__ Rants & Raves __
__ The McLuhan Program __
Kudos to Gary Wolf for the hilariously absurd interview with Marshall McLuhan ("Channeling McLuhan," Wired 4.01, page 128). We are never sure whether McLuhan, like Andy Warhol, was a genius or an idiot. Was he celebrating popular culture or putting us on? We may never know what motivated Warhol did he really think that soup-can labels had artistic value? But we may have a clue with McLuhan, thanks to the McLuhanbot.
Mark K. Lea
mklea@students.wisc.edu
Let me add to the load of comments on Gary Wolf's McLuhan triptych: Not interesting. Not entertaining. Not informative. And wrong headline. It should have been called "McLuhan Wired's Fat Elvis."
David Bannister
70411.301@compuserve.com
Gary Wolf's glib comments about Marshall McLuhan's career ("The Wisdom of Saint Marshall, the Holy Fool," Wired 4.01, page 122) reveal shoddy research. Wolf proffers (using a quote from biographer Philip Marchand) that "writing books was not McLuhan's forte," that "from the beginning of his career [he] stood outside the academic mainstream," and that he was "a clown in his role as social, political, and economic analyst."
From 1967 to 1972 McLuhan did produce some mediocre writings. His distinguished career as a writer and scholar began in 1936 with an article on G. K. Chesterton and ended posthumously in 1981 with a review of Elizabeth Eisenstein's two-volume study Renaissance and Reformation. The work that blew the minds of serious students of media was, of course, The Gutenberg Galaxy, not the slight The Medium Is the Massage. That masterful study of the psychic and social effects of typography was followed by Understanding Media. McLuhan was an eccentric, but calling him a clown is a lamentable excuse for not reading his important works.
Dreyer Berg
cccultec@hakatac.almanac.bc.ca
__ Well, Is Government Obsolete? __
I am disappointed to see that tired old bogeyman monopoly power raised as a reason for keeping the government involved in picking winners and losers on the Internet ("Is Government Obsolete?" Wired 4.01, page 86).
In my view, George Gilder is right for two reasons. First, no one can predict the end result of this revolution. There will be hundreds, possibly thousands, of individual service and information providers competing for the customer's attention and dollar. Consumers will make millions of individual choices about which product to buy from what seller. History has shown that only by allowing the market forces of capitalism to choose winners and losers will the customer's best interest be served.
Second, and more important, although the "best interests" of the consumer will be the rallying charge, anyone who has worked in or with the government realizes that protecting the consumer always de-volves into protecting turf. Inevitably, two types of claims are made in the name of government protection. First, competitors will try to prevent the sale of a service or product through an outright ban or a regulatory structure that makes the US Food and Drug Administration's procedures look streamlined. Second, one competitor will request government assistance for the product or service it provides even though it is a failure in the marketplace. The provider will claim the product is of such importance to a) the future of technology, b) the culture of our country, or c) the education of our children that it needs protection from competition or a subsidy because of competition. In either case, creativity and competition will be stifled, and consumers will suffer, all in the name of consumer protection.
David Kline and Daniel Burstein point to Gilder's ignorance of what happens in "the real world." I would direct them to study the importance and permanence of existing subsidies for mohair and helium and farm price supports if they need proof of the folly and intractability of government intervention in the real world. These authors need to get past the outdated information that they learned in their Econ 101 class. I would strongly recommend The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek as a good starting point to understanding the slippery slope of government intervention.
There may be a need for government intervention when and if monopoly power arises and is abused. History has shown that there is no way for government to correctly or effectively address this potential problem before it happens. I'm with Gilder: get the government out of the way, and let the chips fall where they may.
Jim McVey
jjmcv@ix.netcom.com
I just finished reading "Is Government Obsolete?" in which the authors attack the conservative libertarian economic and political philosophy of George Gilder, the high-muckety-muck in Newt Gingrich's inner circle of fawning tech gurus. Kline and Burstein address Gilder's views on the role of government regulation of the telecommunications industry, but much of what they say applies to broader policy issues as well.
Kline, Burstein, and Gilder all are missing the crucial point: the problem with the corporate control of America is that it is so completely antidemocratic.
And this is, theoretically, a democratic country. Yet in the past two decades it seems we've decided we'd be better off kneeling to the requirements of the "free market" than we would be tossing the tea in Boston Harbor and standing up for the ideals that motivated Sam Adams and his friends 220 years ago. Kline and Burstein have no problem with "letting the creative forces of the market tackle some of the social tasks previously managed by government." They openly advocate experiments in the privatization of education and other public services. And while the intent of the article is allegedly to defend public participation in policy, they seem perfectly willing to allow corporate influence to spread well beyond its already pervasive grip on our society.
Why on earth should Americans be willing to allow the same people who have brought us rampant downsizing, widespread union-busting, wholesale exportation of industrial jobs to sweatshops, and the greatest division between wealth and poverty in the nation's history to increase their presence in our lives?
Our political system is based on the concept of one person/one vote, but our capitalist economy is strictly and clearly dedicated to the concept of one dollar/one vote. This is, unfortunately, equally true of the national media, where a free press, as they say, is guaranteed to everyone who can afford to own one. This is precisely why the debate that Kline and Burstein engage in is so critical. It's just too bad that they don't see the wider implications of the telecommunications issues they raise.
To turn over public policy issues to private decisionmaking is not merely a question of efficiency or economics. It is a profound choice about how decisions are made, who makes them, and what kind of society we live in.
It appears we have allowed the continuing illusion of our "democratic" system to blind us so thoroughly to how things are really run that Kline and Burstein can masquerade as the saviors of the public good. Until and unless we are prepared to reassert a truly democratic system, one that reflects economic as well as political democracy, we will have no recourse against our corporate handlers. And if we think Kline and Burstein are going to save us from Gilder, we're in deeper trouble than we ever imagined.
Raven B. Earlygrow
raven@mcn.org
__ Color-Challenged __
My video card can support 64 million colors; my film can record 400 types of red. Even my ice cream comes in 31 colors. The solarized black-and
white edition of Wired seemed a little out of touch with contemporary capabilities. I mean, maybe McLuhan was writin' when we were watchin' in black and white, but I look forward to the screaming colors of Wired. And McLuhan would want it that way.
Wired 3.01 was similarly without flair. Will all the January issues be color-challenged?
R. Andrew Braden
corto@compmore.net
__ Investigating the FBI __
Wired might check its facts before running another alarmist piece like David L. Sobel's "The Next Big FBI Lie" (Wired 4.01, page 76). Sobel blasts a "radical" FBI plan to drastically increase electronic surveillance, citing a front-page article by John Markoff that ran in The New York Times on November 2. Those of us who work in the field of electronic surveillance know that the FBI proposal was neither secret nor radical. In fact, the day after publication of the Markoff piece, The New York Times ran a letter from FBI director Louis Freeh correcting some of Markoff's mistakes. To set the record straight:
First, the FBI announcement was hardly a surprise. The 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act required the FBI to publish the proposal in the Federal Register by October 1995, which it did.
Second, Sobel is comparing apples to oranges with the numbers he cites as proof of the FBI's intent to increase surveillance. Sobel's baseline figures represent the actual number of domestic law-enforcement wiretaps the FBI conducted in recent years. True, the figure is small compared to the proposed new levels of surveillance the FBI proposed on October 16. But the proposed surveillance numbers reflect domestic law-enforcement wiretaps and foreign intelligence wiretaps, as well as foreign and domestic trap-and-trace surveillance, and foreign and domestic pen register surveillance. To bolster his argument, Sobel overlooked a pretty large part of the pie.
Finally, the FBI announcement attacked by Sobel relates to a law that won't impact online privacy. CALEA expressly excludes from its scope electronic communications sent via "information services," such as online service providers, and expressly protects individuals' rights to encrypt their communications, whether voice, fax, or data.
Did these facts get left on the cutting-room floor, because they didn't fit with the antigovernment theme of Sobel's piece? Serious threats to our online privacy exist but Sobel provides no evidence that the FBI is one of them.
Clint N. Smith
csmith@steptoe.com
__ The Copyright Grab Bag __
Pamela Samuelson's battle cry to take up arms against the Clinton administration's white paper on intellectual property in cyberspace ("The Copyright Grab," Wired 4.01, page 134) is missing a key component: a battle. Her predictions of an end to freedom to browse as we know it are completely unsubstantiated by any recommendation in the white paper itself or in the pending legislation based on it. The police state she conjures up complete with threats of criminal prosecution for downloading a copyrighted document is twisted beyond truth. Perhaps it would have been better for Wired to just print the text of the white paper rather than Samuelson's hyped conclusions about it.
What the white paper does contain is a vision consistent with the principles that have encouraged the astounding growth of both intellectual-property creation and freedom of expression in this country. For centuries, both have prospered side by side because Congress and the courts protected authors and artists from those who would otherwise hijack their works.
Content creators invite consumers to browse their inventory and, they hope, buy something from time to time. Copyright protection assures them it's safe to do business without being digitally burglarized. Outside the shop, the rest of cyberspace is abuzz with all kinds of activity the exchange of thoughts and ideas, commentary, political advocacy, and more. The relationship between commerce and freedom of expression in cyberspace is mutually beneficial, and conditions that support both will allow them to flourish.
The same rights afforded to copyright owners in other media must be enforced in cyberspace. If an author wants to place his or her work on the Internet for free, nothing in the white paper prevents that. Freedom of expression will still be free. However, authors who want to make a living by charging subscribers to read their works will need the backing of a solid copyright law. Without this assurance, there simply is no creative incentive to produce and disseminate content in cyberspace. This is the challenge the administration and Congress are trying to meet. We are a society predicated on individual expression and intellectual freedom. Congress has frequently updated copyright law to reflect this and keep up with changes in technology. In doing so, America has sent a signal to artists, writers, performers, and even programmers that they can distribute creative works with protection from theft.
Samuelson says such signals are uncalled-for the World Wide Web is already flourishing with a wide variety of content (and therefore changes in copyright law are premature). But a thorough examination reveals that an enormous amount of content that should be available simply isn't. It's still sitting on bookshelves, on racks in music stores, and in the pages of software catalogs. If the producers of these materials were assured they could distribute them electronically without fear of online looting, they would set up shop.
The real issue is not whether there should be personal property or speech protection in cyberspace it is how to provide that without inhibiting the rights of others. The authors of the white paper deserve credit for identifying the issue and putting forth a moderate proposal to resolve it in cyberspace. Samuelson's screed, on the other hand, is a far cry from anything so productive. She's sounded the alarm to protect free speech, has belligerently drawn her line in the sand, and will most likely be very disappointed to learn no one in the copyright community threatened to cross it in the first place.
Jon Newcomb
President and CEO, Simon & Schuster on behalf of the Creative Incentive Coalition
__ One Good Spam Deserves Another __
I found Dave Wallace's article "Have Modem, Will Spam" (Wired 4.01, page 52) on spam-meister Sanford Wallace (no relation, I hope) deficient in only one respect. To wit: Where the hell was the boy's email address? I want to forward his crap right back to him.
Maurice Tate
mdtate@calweb.com
Try Sanford Wallace at (800) 650 9110, or email promo-ent@promoent.com.
__ The Nail Polish of Goddesses __
I find your Tired/Wired (Wired 4.01, page 45) columns infinitely entertaining, but I was a little disappointed by such an obvious mention as MAC's Cyber nail lacquer as being "wired." Please allow me to suggest a few more appropriate polishes for alluring cyberchicks: Mica, by L'Oreal, is good, as is 258 Electric Blue by Emerge (and at only 99 cents a bottle, it's a steal). Last but not least, don't forget the polish of true CAD goddesses Chanel's Metallic Vamp. Costly, to be sure, but just the thing when you want your fingernails to have that futuristic chicklet look.
Heidi S. Everhart
coppelia29@aol.com
__ Starry-Eyed __
I wrote to say that you guys rock! I just wish you could take my SATs for me.
Let's see, oh, what I wanted to tell you is that the article about writing Star Trek episodes ("Write for Star Trek!," Wired 4.01, page 154) gave me hope. I've written three just for fun and now I'll send them in! I hope you see my name on the credits of a Voyager show. (Deep Space Nine sucks!)
Amanda Silver
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Someone at Wired is sleeping with someone at Star Trek. How else can you explain the second article in two months lionizing the intellectual and creative "intricacies" of those wretched television series?
To give the original its due, it was (at the time) an adult-oriented show. The Next Generation, however, is typical of the level of simplistic third
rate drama that has dogged sci-fi TV ever since. Red Dwarf packs more sci-fi concepts into a half-hour episode than a season of The Next Generation, Voyager, or Deep Space Nine.
But this is beside the point. What is this crap doing in Wired? Can we expect a spate of these articles on Babylon 5: Space Above and Beyond, etcetera?
Oh, I get it ... someone at Wired is sleeping with someone at Starlog!
Owen Coughlan
biggles@gm.gamemaster.gc.ca.
__ Blame It on QWERTY __
Susan McCarthy's description of Robert Markison's approach to repetitive strain injury ("Hacking the Hand," Wired 3.12, page 126) is troublesomely flawed. Absent is any mention of the most obvious first response for a typist experiencing RSI disorders stop using the barbaric QWERTY keyboard!
This contorted configuration of the letters of the English alphabet was designed in 1872 intentionally to make one type slowly (so as not to jam the keys on the newfangled typewriting machine). The Simplified Keyboard Layout, designed by August Dvorak and William Dealey in 1936, rearranges the letters on the keyboard in order of frequency of use. With this new layout, 70 percent of typing occurs on the home keys and is evenly distributed between right and left hands. The Simplified Keyboard typist lets his or her fingers walk one mile for every 16 miles a QWERTY typist travels in an average eight-hour day. The learning curve is 50 percent faster, and typing accuracy and speed are similarly improved.
In 1987 it took me four hours to retrain and two weeks to regain speed and accuracy. I haven't experienced any RSI problems since then.
Find out more about converting your keyboard at www.voicenet.com/~grassie/Essays.html. Or spend US$10,000 on an awkward voice-dictation system and "talk ... your ... rants ... and ... raves ... like ... this." Or you can just risk experiencing the trauma of RSI, as described in McCarthy's otherwise excellent article.
Billy Grassie
grassie@voicenet.com
__ The Naked Truth __
What is going on over there? What's with the naked shopping thing? Wired 3.12 included advertisements reading "At this mall you can even shop naked," "Shop for CDs without the inconvenience of getting dressed first," and "If you've never been shopping ... in your underwear, then you've never really been shopping."
One incident would be funny, two would be noteworthy, but three? Considering how expensive and closely calibrated advertising is (with market research, demographics, and focus groups), three incidences in the same issue means that there is definitely something going on. Wanna let us in on it?
Dan Holzner
dan@appres.com
__ Undo __
- The Other U in LA: Movie makers Breck Eisner and Steve Cantor ("Low Budget, High Tech," Electric Word, Wired 4.02, page 40) are graduates of the University of Southern California, not the University of California, Los Angeles.
- Saintly Images: The cover photograph of Marshall McLuhan (Wired 4.01) was shot by Yousuf Karsh, not Joseph.
- To subscribe to the BillWatch listserv (Wired 4.01, page 40), email vtw-announce request@panix.com and include subscribe vtw-announce in the body of the message, followed by your email address.
- Time Flew: The vertical axis of the Electricity Generation graph (Raw Data, Wired 4.01, page 66) represented kilowatt-hours.
- For information about The Martial Arts Explorer ("Zen & the Art of Multimedia," Wired 3.12, page 194), call Future Vision Multimedia at (800) 227 5609 or +1 (617) 494 1200. Apologies to the Long Island Police Department, whose number we printed by mistake.
- The Relentless Pursuit of Credit: Issa Sharp took the photographs and Lou Beach created the illustrations for "The Relentless Pursuit of Connection" (Wired 3.11, page 170). n The image of the video streamer ("Xing," Electric Word, Wired 3.11, page 56) was developed by the Interactive Cinema Group at the MIT Media Lab. __ Send your Rants & Raves to: __
E-mail: rants@Wired.com
Snail mail: Wired, PO Box 191826
San Francisco, CA 94109-9866
