SLPAD - 24 - “another thing to avoid”

[Michael Bailey]

“We have, after all, recently moved into an era when, at least in
principle, everybody can share an inconceivably enormous amount of
information, just by stroking a few keys on a terminal[*]. There are no
longer any excuses for small stupid mistakes,”

- even truer now than in 1984, but I find that the fershlugginer things
still creep in!

“and I hope this also leads to much more inhibition about stealing data on the
chance that no one will catch it.”

Which segues neatly into a deprecation of building a story around research,
which becomes a generous disquisition including personal anecdotes, using
as the “bad example” the way that he erected “Under the Rose” using facts
from Baedeker’s guide to Egypt in 1899.

(Research should not be base, but superstructure?)


[*] Eg - online Baedekers -

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Karl%20Baedeker%20%28Firm%29