Rants & Raves
I'm a Mac enthusiast, and I had a good laugh at your June cover. (Apple, it's your next T-shirt.) I work with several different platforms, and I thank God Apple created the Mac OS. I spend an inordinate amount of time helping brave but ill-informed computer novices move documents in Windows. I curse the Devil - Gates - for ripping off a wonderful OS, only to deliver a third-rate system you have to pay me to use. I've always wondered what desktop computing would be like now if Mac had won.
I agree with about half your suggestions for saving Apple ("101 Ways to Save Apple," Wired 5.06, page 114), except that it doesn't need to be saved, 'cause I got the OS, and I'll always have the OS. (Can you imagine putting out Wired with Windows?) The suggestion to dump the hardware may be a little premature. I compare my Apple to the espresso maker I got 10 years ago. It still makes a great cup, though I've left it on for hours with no water.
The best way to save Apple? Buy one.
Judson Frondorf
jud@ecunet.org
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I bypassed my ritual reading of Rants & Raves and headed straight to the Apple article. I love Macs. Always have. The only thing I love more is a Wintel machine.
The frogdesign blueprint of the Macintosh SE appealed to people with design sense. For them it was worth paying a bit more for the elegance. But most of the world does not think like that. Most people buy ugly beige boxes because they cost less. Because more people buy the ugly ones, software companies who want to make money write programs to run on the ugly ones. All that John Q. Public wants is a cheap computer that goes really fast and can run Quake. Uh ... I mean Quark.
Terry Clark
tdclark@iquest.net
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"101 Ways to Save Apple" was right on the money. As an Apple owner, I agree that the company hasn't done a very good job educating the consumer market on why its OS is superior to Windows. Many consumers, like my parents, think that just because most of the business world uses IBM compatibles, they should, too. The thing is, my parents aren't businesspeople and will never transact business with their IBM that they couldn't with a Mac.
Apple needs to make the simplicity of its OS known and needs to scream it out to the masses - have you ever tried to explain DOS or a file hierarchy to an 8-year-old? It's tricky. Apple should also make its systems more available to the public, not just students. I was walking through Sears recently and saw a Performa there. Good move - people trust Sears and will therefore trust the products that it sells.
In my experience, both Mac hardware and the software created for it are superior. Have you ever noticed how many of those ... for Dummies books there are that are related to Windows? Why is there such high demand for systems-support techies for Windows-based machines and such low demand for Mac support? Mac users can solve their own problems without learning complex languages, file systems, or the ever-popular SysReq file and IRQ jumper switch. The Mac OS design encourages learning and user confidence, while the complexities of DOS and Windows simply frustrate.
Lindy Beyer
lkbeyer@students.wisc.edu
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The June cover crosses the line of shock for shock's sake while adding nothing to the magazine. And it offended a good many people in the bargain. Your sentiments concerning Apple could have been expressed without denigrating or trivializing a symbol that many people feel strongly about.
Martin D. Kilmer
mdkilmer@pacinfo.com
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Nomination for best mass-produced piece of 9-inch-by-10 3/4-inch paper of the decade: the June Wired cover.
Gave me shivers.
Jim Bernard
berna008@gold.tc.umn.edu
I just don't get it. Why all the ink and hoopla concerning The Well ("The World's Most Influential Online Community (And It's Not AOL)," Wired 5.05, page 98)? Was there some larger significance to all those insipid postings? They reminded me why I no longer use any online service: after the gee-whiz of chat room wears off, one realizes how incredibly empty and boring and sad the whole thing really is.
Steve Grube
uscat43l@ibmmail.com
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Intentional communities like The Well are notoriously difficult to maintain, as the regular rise and fall of such groups throughout history proves. That the next generation of such communities happens to be online does not change their dynamics. It still takes financial support and people willing to accept the rules to help the community reach its goals.
What strikes me most about The Well is that free speech is never really free. For every right to say what we think and feel, there is a responsibility for the consequences that speech creates. Does it enlighten rather than belittle?
In the name of free speech, some people on The Well allowed others to cross the line of responsible communication. I wouldn't be surprised if others on The Well soon tire of these immature onslaughts. While we don't choose our family members or neighbors, we can choose our online service. That will be the end of another intentional community.
Mark Tomes
mkctomes@thegrid.net
Where did you dig up the "experts" for "The Future of Dentistry" (Wired 5.06, page 78)? They claim that laser drilling of cavities is "unlikely," yet today's New York Times reports that the FDA has approved commercial use of the procedure and that five dentists are ready to offer the service now. Anyone can be off in predictions of the future (especially when technology is involved!), but this is a bit ridiculous, don't you think? Perhaps those guys are the ones who need a reality check.
Walter R. Jacobs
wrjacobs@sociology.soc.indiana.edu
I read "Telco Terrorism" (Wired 5.06, page 53) with great interest. As of 1994, the phone service in Vermont was abysmal. The local calling area went only as far as the town you were in, and in some cases the next town. A call to the nearest midsize village 12 miles away was a long distance call. America Online? Internet access? Creating POPs in so many local towns was financially impossible. The closest AOL access number was 18 miles away. I chose to use an access number in another state because the call was cheaper!
In 1996 the phone company started its own ISP, which could be charged to your phone bill, and everyone had local access. The local calling area increased greatly. But this increase in service must be paid for somehow. So the telco introduced a minimal per-minute charge for all local calls: two and a half cents peak and one cent off-peak per minute. Small enough, right? After all, even a one-hour evening call would cost only US$1. The phone company capped the charges at $36 per month for residential phones and $60 per month for business phones.
This plan smelled rotten to me, and the telco's motive was perfectly clear. The only people who spend large amounts of time making local calls are Internet users. For someone like me, with a business line, who spends more than 100 hours per month connected to the Internet, this was devastating. I had $60 instantly added to my monthly phone bill, when I had changed nothing about how I use the phone. This has the same effect as levying access charges on ISPs, only the charge falls on Internet users' shoulders.
Andrew Donovan
andrew@vermontel.com
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After reading "Telco Terrorism," I breathed a sigh of relief to see that the FCC is finally taking the side of Netheads like myself. I'm on the Internet for an average of three to five hours a day. The last thing I need is to pay for the Internet the same way I pay for cellular service.
In this day and age of digital communication, the thing we need most is a dedicated digital network, not restructured payment techniques.
Chris Z. Robinson
cg821@torfree.net
Does Wired really believe that the privatization of the telecommunications industry will help "erase national borders" (Raw Data, Wired 5.06, page 80)? What a mind-boggling claim, in light of the countless studies devoted to the histories of nations and capitalism. Technology mediates communication - it does not purify it. Consequently, privatization is unlikely to promote a radically new form of liberation in a world free of national differences.
In the years to come, borders of many types will have to be redrawn or will have to function in new ways, but they won't disappear - for the simple reason that they help us order our experiences in meaningful ways. The claim that we're transcending our national differences, thanks to some phone companies, is as bogus as MCI pretending that gender and race don't exist on the Internet.
Peter Stokes
stokespj@aol.com
In response to an article about me by Ed Regis ("The Doomslayer," Wired 5.02, page 136), Tim Andrews claims that I am "beholden to some of the most polluting and dangerous industries" (Rants & Raves, Wired 5.05, page 30). "Simon has a vested interest in downplaying the dangers of fossil fuel and nuclear energy," Andrews wrote, because I am with "'the conservative Cato Institute' ... funded by such environmental menaces as Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute, Arco, and Philip Morris."
I have never received a nickel from any of those organizations to which I am supposedly beholden. And until 1996, my relationship with the Cato Institute was entirely nonfinancial. Last year - many years after I had written most of the stuff that Regis referred to, including my latest books - the Cato Institute suggested that I become a Senior Fellow. They put US$500 a month into a trust fund that I use for research expenses.
Julian L. Simon
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Rebel Whistle
"Corporate Rebels" (Wired 5.05, page 170) are a necessary antidote to conservative bureaucracies. But there is another sort of corporate rebel not mentioned in these articles: the whistle-blower who exposes corruption or dangers to the public. These whistle-blowers act in the public interest while threatening the vested interests of certain top managers. For their trouble, corporate whistle-blowers in every sector of the economy are harassed, ostracized, reprimanded, transferred, fired, and blacklisted. They deserve support as courageous challengers of corrupt bureaucracies.
Brian Martin
President, Whistleblowers Australia
brian_martin@uow.edu.au
I am having great difficulty digesting "Critical Mess: Sorting out the domain name system," (Wired 5.06, page 92). The idea that corporate big-wigs want to turn the Internet into a second television set is repugnant. These people do not own the Internet; they are not supplying the public with any additional services or benefits whatsoever. Keep in mind we are talking about a group of individuals whose only take on the day equates to a very big dollar amount. As it stands, the Internet's greatest function sure doesn't seem to be about that.
Dan Sale
ds@innocent.com
Jon Katz reflects the sort of earnest duplicity that increasingly emanates from the digital media circles in which he travels ("Birth of a Digital Nation," Wired 5.04, page 49). The essay is so engrossed with fiction that it is hard to sort the wheat from the role-playing. Shout it from the roofs and schools and nationally syndicated TV shows, and it will become real. Repeat anything with mantric fervor, and it will grow.
Katz's disingenuousness shrugs off the enormous political ambivalence of this new generation as libertarianism. He assures us that the kids are all right and that they're almost ready to claim their rights to the throne of the newest American democracy. Unfortunately, the group that Katz describes is antipolitical more than "postpolitical."
As tools of communication, the digital media offer possibilities not previously available to us. However, as their reach in society expands, it is essential that we keep check on the tendency of mass media to rely on their own ability to manufacture meaning, to construct truth. A situation where the oft-repeated infobyte becomes truth is the enemy of elevated dialog, whether in the realm of politics, culture, or society. If we are interested in the project of mending the threadbare regions of our politic, we have to approach the task with uncompromised honesty. Vague assertions about the power of new media to unify a new American covenant may sell ad space or a few magazines, but it certainly does not signify a Digital Revolution.
Mike Megalli
mm251@is5.nyu.edu
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What was it The Man in Black - no, not Johnny Cash - said in Star Wars? "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." Wise words. Katz writes: "The members of the Digital Nation are not representative of the population as a whole [and herein lies the rub]: they are richer, better educated, and disproportionately white [and male]." This "new social class" he describes sounds suspiciously like some other class that used to be called patriarchy or the "good ol' boy network." Granted, Katz's imagined nation is, thankfully, more tolerant and open, but only to the degree that technology enables. If you happen to have access to a computer, a phone, and the Internet, you too can join the Digital Nation. I would venture to say that a disproportionate amount of the world's population does not, and will not in the foreseeable future.
Believe it or not, for millions who lack the basic necessities of life, PDAs, warez warriors, and pirate Internet radio stations are inconsequential. Until all are included in the political and technological process of self-determination, until Digital Nation denizens grow up a little and begin demonstrating a social conscience, Katz invoking the words "revolutionary" and "nation" is disturbing. In this context such tactics are laughable at best - dangerous and horribly irresponsible at the worst. Why is the Digital Nation disproportionately white and male? You tell me, Mr. Katz, and we can really start to have a revolution.
Atticus Fisher
atticus@shore.net
Theremin (his actual name was Lev Termin) wasn't the first to dabble in electrical devices to form musical instruments ("The Future of Music," Wired 5.05, page 78) - a guy named Thaddeus Cahill built an instrument in 1896 called the telharmonium. The prototype weighed about 200 tons and produced music by passing current through a series of rotating metal discs. It doesn't exist anymore, but Cahill still holds a patent for his invention.
More interestingly, Cahill's motivation behind building such a massive device was to sell subscriptions to people, which would allow them to use their new-fangled telephones to call and listen to his telharmonium remotely. Far out, eh?
Bowie J. Poag
bjp@primenet.com
Jargon Junkie
I cracked open my latest Wired and immediately bee-lined to "Speak the Future" (Wired 5.06, page 100). An admitted Jargon Watch junkie, and prone to falling out of the big picture into glossofacilia, I found the expressions thought-provoking. The 500-Year Delta is a snapshot, plus a little glimpse into the next few frames of the future. Too bad that these snapshot phrases can't be updated in real time to provide us a continuing read on our society.
Mel Riley
minds@ix.netcom.com
Bag of Oreos
The March issue was like eating a bag of Oreos with milk. I wanted to eat the whole bag at once, but couldn't quite do it. The intro, "Gravity-Fueled Outlaws" (Wired 5.03, page 86), "Cough It Up!: What it takes to get things done on Capitol Hill" (page 110), and "The World According to Eco" (page 144) were the cookies. "Building the VW of PCs" (page 156) was the milk that washed it all down. I'm curious about Caspar's results.
Arthur Calton
Beaumont, Texas
Art Thou Wired?
I don't believe that many mainland Chinese great-grandfathers and great grandmothers are logging time on the Net ("The Great Firewall of China," Wired 5.06, page 138). The greeting "Ni chifanle ma? (Have you eaten?)" mentioned in the article is as archaic as the PRC's geriatric leadership. Hearing Elizabethan-vintage speech ("Art thou wired?") on US network news is about as likely as hearing this phrase being used by Net savvy Chinese. Wired's writers should stretch a bit further for punchy lines.
John Schroeder
jps00@ibm.net
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I realize that criticism of the People's Republic of China is out of fashion among the truly wired, but the tone and texture of the article by Messrs. Barmé and Ye is chilling.
So the future of China is not going to look like us - the West - but rather more "like China." I guess prison slave-labor camps and hegemonic militarism in neighboring lands just aren't that interesting compared with the possibility of a billion people downloading nude pictures of Teri Hatcher. Wire China to the Web and let a hundred flowers bloom.
Cooperation with a major trading partner doesn't change a thing. We have fooled ourselves into thinking China will play nice as long as we put a modem and a McDonald's hamburger in every Chinese hand. But rest assured, the leaders of the People's Liberation Army and the successors to Deng Xiaoping's bloody mantle have no such illusions.
We of the democratic nations of the world must once again take up the banner of liberty and human dignity and oppose the government of the PRC - a government fully as evil and repressive as anything Stalin or Hitler ever produced.
Bruce Lewis
bchan@pacbell.net
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There is only one way out of the censorship problem in China and other parts of the world. That is to access the Internet via satellite.
I am a big fan of PBS, Discovery Channel, and The Learning Channel. I am continuously treated to the likes of conservationist Jane Goodall, archaeologists in the Andes or the Mayan jungles, and even climbers on Mount Everest as I access the Internet via satellite, with nary an ISP in sight. The Special Forces Command provides satellite access to their laptops in the field.
The technology is there, so why isn't it available to the desktop user? Because it would mean loss of profits to modem manufacturers and ISPs (not to mention cable companies, et cetera). Is it loss of profits and control that is keeping the information seeker in the Stone Age?
Internet censorship is a real threat. Just look at China, France, Germany, and the ongoing efforts of our own government. If we could get wired without recourse to local servers, then where would the censors be?
Lee Markland
markland@rockisland.com
Pressing Issues: Rem Koolhaas: Conversations with Students ("A Most Dangerous Professional," Wired 5.06, page 160) is copublished by Princeton Architectural Press and the Rice University School of Architecture but is distributed in association with Chronicle Books.
Attention, Shoppers: Cisco has not purchased Software.com, but has taken a minority equity interest in it ("Crowded House," Wired 5.05, page 44). Software.com is a privately held company. n Calculator Battery Dead: The Sparrow electric car will not run 60 hours at 60 mph, but it can go 60 miles at 60 mph (Fetish, Wired 5.05, page 57).
Credit Due: Dave Winer contributed to "101 Ways to Save Apple" (Wired 5.06, page 114).
E-mail: rants@Wired.com
Snail mail: Wired, PO Box 191826
San Francisco, CA 94109-9866
