The coolest part of the magazine had to be the group email interview with eight, count em eight, science fiction writers. It featured Bruce Sterling, Nancy Kress, Connie Willis, Gwyneth Jones, Kim Stanley Robinson, Dan Simmons, Vernor "Singularity" Vinge, and even my hero Harlan Ellison, who considering that he seems to hate the internet and computers in general probably shouldn't have been there, but he's always entertaining. For anyone interested in science fiction and the people behind it, this is almost a must read.

I can't think of any highlights per se. There were no great disagreements, or bitter engagements. It all seemed quite civil. It might have been more interesting if an instigator was at the helm or one of those mean Interzone book reviewers who would start off by saying "What relevance are any of you?"

Here are the memorable quotes: Dan Simmons, on the mechanized nature of some science fiction writing: "There are already too many bots writing science fiction. I spent a long month with one at a weekend conference last year--writers who knew everything about the workings of a reactor or charged particle beam weapons and who have absolutely zero interest in or knowledge of the human heart in conflict with itself."

Here's Harlan on why speculation will be more difficult in the future: "There are some serious thinkers in this field, but I don't think any of us can predict, with any degree of accuracy greater than that demonstrated by any cogent layman, what can happen even 10 years down the road. Who would have guessed when they started with the Univac, that within 30 years there would be a laptop with more power than the entire damn computer? It's impossible for anyone to extrapolate with any degree of hope for accuracy." Actually, if you read the many online pages which are unedited, Bruce Sterling actually rebuts this point and points out that there are professional futurists who are doing a good more than just guessing…If you want to read that much.

And here's Connie Willis, who I think is definitely the fastest typist of the lot: "Computers will figure out all sorts of things. They'll figure out how to get to Mars and how to use game theory to make human relationships work, how to get ecological systems to work and who killed Jon Benet Ramsey." 

This is all online by the way. You can surf through about 14 or so web pages that push the panel through most subjects imaginable.

You might well wonder what else was this issue, their self titled Millennium Special: 2000 and Beyond. Well, here's a roster that money can buy you: Alan Dershowitz on the future of law, David Brin (yet another science fiction writer) on individualism, Roger Ebert on censorship, Charles Platt (prolific Wired Scribe) on browers, Jon Katz on politics, Douglas Rushkoff on marketing, James Cramer on finance and tons of other cool stuff. I still haven't finished and fully digested all of it yet.

A must read this month.

4.5 Stars out of 5

What's inside the magazine isn't bad either. As usual, when Wired works you don't so much read through particular stories, you experience the magazine. I didn't really care that much for a lot of their Big Ticket stories, but the small features were golden.

There was one short that featured my good pal Jorn Barger, (link here) who edits Robot Wisdom. There was another beautiful photo of what the magazine calls the world's first live animated woodcut. You have to see it to understand. There 's the short feature about how the former Disney exec recently charged with attempting to have sex with a minor is being erased from Uncle Walt's site Orwellian style. There's this great feature on science writer Timothy Ferris who thinks mankind is very close to making alien contact and that it would be logical to think that there might be a galactic internet. (I wonder if we're old enough to surf? Probably not.)

As for the Big Ticket items that caught my fancy, I would have to say that the stuff being worked on by Paul Allen's Interval Research sounds pretty exciting. Originally, Allen was supposed to buy and then sell this research facility but it turns out--if the article is correct--he'd be wise for holding on. Turns out that they're working on very cool Futurama Holographic TV. They sort of had that on that ABC mini series called Wild Palms a while back starring Jim Belushi and Robert Loggia. You not only could see the holograms, but you could touch them. Wasn't a great show, but the music was cool. Anyway, that's just one of the cool things that Paul is helping to fund at Interval.. I truly hope Interval succeeds.

The other long Wired feature that caught my eye was about how a wireless firm called Winstar might lead the way in providing broadband services, in big metro areas anyway. I sincerely hope that they succeed and that they come to my neighborhood and quick. Anybody but TCI.

Their other big stories didn't interest me as much. The feature on Al Gore in Silicon Valley was boring, which I suppose fits. This European guy who organizes business seminars for the elite abroad didn't thrill me at all. And while I actually enjoyed the profile of the NASA guy who calculates the orbital trajectories of satellites that use slingshot propulsion around planets it turns out that NASA lost another Martian lander. This means that NASA is incompetent or that the Great Ghoul--reported to have eaten many a Mars mission from both Russians and Americans over the last 20 years--actually exists. Probably needed to have run that story next month when we would have forgotten all about it.

The reason I bring up the point is that the most interesting thing that I saw in this month's Red Herring had to do with a story by futurist Peter Schwartz, one of the more popular Scenario Planners out there. He shares his wisdom with us in the December Red Herring. As someone who aspires to write publishable science fiction it's interesting as to how he breaks down the past and tries to figure out the future. He calls the time between 1950 and 1970 the "Momentun Scenario" when companies actually had a chance to keep up with the pace of rapid change. He describes a secondary scenario as the "The Singularity Scenario" (Yes, he attributes the term to science fiction writer Vernor Vinge.) and he thinks that happened from 1900 to 1920, when we went from buggies to airplanes in a 20 year span of time. I'm of the opinion that right now we're closer to that second scenario than the first one, even though nobody asked me. Thus the website I guess.

That article alone would probably make the December Red Herring but there's other stuff in there as well. There were some cool articles about how the new net economy is affecting the arts. There was a nice piece about animation on the net and how shockwave (which looks pretty good even on my 33) might be the route to go. There was also a very good interview with Doonesbury creator Gerry Trudeau who's experimenting with online production. His interview is adjoined by a picture of a 3 dimensional Jimmy Thudpucker, who looks like Poser meets South Park. His reasoning was quite somber. He clearly questions whether newspapers will be around in the future, so he better stretch out and try something new. On the music front there's even an interview with Public Enemy's Chuck D, who is the unofficial spokesperson of the MP3 movement. On the cover they list him as a guest editor, although its not clear what he actually edited.

I guess the most questionable item in this issue is their really friendly interview with George Bush Jr. lt's not that I hate George even though he is apparently vacuous, but just last month The Red Herring editor endorsed Bush for president. True, he claims that he tried to get Dem candidates but they wouldn't return his calls. But maybe they won't return his calls because he's already endorsed the GOP. Who knows. Sounds like a job for Content. Or maybe the Columbia Review of Journalism should throw a dart or two. For my money, the interview was clearly softball.

Aside from the questionable ethics of favorably interviewing the guy you just endorsed, I don't understand the editor's politics. These last 7 years of having a GOP congress and a Dem president who's really a Republican translates into almost unparalleled wealth. Why rock the boat with lightweight George?

Business 2.0 December

4.2 out of 5 Stars.

As usual, he makes some interesting speculative points. From what I remember from his book, these appear to be some new ideas. I'll just quote large sections liberally. Here he talks about the reality of neural implants: "In the 2020s, these neural implants will not be just for people with disabilities, but will be used to improve our perception, memory and logical thinking, and even create virtual sensory experiences."

He argues that this virtual reality will be just as real as our real world, for those unfortunate few of you that haven't seen the Matrix yet. What this means is that your VR interface could be glasses or contacts. You could create your own world. You could create your own separate reality, where everything is in black and white or represented by characters from the Yellow Submarine. Cool.

Kurweil's article kind of makes it worth the seven bucks for me.

But there were other highlights as well. There was yet another article on Digiscents, the company that plans to bring scents to the internet. This is one of those cases where Wired actually did a story on the same company so the over read reader like myself can actually contrast and compare.

I have to admit I thought the Business 2.0 version was much better. It's not that I thought that the Wired story was bad, its just that I came away thinking that this wasn't an interesting product. The Business 2.0 story made me think differently. First, it gave me a good idea as to how many deals the Digiscents creators are involved in. I also got a very good sense of why smelling flowers or that new car smell would aid in the sales of products immeasureably. Personally, I'm not looking for the Mr. Hankey (the stool on South Park) Experience, but I'm beginning to see the advantages. I might also add that this is the second time I've seen somebody actually test the machine and say that it kind of delivers. Most impressive was the writer detecting a kind of "gaminess" when seeing monkeys on his screen.

There were some other good stories as well. Lots of decent reads.

4.o stars out of 5

By far the best story was the lead on privacy, where the unwary reporter dares a PI to go on out and find stuff about him. Using the internet the PI finds out plenty of stuff. It's kind of frightening actually. Detective Daniel Cohn found out his mother's maiden name, date of birth, New York address, even his social security number just by using the vast resources of the internet. Fascinating read, which is available online.

There's even a suggestion as to what kind of security precautions you might take on page 185. Everything from using services like anonymizer which "professes" to let you roam the web anonymity to encrypting every message that you send.  One of the best tech stories that I've read in a awhile.

There were some other good stories as well, namely about the incredible sales garnered by the new Neil Gaimen Sandman book. I'm glad that Neil's work is appreciated by people outside of fandom. But I've read Alan Moore's Promothea and it's way better than that hardcover Sandman story. More on that in a few days when I review some new comics.