INQUIRER, Register 'not reliable'

I KNOW THAT THE REGISTER can't be cited as a reliable source about Intel anymore, now that I don't directly write stories for it, but hey - leave the INQUIRER alone! We're reliable.

This post appeared on newsgroup comp.sys.intel just yesterday from Alex Johnson.

The question we'd like to ask Alex is, does he work for Intel? Or is that just a rumour too?

"I'd just like to point out the sources I keep seeing being quoted. The Inquirer. The Register. These are not reliable news sources, they are rumor boards. I have seen no indication in any article of "pushing blame" other than Compaq saying the sighting has been seen on other vendors' systems. Note that intel classifies it as a sighting. "THIS IS NOT A DENIAL PEOPLE! Definition of a sighting in engineering circles is a quirk that you detect which doesn't fit your expectations, but has not been conclusively identified as being improper behavior. "You better believe intel is working day and night, very closely with Compaq, to reproduce this sighting so they can either a) tell everybody the coast is clear and it is not a bug, or b) they can fix the problem and avoid a PR nightmare.(1)

"How do we know there isn't a c) deny, deny, deny, cover-up? Because intel learned from the Pentium FDIV fiasco (2) and Sun's cache failure fiasco and has since become much more open than...say...Sun or AMD. And we know it's not a real bug yet because it hasn't been in any reputable press to date. (3)

"The Inquirer. The Register. HA! They just bandy about "BUG! Intel in denial! " but not one post yet even takes a wild swing at what kind of bug or what it might affect. That's how you can tell." (4)

Hey Alex! We're reliable. You can rely on us to not do or write anything you can expect. Later we'll try and dig out the Intel document on UK journalists and you'll see quite a lot of us are like this... µ

See Also
comp.sys.intel

Notes
(1) It already has.

(2) Only because it was forced to. (3) Cnet, Computer Reseller News, G2 (though they claim they got the story first, wrongly), Shannon knows Compaq, Eweek.

(4) T6 bug. C'mon Alex, you know what the problem is...