely through the so-called "access charge" imposed on local service in an effort to subsidize reductions in the contributions made by long-distance service providers. As much as US$4 billion a year was flowing from local to long-distance service customers in 1986; who knows what Olympian peaks this subsidy has attained today? Browning's proposals would only widen the chasm. Do we need more welfare for the wealthy?
To paraphrase the French social critic Anatole France, open access is majestic in its purity, permitting rich and poor alike to subscribe (at their own cost) to 500 channels of cable television and obtain the latest in wireless digital technology.
In California, surveys and random investigations undertaken by the Public Utilities Commission have found that universal service does exactly what it's supposed to do: keep the poor online. Abuse is minimal (fewer than 5 percent of recipients do not actually qualify, which is a hell of a lot better than almost any other entitlement you can name), and, with the exception of perhaps transients and migrant workers, everyone has a phone. Everyone has access. All without Browning's overwrought economic theory.
Next time, spare us the neoconservative philosophy and deal with the reality of telecommunications' essential character as the essence and expansion of First Amendment rights.
Bob Jacobson
cyberoid@u.washington.edu
Stolen Signals
I would like to commend Charles Platt for his well-researched article on satellite signal piracy ("Satellite Pirates," Wired 2.08, page 76). It was an insightful look at a problem that has blackened the reputation of the direct-to-home (DTH) television market for many years.
My one complaint is his omission of one of the largest satellite trade magazines, TVRO Dealer, from the list of useful sources for additional information. TVRO Dealer has been covering the satellite industry for nine years, offering news about not only DTH technologies (C-band, Ku-band, and DBS), but also others that impact DTH, giving readers a complete, well-rounded dose of information every month.
Jeff Adams
jadamsinca@aol.com
Regarding Charles Platt's article "Satellite Pirates": a few years ago I installed an inexpensive Radio Shack satellite system and dish for my parents in a rural area of Northern California. Unfortunately, the receiver came without a decoder.
My parents were perfectly willing to pay for subscription programming, but it proved to be almost impossible to find a legal decoder. I called dealer after dealer. One offered to sell me a decoder, but he didn't know how much it would cost. He could make a long distance call to the company to find out, but I would have to pay for the call.
After checking a number of newspapers and magazines, I determined that a legal decoder would probably cost around US$700, about twice what seemed like a reasonable price. More surprising, it was apparent that it would be far easier and cheaper to buy a pirate decoder.
In Europe, we have a similar problem with the English-language channels carried by the popular Astra satellite. Most of them have signed up with Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting as part of a package called Sky Multi-Channels, which is available only in Britain and Ireland. Murdoch's decision to encode his popular Sky One channel last year deprived Star Trek: The Next Generation fans across Europe of their daily dose, and according to reports, it was this loss that prompted European hackers to crack Sky's coding system. The most recent hack is commonly known as the "Season 7" hack, in honor of Next Generation's final season.
Sky refuses to sell subscriptions outside of the British Isles because it has rights only for those areas. However, that must be viewed in the light of the European Union and the European Economic Area regulations requiring that goods and services be equally available to people in all 16 EU and EEA countries. Sky's rights agreements conflict with international regulations that legally should take precedence.
The old concepts of single-country rights agreements are nonsense in an age of cross-border satellite broadcasting. A terrestrial broadcaster reaches all households in its home country and pays for rights accordingly. But a satellite broadcaster reaches only those households that subscribe, and these can be in many countries. Rights agreements must be updated to reflect the new reality.
It's interesting that pirate cards and decoders are legal in Germany - that is, if they are for services not offered for subscription there.
George Wood
70247.3516@compuserve.com
Puttering in the Garden of Cyber Delights
Usually your Tired/Wired list is a cause for deep depression. Although I have been wired for 14 of my 24 years, cyberculture has always seemed to move in directions completely opposed to my own sensibilities.
So, imagine my surprise when your latest list mentioned Madonna as "tired," and my idol, Martha Stewart, as "wired" (Wired 2.08, page 34)! Finally, the flaxen-haired goddess of the garden, my lady of linen and silver, was being properly recognized as the pinnacle of style and aesthetics. Had electronic culture finally come to an understanding of the value of elegant dinner parties? Would her cookbook find a home on the Web? Would nerds the world over abandon their terminals to harvest sprigs of tarragon from their herb gardens? I excitedly told my housemate of this development, glowing with the knowledge that I was finally on the forefront of electronic fashion.
When he referred to her as an "ex VJ," I knew something was wrong - my Martha, shuffling tapes on some adolescent music-video show? I realized with horror that my favorite role model had a trivial, pop-culture namesake, and that it was she, not my mistress of graceful living, that had been declared "wired."
My heart was blacker than the raven locks of your boob-tube Jezebel. For just a moment, I had a vision of a world where beauty and elegance would prevail over the screeching electronic religion of television, where a vine-ripened tomato would be a greater treasure than the latest cheesy video wipe. But I see now that my values are further than ever from the shifting whims of the digital frontier.
Anthony Berno
aberno@genome.stanford.edu
Fear not, dear reader. The Martha Stewart to whom we were referring was indeed that gentle mistress of divine domesticity and elegant entertaining. MTV indeed. Far be it from us to valorize cheap, popular entertainment.
Lord Vader, Unmasked
Although John Malone, aided and abetted by Wired interviewer David Kline ("Infobahn Warrior," Wired 2.07, page 86), did his best to dispel the Darth Vader image he has acquired, he dropped enough hints in the interview to prove that he clearly represents the Dark Side of the future of the infobahn.
First, he entices us with the prospect of less expensive telephony without ever actually promising it. And well that he does not: to assume that the current and projected cable networks could provide sophisticated telecommunications services (call waiting, call forwarding, three-way calling, Centrex-type central-office switching exchanges) in addition to their core businesses is to give cable companies far more credit than they have earned. Whether or not the recent government move to force the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) to share their infrastructure successfully lowers telephone charges, the cable industry has much to prove to customers before cable will be trusted with a communications lifeline.
Second, Malone never addresses the fact that, even though he raised his voice to demand that the RBOCs give up their monopolies, he would never think of giving up the local monopolies enjoyed by cable companies nationwide. I can choose among a dozen phone-service providers all struggling to provide better service for less money, but, thanks to Malone and his ilk, I am stuck with one cable company imposing exhorbitant rates and providing abysmal service.
Third, and most disconcerting, he hints at the future of cable. He notes that Basic Service will go by the wayside in lieu of a la carte cable services. I can look forward to the prospect of having to pay a separate fee for every single channel, making it possible for cable firms to raise rates on each channel individually, thus skirting all regulation currently on the books.
In sum, Mr. Malone seeks to hinder the phone companies with regulation and competition to prevent them from becoming players on the infobahn, while demanding that his industry remain free of both. His thinly veiled hypocrisy makes a powerful case for all of us to turn in our cable boxes for satellite dishes and examine carefully those who would provide our bandwidth.
David Wolf
chinahand@aol.com
A Moment of Silence
I've been a Wired reader since about 1.04, and I am amazed and truly disgusted that you have yet to say a word about the death of Gary Kildall. If you are unaware of who he is, you should find someone else to edit the magazine: Gary was the inventor of CP/M, the first widely available and standardized OS for microcomputers. Without him, Wired would have no reason to exist. Every part of MS-DOS owes its legacy to CP/M, and Big Bill Gates owes his every cent to the father of the stolen code that made up the first version of MS-DOS. Jump over to comp.os.cpm and read a little - you will soon realize that a computing pioneer as great as Alan Turing has passed from among us, and to him we owe much.
Think hard about integrity and pissing off Microsoft and print at least a short column about this industry pioneer. He is one man who refused to bow down before Big Blue (IBM), while Bill rolled around at IBM's feet and just begged them to use his pirated code.
Thanks for printing the truth, not the hype (leave that for Time and PC Magazine).
James Arlen
arlen@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca
Undo
>> It seems we inadvertently compounded an error in August's "Undo." Ub Iwerks is in actuality the creator of Minnie Mouse; while he did work with Walt on the development process for "Plane Crazy," "Galloping Gauchos," and "Steamboat Willie," it was Walt who generated the initial character studies and who deserves the credit for Mickey's inception. Ub Iwerks should also be credited for his work on the Multi Plane Camera. >> In our review of Netiquette ("Mind Your Net.Manners," Wired 2.09, page 131), the correct contact phone number is +1 (415) 752 7666. >> We misspelled the name of R.U. Sirius's collaborator on "Pomo To Go" (Wired 2.06, page 54). It is Carmen Hermosillo. Our apologies.
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