🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <173318@pyramid.pyramid.com> csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) writes:
>In article <9110211414.AA26011@TIS.COM> stur@TIS.COM (Jeff Sturgess) writes:
>>I didn't see or hear the news this morning.  Does anybody know the
>>current situation out there?
>
>Please, do not post requests of this type to the net. Find an officemate who
>has a radio or a newspaper, or call a friend or relative that you know is at
>home. The net is simply not an appropriate or effective medium for "newsy"
>information -- by the time you get a reply, the news is too old to be useful. 

I'd have to disagree with that last bit!  I was working all day
yesterday, alone in the building except for my CD player.  The first
posting arrived here sometime in the early afternoon, and it was the
first I heard about it.  The info was fairly timely, as it had only
been going for a few hours.  It wouldn't have been timely enough if I
was in the path of the firestorm, but for someone who has
friends/family in that area, it was potentially quite helpful in
letting them know that something was going on.  I appreciated knowing
what was going on.  I think it was entirely appropriate to be in
ba.news and probably even ca.news.

As for followup information about the fire, again, first-hand reports are
often more detailed and accurate than the TV/radio news reports, which
are often short, and more likely to cover the "sensational" aspects, and
have a slightly biased view.  And usenet news will travel to most regional
sites more quickly than newspapers can.

I say it's fine for important "newsy" things to be discussed here,
especially if they deal with disastrous events like this.  I remember
that Usenet was the first place I was able to locate reasonably accurate
information about the Oct 17 earthquake two years ago.  All media reports
were concentrating on the Marina fire, the Bay Bridge, and the collapse
of 880.  If you watched them, it was easy to get the feeling that the
entire bay area was completely devastated!  It was reassuring to have
people say they'd talked to people in the area, and that the damage wasn't
as widespread as originally believed.  (I didn't move to the Bay Area
until two months after the quake, so I wasn't here at the time.)

My opinion, for what it's worth.
-- 
Michael Bryan	      resonex!michael@netcom.com  ..!netcom!resonex!michael
W: 408/720-8600 x325  H: 408/738-2479
"Does this sentence remind you of Agatha Christie?"