I'm a bit annoyed with review magazines that tend to really like products by companies that advertise a lot in their magazine.

To some degree, this is unavoidable.  For the product manufacturer, it's natural to advertise in a review magazine like that, because that'll reach your market extremely effectively.  However, the magazine then has a conflict of interest, at least potentially.  If they give the product a negative review, they've cut themselves off from some money (and maybe from free hardware samples).  If they give it a positive review, is it selling out?  It might be.

Still, it leads to a situation where almost all reviews are very positive.  While it's nice to think that everyone is doing such a good job in the manufacturing world, we're forced to live in the real world.  It ends up being much less useful, reading ten reviews, if every review is filled with glowing praise.

It's a bit of the same thing that irritates me at olympic gymnastics and figure skating competitions.  It's gone from being a competition where everyone tries to be the best, to one where everyone tries to not make the mistakes that are codified as costing a given amount of points.  Frankly, any rating system where the lowest mark (out of ten) is 9.5 is more than a little bit suspicious.  I guess it helps preserve ratings, because it ensures that the competitors will be closely grouped, and hence, more likely to have a dramatic finale.  Still, I'd rather save the dramatic finale for where it really is dramatic.  And don't even get me started on ice dancing.

Ok, I've gotten a bit off-topic, so I think I'll cut this short before it really becomes a rant.

Page by Dave Clemmer.  Last modified Jan. 11th, 2000.