__ Rants & Raves __
__ Take Off __
The wings on your December cover are obviously much too small to provide sufficient lift: They should have gone right off the page instead of taking up the puny amount of space allotted. If this image were a GIF animation, the next frames would show the thing plummeting to the rocks below.
__ Ray Smith
ray@mediacy.com __
Here's what I think the Wired 7.12 cover is saying: "Celebrate the new millennium, where the surest way for a woman to get featured on a magazine cover will still be for her to take her clothes off!" Plus ça change ...
__ Philip Semanchuk
mrbones@mindspring.com __
Until now, Wired has never displayed a black woman prominently on its cover. Congratulations! Not only is she black, she's naked and jumping off a cliff. That's certainly in the spirit of your two covers featuring black men. They've both been criminals: O.J. Simpson (Wired 3.03) and a cracker (Wired 2.12). I'm sure this is all just unconscious creativity. But that's the problem: unconsciousness!
__ Joseph Edwards
joed@mindspring.com __
Wired's December cover is one of the most arresting images I've seen in a long time. It's why I bought this issue.
__ Jack Pugh
jpugh@wyoming.com __
__ Gorey Ending __
The article on Al Gore ("Where's Tech Support When You Need It?" Wired 7.12, page 312) reveals both his understanding of the electronic explosion and his inability - because of a lack of charisma - to develop a following among the power brokers involved. End of story for Gore.
__ Jerry Menell
jmenell@jmcav.com __
__ The Cult of Cute __
As owner of a children's gift shop, I never cease to be surprised at the sales generated by Sanrio's kawaii - i.e., cute - products ("Cute Inc.," Wired 7.12, page 332). I am even more surprised at the age of customers who cannot live without the newest Sanrio creation. Our most recent example is an energetic woman in her eighties who has been purchasing Badtz-Maru figures as birthday gifts for her eightysomething friends.
__ Kimberley Fitch
peacockf@mindspring.com __
Since when is cute a synonym for annoying?
__ Sean Merrigan
lefty@flashcom.net __
Thanks for your on-target article on Japan's cute industry. Anyone who has spent time in Japan knows that cuteness abounds in even the most unlikely places: hand towels, coffee mugs, household slippers, rice cookers, you name it.
The story did resort, however, to some exoticizing of Japan, a country that consists largely of normal people living normal lives - despite a penchant for cuteness. Most Japanese find the schoolgirls'-used-panty vending-machine industry distasteful. This shocking and oft-mentioned example of alleged Japanese perversity is not as common as the American media would like us to believe.
__ John Treiber
treiber@cris.com __
__ Less D, More R __
Thomas A. Bass' article on Interval ("Think Tanked," Wired 7.12, page 204) was an excellent view into research. It's too bad such an interesting organization has to enslave itself, like the rest, to the bottom line. Nonetheless, I do hope Interval tries to approach its marketing in the spirit with which it conducted research.
__ Marcus Del Greco
mindmined@llamalinks.com __
__ Risk Assessment __
Your story on Clay Struve ("Got Risk?" Wired 7.12, page 148) explained better than any finance article why Long-Term Capital Management failed and what the supervisory community will have to do to prevent a recurrence of the LTCM fiasco. You've done a hell of a service to the banking industry and the world that depends on it.
__ Robert Gumerlock
robert@gumerlock.org __
__ Just Do It __
I'd like to ask Klaus Schwab just whose world it is that he and the members of the World Economic Forum hope to improve ("Global Power, Straight Up," Wired 7.12, page 350) - you don't win the Nobel Peace Prize by making billionaires out of millionaires. Then I'd like to ask Nike, Davos' newest company, whether it has considered cutting into profits to pay its third-world laborers a living wage.
__ Alex Gaal
agaal@netzero.net __
__ Feeling Dumped On __
I take great exception to the inclusion of multilevel marketing on the list of 100 things that shouldn't survive into the next century ("Dump File," Wired 7.12, page 395). The heyday of MLM is yet to come: It's a powerful medium in this day of advertising saturation. High tech requires high touch; only in MLM can a technology be demonstrated in millions of homes at no cost to the manufacturer. Greater acceptance of MLM is just around the corner; in the future, everyone will be involved with MLM, whether as customers or distributors.
__ John M. Von Pischke
jmvp@bigplanet.com __
If I wanted to read Tim Cavanaugh's stand-for-nothing, dis-everything agnostic frothings, I'd log onto Suck.com. No Beatles, no Star Wars, no 007? Cutting-edge cynicism hardly seems worth the price.
__ Curt Cloninger
curt@lab404.com __
Ouch! Your latest issue has my brain jerking back and forth even more than usual.
On the one hand, "Dump File" lambastes Macintosh users as "willing to forgo the greater speed, power, and affordability of the PC." On the other, a piece in Must Read ("The Biggest Big Iron," Wired 7.12, page 126) points out that, in the eyes of the government, Apple's new G4 is a supercomputer.
Frankly, I don't care which side of the PC/Macintosh fence you sit on, but please pick one and stick with it. How am I supposed to align myself with the tribe of Wired, given these mixed signals?
__ How Bowers
how@gte.net __
Great list, except you missed number one: lists as editorial content.
__ Steve Mend
steve@sportliterate.org __
__ Buggy Warrior __
I just finished reading the article on Jim Allchin ("Code Warrior," Wired 7.12, page 160). What a sellout! I'm in the same position Allchin was in when Gates courted him: I know Microsoft code sucks. Allchin says he believes in distributed computing. What a joke - he only believes in it as long as it's MS products that are "distributed." Many professionals - myself among them - will make sure Windows continues its slow downward spiral. Nothing has done more harm to the evolution of the PC than Windows, in all its slow, buggy, bloated glory.
__ Chris Eidsmoe
chreid@safeco.com __
__ Undo __
Retooled: The Fujitsu Stylistic LT ("Wired Tools", Wired 7.12, page 234) is available at www.fpsi.fujitsu.com; Kyocera's KC-200 knife needs sharpening only after years of use; Sony released its first wireless walkman, the WM-505, in 1988. ... Boot Up: The carsuit human-to-vehicle transfer ("These Boots Were Made for Driving," Wired 8.01, page 112) takes 1.2 seconds. More information on Nick Pugh and his concepts is available at www.nickpugh.com.
