Issue 14.07 - July 2006
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Rants + Raves


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All right, look: If you kids can’t behave yourselves like civilized readers, we will turn this magazine around right now. Disagree with Al Gore’s stance on the environment? Fine. But the pinching and screaming is not OK. Several readers defaced pages and sent them in. Others wrote to tell us they’d ripped up the cover. That’s plain rude. So’s this: “I thank God every day that this unstable individual did not become president of the United States.” A dentist said that. The other side was just as passionate: One fellow praised us for “swimming against the tide of false perceptions and cliché.” You know what? Enraged Gore haters: You stay on your side of the back seat. Swooning Dems: You too. And when you feel like talking to each other again, play nice.


Continental Divide

I’ve always been a fan of Al Gore, and am more so today given his personal interest and sense of duty on the climate change front (“The Resurrection of Al Gore,” issue 14.05). He’s an optimist who is convinced that innovation will get us out of this mess and that the market – if poked and prodded – will wake up to the opportunity. Gore has been labeled dull and robotic, but he seems to be loosening up and appears more comfortable with himself. My wife and I were thinking about what the past five years would have been like (globally) if Gore had been president. Now that’s a docudrama I’d like to see.
Tyler Hamilton
Toronto, Ontario
(Excerpted from Cleanbreak.ca)

Al Gore!? You couldn’t find another has-been loser to put on the cover? The only thing he is capable of now is a cameo on South Park, hunting for Manbearpig. I’m super serial!
Vladas Vaitekonis
Bangor, Pennsylvania


We’re Getting Warmer

The rating for the Sierra Club in “Grading the Old Guard ” (issue 14.05) is based on out-of-date information. Last year, the Sierra Club board of directors approved a change in priorities that puts energy and global warming at the top of the list. Our state chapters have been active on energy issues in more than 20 legislatures this winter and spring, and we continue to advocate for federal legislation that actually gets the job done from a scientific – rather than politically expedient – perspective.
Dave Hamilton
Director, Global Warming and Energy Programs, Sierra Club
Washington, DC


Policy Is the Best, Honestly

Wired’s May issue gives the impression that hip, green technologies are the sole answer to our climate crisis. But no significant changes in energy con­sumption happen without government regulation. For example, technologies like coal scrubbers – which dramatically reduce the level of illness-inducing sulfates in the air – have existed for more than 30 years but are usually installed only when required by law. Permanent production tax credits for wind turbine manufacturers are much more important than recycled-rubber belts. Policy might not be as sexy as technology, but it is much more effective.
Matthew Painter
Network for New Energy Choices
New York, New York


Tag It and Bag It

Your article on RFID tags overlooks a huge library theft potential (“While You Were Reading This, Someone Ripped You Off,” issue 14.05). For profit or political reasons, someone could rewrite library RFID tags on expensive, rare, or “undesirable” books to make them appear to be other or cheaper ones; then, after borrowing and “losing” them, pay a minimal replacement fee. Also, while you note the spying potential of cookies placed on library books, you fail to mention the multiple serious threats to patron privacy that already exist from ordinary, unhacked tags, whose unique numbers allow tracking of a patron’s location and reading habits.
Peter Warfield
Library Users Association
San Francisco, California


Life Preserver

Excellent article about the trimarans (“Taming the Sea Machine,” issue 14.05). The point you made comparing monohulls to the French boats was quite valid – a lead keel will pull a boat upright. If it completely inverts, however, there is a good chance it will sink. The reason there are so many news photos of multihull inversions is that they stay upside down for the cameras; they also stay afloat so the sailors are able to hold on and return to their loved ones.
Peter Hackett
Brisbane, Australia


Tiers of Sorrow

Bill Smith’s comments in “Telcos to Sites: Free Ride is Over” (Start, Hotseat, issue 14.05) show a fundamental misunderstanding of BellSouth’s industry. Internet providers like BellSouth already offer tiered service – by bandwidth, not priority. A T3 costs more than a T1; synchronous upload and download cost more than asynchronous. BellSouth’s tiered service plan based on priority would limit customer choice, dictate what they get to see, and ruin the cooperative spirit of the Internet by forcing Web site owners to pay every access provider to avoid losing visitors. It would be like BellSouth charging you more money to call for a mortgage than to call for a pizza.
John Turner
Livonia, Michigan


Comic Relief

Comics publishers are not completely oblivious to digital publishing, they just have trouble figuring it out – and then when they do, they don’t tell anybody (Start, “Free Spidey!” issue 14.05). Marvel has put out three “archival” digital collections so far, but it has not gone to any lengths to get the word out. The companies have yet to see that with great print must also come great digital archives.
Gene Kannenberg Jr.
Houston, Texas

Comic book stores account for at least 70 percent of the market for DC and Marvel, and nearly 100 percent of the market for smaller publishers. The industry’s fear is that offering an online option will shift people away from the stores, causing the smaller ones to close and starting a domino effect that could destroy their primary brick-and-­mortar distribution channel.
Todd Allen
Chicago, Illinois


Public Defender

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that tax-preparation companies are opposing the simplified tax return that California wants to supply its taxpayers (Posts, Lessig, issue 14.05). Is this any more outrageous than local cable and telephone providers arguing against local governments that want to provide free wireless Internet service in their cities? (See New York, Philadelphia, Austin, and San Francisco.)
Ronald P. Papa Jr.
Macomb, Michigan

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