On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 18:11:17 -0500, Jon Nesbit wrote:
> On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 14:21:20 -0800, Tim Smith scribbled down:
>
>> In article <pan.2008.01.05.21.38.32.954827@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> Jon Nesbit <nesbit@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> IMO these conspiracy theories and wild ass (unproven) speculation only
>>> ends up hurting Linux. Microsoft has enough real and documented history to
>>> go on. People don't need to be inventing crazy theories because in the end
>>> they end up looking like loons.
>>
>> I can understand some tendency toward conspiracy theories, because of
>> the internet. The internet makes it easy to for something that starts
>> as clear speculation to bounce around from site to site, and the result
>> is often like that game where a line of people try to pass an oral
>> message from person to person, and it gets totally screwed up.
>>
>> Example, one that I saw that I know was wrong from the start (because I
>> know some of the people involved) ended up going like this:
>>
>> 1. An event happens between company X and company Y. It's a routine
>> event, that happens fairly often between companies--even companies that
>> are bitter rivals.
>>
>> 2. Someone notices this, and writes in a blog that maybe there is a
>> connection between X and Y. This is clearly marked as speculation.
>>
>> 3. A couple other blogs pick this up, but it starts warping, saying that
>> the first blogger found a connection.
>>
>> 4. Someone brings it up in a comment on a widely read forum.
>>
>> 5. Someone at a blog at a major tech news site (CNET or ZDNet...I forget
>> which, so I'll go with CNET for the rest of this) mentions #4.
>>
>> 6. Now people mention that in blogs, but it is now reported in them as
>> "CNET reports X and Y are working together".
>>
>> 7. Somewhere in here, it makes Digg and Slashdot. Schestowitz adds it
>> to his group of factoids that he adds to many of his posts, and uses it
>> as a basis of many of his arguments against X and Y and companies that
>> have worked with X or Y. The idea that a CNET reported did a news story
>> that uncovered some kind of joint project between X and Y becomes part
>> of the general knowledge of a heck of a lot of people.
>>
>> This kind of thing is why I'm now convinced that the idea that amateur
>> blogs and the internet will kill newspapers is wrong.
>
> Reminds me of an experiment we did long ago in school. The teacher
> whispered something into the first students ear. The student was then
> supposed to whisper this to the next student who would do the same until
> the "news" finally reached the last student in the class.
>
> What the last student reported had almost no resemblance to what the
> teacher originally said.
>
Chines whispers. Kid's game.
--
Kier
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