Re: Jude Milhon in WIRED

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>]

Timothy C. May says:
> One thing I've found is that the electronic age has made me more
> careful about insulting specific people. The Kibo Effect, call it.
> (Hi, Kibo!) 

I wasn't insulting Jude (whoever she is; I don't know her and have no
reason to have an opinion on her); I was insulting "Wired".

> Frankly, I'd rather see a story on "Zippies," about which I'd heard
> nothing substantive before, than Yet Another Ted Nelson Story, about
> which I've heard entirely too much over the past decade.

On the other hand, "Wired" used to interview people who were fairly
unknown but important -- there are an endless supply of such
people. When was the last time you saw an interview with someone like
Rick Adams, for example? He's not necessarily the *most* important
person on the planet, but being the proprietor of a company that runs
a good fraction of the world's internet connectivity and just got
partially bought by Microsoft, he's pretty important in a lot of ways,
and I legitimately know little about him. How about an article on the
economics of cellphone fraud -- a multi-billion dollar industry
created by the NSA and its desire to stop encryption from being
used. Lots of cool stuff out there to report on -- no need to do
fashion-fluff.

> I know some folks in the crypto/PGP community who were quite miffed
> that such "marginal" folks as Eric Hughes, John Gilmore, and I were
> featured on the cover of "Wired" 1.2 two years ago...

Two years ago, the average article in "Wired" was worth reading --
informative, cutting edge, accurate, and about something
important. Today, the articles are more likely to be about weird
hangers on from the cultural fringes mumbling weird deconstructionist
ravings about obscure topics. I've found an average of only one decent
article per issue lately -- and I have no doubt they'll fix that soon.

Perry