Rants & Raves
__Talespin __
Hooray! You guys do have huevos The rocket car story is one of the greatest pieces of gonzo literature/fiction of the late 20th century ("Heard the One About the Rocket Car?" Wired 8.08, page 98). I remember reading it on the cardhouse.com Web site and being so riveted that I stole off for the rest of the afternoon just to finish it. It read so offhandedly casual, and yet was constructed so tightly that I wondered which big-name author penned it. But then I realized that neither Stephen King nor Hunter S. Thompson could come up something this engaging and suspenseful.
You guys know a good ride when you read one.
__Joab Jackson
joabj@charm.net __
Great story, but the author is a hypocrite by his own definition. He says, "The Darwin Award version was different. It was chock-full of numbers and specifics, which is always bad news for a legend. ... Why has nobody ever produced pictures of the crash site?"
Certainly there has never been an account with more numbers and specifics than his. So why is he afraid to tell us the name of the town where it supposedly happened? At least that way some facts could be confirmed: Did his father really own a junkyard? Is there really an abandoned mine where he said? Is the police station across from the Jaycees softball field? And why, though he says in his story that Beck took pictures, does he not have pictures?
His story smacks of legend and wild imagination. If treated as a short story, it is one of the greatest of my recent reading. But please don't try to pass it off as history.
__David N. Waldmann
david@vermonthardwoods.com __
I don't know if the tale is real, or the product of a creatively gifted writer with enough mechanical background to make it all convincing, but I read every word.
The part that always appealed to me about the rocket car story was that it could have happened. Pelligrino amply illustrated one way it could be done, but I'm not yet ready to abandon the possibility of a road-going effort.
I also have to wonder whether the flat rear deck and bat-wing fins of a '59 Chevy provided the down force needed. Aerodynamics is completely ignored in the story, so I'll just assume it wasn't a factor. A '67 Chevy body probably wouldn't have generated more or less lift.
__Al Asarnov
gothamant@aol.com __
"Heard the One About the Rocket Car?" was amusing, but its author was not the first. In the late '50s, Hot Rod magazine ran an article showing a 1956 or 1957 Dodge convertible that had been fitted with a JATO bottle by some Air Force people. If I remember correctly, they ran it on a runway and got it to something around 144 mph.
__Bill Tyrrell
ctyrr@bellsouth.net __
__Ack! Thbbbppfft! __
A dandy, rare piece on Garry Trudeau ("The Revolution Will Be Satirized," Wired 8.08, page 218). I wonder, however, if in this shiny new digital world where editors and other pesky filters are being triumphantly banished, there might still be a lingering need for them.
Contrary to Edward Cone's assertion, Trudeau was not the only Pulitzer winner for a daily comic strip, although Garry would probably like to think so. Given the undeserved crap I gave him over the years, it's understandable.
__Berkeley Breathed
Bloom County (Pulitzer Prize 1987)
Santa Barbara, California __
__High-Water Marc __
As a kid, I lived on a commune called Karma Farm, which was located about six miles from New Lisbon, Wisconsin, where Marc Andreessen grew up ("Crank It Up," Wired 8.08, page 186). I was a scrawny, weird, uncool kid. But one classmate - Marc - wanted to be my buddy anyway, and that made all the difference. Marc wasn't cool either, in the school sense, but even as a 10-year-old he was mature enough to treat everybody the same way. I remember that my mother adored him - partly on account of his manners, and partly for his wicked and sophisticated wit. Reading about him now, I'm happy to see that he's steered clear of AOL, which seems intent on scuttling his Netscape brand anyway.
__Jake Spicer
jakespicer@earthlink.net __
__Up, Up, and Away __
I was impressed by the article about CargoLifter AG ("The Baron's Big Balloon," Wired 8.08, page 150). I've been an aficionado of airships for years, and am always pleased to see the subject given mainstream attention. There have been several unfruitful ventures recently, but the Freiherr's seems to have plenty of momentum. I sincerely hope to see a CargoLifter floating through the skies soon.
I am puzzled, though, by the article's failure even to mention the Zeppelin NT program and the Zeppelin LZNO7, which has completed more than 150 flights since 1997. If, as you say, the age of the airship is being relaunched, credit should go to Zeppelin Luftschifftecknik GmbH, which has a craft flying already, rather than to a company - however promising - that has yet to build a full-scale ship.
__Thomas RuBane
tf.rubane@gte.net __
I want to congratulate you on the brilliant satire in your 8.08 issue. It was a subtle and clever metaphor for so many of the tech startups we've seen recently - a giant and expensive ego-driven project addressing a nonexistent need. No matter that they brushed off the problems of cost, unmanageable flight, safety, helium supplies; and then there's our new economy favorite: "Oh, we don't have any customers and haven't identified a large enough market to support our company, but we just know that there will be one." You folks were always ahead of the curve, and saw the Internet economy taking off. Now you are foretelling its demise in this article about an impractical and expensive giant blimp.
Unless, of course, this article is serious. My God - the thought of that.
__Nick Baily
nick@sourmash.com __
__Deep Impact __
The US Navy's new uses of sound waves ("UU-boatNet," Wired 8.08, page 81) are having horrendous side effects. According to Michael Stocker in Whole Earth magazine, the Navy is using sound generators capable of creating 250 decibels - 100,000 to 1 million times louder than the loudest whale. The system is increasing the beachings of whales and dolphins. Many are washing ashore with bleeding eyeballs, infected cochleas, and other unusual tissue damage. The Navy refuses to study the matter further.
__Sam Lightman
sam_lightman@saltspring.com __
__Spare Change __
Your article on community computation was great ("You Got the Power," Wired 8.08, page 176) - what a fascinating concept! But is it new? You decide: spare CPU cycles versus spare brain cycles. Spare CPU cycles are just unused computer "brainpower" that can be harnessed for small tasks - like SETI@home - when the computer is doing something that does not use its full potential. Spare brain cycles consist of unused human brainpower that can be harnessed for small tasks - like radio trivia contests - when the human is doing something that does not use its full potential.
__Aaron Leis
aleis@mad.scientist.com __
__National Insecurity Agency __
Interviewing In-Q-Tel CEO Gilman Louie, head of the CIA's venture capital arm, Evan Ratliff asks, "Some of your technologies enhance online privacy. Doesn't that conflict with the CIA's other objectives?" ("The Spy Who Funded Me," Wired 8.08, page 92). You have got to be kidding me!
I guarantee you that every privacy-enhancing technology funded by the CIA's Valley VC front has backdoors that are specifically asked for and purposefully architected. There is no way they would actually fund an outfit to come up with communications methods they couldn't access (in the name of "national security," naturally).
Thanks for the puff piece. I'm sure many people will sleep better knowing what a happy, shiny world Louie is attempting to create.
Meanwhile, I'll hang on to my SSH, PGP, 4-Kbit keys ...
__William Rhodes
rants@27.org __
__Daily Fish Wrap __
Whenever I read about the research into digital paper ("News Flash," Wired 8.08, page 138), I can't help but wonder why people haven't looked more closely at the natural world to help move them toward their goal. Cuttlefish, for example, produce moving, rapidly changing skin patterns simply by altering the shape of their chromatophores (pigment cells). With current advances in, say, piezoelectric plastics, I can imagine nanoscale devices that produce diffraction changes by varying the thickness of ultrathin film, or perhaps even simulate the function of chromatophores by altering the size of holes in the film.
__Frank McAree
fk26@dial.pipex.com __
__Undo __
Mind the Gap: Research groups led by professors Kai-Ming Ho and Costas Soukoulis at Iowa State University designed the first micron-scale 3-D photonic crystal with a complete band gap ("Bright Switch," Wired 8.09, page 288). ... Home Improvement: The Cye personal robot, by Probotics (www.personalrobots.com), has been available since 1999 ("Telefriend," Wired 8.09, page 274). ... Recontextualized: Razorfish had unadjusted revenues of $1.2 million in 1996 ("Brattitude Adjustment," Wired 8.09, page 132). ... Picture Puzzle: A photo of Henry Luce III, chair of the Henry Luce Foundation, was misidentified as a picture of Steve Ross in Wired 8.09, page 156 ("Reminder to Steve Case: Confiscate the Long Knives").
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