This is a responsible editor's note sent in compliance of the new editor's note bill: SECTION 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of s. 1618.
Last month we brought you the MIND Guide to Y2K issues. Sharp-eyed readers immediately looked for these items on the Web, and found that a few of the entries has been created independently. We have been asked to issue a statement on this "coincidence".
In the past few months, the media has, made a big deal of plagiarism. In some cases, like Web-based gossip columns that get "scoops" by finding out about exclusive stories in serious media outlets and posting them one day in advance, it's considered okay and the perpetrator is given his own show on the Fox News Channel. In other cases—Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle at the Boston Globe, for instance—invented characters and untraceable stories have ended long careers.
With this in mind, we were concerned about the possibility of this happening in MIND. After all, there's just so much fact-checking you can do on a tight schedule. So we instituted a review of past articles to put ourselves at ease. What we found was, well, not pleasant.
In the April 1997 issue, we ran a story about a pair of orphaned babies who were developing ActiveX-based solutions one Christmas. After it ran, we were told that it not only copied a story that first ran in the Los Angeles Times, but that babies can't program at all. Look, we didn't say it was an expert article. It was a case study.
We thought the trouble would end there, but boy were we wrong. In August 1997, we ran a feature piece about a hospital near Chicago where they couldn't afford the connect-time charges that may apply when downloading Internet Explorer 4.0. As a result, they were allegedly working to find other browser solutions. Allegedly. A couple of calls confirmed our darkest fears—the hospital wasn't outside Chicago at all. It was near Indianapolis.
The trouble continued when we opened up a copy of our February 1998 issue. We dedicated eight pages to a description of how you could use Active Server Pages to generate holographic images of yourself, and convince your boss that you were still at your desk when you'd gone home hours ago. It turns out that the whole thing was just a frat prank, but not until an irate developer called us to find out when we'd be posting a bug fix. His boss had found his holographic image asleep in his cubicle, dressed only in underwear and face down in a puddle of drool.
We've found more problems since then, extending as far as the August 1998 issue. After extensive research, it was determined that our ten-page-long article on the Windows Scripting Host was similar—identical, in fact—to major portions of the Titanic script. The entire article, in fact, had nothing at all to do with its title and consisted of nothing more than dialogue and stage directions. All the figures were either still photos of the ship splitting in half or scanned-in pictures of the reproduction sapphire necklace that J. Peterman was hawking a few months back. The "code" we made available on our Web site turned out to be a doctored .JPG of a naked Leonardo DiCaprio. We apologize for any convenience this may have caused.
Look, you think it's easy finding fresh material for a magazine? We had a great joke all lined up for this month's editor's note. We were going to discuss our new Fox documentary, Teletubby Autopsy. But then we did a quick check on the Web, and it'd been thought of already. Because of some joker in England, we're unable to bring you original material - because it's not original after all. This is almost as bad as that time last year that we invented a ROM BASIC interpreter for the Altair, only to find that Bill Gates had done it two decades earlier and built the idea into a multi-billion dollar company. Which should rightfully have been ours, since we came up with the idea too. Damn. Know what we're saying? ("Damn. Know what I'm saying" is © 1997, The Onion. http://theonion.com/)
I guess we should at least be original this month and provide a bit of actual content in this page. This month, we're launching yet another fabulous new column. FAQ will look at common Internet development problems from a unique perspective—straight from Microsoft product support. In each installment, a Microsoft support engineer will discuss one of the key problems his or her customers have encountered, along with the solutions they provided. It's like getting a $35 support call for free! (If your question happens to match this month's topic exactly, that is. Even if it doesn't, enjoy the ride.) Next month we'll be launching yet another column, geared toward all you Visual Basic aficionados who are hitting the Net in droves.
|
