Letters

Dear Popular Science Magazine,

I like you, you're a good read, you appeal to my geeky side, but listen, you cost $5. I bought you for a 70 minute plane ride yesterday and had finished you with 15 minutes left. 55 minutes of entertainment for $5 does not seem like good value to me. I could have bought a book for $10 that would have taken me days to read. I could have rented a movie for $3 that would have lasted at least 90 minutes. It's not like I skipped a bunch of articles either, I read them all, the whole magazine, in 55 minutes. You know what happens when you're on a plane and you've got 15 minutes to kill and you've finished your magazine? You end up reading Skymall. And that, is a terrible fate to suffer.

Yours sincerely,
Ian


Dear Skymall,

I notice with interest that your business model has changed since the last time I was forced to read your magazine. You've gone from selling useless crap that no-one could possibly want, except maybe those who are brain-addled from hours of boredom, to selling mostly useless crap that no-one could possibly want, with a little bit of useful stuff mixed in. Good idea, but here's the problem with the new strategy - I'm not living on the plane. I expect to get off it at some point. Probably, before whatever I ordered from your catalog arrives, I'll have had a day or two at home to think about whether I really want to spend $44.99 on a 1GB Micro SD card. I might even have visited a shop or two. Maybe even my favourite shop in the whole world, Fry's Electronics, where they're selling 1GB Micro SD cards for $14.99.

Yours Sincerely,
Ian

P.S. If you've ever had anyone buy the Helmet Hero Camera System, please let my brother know. His solution involved an old light mount, a nut, a bolt and a washer, so I reckon, if you're flogging a 3 MP camera glued to a crash helmet for $169.99, he might be quids in.