Letters to the Editor
Chris Rywalt
Published Letters: 31 Editor's Choice: 6
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Street View Is Great
[Read the article: How creepy is Google's Street View?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find Street View absolutely fantastic. I think it's incredible that I can, thanks to Google and FiOS, drive down any street I feel like. Today I just discovered that my little street, ten miles outside midtown Manhattan, was Street Viewed. And, of course, that day I left my garbage cans by the curb.
A couple of weeks ago I spent a frivolous couple of hours driving around the neighborhood I grew up in. It's only a half-hour away, but I haven't been back in a few years, and it was sad to see all the changes I haven't been present for.
I thought the satellite photos were incredible -- my dad's car still parked outside of the house he'd sold a couple of years back! -- but Street View is even better. The smaller the world gets, the closer we are to world peace. Even with Man Climbing Fence.
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Newton? Shakespeare?
[Read the article: Running into history]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I must be a bad person because I don't care one molecule about the Olympics. So some guy can run really really fast. And?
To compare his feat -- which is, after all, a personal quest for his personal best, in pursuit of fame and glory -- to anything done by Shakespeare or Newton is insane. I can only hope, Gary, that you're being hyperbolic.
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Smelly Smells
[Read the article: Now smell this]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Clearly someone doesn't think Times Square billboards are ominous. I do. New York looks more and more like the set for Blade Runner every day. If that isn't ominous, I don't know what is.
I personally hate fragrances, especially artificial ones, which usually smell really fake and nasty. I call them "frangrance" because that's a popular misspelling on cheap products. (Unless it's an actual legal ingredient, which wouldn't surprise me.) Frangrance is horrible. My mother-in-law visited once and thought our lack of dryer sheets was an oversight. I had to rewash all my clothes because I couldn't take the stink. Fabric softener? Dryer sheets? Scented candles? Deodorant soap? Cheesy parfum named after pop stars? Who needs all this junk? Can't we just let things smell the way they're supposed to?
By which I do not mean we should all stop bathing. Bathing is good. Keep that up. Just stop with the extra stuff.