At 04:53 PM 8/16/99 -0700, you wrote:
To put it kindly, Victoria Shannon sounds like she is
full of it.
I'm always comforted by articles like this. It helps me remember that
if I were in some kind of car accident and suffered mental or physical
injuries, I could always find a job as a writer who does nothing but
read other people's articles, does little to no bothersome research, and
regurgitates other people's stories. Or I could get a job in marketing
or PR, of course.
Someone should make a web site that tracks the flow of stories:
random techie submits something to Slashdot, Wired freelancer picks up
on it within the hour, appears on
www.wired.com two hours later as
a peppy summary almost as long as text on the originally referenced
web page, followed by wire service reports re-chewed from the previous
"sources" if the news is big enough.
Yes, this is progress! Now, with the Web, I can read news stories
and then re-read them two or three times in traditional media, days later!
No one's mentioned that some of the old software she's talking about
is pirated, unless of course the copyright holders have actually
released it.
- John