{"id":9,"date":"2008-01-14T22:57:07","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T03:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/?p=9"},"modified":"2008-02-02T13:07:36","modified_gmt":"2008-02-02T18:07:36","slug":"on-justifying-causing-pain-to-others-and-honesty-under-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/2008\/01\/14\/on-justifying-causing-pain-to-others-and-honesty-under-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"On Justifying Causing Pain to Others and Journalistic Honesty Under Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0“I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.” -Abraham Lincoln<\/em><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, <\/span>Gizmodo<\/span><\/span><\/a>, you get the first post of <\/span>Thought Crime, <\/span><\/em>defined here in as a logic\/thought\/explanation so wrong, justifying it makes you just seem either stupid, callous, or simply inane.<\/span><\/p>\n

In closing, I will fill you in on our little secret: TVs turn back on when you press the power button a second time. So, I can assure you, everything is going to be OK once the companies find their clickers between the couch cushions of our prank and your obedience. Will our critics find it as easy to turn their integrity back on? I doubt it. <\/span>-Via Gizmodo- <\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Gizmodo, a blog I read reverently, and use to inject the life blood of technology reverence into my maligned existence, posted a <\/span>rant<\/span><\/span> <\/span>defense<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0of their <\/span>“prank”<\/span><\/span><\/a> they perpetuated at CES\u00a0 (Consumer Electronic Show) that got one of their people banned for life from the bloated show electronics.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Gizmodo\u00a0justification, while excellently written, and amazingly well thought out, is just that, justification. I agree with 98% of their post, and believe that the media has become almost lapdogs for the things that they cover, technology or not.\u00a0\u00a0Recently, Others have started to take exceptions to being in the pocket of technology companies: Both <\/span>Penny-Arcade <\/span><\/span><\/a>(who later <\/span>appologized for dumping the DS<\/span><\/span><\/a>, but\u00a0I still agree with why they thought the D.S. was not for them initially. Confused, read their post.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They also commented on the Getting in Bed with\u00a0companies you cover\u00a0 <\/span>here,<\/span><\/span><\/a> and view the\u00a0<\/span>comic<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0). Other examples besides\u00a0Jeff Gerstmann\u00a0at Gamespot, are <\/span>Dan Hsu <\/span><\/span><\/a>(over at EGM) who’s company has been banded for giving a bad review.\u00a0 A company should expect a bad review for making a crappy ass game.)But, we are discussing Gizmodo defense, coached to match other <\/span>real defenses<\/span><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0Gizmodo, I have one problem with your prank.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn’t matter if Motorola said no harm no foul, turning off a presentation repeatedly, was over the line and you know it.\u00a0\u00a0 You won’t admit it,\u00a0 But I believe you know it was wrong.\u00a0 As anyone who works in IT\/AV\/Electronics know, people get fired for less.\u00a0\u00a0 Think about it: You have worked long hours setting up booths, working your fingers off,\u00a0assuring your nervous presenter over and over that everything is ok and will run smoothly, only to have the system go down, again and again for no reason.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gizmodo, you have not just harmed this person, but you’ve harmed his reputation, affected how his coworkers viewed him -however briefly- and even, caused him to doubt skills he’s honed to near perfection.\u00a0 In one act you have sent a man down spirit down to hell with a smile and a can of diet rite.\u00a0 I hope coffee spills on your keyboard.Pranks can go too far when someone gets hurt.\u00a0 But no one got hurt you say? If you can say that and believe that, then truely, none of you have ever been a IT person, or known one.You went too far.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Update:<\/span><\/strong> <\/span>Gizmodo has posted a <\/span><\/em>appology to the IT\/AV techs<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/a>, without rancor or blame. And I personally think it’s the right move. It is about time.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0“I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.” -Abraham Lincoln Unfortunately, Gizmodo, you get the first post of Thought Crime, defined here in as a logic\/thought\/explanation so wrong, justifying it makes you just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11,10,33,25],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thought-crime","tag-blogs","tag-ces","tag-gizmodo","tag-justification"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}