I'm ashamed to be a journalist, says geezer

This story just reconfirmed one of the things that makes me ashamed to be a an IT journalist, and the fact that your writer described the employment of various bunny girls at a stand by saying 'Whoever hired them picked right, and knew the audience' has forced me to re-evaluate my job description.

I thought I was in it to write and find out about new technology, but apparently I'm not at all. In fact, far from it. Apparently my job is to gawk at scantily-clad silicon-enhanced monstrosities like Beavis and Butthead, because that'll make me write good things about their stupid motherboards, right?

Wrong. During my five years in this industry I've been invited to go to Spearmint Rhino, had my picture taken with plenty of bunny girls. Hell I've even been offered prostitutes. Why do these PR people think I'm interested? It cheapens their image, and it insults me at the same time. All this says to me is that I work in an industry full of sad fucks who can't get real girlfriends, and that I should have the mentality of a 13 year old adolescent. Sorry to point out the obvious, but these girls are so completely irrelevant to the technology products on show, not to mention so completely inaccessible to any of these geeks, that it's just embarrassing. They don't want to be there, and I don't really want them to be there either. And as for their intelligence, how on earth your writer can describe a girl as having 'no more mental capacity necessary to fulfil her duties than to be able to answer the question 'heh heh, you wearing panties'" just baffles me. Just because a woman has taken a job as a model does not make her stupid, she was probably hired through an agency and you have no idea what she does in her spare time - in fact, you know absolutely nothing about her. She thinks Leisure Suit Larry is sexist. Well it is sexist, and, to be honest, I reckon even Bernard Manning could work that one out. She pushes her breasts out and wears next to nothing because that's what her job on that day requires, not because it's what she necessarily wants to do.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a hot blooded heterosexual bloke who's attracted to women, I just don't see why I should feel like I have to wander round a technology show like a dog on heat, looking round an embarrassing showcase of women from a 60s beauty contest pretending they're interested in graphics cards. I can understand why companies might want to make their stands at shows more interesting, but why not put on some good entertainment? Get a comedian in or something, and that'll make you different from all the other sad technology stands too.

Guys - you need to get out more, meet real women and get yourselves real girlfriends. None of the girls on the stands will ever sleep with you, they won't be impressed by your 3DMark score and they're certainly more intelligent than you'll give them credit for. Let's grow up and just get on with the job.

Ben Hardwidge
Custom PC, United Kingdom

Microsoft is Entertaining

Mike,

I have a comment on the article at this page by Charlie D. Actually, I like that one very much and I like what Microsoft is apparently doing: it's going to be an entertainment company. And so be it!

Entertainment is what they are _really_ good at and IMO there are not many other things they are _so_ good at. Let Microsoft become an entertainment company and stop messing up with server OSs, databases, network protocols and other stuff they should have never ever thouched.

Yours,
RJW

Charlie enters Dufferdom

Poor Charlie, you finally graduated into dufferdom :-)

Obviously you're not in touch with the generation of person whom you're mumbling about. To someone in that age range the answer would make 110% common sense.

A variation of the old saying "If the music is too loud, you're too old" seems to apply.

Try having a 30 year old daughter who runs a San Francisco ad agency call you in the middle of the day and announced she was spending $7500 of the bosses production funds on a cat wrangler for a video commercial - it used to be I was overwhelmed by her high school math homework ...

Your article did make me laugh out loud. Especially since I spent the past two weeks doing trade shows at Las Vegas-Hilton and Ontario Convention Center.

John O

The Attack of the Nvidiots

Well, Mr Hsun, I have news for you : if a 3-year-old architecture does better in speed and quality then your brand-spankin' new dustbuster, what do you think I'm gonna plop my money on ? This guy is missing the point : geeks brag about their FPS and their 8x AA capability at 1600x1200. A true geek will never be able to defend having the latest and best 222+ million transistor hulk if the dang thing leaves him in the dust when it comes to performance.

Of course, there remains the very real chance that the 6800 will indeed be the king of the pack. However, defending the fact that the NV40 is tomorrow's technology will only add zest to the geek factor. If the chip does not perform, the "technology of the future" will be . . . bought in the future. And besides, to a geek, future performance is very nice, but what is needed is top performance NOW. And anyway, by the time we get games that actually use the "technology of the future", the geeks will already have changed their video cards twice (judging by the current rat race speeds), so that argument holds no water beyond the actual performance figures that the NV40 will have to sustain against the X800. It always comes back to FPS. Always.

But obviously Mr Hsun is entitled to some mitigating circumstances - after all, he's a salesman, not a gamer.

Pascal

Minions miss the Pint

European Union terminates E-patent wizard wheeze

Your minions have missed a rather important point.

While the Community patent system is drowning in a mess of European bureaucracy, there has been for some time and will continue to be the European Patent Convention, all member countries of the Community and a number of others are signatories to the EPC. This allows a single application can be made at the European Patent Office (in English French or German), which when granted gives separate national patents in all countries. The CPC was to give a single patent which was valid throughout the community, the would simplify the process of chasing infringers in every individual country which they operate, as is required presently either by making separate national applications or going through the EPO route.

Scott Goodall
Sagittarius Intellectual Property Consultants Ltd

Intel Road Maps

Intel's roadmaps are so confusing it's near impossible to keep one's sanity whilst following them. Whenever I have gone to market to buy, I have been so beleaguered by Intel's offerings that I just think "stuff it - buy AMD", which I do.

Cheers
Michael Ford

Bloor

Mike

I was surprised to find Bloor on your "don't call" list. (I agree about Butler, even though the two began as partners 15-20 years ago). In my experience (software only) Bloor and Ovum are both pretty good as analysts go.

Personally, I feel that the bigger the worse (generally speaking). That makes Gartner, META and Giga my main suspects when it comes to talking rubbish. There is one caveat: their top people are usually excellent - in fact, they sometimes give me the feeling they know more about my subject (middleware) than I do myself - which is unusual.

Aberdeen and Forrester used to be pretty good, but I get the feeling they too are getting a bit too big for comfort. The syndrome is predictable: decide to grow, hire lots of warm bodies, attempt to "train" them to behave "just like" real analysts, print more and more huge screeds of waffle, charge bigger fees for clients to come to luxurious conferences at which they are harangued by the top people (who, as already noted, are usually quite competent).

My 2 cents worth
Name, email supplied