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2005 Foot In Mouth Awards

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the thank-god-they-don't-record-me-all-the-time dept.

jollyroger1210 writes "Wired is running a story on the 2005 Foot In Mouth Awards." From the article: "Tech execs say the darndest things. And so do shuffling presidents, and disgraced scientists, and Wikipedia fakers. It's time to relive 2005's biggest spoken gaffes."

6 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. foot in mouth? or the truth? by User+956 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "Screw the nano." -- Motorola CEO Ed Zander

    Well, considering the Mororola RAZR phone is one of the hottest-selling out there, and the Apple iTunes phone is a flop, I'd say I believe the guy from Motorola.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? by aaribaud · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Granted, if placing and receiving calls is what distinguishes phones from one another, then the ROKR and RAZR are alike, and both are identical to, say, the Sagem MyX2. Or whatever happens to be a mobile phone. Now when you take one step back and look at the whole phone and not just its OS (and that means marketing as well) then the story is different. Yes, many (though not all) phones from the same manufacturer share the same OS. Yet manufacturers somehow manage to have a whole portfolio, because the OS just isn't the main feature of a phone. Form factor, color, hardware, connectivity, capacity, and yes, gadgets of all sorts come into play. When someone chooses a phone, the look and features will come first. The OS won't count. And then, the RAZR and ROKR are not alike in any way (which explains why the former sells well but not the latter which, if it was in any way similar, should sell as well).

  2. Don't forget Gunga Dan by harryseldon · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    How 'bout this one?

    "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story,"

    Dan Rather, referring to the forged Texas Air National Guard documents.

    Horse. Barn. Gone.

  3. Re:ridiculous by pla · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Sony's only on there once.

    They only made one major screwup sufficient to warrant a comment from them on it.

    That seems like the basic pattern to those "awards"... Company makes an error or needs to explain poor performance; CEO or chairman or other higher-up (who most likely lacks any clue about either the plebes or the detailed goings-on of their company) speaks basically off-the-record; words end up looking rather silly or offensive.

    Now, following that pattern, if you want to question the number of entries by anyone, I'd have to wonder how Bush didn't sweep the list. Clueless baboon, out of touch with everything, and says things which (if not for the fact that people keep dying as a result of them) sound absolutely hilarious.

    But so it goes.

  4. Re:They forgot by beat.bolli · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The list is obviously US-centric. As if you had expected anything else...

    --
    Karma: none (due to not believing in reincarnation)
  5. Re:Here's a really good foot in mouth story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    Very true. It's just a shame that the professor(s) couldn't find the time or inclination to investigate the story (as you say) before shooting their mouths off to the press.
    Read the article, you twit. There weren't any obvious inconsistencies in the student's initial story to raise serious suspicions. And why were they "shooting their mouths off" in relaying the story to the press, when the press had come to them to ask them to comment on Bush's domestic spying program? Didn't it seem relevant? Did they swear to the truth of the student's story? Why should they have kept it to themselves? Do you think professors should be investigative journalists,too? Isn't it the job of the newspaper reporters to follow up on the leads they get from their sources?
    No. The professors had their foots firmly in their mouths because the story as told them by the student very conviently fit into their "gov is bad" paradigm. The student played them like fish.
    There's nothing in the story to suggest the professors have a "gov is bad" paradigm. You're the one with the paradigm, dipshit: "Oh, a professor! Must be a liberal." Twit. You don't know a thing from that article about their political leanings. Liberals and conservatives alike are appalled at the unconstitutionality of Bush's spy program and the general erosion of civil liberties under Bush/Cheney; see here, for example -- a conservative columnist.

    Twit.