the iPod on Mt. Everest: a Zen teaching
Van Halen on Everest — If I had been there, your iPod would not have worked because I would have ripped it off your skull and thrown it over the north face and said Wake up! You are alive!
My favorite comment in response to an absurd essay in the Washington Post panning the iPod for failing under extremes of temperature and altitude. Presumably published in service of the chocolate-and-vanilla-swirl school of “objectivity” so popular among poor journalists today.
Comments
Is it a problem that, as noted in later comments, the author receives money from the manufacturer of a competing MP3 player he praises in the article?
Posted by: Adam | October 23, 2006 11:17 AM
I take that "objectivity" dig personally, being a journalist. My swirl has strawberry in it, thanks.
And yes, it is certainly a problem. I hope that either the Post editors are reading the comments (ah, I can dream, right?) or that someone writes a letter to the editor as well.
Why doesn't the Post's site put the comments on the same page as the article? Why must I click a link to find the comments?
Posted by: Mike | October 23, 2006 2:37 PM
I only meant to swipe at the "just add opposition" version of objectivity in which a journalist reduces an issue to two sides and treats them as though they deserve exactly equal attention.
Posted by: Adam | October 23, 2006 4:04 PM
The article is wrong on so many levels, some of which have already been pointed out. It's unbelievable that the 'venerable' Washington Post prints an article like that. Did they not look into the obvious conflict of interest posed by the guy's team being sponsored in part by Creative. And if they had the MuVos (no doubt gratis) why were they packing iPods? No doubt because they knew how much the MuVos actually suck in terms of useability everywhere other than the top of Everest.
Anyways, the guy is 28 and is a first-year grad student. So it took him ten years to do an undergrad degree?
Posted by: raygos | October 26, 2006 6:25 AM