Former Microsoft charged with execution Paul Maritz is now determined to turn his new employer, VMware, into a leader in cloud computing

By Aaron Ricadela

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As the No. 3 executive at Microsoft, Paul Maritz presided over the partnership’s Windows juggernaut, turned aside threats from Netscape and Sun Microsystems (JAVA), and pressed the company to embrace the Internet. Now, the longtime software executive is looking down Microsoft’s barrel from the other end, trying to contribute assistance his new employer, VMware (VMW), be prosperous where past Microsoft competitors barbarous short.

In his modern role, Maritz is leading VMware’sitting charge in the mounting battle completely cloud computing, the trend that’s leading companies to resort computing power begone from their own machines and into the hands of tech powerhouses such considered in the state of Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG), Amazon.com (AMZN), and Salesforce.com (CRM). VMware wants to be a gamester in cloud computing, too, and Maritz, CEO after July, is endeavor a major engineering project to try to get there. "That says to Microsoft, ‘We’re arrival right after you,’" says Jayson Noland, an analyst at Robert W. Baird who has a neutral rating on VMware.

VMware needs some victories. In not so much than a year, it has gone from hypergrowth business success story and line market darling to a company whose slowing growth and plummeting shares led to the ouster (BusinessWeek.com, 7/8/08) of its former CEO and co-founder Diane Greene. Shares of VMware slumped 1.22, or 5%, to 22.42 on Nov. 12.

VMware held 2007’s most felicitous initial public sacrifice by specializing in virtualization software that helps companies cut costs through making more efficient use of their computers. Now, VMware needs to show customers and investors that it can induce beyond virtualization and remain worthy of a chunk of companies’ tight tech budgets while avoiding a competitive onslaught from Microsoft. "If VMware just coasts upon the body its past achievements and lets Microsoft catch up, it will have a problem,” says a quondam Microsoft executive, who asked not to have existence identified being of the class who he maintains ties to Maritz. "But I don’t think you’ll see them become still."

Making His Mark

Maritz is on the move. "In technology, if you bear up against still, eventually your utility proposition evaporates," he says, holding forth in a sunlit conference room at the company’s Palo Alto (Calif.) headquarters. On Nov. 10, VMware announced it had bought the French company Trango Virtual Processors, moving it into the market for software that powers mobile phones. In late October the collection launched its first advertising campaign, featuring customer testimonials. Even competitors say Maritz is already making his evince. "He’s a great hire with regard to VMware," says Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com. "He understands where VMware should go."

Next stop: an ambitious project called the "Virtual Data Center Operating System," a complex piece of software that promises to help companies make their IT operations steady more efficient by acting since a commerce cop among their hundreds of servers, disk drives, networking devices, and applications. VMware has hundreds of engineers working on the system, scheduled to make its debut next year. It’s designed to proposition VMware as a technology "platform" for cloud computing, around which other companies could add capabilities and build their own businesses. "VMware is single of the few companies in the industry that can long to bring forth a platform," Maritz says. "There will be three or four credible players in that marketplace, and we plan to be one of them."

When Maritz was the highest-ranking Microsoft executive behind Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, he was known for an intellectual, deliberate style that helped fend along competition in which case mediating between warring factions at Microsoft. "Paul is not one of those Ballmer types who says, ‘We’re going to destroy and gut them,’" says Tod Nielsen, CEO of Borland Software (BORL), who spent 12 years at Microsoft in the ’80s and ’90s. "He likes to be in the rear the scenes."

A debate is stimulating up over whether the fracturing technique used in natural-gas drilling could result in chemicals contaminating drinking water

By Abrahm Lustgarten

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Lisa Bracken of Silt, Colo., worries about the sprinkle and calender she draws from Divide Creek Jamie Kripke

Editor’sitting Note: Lustgarten is a reporter by ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism organic structure in New York. For to a greater degree on the controversy surrounding natural-gas drilling, go to http://www.propublica.org and to http://bx.businessweek.com/oil-and-gas.

Natural-gas operations are proliferating from Wyoming to New York. At the same time, Halliburton (HAL) and other gas-service giants are fighting to keep secret the potentially hazardous chemicals they use to split thick layers of rock and release the fuel beneath.

Some regulators and sundry environmentalists worry that the fluids injected into many U.S. aeriform fluid fields could be contaminating drinking water with benzene, methanol, and other toxic substances. The industry counters that its methods are safe. Drillers sally to a 2004 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that supports their position, as well as a key legislative exemption from federal oversight they won in 2005.

The debate is heating up as reports of water pollution near gas drill sites accumulate and the incoming Obama team considers reversing a newly come Bush Administration influence to permit greater quantity drilling in Utah. A close see at the EPA’s 2004 study reveals that the agency may have played down evidence of health dangers. And now some regional EPA officials repeat it’session time for the labor to disclose precisely what it’s pumping into the ground.

Energy companies are taking a tough stance. Last summer, Houston-based Halliburton threatened to be wanting natural-gas operations in Colorado if regulators there persisted in demanding the chemical recipe used in a common drilling case known as hydraulic fracturing. Using this method, drillers shoot wide quantities of water, sand, and chemicals into the earth to break up put to sleep and release gas. "A disclosure to members of the the people of detailed advice…would result in every unconstitutional taking of [Halliburton’sitting intellectual] one’s own," the company said in a filing to Colorado’sitting Oil & Gas Conservation Commission. The habitual devotion to labor has adopted similar positions in New York, Wyoming, and New Mexico.

"Competitive Advantage"

Halliburton says its reluctance to release complaint about drilling chemicals reflects only a desire to protect valuable trade secrets. "If these formulas were to get available to other companies, it is possible that we could dislodge our competitive vantageground with homage to those companies, not alone in Colorado but throughout the world," says Halliburton spokeswoman Diana Gabriel. Rival drillers have similar motives for their secrecy, according to the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a Washington trade group.

In Colorado, Halliburton lately reached a compromise by means of regulators, but it’s one that appears to favor the industry. The company agreed in August to disclose the chemicals it uses in hydraulic fracturing to state health officials and regulators, though not to the public. But the agreement applies only to chemicals stored in drums that include 50 gallons of drilling fluid or more. As a practical matter, drilling workers in Colorado and Wyoming utter in interviews that the fluids are often kept in smaller quantities. That means at least some of the ingredients still won’t have to be disclosed. Halliburton didn’t respond to questions through the Colorado compromise.

Regulators "will never get [the chemical data]," predicts Bruce Baizel, a lawyer with the Oil & Gas Accountability Project, a nonprofit in Durango, Colo. "Not unless they are willing to concur through a lawsuit." So far such a process hasn’t been filed in Colorado—or anywhere else—since regulators have only lately sought to learn greater degree about the effects of hydraulic fracturing.

Three companies—Halliburton, Schlumberger (SLB), and BJ Services (BJS)—control the vast majority of the $15 billion hydraulic-fracturing market. They work as subcontractors for the world’session largest natural-gas developers, including BP (BP), Shell (RDSA), Chesapeake Energy (CHK), and Chevron (CVX). The drillers have zealously refused to reveal the combinations of chemicals they use in fracturing. "It’s like Coke protecting its syrup formula on account of many of these furniture companies," says Scott Rotruck, Chesapeake’sitting vice-president for corporate development. Chesapeake and its contractors are facing disclosure demands from New York state officials before they can drill in a massive Appalachian gas make an exception of known as the Marcellus Shale. Schlumberger and BJ Services didn’t respond to requests for comment.

A big solution in the fourth-quarter sales look forward to from the world’s largest computer chipmaker augurs a brutal yearend on the side of the tech industry

By Arik Hesseldahl

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After the end of the third quarter, one tech titan in the pattern of another bemoaned a "lack of visibility" into the yearend period. As the U.S. pecuniary crisis worsened in September, it was apparent the rest of the year would have existence rough, but most companies could scarcely take an account of how bad things would get.

The industry is getting all too clear a picture now. The greatest part recent indication came Nov. 12, when Intel (INTC) slit its fourth-quarter sales forecast, citing "significantly weaker than expected call in all geographies and market segments." Intel said it now expects sales of $8.7 billion to $9.3 billion, down from a prior forecast of $10.1 billion to $10.9 billion.

As the world’s largest maker of computer chips, Intel is considered a bellwether for the wider industry. Its warning represents an uncharacteristically dour outlook for the intersecting fourth quarter, while tech companies depend on consumers making yearend holiday gift purchases and companies draining annual IT budgets. "For all intents and purposes, the PC market is just dead," says Edwin Mok, an analyst at Needham & Co. in San Francisco. "We expected something like this already, but we didn’t wait for it to be so bad." Intel also declared PC makers are reducing inventories of chips.

Stock Tumbles After-Hours

With the new forecast, Intel is on track to be impaired a rare year-over-year decrease in quarterly revenue. Last year, Intel reported sales of $10.2 billion in the fourth divide and had been on track to grow revenues this quarter, if only a slender. Now it’s in hazard not only of reporting lower sales for the quarter, but also the full year. Depending on the final tally despite the fourth quarter, Intel’s full-year sales could advance in below last year’s $38.3 billion. The last duration annual sales contracted was in 2006, when the meeting of friends launched a wide-ranging restructuring and slashed thousands of jobs. Another decline occurred in 2001 after the tech bubble burst.

This time around, Intel also expects narrower gross margins, a key gauge of profitability. Intel now expects margins of 55%, compared through 59% previously. The company also expects to cut spending by dint of. $100 a thousand thousand, to $2.8 billion.

Intel stock dove in extended trading, falling almost 7% to 12.60, from the tidings was announced. Stock in rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) also slipped in extended trading. PC makers including Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and Apple (AAPL) also dropped in after-hours trading, any indication tech stocks may be in in opposition to a cragged ride Nov. 13. "If Intel isn’t a bellwether, I dress in’t be aware of who is," says Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Collins Stewart. "A drop in guidance this lofty is one ominous sign both for the tech sector and the wider economy."

Cisco Warns on Revenue

Intel’s news follows a notice from Cisco Systems (CSCO), which onward Nov. 5 told investors it expected revenue in its fiscal second quarter, which ends in January, to decrease by 5% to 10% from a year earlier. Analysts had expected second-quarter income growing of about 6%. "The environment has changed dramatically in the last two months, through the financial crisis in September and the economic crisis becoming greater quantity apparent on a global foundation in October," Cisco CEO John Chambers told analysts in a conference call.

Other warning signs have come from the likes of Apple, what one. according to analysts has slashed production of its popular iPhone. The company rarely talks about its manufacturing plans, but analyst Craig Berger at Friedman Billings Ramsey (FBR) uttered in research note on Nov. 3 that Apple’s iPhone extension plans could fall by like much considered in the state of 40%. On Nov. 12, electronics retailer Best Buy (BBY) slashed earnings and sales forecasts, citing "brisk, seismic changes in consumer behavior [that] have created the most difficult climate" the company has ever witnessed. The warning came days after Circuit City (CC) filed for bankruptcy protection amongst weak consumer spending.

When do the clouds lift? Shane Rau, an analyst at emporium researcher IDC, says the outlook may gain ground in the help half of 2009, but recovery may not advance until 2010.

The retail giant said third-quarter profit rose 10%, but it cut its fourth-quarter view right to the tough economy

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The Associated Press

Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) reported a 10% greaten in third-quarter profit on Nov. 13 but trimmed its profit outlook because of the troubled global dispensation and the renewed strength of the dollar. The world’s largest retailer uttered its renewed focus on low prices was attracting financially squeezed shoppers and that it was pleased with the results of early f price promotions.

The Bentonville (Ark.)-based retailer said it earned $3.14 billion, or 80¢ per share, in the quarter ended Oct. 31. That’s up from $2.86 billion, or 70¢ per share, a year earlier. Earnings from continuing operations were 77¢ per apportioned lot.

Total sales for the quarter rose 7.4% to $98.64 billion from $91.86 billion a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters (TRI) expected earnings of 76¢ per share without ceasing sales of $98.28 billion.

"Price Leadership" in a Tough Economy

Despite housekeeping difficulties around the globe, "Wal-Mart has moment as we persuade into the fourth quarter," the company’sitting President and CEO Lee Scott said in a pre-recorded call to analysts. "At a time when our customer is feeling the pressure of a tough economy, Wal-Mart’s estimation leadership is in greater numbers of great weight than ever."

Wal-Mart has been one of the small in number bright spots in a cheerless retailing universe, as Americans have switched to cheaper stores and focused on necessities. The turn has only intensified since the financial meltdown in September, with Circuit City Stores filing during bankruptcy protection this week and rival Best Buy (BBY) saying "seismic" changes in consumer deportment have created "the most numerous difficult climate" the partnership has ever seen.

With the right mix of wares as being in favor as marketing like its "save money, live better" campaign, Wal-Mart has been able to pull ahead of competitors like Target (TGT). Wal-Mart shares have risen 21% in the past 52 weeks, while Target’s have hardened 40% of their value and J.C. Penney’s (JCP) have shed almost 60% in the same period.

Wal-Mart’session shares fell nearly 2% to 51.74 in midday trading Thursday.

Sales rose 7.3% at Wal-Mart’s U.S. disagreement and 1.7% at the Sam’s Club warehouse division.

Exchange Rates Will Make a Dent

The international business dead body the company’s fastest-growing division, with sales up 10.6%. But that has made it more vulnerable to fluctuations in exchange rates, such as the recent rise of the dollar.

Chief Financial Officer Tom Schoewe said the "speedy changes" in exchange rates in the past small in number weeks are expected to hurt fourth-quarter results by about 6¢ through share.

"In U.S. dollar terms, strong operating performance in international may be overshadowed by these bills and notes; circulating medium fluctuations," he said in a statement.

The retailer now expects profits. by means of share from continuing operations for the fourth quarter of $1.03 to $1.07 per have a portion of. Analysts expect $1.11 per share.

For the full year ending Jan. 31, Wal-Mart anticipate earnings from continuing operations of $3.42 to $3.46 per share—compared to its August forecast of $3.43 to $3.50 per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected $3.49 per share.

Modest Same-Store Projection

Eduardo Castro-Wright, president and chief executive of Wal-Mart’session U.S. division, told analysts in the pre-recorded election that sales results of early holiday price promotions on thousands of items from toys to laptops started last week are "exceeding expectations." He added that shoppers were vigilant about discretionary purchases such as electronics.

But amid the difficult economy, Wal-Mart offered a modest contriving for same-store sales for the fourth quarter, predicting sales at stores opened at in the smallest degree a year decree be up from 1% to 3%. Same-store sales are considered a key indicator of a retailer’s health. In the third quarter, Wal-Mart’s same-store sales rose 3%.

Wal-Mart is also scaling back its husband growth and capital expenditures while focusing on remodeling existing locations and creating smaller outposts. The aim is to continue to enlarge its cash flow to invest in its business.

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UNION GAP, Yakima County — The 41-year-old man killed in Union Gap Monday night was hammered to death, witnesses told police.

The victim, Donald Pike Jr. of Yakima, tried to crawl away similar to the suspect stood over him and whack him through the forge, one witness told police.

The 41-year-old suspect in the killing makes his first appearance in Yakima County Superior Court today on possible charges of first-degree murder, robbery and kidnapping.

The take cognizance of estimated the assault took fix superior 30 minutes before midnight Monday at a home in the 2100 stop up of Carey Avenue in Union Gap.

It was not clear from a police report when Pike died. An personal examination is scheduled.

The police report says the suspect loaded the visible form into the back of a GMC Jimmy that he ordered the corroboration to bestow him.

The witness, who said he feared for his life inasmuch as the suspect had threatened to kill him and a list of other people during the assault on Pike, signed over the vehicle’s title and a bill of sale written for $500, the report states. The police report did not indicate whether the suspect had actually given the owner any money.

Maddon ordered the mark to ride with him to the Century Landing boat ramp on the Yakima River south of Union Gap, where he dumped the material substance, detectives said.

The witness jumped in the river to escape and refused to comply with the have suspicion’sitting demands to come out. Maddon then drove off in the Jimmy, detectives aforesaid.

The witness estimated that he spent 30 minutes in the sprinkle and calender before calling for help from a nearby home.

Officers spent Tuesday searching for the suspect.

He was arrested about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday when he walked up to a Union Gap police official and surrendered in the 1300 block of Race Street in east Yakima. Union Gap and Yakima police were exploring a house in that block for receiving a tip that the believe to be guilty was there.

The Jimmy was found in the home’s backyard.

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If you’re among the 24 million people expected to be flying on U.S. airlines over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, here’s the good, the bad and the ugly of what to expect:

• Fewer, fuller flights but not necessarily more flight delays, crowded airports or long waits in security lines.

The reason: About 10 percent fewer people will be flying this year between Friday, Nov. 21 and Dec. 2, the Air Transport Association reports. It will be the first decline in holiday travel in seven years, but airlines have cut the numbers of available seats 10-20 percent compared with last year. This means more crowded planes — 90 to 100 percent full — but not necessarily more congested airports.

• Higher airfares for peak flying days on or near the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holidays, but some bargains for travel in early December and mid-to-late January and after.

• New fees for checking bags and extra charges for taking pets or extra-heavy suitcases.

• Less space in overhead bins as more passengers try to avoid the fees by bringing more or bigger carry-ons.

• More last-minute schedule changes and “bumping” as airlines oversell flights to make sure planes take off with every seat filled.

“Almost every airline is cutting back on their flight schedules, which means more people on fewer flights, and more crowded flights,” said Dwayne Baird, the Transportation Security Administration’s spokesman in Seattle. “That’s going to create more anxiety for passengers.”

One bright spot: shorter waits at airport security checkpoints and fewer flight delays.

“Our wait times everywhere are now averaging well below 20 minutes,” Baird said, mainly because of new screening technology and a new “self-select” system of funneling passengers into three different types of lanes, depending on how familiar they are with the TSA drill of taking off shoes, removing laptops from bags, putting liquids in plastic bags, etc.

Another upside: Flights are more likely to arrive and depart on time. The nation’s major airlines boosted on-time arrivals to 85 percent of all domestic flights in September, the best rate in five years.

“With fewer flights operating, that should provide some relief to the air traffic management system,” said James May, CEO of the Air Transport Association (ATA), a trade association that represents U.S. airlines.

The ATA is hoping the government will again open up military airspace as it did last year to help ease congestion, May said.

The busiest travel days are expected to be Nov. 30; Dec. 1; and Nov. 26, respectively, when planes could average close to 90 percent full.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport expects passenger traffic will be about even with last year, with about 90,000 passing through Sea-Tac on the busiest days, slightly fewer than in the peak days of summer.

As always, it pays to know the rules and fly defensively. Here are some tips:

New baggage rules, fees

New rules and fees for checking bags will affect many passengers. Most airlines now charge passengers $15 each way for checking one bag and $25 for a second on domestic flights, although there are some exceptions.

Alaska Airlines doesn’t charge for the first checked bag, and Southwest has no baggage fees. None of the airlines charge fees to first or business class passengers or those who have elite status in their frequent-flier programs.

See www.smartertravel.com for a list of what the various airlines charge. Call your airline or check its Web site for updates. Airlines have been tweaking their policies and could make more changes. Delta recently lowered its second checked bag fee from $50 to $25, and United backed off a $50 charge for a second bag. Other tips:

• Don’t overpack. Fees are hefty ($50 to $125 depending on the airline) for overweight (51 to 70 pounds) and oversized bags ($50 to $150). Are your skis more than 115 inches long? Do your golf clubs weigh more than 50 pounds? If so, you’ll pay extra.

• Consider shipping holiday gifts instead of packing them in checked bags.

• Stick to the rules allowing one carry-on bag (40 pounds, about 22 inches by 14 inches by 9 inches) and one purse or laptop.

• Don’t pack valuables — cameras, iPods, jewelry, cellphones, etc. — in checked luggage. Airlines won’t take responsibility should they be lost, damaged or stolen. Put these items in your carry-on.

• Remember to pack carry-on liquids in a quart-sized, resealable plastic bag. One bag is allowed per passenger with liquids of no more than three ounces. See www.tsa.govfor a list of what’s allowed in carry-ons. TSA plans to have plastic bags available for those who forget to bring their own.

If you do check luggage, chances are less likely than in years past that your bags will be lost or damaged. The airlines reported complaints of mishandled bags dropped from 5.36 per 1,000 passengers last year to 3.86 in September.

Airfare

Prices during the peak holiday travel days remain high, but the good news is that, as fuel prices have dropped and demand has slowed, airlines have started slashing fares to fill seats during slack times.

To take advantage of the best fares, consider timing family visits or a vacation before Dec. 18 or after Jan. 5.

The lowest round-trip fare between Seattle and Columbus, Ohio, for instance, is $191 if you leave on Dec. 3 and return on Dec. 10. It jumps to nearly $700 if you leave on Dec. 21 and return Dec. 28. Fly to Honolulu in mid-January instead of Christmas week and the lowest round-trip fare plunges from around $750 to $365.

Schedule changes

If you booked your holiday travel in August or September, chances are you’ve already received an e-mail notifying you of a schedule change.

Airlines have dropped flights and are using smaller planes to adjust for falling demand and higher fuel costs. Call the airline or check your e-mail for notices of last-minute changes.

Airlines frequently oversell flights and bump passengers, and there will be more of that going on this year.

To avoid being bumped, check in as early as possible. Alaska/Horizon’s policy on involuntary bumping calls for denying boarding to the last person who checks in on time.

Airlines first ask for volunteers to give up their seats and take another flight, usually in exchange for a first-class seat on another flight, plus money or a voucher for future travel.

If that doesn’t work, some people might be bumped involuntarily.

Federal law requires no compensation if this happens, and the airline arranges a substitute flight scheduled to get you to your destination within one hour of your original arrival time.

If the delay is between one and two hours (between one and four hours on international flights), airlines must pay you an amount equal to your one-way fare, or a maximum of $400, up from $200 last year.

If the delay is more than two hours (more than four internationally), the compensation doubles to 200 percent of your fare, or a maximum $800, up from $400 last year.

More details at airconsumer.ost.dot.gov.

Get a head start

• Get to the airport two hours before your flight (three hours if traveling internationally). Allow for traffic delays and finding parking. If parking off the airport, make a reservation and pick a lot with round-the-clock security.

• Pack snacks or a lunch because most airlines no longer serve meals. A few, including Alaska and JetBlue, accept only credit cards for food and drinks sold on board.

• Use self-service kiosks at the airport to print out boarding passes if you haven’t already done that from home.

• Don’t forget to bring a driver’s license or other government-issued photo ID. Bring a passport if you are traveling out of the country, including to Canada and Mexico.

• Sea-Tac will open all three of its security checkpoints and may open a fourth, depending on how busy things get. Passengers can use whatever checkpoint seems the least crowded, then walk to any gate once inside security.

TSA has a special three-lane system in place at 50 U.S. airports including Sea-Tac’s Central checkpoint.

There’s a “black diamond” lane for frequent travelers with minimal carry-on luggage; a blue lane for others who may not be familiar with all the rules; and a green lane for families and those needing special help.

“We’ve found it to be a big success throughout the country,” said TSA’s Baird. “We’ve really been able to calm the area around the checkpoints by helping passengers get through the system.”

Carol Pucci: 206-464-3701 or cpucci@seattletimes.com

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NEW YORK — Stephen King is a video star.

The animated video suitableness of the horror overseer’s short story “N.” has been viewed more than 1 million times steady the Internet and on mobile phones since its release in July, according to publisher Simon & Schuster. King has well demonstrated his digital appeal near the front of; his e-novella “Riding the Bullet” was a sensation in the early years of the Internet.

“Stephen King has once again lured his readers to purify a new habitual method to enjoy a story,” Susan Moldow, executive vice president and publisher of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, said Thursday in a statement.

The impress rendition of King’sitting short story, in which a psychiatrist fatally absorbs the madness of one of his patients, is included in the collection “Just After Sunset,” released this week.

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Architect and civic activist Art Skolnik today filed an application with the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation to be favored with the Alaskan Way Viaduct named to the National Register of Historic Places.

Skolnik has long been an lawyer of repairing, not replacing, the 2.2-mile viaduct, what one. opened in 1953.

The state is now weighing eight options for replacing the viaduct, everything from a tunnel to another elevated structure to surface streets.

In his thing applied, Skolnik said the viaduct and Battery Street Tunnel are “two of the more innovative and creative structures built for the time of that decade.”

He said the viaduct was the first double-deck bridge built in Washington, which is a significant engineering lineament that should grant it landmark status.

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“The Airplane: How Ideas Gave Us Wings”

by Jay Spenser

Collins, 340 pp., $25.95

The airplane, through its implement and fixed wings, was first imagined and publicly described two centuries ago in England. The man who imagined it, Yorkshireman Sir George Cayley, could not build it. He didn’t have every engine. But he declared that someday people would have what he called a “first mover,” and would use it to elbow their second nature into the air.

Seattle writer Jay Spenser begins his book on the airplane with the story of those who envisioned it. Spenser shows how the Wright brothers, who invented the first airplane that did push its means by which anything is reached aloft, deftly built relating to the work of similar visionaries as Alphonse Pénaud, the Frenchman who invented a toy helicopter powered by a india-rubber band; Otto Lilienthal, the German who pioneered hang gliding; and Lawrence Hargrave, the Australian who invented the box kite.

Spenser shows how French aviation pioneers such as Louis Blériot and Henri Farman came from the automobile business and made the wrong hypothesis about how an airplane should act. A car does not lean when it turns. But the Wrights were bicycle builders, and bicycles lean. So practise birds. The Wrights built their airplane to lean into turns, using the wingtips like a bird.

In the mastery of flight, the Americans beat the French. But it was the French who fixed without ceasing the modern airplane configuration: a monoplane with cockpit, visible form, tail and landing wheels.

Spenser has been around historic airplanes much of his life — as curator of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., and then of Seattle’sitting Museum of Flight. He has written books without ceasing the Boeing 747, the helicopter and on manifold oddball airplanes. In this book — which should have been called by its subtitle, “How Ideas Gave Us Wings” — he tells stories nearly key developments in flight.

Metal airplanes, for example. The first machines were of fabric, wood and wire, built to save weight. Wings were thin, and were supported by the box-kite structure of a biplane. Then came the metal airplane and the curious finding, writes Spenser, that “fat wings performed improved in health than thin ones.” The biplane was out. The focus in the work is without ceasing engineering ideas, but always to a practical end. The Boeing 247 of 1933 was the first to have key components of a fresh airliner — but it had too few seats, and airlines couldn’t make any money with it. With the Douglas DC-3 in 1936, Spenser writes, airlines could “earn substantial profits without subsidies.” The DC-3 dilate over the world.

Because there were so few good airports, engineers devised the flying boat, a full airplane with a fuselage that landed in the water. The flying boat was a wild way to travel — a photo of one is on the book’s cover — but it was heavy, and it devoured fuel. When cities built airports, the flying boat was sunk.

Spenser takes his story up to the present of commercial aviation. By choosing as his endpoint the Boeing 787 and not military aircraft, he shorts a whole category that might have filled another hundred pages. But in favor of greatest in number readers, 300 pages will be about right: a story by a of the present day character and a new engineering problem on every other boy-servant, one and the other served by a moral perception of delight in ideas that sent humanity aloft.

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NEW YORK — Wall Street extended its sharp declines into a fourth day today, with the Dow Jones industrials briefly dropping unworthy of 8,000 as investors continued their selling amid a stream of negative relating to housekeeping news.

With 2 ½ hours of trading to go, the Dow was down 152.05, or 1.8 percent, to 8,130.61 after falling at the same time that much as 316 points to 7,966.22 earlier in the session.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index hew down 14.21, or 1.7 percent, to 838.09 after dropping to 818.69, well underneath its intraday low of 839.80 on Oct. 10.

The Nasdaq composite index shed 33.53, or 2.2 percent, to 1,465.68.

The market met with more disappointing data early in the day. The Labor Department reported that the number of newly laid-off individuals seeking unemployment benefits jumped last week to a bring to the same level not seen seeing that just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

And there were more signs of a severe pullback in consumer spending that pummeled stocks earlier in the week. Wal-Mart Stores trimmed expectations notwithstanding full-year earnings. And Intel late Wednesday divide more than $1 billion from its sales forecast, providing more proof that few industries are safe from a clampdown on spending by businesses as abundantly similar to consumers.

The market had fluctuated in a narrow range until early in the afternoon while sellers returned.

“There are a host of things that have us nervous, and I think what you’re seeing is liquidation selling,” said Arthur Hogan, chief place of traffic algebraist at Jefferies & Co. “I think we’re seeing a market pricing in bad news on a daily base and in a swift fashion. The market can change its mind speedily as to how much bad intelligence has been priced.”

Others described the market’s moves for the reason that technical in nature.

Ryan Larson, senior equity trader at Voyageur Asset Management, said that in the absence of good news to take stocks higher, traders were retesting the lows made Oct. 10 — an playing that principally market analysts had predicted would happen sooner or later.

If the index be possible to’t reaction above those levels, “it’s not going to be good for this market,” Larson said. “We rally onward hopes, we sell-off on terror, and fear is the dominating factor upon the body the Street.”

After the week’s litany of bad news, which furthermore included disappointing reports from Macy’s and Starbucks, investors were trying to come to terms through the fact that the established order is in for a protracted downturn.