[Curt Sampson]
> Yes. But to [Daniel Scuka's] misfortune, he relies on only some of [the
> information out there].
Imagine that. And how dare he blow off keitai-l when he gets
busy! Especially *my* pearls of wisdom.
> ... For example,
> upon seeing a message stating that the Starbucks/Yahoo! cafe in Harajuku
> has a public 802.11 network, he decided to publish a note saying
> that they offered public access to it. Well, as I pointed out the
> same day, and had probably pointed out two months earlier as well
> (search is not working so well for me right now, but that was when I
> originally dicovered this), it's not public 802.11: you can only use
> their computers with it. If you bring in your own laptop, tough luck.
One man's glaring error can be another's hairsplitting distinction.
It's an 802.11 network, and Starbucks/Yahoo Cafe permits a
certain kind of public use of it. Without a direct quote from what
Daniel wrote, I'd be disinclined to prejudge his usage of the
word "public".
[The lecture continues]
> Now I understand that journalism has its difficulties, perils and
> deadlines, but still, if some message on a list posits propostion A,
> why are you not reading the messages that refute proposition A? And
> then, if there's disagreement, doing your own research? To consider
> one item retrieved from a source as fact, and then completely ignore
> contradictory items from the same source, smacks of irresponsible
> journalism to me.
Yeah, I suppose, but one of my favorite columnists once wrote
a wonderful column saying that, to get established in journalism, you
simply have to fake it to some degree for a while, and hope you'll
eventually be well-connected enough that you'll be getting it right
much more of the time; just pray you don't get fired in the interim.
Of course, she writes about politics mostly, a field rife with intrigue,
dissembling, pomposity, disinformation, arrogance, ignorance ...
nothing like what you hear from technical people. No. No. Not
once in my experience, that I can think of. Get a job by tossing
around buzzwords in an interview, than book up real hard so
that your new co-workers don't feel too betrayed when they find
out that you're really just a newbie in the specialty they need?
Unheard of!
> Not that it's a big deal in this case, but if guy's not researching
> such obvious and trivial stuff, how do I have any assurance that he's
> researching anything else? Especially when he doesn't seen to consider
> publishing counter-factual items any sort of a problem. Say, even worthy
> of a retraction in the next issue?
This is what I love about Robert Cringely: he just goes out there
and makes the bozo errors. Then the pile-on of outraged replies
is mined for the next column, in which the more astute and
articulate correspondents get quoted. They get their names
in Cringely! "I was in Cringely's column the other week,"
they can then toss off lightly in cocktail conversation. "I forced
him to retract."
If you play it well, being wrong can be a great way to be right.
> Needless to say, I'm taking this journalist's "information" with
> a much larger grain of salt these days.
Gosh, see, that's where we differ: I'd settle for Daniel being
either funnier or more thoughtful or both, even if the error rate
went up slightly. Of course that has its risks, too. Write
something like his "Dirty Little Secrets" viewpoint, and you
got people jumpin' all over your case.
That's why I stick with being a pundit impersonator. I can
always throw up my hands and say "nobody's paying me for
this, so what do you expect?" Also, there's no deadlines.
Phew!
I have a question: is this meta-discussion of keitai, or
meta-meta-discussion of keitai? Or is it meta-meta-
meta-discussion of 802.11?
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
Received on Tue Mar 5 04:14:59 2002