At 10:07 4/1/2000 -0800, ericm wrote, quoting Tim: > > Optical mice have been available for at least 15 years, in consumer > > models. In workstation models, longer. I think both Logitech and > > Mouse Systems were selling them. > > >SUN 3s and I beleive SUN 2s came with them. As have many Right. I had an account on a Sun 4 in 1988 at the University of Pennsylvania that I'm pretty sure used one. > > This is what one gets when English majors rewrite company press > > releases, adding some puns or presumed cleverness, and call it > > reporting. > >I see a lot of "news" stories like this. It's a good reminder that >journalists in general, with some specific exceptions, don't >know fuck all about what they're writing about. Just think about >all the bogus stories about Internet/technical topics, and realize >that they're wrong just as often on all other topics. This is sadly correct -- most veteran journalists are well-aware of this phenom, and don't talk about it much in public. It is true that if a smart reporter follows a topic closely for years or decades, and is working for a major public with substantial resources, he can become pretty clueful about the area. But this is a rare case, and becoming rarer. Nowadays most dot com sites are staffed with just-out-of-college j-school grads who know precious little about the topics they right about, except of course that the free market needs to be restrained, regulated, and more. They may rewrite press releases well and add some snarky attitude, but it's not what most of us would call serious reporting. -Declan
