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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!nntp.news.primenet.com!news.primenet.com!jstern From: jstern@primenet.com (Josh Stern) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: 22 Apr 1996 08:07:01 -0700 Organization: Primenet Services for the Internet Lines: 38 Sender: root@primenet.com Message-ID: <4lg7al$ap4@nnrp1.news.primenet.com> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <tporczykDq3C55.4zE@netcom.com> <4l96pm$mrt@nnrp1.news.primenet.com> <4lecrd$155@taco.cc.ncsu.edu> X-Posted-By: jstern@usr2.primenet.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22073 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:785 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3438 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3291 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17958 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46756 Kevin P. Neal <kpneal@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote: >Josh Stern (jstern@primenet.com) wrote: >: If the >: business consumer cannot turn to PC Magazine, >: Byte, or even the Wall Street Journal or >: the New York Times for unbiased coverage >: of technology directions, it's likely >: that their perception of the extant realities >: will be quite biased as well. Bill Gates >: is a shrewd man - he understands these things >Unbiased journalism is a crock. It does not exist (as far as I can >tell). I find that argument to be essentially based on an unidiomatic interpretation of English. When one talks about biased vs. unbiased journalism, one doesn't mean to refer to a comparison between the absence of all bias and the presence of some bias (either miniscule or great). Rather, one means to refer to a comparison between no obvious bias vs. large bias. To take an analogy, if I claim the problem with your bicycle is the friction caused by the back wheel brushing against the mud guard, it's not particularly meaningful to come back and tell me that all wheels have some friction. - Josh -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- jstern jstern@primenet.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------