From Andrew Sprung, after screeching to a halt in the middle of reading a book review because he thought — incorrectly, it turns out — that he might have caught an error:
This leads me to confront my own bias, which was toward finding a flaw, as in this post. You could call it predatory reading, a reflex triggered or neutralized by all kinds of confirmation biases as I work my way down a page. Not to mention the miracle of internet search and access — its wow factor may be getting long in the tooth, but it’s still operative!
It’s true. My reading these days is far more directed than in the past. If it doesn’t seem likely to provide fodder for a blog post, I skim right past it. If it not only seems like potential blog material, but might even contain an error that I can glom onto, then Eureka!
But congratulations to Andrew for not finding an error and getting a post out of it anyway. That’s professionalism, my friends.
