Return to Sender
Campaign Sign, by John A. Harrison re: Genius & Remorse____To our list of disgruntled readers, add librarians and Applevangelists. We got some testy letters in response to our article on Apple's evil genius. Phooey to those feel-good Google-style startups, you said, Apple operates like an old-fashioned, top-down, buttoned-up corporation — and that's a feature, not a bug. For the record, this was exactly our point. The librarians we won't be able to appease so easily. One little piece on how to get out of paying late fees and we aroused the shushing armies of Dewey-decimaled ur-geeks. Do we really want to bankrupt the libraries once and for all? What kind of cretinous text-messaging, law-breaking morons are we, anyway? Uh, the sorry kind (and, ahem, the kind who even gave public libraries a shout-out in our February list of things that don't suck). Please, can we just pay the fine and have our card back?
Apple = Rotten
Thanks for showing the true Apple ("Evil Genius," issue 16.04). I am now convinced that I should sell anything that has the Apple name on it and never give the company another dime of my money. "Motivate through fear"? Weak managers motivate through fear, and Steve Jobs is clearly weak if that is the only way he can make Apple successful. Shame on you for promoting Jobs as a hero.
Paul Baumgartner
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Apple = Not Rotten
It's simple. Apple doesn't make garbage ("Evil Genius"). Everyone else does. PCs don't really work. If other companies didn't make garbage, they would be reaping a windfall, too.
Dan Luke
Portland, Oregon
I See It!
Kudos to Nick Waplington for his photographs of the locations where technological pioneers had their moments of inspiration ("Eureka!" issue 16.04). The beautiful images of seemingly mundane spots, each coupled with a few nuggets of text, were serenely powerful. Who knew plain places like a train car or a school cafeteria were the birthplaces of some of the brightest lightbulb moments in history?
Karen Chu
Berkeley, California
Singularity, Unraveled
My IQ is probably lower than Ray Kurzweil's ("Stayin' Alive," issue 16.04). Maybe that's why I can't follow his reasoning on achieving immortality. He seems to be saying that once a computer can cycle quickly enough, it will stop being an adding machine and become a sentient being. Does Kurzweil also believe that once a knitting machine makes enough mittens, it will turn into his grandmother?
Peter K. Sampson
Portland, Maine
Load of Crap
Consuming concoctions of supplements and making endless doctor's appointments is cheating Kurzweil out of the time he has right now on Earth ("Stayin' Alive"). I pray that he makes it 125 years. Perhaps he'll experience the happiness I've found in my first 40. And I didn't have to do it with 200 pills a day, whose only benefit is most likely the creation of the richest excrement on Earth.
Douglas Karr
Greenwood, Indiana
Trojan Horse
Chris Anderson did a great job of summarizing the shift to free ("Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business," issue 16.03). The best recent example: Sony won the battle against HD DVD by essentially giving away a Blu-ray player in every PlayStation 3. Once the hardware was in a few million homes, it was inevitable that its format would become the new standard. If only Sony had given away its Betamax players.
Colleen Purdie Fuller
Vancouver, British Columbia
Geek to Me
In "The Geekster Handbook" (Start, issue 16.04), you forgot to describe the characteristics of the Enginerd:
DISPOSITION: Hopeless in dating situations. Fails personality tests. Addicted to disassembling machines.
BELIEFS: Scotty should have been second in command. Dilbert is a biography. Math majors don't solve useful problems.
TURN-ONS: Making fun of math majors. Milling machines. Watching robots fight to the death.
David Greene
Berrien Springs, Michigan
Neer Miss
You have mistaken carabineer for carabiner (Fetish, Play, issue 16.03). A carabiner is the mountaineer's clip; a carabineer is a soldier wielding a carbine.
Tao Tong
New York, New York
Shhhh!
Perhaps I'm the only goody two-shoes who will point this out, but must we really encourage people to cheat the already cash-starved libraries out of the revenue they generate from their minuscule fines ("How To Avoid Paying Late Fees," Start, issue 16.04)? Here's a better way to avoid the debt: Program your iSomething with the due date and return what you checked out on time!
Rachel Levy
San Francisco, California
I Know Who Killed the Electric Car
Great article on ZAP ("Hype Machine," issue 16.04)! Now I understand why electric cars aren't making it to market: guys like Gary Starr and Steve Schneider. Too bad, because I think a grassroots company, not Detroit, should be the one to create this movement.
Tim Brill
Mishawaka, Indiana
He-Man, Master of the Undersea Universe
Wired needs more (or better) divers on its staff. First of all, you missed the absolute best thing about helium ("3 Smart Things," Start, 16.04): In combination with other gases, it allows you to make much deeper dives. But by far the greatest insult was the piece on the $9,200 KonTiki Diver watch (Fetish, Play, issue 16.04). This one's for posers only. My $50 Casio has been to hell and back with me without missing a beat. All that extra cash would buy a kick-ass closed-circuit rebreather with redundant computers. And you'd have enough left over to buy some helium.
Richard L. Pyle
Honolulu, Hawaii
RANTS Letters should include writer's name, address, and daytime phone number and be sent to rants@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.
