How to Be a Curmudgeon on the Internet - From the Desk of David Pogue (NYtimes)
Last week in my Times column, I referred to the five-note "Intel Inside" jingle often heard in TV ads. At least a dozen readers e-mailed me to inform me that the jingle is actually four notes, not five. As I've come to expect, some of these readers expressed, ahem, somewhat more anger than the circumstances might have seemed to require. "If you have that much trouble counting on one hand," one wrote, "you shouldn't be reviewing technology. Maybe a four-year-old can help you out next time." hee.
I replied to this reader that I'm including the first "ping" in my tally. In that case, there ARE five notes in the jingle, as you can hear here.
But my correspondent never wrote back. That, of course, would violate the rules for being an Internet pill, reprinted here in their entirety, courtesy of the Pills of the American Internet Neighborhood Society (PAINS):
eg 9. Don't let generalities slip by. Don't tolerate simplifications for the sake of a non-technical audience. Ignore conditional words like "generally," "usually" and "most." If you read a sentence that says, for example, "The VisionPhone is among the first consumer videophones," cite the reviewer's ignorance and laziness for failing to mention the prototype developed by AT&T for the 1964 World's Fair. Send copies of your note to the publication's publisher and, if possible, its advertisers.