Rants & Raves
"Compromising search results is a deal with the devil."
Results are in: January's most popular topics were Google and gigaplanes. The biggest hit by far was Josh McHugh's "Google vs. Evil," reporting the slow erosion of the search company's moral purity. Fans and pans were evenly divided. "Great article - hell, I feel like waving a flag," wrote one reader. "I'm just not sure which one." Partisans of ekranoplans, those supersize aircraft of the Soviet era, said the bolsheviks, not Boeing, deserve the real credit for jumbo cargo birds like the Pelican (Start, "Duck! It's a Low-Flying Gigaplane"). Meanwhile, Outlook lovers came out in full force to trash Mitch Kapor's open source "Outlook killer." A typical pro-Redmond memo: "Stop whining." We'll file that in our mailbox, er, folder titled Microsoft Words to Live By.
Soul Search
"Google vs. Evil" was a disturbingly accurate portrayal of the world's "best-loved search engine" (Wired 11.01). As a colleague of mine put it, compromising with the Chinese government by banning search results for topics such as human rights is a deal with the devil. When I think of Sergey Brin's stated philosophy, "Don't be evil," my skin crawls.
Joseph Egan
Bedford, New York
Sergey Brin is a technologist. He is woefully underequipped to handle the subtle difficulties of human communication. That this hapless geek has been endowed with the power to attempt to resolve serious legal issues relating to mankind's interaction is terrifying.
The tale of Google making pathetic attempts to not be evil is yet another lesson to technologists everywhere: Shut the fuck up and finish coding your software while real people with real social skills continue to run the world. Technologists should never be consulted on issues of good and evil.
Andrew Hansen
Atlanta, Georgia
When Google learned that marketers could improve rankings by writing better HTML, Google injected more link popularity into its algorithm. Thus, a crappy page with a few of the right inbound links ranks higher than a page ripe with information directly related to the search but with fewer links. But don't tell Google! It's a lot easier to garner a couple links from high-ranking sites than it is to write pages of search-specific, error-free code.
Bill S.
Bloomington, Minnesota
Original Gamester
It's disheartening to hear Seamus Blackley say that Shigeru Miyamoto is "not helping things" just because he isn't interested in making so-called adult videogames ("Why Nintendo Won't Grow Up," Wired 11.01). As one of the few mainstream designers who remembers that videogames are, in fact, games, Miyamoto follows his own inspiration, not the latest trends or demographic research. In an industry filled with copycat titles and a startling lack of creativity, we need more true artists like Miyamoto, not fewer.
Skyler Miller
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Iron Gates
James Surowiecki's "The New Electric Company" (Start, Wired 11.01) overlooks the fate of those already trapped within Windows.Microsoft's business plan is based on behemoth-level sales, but its market is slowing down. The solution - which the company makes no secret of - is to rig the game so that you'll have to upgrade regardless of your needs.Microsoft has labored mightily and successfully to ensure that it has not customers but captives.
The company is already well toward treating its "customers" like the hostile population of an occupied land - and there's every reason to think things will get worse.
George Heingartner
East Quogue, New York
The Sentinel Speaks
In a fine example of serendipity, a visitor dropped your Science + Religion issue (Wired 10.12) on my desk - I am afraid I've seen only a few issues since Nicholas Negroponte came here and told me about his plans, sometime back in the late Jurassic. It's inspired these comments:
Don't you think you should change your name now to Unwired?
I was particularly interested in the article about George Coyne ("The Pope's Astrophysicist"), whom I have known for many years. I was asked to give an address at the Vatican (published in Varia Acta in 1986), and when I met George I said, "When I was invited here, my first choice of title was After Giordano Bruno - Who?" To which he instantly replied: "If you had used that, the answer would have been - you." It was the beginning of our friendship. He's been here a couple of times. I see a reference to my short story The Sentinel on page 201 ("Solaris, Rediscovered"). It was first published in 1951, in the long defunct Ten Story Fantasy, which actually contains 13 stories, so it didn't deserve to survive.
Whether Stanley Kubrick ever saw the 1963 film Voyage to the End of the Universe I'm not sure, though I think it's very likely.
And I agree with your comments on Stanislaw Lem - he's probably the world's greatest living science-fiction writer. If he had written in English, the rest of us wouldn't have had a chance.
Arthur C. Clarke
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Smart Patrol
I never would have thought Wired would contain further evidence of why Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale claim they are "pioneers who got scalped," but there it is (or isn't) in "More Science- and Tech-Respecting Band Names" (Play, Wired 11.01). Not including Devo is, well, just plain dumb.
Paul Dain
Evanston, Illinois
Tearing Up My Heart
As I was enjoying (as usual) the latest issue, I came across something repugnant, featuring a souped-up snowmobile, titled "Tear Up the Wilderness at 110 mph" (Fetish, Wired 11.01). You are supporting, indeed encouraging, the destruction of one of the few sacred things left in our country.
Payson Sheets
Boulder, Colorado
Lessons in Geekonomics
Regarding "The Unreal Estate Boom" (Wired 11.01): What server are you playing EverQuest on? No one trades in Greater Faydark or East Commonlands anymore. The good "lewt" is found up on Norrath's moon, Luclin, home to the Nexus, the central hub for EQ's service economy, and the Bazaar, where player characters may temporarily act like NPC merchants to sell quality merchandise they've found or made. If you're going to talk about Norrathian economics, it helps to know where in Norrath it's happening.
Dave Brogden
Healdsburg, California
I'd like to explain what I do for a living. In "The Unreal Estate Boom," I am described doing a deal in which I "could hear an infant crying in the background" and "hoped the carpenter would never find out just how much stood to be made on the deal." This unfairly represents the way I conduct business, as I have always been up front about what I do with the accounts I purchase.
As a reseller, my reputation combined with a large customer base (I receive roughly 35,000 visitors to my site each week, not including the 50,000-plus people who view my eBay auctions) allows me to get a significant amount above the average eBay seller. People are willing to pay a little more for items they purchase from me to be sure they actually get what they are paying for.
Bob Kiblinger
Beckley, West Virginia
Wow! Cool castle by artist Kenn Brown. I almost expected Shrek to come waltzing out of it!
Michael E. Picray
Craig, Missouri
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