__ Rants & Raves __
__ Blaming Censors __
Mike Godwin is right to argue that human beings, not technology, bear the responsibility for censorship ("Don't Blame the Tools," Wired 5.10, page 117). Unfortunately, he seems to think that censorship exists only when the state is involved. This shortsightedness ignores the many private organizations eager to decide what people can see or say on the Web.
Here in the UK, for example, Virgin Net removed a page for the computer game Dunblane Massacre, though the game broke no laws except those of good taste. The major threat to free speech on the Net today comes not from the likes of Senator James Exon, but from a loose alliance of pressure groups and corporations that wish to impose partisan standards of decency and taste on the Web community through "voluntary" codes of conduct. Filterware like PICS and Incore allow the enforcement of these codes, bypassing the need for new legislation.
Julian McClements
__ Used and Abused __
I skimmed Wired's contribution to the "Trash the Mac" media crusade. I then rushed to the Colophon, sure there would be no evidence of Apple anywhere. Well, like every other major computer magazine, you rely on Macs. In fact, by the looks of it, if there were no Macs, there would be no Wired.
Jay Doty
__ Filter This __
Andrew Shapiro fails to convince me of the perniciousness of filtering software ("Letter from Aspen," Wired 5.11, page 118). Unlike legislation controlling content, filtering software allows control to remain in an individual's hands. To have a significant cultural impact, such software would need to be universal, and that's unlikely. If my neighbor wants to put filtering software on his child's computer, so be it. He doesn't subscribe to Wired, either.
Robert Burdick
__ Adding Apples __
Despite Jim Carlton's claim in "They Coulda Been a Contender" (Wired 5.11, page 122), Apple did not fail because it didn't license its OS. Apple failed because Macs cost too bloody much. There's even a hint about this in the article, where Jean-Louis Gassée says that licensing would have caused the company's 55 percent profit margin to drop to 45 percent. If Apple had been willing to settle for a sane 15 to 20 percent profit margin, and to slash prices on Macs, we would all be using Macs today.
The guy in charge of buying 500 computers at a medium-sized firm didn't care if the Mac was "insanely great." He just cared that Macs were twice the cost of MS-DOS machines. Simple arithmetic.
Geoffrey Scott
__ Going Solo __
Riding the wave of public sentiment that blames the legal system for the woes of the world, Jennifer Granick misapprehends the nature of trademark and copyright law and the driving policies behind these legal régimes ("Scotty, Beam Down the Lawyers!" Wired 5.10, page 86).
Her bold statement that "the problem is not Viacom or Lucasfilm, but a legal system that says companies, and not the public, own cultural icons" fails to appreciate that we wouldn't have cultural icons such as Han Solo and Mr. Spock without the protections of trademark and copyright law. Copyright protection serves as an incentive for people to create and disseminate new works, which is ultimately good for the global marketplace of ideas.
Sure, the media giants are rich, powerful overlords of intellectual property, but without the copyright, trademark, and patent systems, intellectual property wouldn't be property at all.
Andrew L. Lee, law clerk, Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
__ Rotten Apple __
I started reading Wired because it always looked to the future of computing and talked about the leading edge of technology. But you guys are giving Apple, a dying and bloated company, too much space. I almost responded to "101 Ways to Save Apple" (Wired 5.06, page 114), but I figured that piece would get it out of your system. Now I just have to say: Get over it!!! Apple tried, and it failed. It's over. We can now - hopefully - return to the otherwise great coverage of the new digital age.
Michael Axeen
__ Wired Art __
I teach an expressive arts class at the C. G. Jung Center in Houston for people suffering from life-threatening illness. My students find the images from old issues of Wired most compelling for their collage work. I wanted you to know that the magazine continues its work in the imaginations of my students. I do try to read it before I tear it up.
Nancy G. Wozny
__ What Has Wired Been Smoking? __
According to The New York Times, the Internet cannot "separate fact from hyperbole or outright falsehood." Neither, it seems, can Wired. In fact, Wired has unfortunately shown itself to be both victim and perpetrator of the same media bias and misrepresentation for which it criticized the Times ("What Have They Been Smoking?" Wired 5.09, page 53).
Case in point: In "Connecting to Cambodia" (Wired 5.09, page 74), Jim Nash's précis of the country's history repeats the misrepresentation of the facts disseminated by the Times in the '70s. Nash simply omits the history of US bombing raids between 1969 and 1975 - which caused more than half a million deaths - and its later support for the Khmer Rouge.
The problem is that Wired's writers learned their history from the Times. And, as Wired has already demonstrated, that newspaper's representation of the facts leaves much to be desired.
Struan Bartlett, struanb@globalnet.co.uk
Nick Gilbert, nickg@vnu.co.uk
Barry de la Rosa, baz@dwpub.com
__ Read On __
Only a pointy-head would complain about wasting hours on a book that wasn't worth the time ("Reintermediated," Wired 5.09, page 208). If you don't like it, don't finish it. And traditional bookstores are not a doomed enterprise. While small neighborhood bookstores may well go the way of the five-and-dime, all one has to do is visit any large urban bookstore on a weekend night to realize there's more going on there than just the acquisition of content.
Negroponte is clearly that most ignoble of writers, an author who is not a bibliophile. No one who loves books would choose to look at title listings on a monitor screen over the pleasure of browsing. Finally, it's already easy enough to find out which books you're likely to enjoy, even without the help of a digital intermediary. What a lot of readers, myself included, look for is something completely different: books they're unlikely to enjoy but do.
John Kehoe
Sconset, Massachusetts
__ Deflating the Hydrogen Age __
The mistakes, simplifications, and overly optimistic forecasts in Jacques Leslie's "Dawn of the Hydrogen Age" (Wired 5.10, page 138) do a disservice to both your readers and this potentially important technology.
For instance, his revisionist history of energy trends claims that "each successive fuel has been cleaner and more powerful." Yet coal is dirtier than its predecessor, wood. And nuclear power is dirtier than all preceding fossil fuels. Only recently has the cleanliness of a fuel become a minor factor (compared with energy density and cost) in what drives the choice of fuels.
Currently, we are losing the energy revolution. In the next five years, the European Union will spend more than US$1 billion on fusion research, more than 10 times what will be spent on fuel cells. Despite their recent investments in fuel cell research, the oil and car industries are the biggest obstacles to global environmental negotiations.
If we don't want to be casualties of the energy revolution, we have to fight for sustainable fuel solutions and not wait for corporations or governments to deliver them.
Paxus Calta
__ Undo __
Unmentioned: "It's! Not! Retail!" (Wired 5.11, page 218) should have noted that CUC International is an investor in Wired Ventures. Sound Off: JVC's SX-PRO3 ("Surrounded," Wired 5.09, page 64) has a 120-watt amplifier. Agents of Change: Junior Summit II (Negroponte, Wired 5.12, page 306), an international gathering of children, will be hosted by the MIT Media Lab on October 6-11, 1998; find out more at www.jrsummit.net/. Net Surf: Norman Weinstein's email (Wired 5.11, page 261) is nweinste@micron.net.
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