Dr. Dobb's Journal February 1999
I was performing my customary magic with the bar rag on all the horizontal surfaces at Foo Bar, the late-night joint where I moonlight as relief bartender to pick up tips from the occasional Silicon Valley luminary and the rag-tag pack of journalists who frequent the place, when Flip Nudge, one of the rag-taggiest of the pack, strode in, pulled up a stool, and tossed his fedora on the bar.
"Well, I've uploaded my premiere Nudge Report column to Swaine's World," he announced with his lopsided grin as he watched me construct the first Cuba libre that he would consume that evening. "You can expect your hits to triple immediately. At least."
Flip Nudge is the new columnist I had just hired to offset the liberal bias at my web site, Swaine's World (http://www.swaine.com/). You've probably heard of The Nudge Report. If not, I should explain that the "u" is pronounced like the "ou" in "could," and "Flip" refers to both his attitude and his accuracy: He's as accurate as a coin flip.
"I'm sure there will be some increase in the hit rate," I said. "You do have a following."
"Yeah. I'm an urban legend in my own time. Huhn huhn huhn."
"Right. Um, I don't want to hurt your feelings, Flip -- "
"Not possible. I've got a hide like a water buffalo."
"I've noticed the resemblance. Well, according to the Los Angeles Times, the general run of online reporting is falling way short of the journalistic standards of other media."
"Yeah, I read that report. I can quote reports, too. Bloomberg News says that over 80 percent of online news consumers trust online news as much as or more than those precious 'other media'."
"That could be a reflection on the intelligence of online news consumers," I said.
"Maybe so, but both those stories were published where?" He tapped my chest. "Online, Mikey. Think about it."
"Those 'other media' don't address my audience," he went on. "They're produced by and for the elite East Coast intellectual tree-hugging atheist pornographer tax-and-spend quiche-eating labor union/gangster feminist fringe. Refill."
I removed his glass, squeezed the lime, and measured the rum and RC Cola into a fresh tumbler. "Whereas you write for -- "
"Joe Sixpack and the Little Woman. The real 9-to-5ers of America, Mikey, the slubber doffers and leguillion debeaders. The salt of the earth." I was pretty sure the leguillion debeaders were unionized, but I didn't press the point. "How's the impeachment effort going?"
"Great! The DNA evidence is conclusive. I'm uploading an exclusive on that later tonight."
I moved down the bar to fill orders for Larry, Mo, and Joe, who had come in while Flip was talking. When I returned, he needed another refill and I took care of it. "You know, Flip, there are those who would say that trying to impeach Thomas Jefferson retroactively is quixotic."
"And there are those who would say that Intel investing in Red Hat Linux is quixotic."
I grinned. "I'm onto you, Nudge. You think that if you mention technology, you can write these Cuba libres off as a business expense."
"Yeah, and I'm gonna expense them to Swaine's World. Huhn huhn huhn." "Wait a minute -- "
"Jesse Berst, that Ziffyboy columnist, thinks Intel is conspiring to tank Microsoft by taking a stake in Red Hat. But I've got it from a reporter at Forbes that the support of Linux could backfire on Intel. He thinks the spread of Linux will encourage people to keep those old 386s, which is definitely not what Intel wants."
Paul Piescik came in and I poured him a glass of Slurm.
Flip was holding the peanut dish upside down when I returned, demonstrating that it was as empty as his glass. I filled both. "That would be a fine irony, wouldn't it?" he asked. "By the way, I agree with you about Del Yocum's nice sense of irony in offering Inprise's Java tools to Microsoft the day after the judge ruled that Microsoft had to offer 100 percent pure Java in its products. It's even more ironic than the idea of AOL, the pariah of the Web, buying Netscape, the company that created the Web."
"Don't try to butter me up. You're not a Swaine's World employee, you don't have an expense account, and I wouldn't approve Cuba libres if you did."
"Fine, just run me a tab."
--Michael Swaine