Blockbuster movies. Popcorn. Steven Spielberg. And then you got all scientific on us. Regarding the generation of power from the benthic depths, one skeptic asked: "What happens when every country with a coastline drops a hose into the deep sea and starts pulling cold water out?" Um … more beachfront? And for the record, our story on Kiwi theorist Peter Lynds never said he was the next Einstein. That was other people, though not the mathematician who told us Lynds "obviously has a problem with elementary calculus." We tried to take refuge at the movies again, but while we were in line, our BlackBerry buzzed: "DreamWorks' Katzenberg and company have never - nor are they likely to ever - come near a Snow White or Akira." Ah, but what about crossing Snow White with Akira? Now that's science we could get behind.
War of the Writers
In his excellent article about War of the Worlds ("Close Encounters of the Worst Kind," issue 13.06), Frank Rose mentions that H. G. Wells all but invented science fiction. Actually, Jules Verne did that; what Wells did was much more important. Verne created science fiction based on the technology he had at the time, and extrapolated from there. Therefore, everything was a somewhat logical extension of what existed in the 1800s.
Wells, on the other hand, imagined a seemingly impossible future and put it on paper. If he couldn't figure out the technology behind wonders (such as the tripods), he did something the best science fiction writers still do: He skipped over it. In place of Verne's exhaustive and exhausting explanations, Wells poured in a more human element.
Andrew Harris
Bayonne, New Jersey
Battle of the Studio Execs
Oh boy. For Jeffrey Katzenberg to say Brad Bird has a huge ego is ridiculous ("The DreamWorks Machine," issue 13.06). Katzenberg's ego has to follow in a separate limo. While the animated features being churned out by DreamWorks are very entertaining, they'll never be the masterpieces of animation that Pixar creates. Bird is a genius of storytelling, while Katzenberg is really just an animation-loving bean counter.
Toby Tobler
Santa Monica, California
As the producer and directors of Madagascar, the three of us were glad to see Wired's interest in DreamWorks - but didn't recognize the studio you described.
The DreamWorks we work at places the highest priority on creative and artistic expression. Our ability to bring Madagascar to the screen was made possible by many things you failed to appreciate, such as the incredible talents of our colleagues and the company's culture of creative innovation. On a personal level, we feel our company's management is strongly committed not only to our careers but also to our personal lives. For example, a state-of-the-art video teleconferencing system helped the three of us collaborate in making Madagascar, since we don't live in the same city. The result: a more seamless, collaborative process and less travel for all of us.
DreamWorks is a great place to make movies, and the success of films like Shrek, Shark Tale, and Madagascar shows that the public likes what we do. Maybe next time you'll really capture the spirit and passion of this company.
Mireille Soria, Eric Darnell, and Tom McGrath
DreamWorks
Glendale, California
Morality Bites
Clive Thompson's "How to Farm Stem Cells Without Losing Your Soul" (issue 13.06) was timely and well-balanced. It seems scientists would jump at a chance to follow William Hurlbut's idea to create a more "moral" stem cell line, just to see if it would work. Who knows? It might save millions of lives. But, like the Vatican in Galileo's time, the scientific community is close-minded. You don't have to be a Bible-thumper to realize that someone should give Hurlbut the chance to prove his theory. After all, no one knows for sure whether traditional stem cell research will work either.
__Michael Peabody
Sacramento, California __
William Hurlbut's technological fix for the ethical dilemmas presented by embryonic stem cell research is creative and interesting, but so were Rube Goldberg's machines. Hurlbut's scheme seems like a "fudge factor" used to reconcile a theologically based view with tremendous medical promise. Stem cell research is difficult enough already. We can understand why the leading scientists studying embryonic stem cells wish to avoid the circuitous detour Hurlbut proposes.
Stephen E. Levick
Author, Clone Being
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Don't Sweat the Deep Stuff
I must be missing something important in the article about John Pi�a Craven ("The Mad Genius From the Bottom of the Sea," issue 13.06). Ignoring for a moment the local effects of "sweating" drinking and irrigation water out of the atmosphere, what would be the effects of taking seawater from 3,000 feet below the ocean's surface, transferring heat to it, and returning it to the ocean? It seems to this nonscientist that doing this enough to generate the amount of energy the world consumes would have disastrous repercussions.
Bob Stewart
Berryville, Virginia
Carl Hoffman's article was timely. We need to develop all alternative energy sources, especially one of the extraordinary magnitude and environmental acceptability we see in ocean thermal energy conversion. There is, however, a better way. Instead of seawater as the working fluid for the heat engine, a carefully selected refrigerant could be used. Refrigeration equipment is more efficient, more compact, more easily maintained, and significantly less costly.
Mark Swann
Washington, DC
It's All in Your Head
Regarding "Time's Up, Einstein" (issue 13.06): "Time's not real," I tell my students. Physics time is an illusion; Peter Lynds rocks! The now is the temporal singularity - collapsing past, present, and future sequences of events into "oneness." There are therefore no instants of time, no time at all. The structure of our minds creates and destroys time. Days are long or short depending on our perceptions.
Americ Azevedo
Director, Collaborative Intelligence Lab, UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California
I must be missing something. I don't see why there's such controversy over Lynds' statements. He hasn't come up with anything earth-shattering.
First, I wouldn't refer to time as an illusion, as Lynds does, but rather an abstract concept. Our lives are governed by clocks that measure "time" based on a calendar that we created. Second, to acknowledge that "there is no such thing as a discrete slice of time" doesn't change anything. But discrete time does exist in our view of the universe, because that's how we choose to define the world around us, allowing us mathematical representations. Unfortunately, I think this is a case of people searching for the next Einstein and hoping Lynds is the man.
Sean J. Ryland
Prairie Village, Kansas
Extreme Symbolism
Why would you use Hitler as an icon of the far right, but the crescent moon and star for Islamic extremists ("The World of Terror," Infoporn, issue 13.06)? Why not use Osama bin Laden to represent Islamic extremists - or even better, use a crucifix to represent the far right?
Tom Giebel
New York, New York
Anyone Got a Calendar?
How could Gary Wolf state in the lead sentence of his article "Question Authorities" (Start, issue 13.06), "For more than four years … civil engineers have been studying the destruction of the World Trade Center towers" when as of June 2005 it hasn't been four years since September 11, 2001? I'm sure it was just an oversight.
Alan Brown
Tarzana, California
Undo
• The stylist for "The Xbox Reloaded" (issue 13.06) was Renee Parenteau; J Allard's pants were from Sturtevant's.
•The images in "A Mathematical Yarn" (Play, issue 13.06) were provided by the Institute for Figuring.
