Chat
RE: Guns and Texas
Our readers are always up for self-improvement. So when three writers set out to run faster, get smarter, and shoot straighter for our January enhancement package, you cheered them on. But one errant photo and you open fire. We’re talking about that picture of Clive Thompson holding a gun with his finger on the trigger — a gross safety violation, as every marksman knows. “He gives the antigun left-wing wackos reason to be happy,” one reader wrote. Well, not really: Antigun lefties have no clue how to hold a firearm safely. When we weren’t enraging the NRA crowd, we were messing with Texas: In our roundup of the best US cities for techies, we pitied poor Austin, surrounded, as it is, by the Lone Star State. “Way to go for alienating an entire state,” one Texan said. No kidding, especially a state where everyone knows how to shoot.
Science of Sleep
In “The Perfect Human” (issue 15.01), Dean Karnazes advises cutting back on sleep for more time to exercise. But in “My 4-Week Quest: Be Smarter,” you quote a Harvard sleep medicine professor who says 8.2 to 8.4 hours is the optimal amount of sleep for maximum cognitive speed, short- and long-term memory, math-processing skills, and spatial orientation. Is this not a contradiction for the demographic of athletically active professionals in thought-intensive careers?
Tim Lambert
Austin, Texas
’Roid Rage
I am willing to let this shambles of a process proceed and withhold judgment on the Floyd Landis doping allegations until everything’s complete (“The Righteous Fury of Dick Pound,” issue 15.01). Landis might be a cheat. He might not. But one thing is certain. The current anti-doping regime is completely broken, and the sooner Pound and his “loose cannon mouth” go, the better.
Kyle Savage
Florence, Alabama
I can see the conspiracy theories now: The original moon landing tapes are “lost,” because they show it was shot in a studio.
Michael B. Clark
Woodbridge, Virginia
Gun Nots
Like most hardcore gun enthusiasts, I am always pleased to see newbies picking up a firearm and shooting a few rounds (“My 4-Week Quest: Shoot Straighter,” issue 15.01). But I was disappointed by the photo of the author. He is breaking one of the cardinal rules of shooting: His finger is on the trigger. The shooter should never touch the trigger until the moment he is ready to fire at his target. The four-week quest should have begun with a one-day drill in proper gun-handling techniques.
Jason Morin
Mableton, Georgia
Green House Effect
Most of the houses in Wired Home 2007 (issue 15.01) were extremely expensive. But I want to know how to give my first home after college a smaller ecological footprint. I have no tolerance for rich people helping other rich people ease their consciences.
Lester Gulledge
Asheville, North Carolina
Poly Math
Using polystyrene foam as insulation results in superior energy efficiency and might save trees (Wired Home 2007), but does this immediate benefit offset the long-term environmental impact of producing yet more difficult-to-recycle polystyrene? We should look at these questions more closely and adopt a more complete definition of what it means to truly live and build “green.”
Jerrod Larson
Seattle, Washington
Lost and Found
I worked in the archives at the NASA Langley Research Center for two years (“One Giant Screwup for Mankind,” issue 15.01). I once discovered a box of old half-inch open-reel videotapes; no one knew what was on them because we didn’t have a tape deck capable of playing that particular format. I eventually acquired a Sony EIAJ-format machine and was able to recover the material. When word got out that we could transfer film and old tapes to modern formats, we constantly got requests for duplication from people saying, “We’ve had this for years, but we don’t know what’s on it.”
Charlie Farr
Virginia Beach, Virginia
A thousand years from now, someone will read an article about scholars trying to crack the code of the 750 remaining computer hard drives.
Scott Williams
Miramar, Florida
Shelf Life
In “Biblio Tech” (Start, issue 15.01), you describe an automated book-getter machine that takes two and a half minutes to retrieve five library books. For me, the joy of searching through library stacks is the serendipitous discovery of relevant or interesting information while scanning the shelves. It’s far more important, if indeed one must have information from a book or a bound journal, for the user to personally locate the needed materials.
Alan Morris
Chevy Chase, Maryland
See Page 34
What happened to the Japanese Schoolgirl Watch that gaijins like me know and love? I combed the issue looking for it and uncovered nothing. Has it been cut out?
Ryn Wilkes
Durham, North Carolina
Cross-Cultural Ties
It seems researcher Gary Urton may not know about the Jewish ritual prayer shawl (“Untangling the Mystery of the Inca,” issue 15.01). It’s called a tallit, and on each of its four corners are lengths of specially knotted wool or silk called tzitzit. I suggest that Urton speak with some Orthodox rabbis to understand how the Jewish system works; it might further our understanding of khipu. For example, all Hebrew letters can also be read as numbers. Therefore, every word can also be represented by a series of numbers. Perhaps the Incan system is similar.
Terrence Danial
New York, New York
Making the Video: Hair Band Edition
The concept of a music video edited together from fan-shot footage long predates even the Beastie Boys’ Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!, which you mention in “When the Shoot Hits the Fans” (issue 15.01). I’m almost embarrassed that I know this, but Bon Jovi did it back in the late ’80s for their song “Bad Medicine.” As Sam Kinison asks in the clip’s intro, “Is this gonna be the same video slop that we always get from these glam-rock pretty boys?”
Dennis Vogel
Sunnyvale, California
Return to Sender
Handmade DNA
by Greg Lawn
UNDO Floyd Landis tested positive for an abnormal ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, not simply abnormally high testosterone (“The Righteous Fury of Dick Pound,” issue 15.01). The Sojourn 14 MFT kayak should not have been given the headline “White-Water Attack Kayak,” as the vessel is meant for touring, not white-water rafting (Wired Tools, issue 14.12). CHAT Letters should include writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number and should be sent to chat@wired.com. Submissions may be edited and may be published or used in any medium. They become the property of Wired and will not be returned.
