Rants & Raves
Ben Franklin, P2P Pioneer
I enjoyed your History Issue (Wired 10.01) but was dismayed by your exclusion of Benjamin Franklin. It is rarely mentioned but important to add that Franklin, forefather and patriot, scientist and geek hero, discovered "peer-to-peer file-sharing" when he, as a precocious boy, asked the governor of Pennsylvania for a book. In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, he credits that moment as the network request that launched his publishing career.
In what has become the oldest piece of American political wisdom, he confides to his reader: Always ask people for favors. People will ask you to return them. That is how one painstakingly constructs a free exchange, which is the basis of all public and private business - one polite request at a time.
Franklin was a great designer of open systems as well. He refused to patent his Franklin stove and insisted that open publication is the only way to establish a technical standard that allows the inventor to take full credit.
He also wrote a paper-file-sharing protocol to regulate the borrowing of books among his friends and neighbors in Philadelphia, called a public library. He is also on record as having discovered a natural source of electricity: the atmosphere, whose Jovian thunderbolts missed their mark, sparing Franklin only because his wired kite had a key. Thus armed by technology strung from high-flying paper, he then rendered the old storm god powerless when he designed the lightning rod - a clever hack, which routed concentrated electrical noise (a mortal signal) more efficiently from air to ground. The Wired historical pantheon should grant Ben Franklin its highest seat.
Jake Bowman
jakeb@biota.org
Partnership of Fools
Queen Isabella as venture capitalist ("The Ultimate Management Team," Wired 10.01, page 78)? Please! Isabella funded an endeavor that all knowledgeable explorers of the time knew to be ridiculous: to reach India by sailing west. In fact, it was the lack of geographical and navigational knowledge that allowed the Portuguese to fool the Spanish in their "division of the world" treaty at Tordesillas (1494) - Portugal got all the juicy business deals of the 15th and 16th centuries (India and Africa) while managing to also get a part of South America (Brazil).
The true venture capitalist of the age of exploration was Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal. Columbus got here only because he found a monarch ignorant enough to fund such a silly enterprise (don't forget that by 1488, Bartholomeu Dias had already rounded the Cape of Good Hope, proving that one could circle Africa on the way to India). As for Isabella the VC, money from the Americas did not really make it to Spain in a serious way until she was dead and buried.
Luis Mateus Rocha
luis@rochaweb.com
High Fashion
I can't imagine who would want to pay extra for vitamins from an impregnated T-shirt (Electric Word, Wired 10.01, page 28). If you could put in children's vaccines or medicines that otherwise require an injection, then you'd see some interest. But how do you prevent overdoses? Of course, if you put drugs in your clothes, you may not want to prevent overstimulation. "Man, I've been wearing this THC-shirt for five days and I feel good." I foresee the creation of a black market in smuggled medicated yarn. Perhaps they'll call their Prozac-laced panties Happy Pants.
Mike Moxcey
michael.s.moxcey@aphis.usda.gov
Setting the Standard
Congratulations on James Surowiecki's article on William Sellers and the beginnings of industrial standards ("Turn of the Century," Wired 10.01, page 84). I am the son of a mathematics professor who always told his kids that the trade of tool-and-die maker was perhaps the most respectable of all. Surowiecki puts in simple, readable terms why this is so true. He also makes very clear why this little bit of history should be important to us chip-heads today.
John Cote
johncote@interstatetime.com
The Soft Edge
First, a rave: Your magazine is very cool, very informative, spectacularly stylish. I love it! Then, a rant: It's so narrowly male-minded! Example extraordinaire: "Accidental Genius,"*Wired * 10.01, page 95. I'm all engrossed in history, great series of articles, then: The biggest new medical breakthrough pill is ... Viagra? What about the birth control pill? Liberation from mandatory childbirthing has changed our lives just a tad more than the resurrection of flaccid penises. Get with it!
Fran Ross
franross@mac.com
I'd like to extend Mark Robinson's list of accidental inventions to include reinforced concrete. Intended use: making stronger hulls for ships.
Reinforced concrete got invented by chance by someone trying to make concrete vases for flowers. The metal cage used to hold and shape the cement showed the property of not easily detaching from the concrete itself. As the implications became clear, it was reputed as an innovative material for the naval industry. It finally got employed for buildings.
Roberto Milazzi
milazzi@libero.it
Learning to Love Fort Knox
I was puzzled by Julian Dibbell's blustery statement that e-gold is somehow "invulnerable to government manipulation" or that the currency's value is impervious to the rise and fall of national governments ("In Gold We Trust," Wired 10.01, page 60). An e-gold account, representing a claim on a bunch of metal in the Middle East, is far more subject to governmental manipulation than national currencies are. If it weren't for the force of contract and property law in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Nevis, the balance in your e-gold account would buy you as much in the real world as your empire's treasury on Civ II is worth at McDonald's. Only by the application of these national legal systems, and their recognition of each other's legitimacy, could I assert my ownership of the underlying asset.
Even on the Internet, possession is nine-tenths of the law, and e-gold's customers have possession of nothing but a number on their screen. When push comes to shove, I'd rather rely on the US government to back up its currency - the validity of which is of primary importance to its own well-being - than on the enforceability of a series of contracts giving me ownership of 0.2 troy ounce of gold in an airport halfway around the world.
Jamie Knox
jknox@law.harvard.edu
Trial Members
In "The Naked Truth" (Wired 10.02, page 100), you suggest that Voice Media was incriminated by the consent order it signed with the Federal Trade Commission. Voice Media was not found guilty of any wrongdoing. The FTC inquiry was part of an industry-wide investigation of the trial membership practices of adult Internet entertainment companies. The undisputed evidence did not support a finding that VMI defrauded consumers in any way, and the company denied all such charges. By resolving the issue administratively by consent decree, the FTC chose not to charge or file a complaint in court and sought no order of fines, penalties, or restitution. Furthermore, the settlement did not prohibit the company from continuing to offer free trials.
Ron Levi
ron@inetb.com
Undo
Picture in Picture: The Toshiba DVD player shown in Best (Wired 10.02, page 119) is the SDP 1500.
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