Belly-rubbing and mud-wrestling: TG Daily and other sites

[WGruener]

Our power drain coverage brought up some interesting questions and more recently and post in this forum which was headlined: "<a href="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/TG-ftopict174924.html">what does TG think of this?</a>"

We did not answer this question from an editorial point of view so far, because we did not feel that the results published on one other website revealed too much info. But it certainly got our attention, and it certainly got the attention of our and other communities. And since you asked the question, here's what the authors of the power drain bug articles think of it.

Yes, we could not be more satisfied with the outcome of our investigations into what we’re calling “the power drain bug.” What more could we possibly expect than a patch to be made available by Microsoft, that will bring back lost battery time for every notebook user? We would be lying to our reader if we completely masked our pride in having been first to publish an article describing the bug, and an article that presents a solution.

Next time, it will be someone else.

And while we believe that the power drain bug brought out the very best in many journalists, it also revealed the very worst. Journalism ethics got trampled on and some of us behaved not much more mature than three-year-olds in a preschool class.

No, we are not excluding TG Daily. We managed to rub a fairly large section of our own protruding bellies, and along the way, unfairly accused other enthusiast sites and technology news services of not doing their jobs. And boy, did we get slapped by our readers. Let's be honest: They were right. Period.

The concept of journalism is based upon ideals; the business of journalism is fraught with cutthroat competition, especially in a field where many publishers battle for the emotional approval of their readers every single minute. And just once in a while, these circumstances can distract us as journalists from what is truly important: what you, our reader, needs to make your everyday life with computers and electronics easier. Even if our commentary article in question was an opinion piece that tossed out a general accusation like a fresh chunk of meat to the sharks, it certainly transgressed a level with which journalists who purport to be ethical should be comfortable. We do regret having published especially those portions that, as we know today, have been inappropriate and sent a wrong signal. Meaning what we say, the article has been removed from our site.

As we are sure you noted, our initial power drain bug article left quite some room for speculation. In our opinion, leaving certain questions open for speculation and discussion was essential, especially to get the ball rolling into a direction that would catalyze a common commitment toward seeking a solution. It was not the time for us to have been pointing fingers of blame; it was the time to keep all participants focused on the interests of their customers and our readers. Unfortunately, the problem with casting fresh meat over the side of the boat is that certain parties swimming around outside the boat are likely to interpret it as chum. So we shouldn’t have been too surprised to have found ourselves encountering a feeding frenzy.

So, as the fellow says toward the end of the PBS kids’ lecture on the alphabet, what did we learn today? How we plan to react to accusations raised against TG Daily, which alleged that we violated our responsibility by delivering incomplete data in our power drain bug coverage? Hopefully, we’ve proven those allegations <a href="http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/14/microsoft_to_release_patch_for_power_drain_bug/">wrong</a>; but the question still stands: Are we going to take this lying down, or come out swinging? The fact is, we’re tempted to play in that sandbox from time to time – the sandbox where kids pile on top of the biggest hills and claim to be king of all they perceive. And yes, we almost took up the challenge, until our senses got the better of us.

Just because somebody else has taken up the task of building those sandboxes, climbing to the top of their little hills and waving sticks at us, doesn’t mean we have some innate responsibility to play with them any more. It’s time for us to tuck our shirts in, come off of the playground, and join you in the real world. And if the other kids want to play responsibly, they can join us.

When we get distracted, though, do send us an e-mail to bring us back to our good senses.

And of course we are interested in your opinion. What do you think?

 

[RichPLS]

I think you are on the right track and have seen the light.
Now the task of living in the light is a much more difficult one.
Good work!

 

[chuckshissle]

.........very interesting and the truth will set us free.

 

[Dekkard]

I think we all appreciate your response on this matter. I'm sure my feelings are the same as many here that perhaps in this instance that the issue of battery drainage was not of immediate concern to me at the time you released the story - how wrong I was. My thoughts initially were of how a big time manufacturer could release a product with such a problematic flaw.......now in reality this kind of thing happens all the time. The battle of getting your product out at the optimal time for profitability is key to success these days more than ever....the next technological advance from a rival is rarely far down the road.
What I do find interesting though is how rarely manufacturers, software developers and the like are really called out by the people that matter....not the consumers (the ones who really should be calling the shots) but the information resources such as TG. One comment, even 100 comments on some forum can easily be ignored or overlooked but a considered review on a well respected tech site is harder to ignore. In this instance perhaps the line was crossed and the sour grapes folks out there jumped on it quicker than a cheerleader on prom night but rest assured if every large company out there were truly concerned about being caught out with deficiencies in new products and losing sales as a result we might see a lot more consideration going into product releases. These days an efficient product release of a fully functional product (hardware or software) seems a rarity and perhaps we have all become too accepting of the need for driver updates, bios flashes, software updates and the like. I for one hope that tech sites such as TG continue to monitor these issues and call out the folks trying to get away with corner cutting. Now if only some of the other manufacturers and developers out there would stand up and take notice, particularly a certain VGA card manufacturer I would be a very happy person.

 

[Craigmandu]

I happen to agree wth Dekkard. I also appreciate it when an information resource, especially one as large as TG points out flaws or issues with recently released products. Why? Because it shows the community just how much or how little QA actually plays a part in the business practices of these companies.

And the bottom line is: QA is not the top of the list.

You see it with Mboard makers, Video card manufacturers and the like, ALL THE TIME. It's annoying, frustrating and frankly disgusting, when someone puts out a new item with a great marketing campaign to go with it, only to find out days later or sometimes before it's even introduced that it has fairly large flaws that shouldn't be in a production level piece of computer hardware.

Regardless who is responsible for the flaw, or whether or not the compainies can blame each other, the bottom line is the QA to ensure the product operates as advertised was NOT done prior to introduction of that product. And that's what really matters.

 

[mpjesse]

What I find most offensive out of this whole ordeal is the fact that M$ sat on this problem for over a year! They had absolutely no motivation to work w/ intel and fix it. They even made Intel sign a confidentiality agreement! And then posting that registry hack is even more confusing. What did M$ think was going to happen? Why didn't they start working on a patch sooner? These are the questions I would like answered.

It's pretty sad that enthusiast sites are the ones who have to "get the ball rolling" on these types of things.

All in all I want to thank all the editors and journalists at THG for working on this issue. For sure, if we didn't have you guys we'd all still be oblivious to this issue.

(for the record, I have a sonoma/Pentium M based Dell laptop and I use a protable hard drive quite often with it. so I'm someone who's affected)

-mpjesse

 

[slvr_phoenix]

What I find most offensive out of this whole ordeal is the fact that M$ sat on this problem for over a year!

I fully agree. It's quite sickening.

Look at M$'s history. Look at nearly every private disclosure of a security bug made by a whitehat. Look at the public disclosuers made by greyhats. Then look at M$'s response time. You can replace Intel for any other company or person and it's always the same story. If M$ can't even be motivated to work for the largest hardware manufacturer that affects their products and thus sales (and thus pocketbooks), it's no wonder that so many other bugs go unfixed for so long.

Someone really needs to take M$ to task for this.

It's pretty sad that enthusiast sites are the ones who have to "get the ball rolling" on these types of things.

It is sad that M$ can't be more self-motivated. But short of them, who other than enthusiast sites have the clout to piss off M$ and not suffer financial backlash from M$ for it?

All in all I want to thank all the editors and journalists at THG for working on this issue. For sure, if we didn't have you guys we'd all still be oblivious to this issue.

Agreed. Though the mudslinging and whining certainly could have been left out of it. Imagine how much more time could have been spent on, say, testing this under Linux, different versions of Windows, or even appealing to Apple to lend an Intel-based MacOS notebook to test, had the eyes never strayed from looking towards the consumer.

TG editors deserve both a pat on the back and a swat to the head IMHO. :lol:

 

[WGruener]

slvr_phoenix,

again, this particular issue simply refers to XP SP2 notebook computers that support USB 2.0. But we also said that we will be following up at least one more time with an explanation of the impact on other platforms.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

My thoughts initially were of how a big time manufacturer could release a product with such a problematic flaw.......now in reality this kind of thing happens all the time.

This statement indicates to me both how misleading the blame was placed in the initial articles and how misleading that blame continues to be in current articles. Why? Because it's been clearly proven now that Intel's end of this product had no flaw. It did exactly what it was supposed to. Further, Intel even reported this flaw to M$. So there is absolutely no reason for Intel to take any blame for this.

It was a long-existing Microsoft bug that was the problem. Intel knew it and told them so. Microsoft knew it and ignored it. It sounds like several others behind the scenes even knew it but just weren't saying anything.

But even now, when this information is stunningly in the light, TG's articles aren't expressing this clearly. They continue to lay part of the blame on Intel, even though legally Intel did all that they could do and it was Microsoft that tied Intel's hands with a confidentiality agreement and a failure to promptly get to fixing their own bug.

 

[bldkcstark]

Somewhere along the line what really matters has gotten lost. Consumers have benefited by ALL of this. Not the mudslinging of course, but the problem being brought to light. Congrats on that THG. Your article told me there was a problem. The AT article told me what the problem was. Now I want someone, anyone, to tell me how to fix it permanently without compromises. Thanks to all of you journalists, even the ones with sand in their underpants, for helping consumers to this point. Keep it up, and let's put this problem behind us.

By the way I have worked in manufacturing all my professional career. Mostly automotive engineering, some supervising. QA is NEVER first on anyones list except the quality dept. The saying goes that no parts are bad, just some are better than others.

No item is perfect. That is why there are tolerances assigned to products. The tighter the tolerances the more expensive the part will be. That is why most people associate a high cost with high quality, whether it is true or not. For example when you think BMW and Mercedes you think German engineering and super quality right? Well, it just so happens that for the year 2005 that if you drill down through the data you would find that BUICK has the highest overall quality rating by consumers. BUICK for christ's sake. I still can't believe it. We make parts here for every moving vehicle sold it seems so I am not biased to any of them. The German companies are very hard to please. Chrylser, part of Diamler Chrysler who owns Mercedes also, is the easiest because they have the loosest tolerances. Their parts also cost less to make and buy. The average number of defects found in the BEST quality car makers line up was 4 per car. FOUR per car. That is Lexus. GM (not the best overall manufacturer) was around 7. Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai, etc. are all within that 4-7 range. So what does all this mean? Sometimes you get the bull, sometimes you get the horns. I am sure they are still making money on laptops today, defect or not. How much would it cost them to NOT sell them? Obviously, they thought it would be too much, or they wouldn't have done it.

 

[Craigmandu]

Slvr_Phoenix,

Ok, M$ definitely is the bad guy here, but that doesn't deter from the fact that the items were sent to production with the "known" flaw and that the public wasn't made aware of it.

If my boss were to want a duo-core notebook, I get it for him, it dies like that because he wants to use his usb-harddrive to pull off some files. You think it matters to him that M$ had intel sign a confidentiality agreement? If you have to sign a "confidentiality" agreement with the largest O/S on the street about a product you are pushing, perhaps you should reconsider debuting that item until a better course of action can be figured out.

In either case BOTH Intel and M$ are wrong in this case, as it's Intel's choice to do what M$ wants, or make it public prior to release.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

again, this particular issue simply refers to XP SP2 notebook computers that support USB 2.0.

No, Microsoft's Knowledge Base entry indicates that it relates only to XP SP2. But no one seems to have a clue if this is actually true or not. It's not as though an XP SP1 install CD (or existing platform with only SP1 installed), or a Linux distro is exactly hard to come by just to put this question to rest. :?

But we also said that we will be following up at least one more time with an explanation of the impact on other platforms.

Which, when you do, will be nice. Until then, I have to take you and everyone else to task for not answering this question.

Hell, Anandtech tested five laptops, and they couldn't find the time to install a Linux distro on even one of those just to verify this?

It's just absurd that it's taking this long to answer such a simple question. That was my very first question when TG ran the first article indicating it being a driver problem. If I'd had a modern laptop and a USB 2.0 device to do it, I'd have downloaded a Linux distro and answered that question in just a handful of hours. Unfortunately, I have neither piece of hardware. So it's quite frustrating that no professional site has bothered to take that time yet.

 

[Dekkard]

My thoughts initially were of how a big time manufacturer could release a product with such a problematic flaw.......now in reality this kind of thing happens all the time.

This statement indicates to me both how misleading the blame was placed in the initial articles and how misleading that blame continues to be in current articles.
If you spent the time reading the rest of my article you would realize my discussion of the initial post was based not on either Microshaft or Intel taking blame for the matter. My criticism, as shared by many here, is the release of products failing QA standards for any sensical business strategy. Who is to blame is irrelevant to the fact that this happens at all and in all areas of the PC industry.....the CPU developers are perhaps the only ones getting close to requisite standards. I am not here to bash M$ as you appear to be, sure I despise their whole ethos with a passion but if you think these are the only sinners out there you are sadly mistaken. Intel are a big enough player in their own right to address these issues and not be bullied by M$ - if they choose to - so careful where you place your sympathies.
If no quality techie sites out there are prepared to blame and shame then the future for the computing industry is bleak.

 

[WGruener]

slvr_phoenix,

sorry to have to correct on this one again.

Even if MS may not be too happy with us about this one, but the headline of the KB note clearly states: "A Windows XP SP2-based portable computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect when a USB 2.0 device is connected."

Looking at this claim, we did not find any evidence that USB 1.1 - the majority of USB devices out there today - is affected by the problem.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Ok, M$ definitely is the bad guy here, but that doesn't deter from the fact that the items were sent to production with the "known" flaw and that the public wasn't made aware of it.

And that still doesn't deter from the fact that Intel couldn't legally make anyone aware of it.

You think it matters to him that M$ had intel sign a confidentiality agreement?

When he wonders why Intel didn't tell anyone and finds out that legally they couldn't? Yes, that should matter a heck of a lot. :lol: It's hard to blame someone for being legally bound into innaction.

If you have to sign a "confidentiality" agreement with the largest O/S on the street about a product you are pushing, perhaps you should reconsider debuting that item until a better course of action can be figured out.

1) I'm sure that when Intel signed that agreement, as the largest factor to M$'s sales, they certainly weren't expecting M$ to drag their heels on it for so very long. I'm sure that they expected a rather quick turnaround on the fix.

2) Have you dealt with M$? I have. It's quite possible that they flat out lied to Intel. They've certainly lied to people in the past. It's also quite possible that they left Intel with no better course of action.

In either case BOTH Intel and M$ are wrong in this case, as it's Intel's choice to do what M$ wants, or make it public prior to release.

And if Intel had made it public by breaking that confidentiality agreement then they'd have had their arse sued off and spent a fortune in both litigation and losses when the court case would inevitably end in M$'s favor.

Which, by the way, is still on a product that has better battery life than it's predecessor even with the bug, a bug which in no way impacts stability or performance.

If you want to blame Intel for that, fine. I certainly can't stop you from having such a wrong opinion. But facts clearly state otherwise, so did TG need to work so hard on making Intel sound equally guilty to M$ when it's so clearly not the case? It's bad ethics IMHO to work so hard to not point that finger in the direction where blame clearly lays. Intel certainly doesn't deserve that much criticism for doing everything that they legally could while working against the unfortunate results of reasonable expectations.

If anyone needs to be taken to task for 1) ignoring the needs of their largest sales factor, 2) taking so darn long to fix any clearly documented bug, and 3) putting consumers into such an unfortunate position, it's Microsoft.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

slvr_phoenix,

sorry to have to correct on this one again.

Even if MS may not be too happy with us about this one, but the headline of the KB note clearly states: "A Windows XP SP2-based portable computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect when a USB 2.0 device is connected."

Looking at this claim, we did not find any evidence that USB 1.1 - the majority of USB devices out there today - is affected by the problem.

1)Whoever said anything about USB1? I'm talking about WinXP SP1, WinXP-no SP, Win2K anySP, WinNT4, WinME, Win9x, Linux, and MacOS.

2) Obviously Anandtech was concerned enough to verify that USB1.1 wasn't a problem. Maybe it's about time that TG take notes from AT instead of insulting them or getting so defensive whenever someone suggests this. Just a thought.

 

[Craigmandu]

There are only 2 parties involved here. Intel and M$. You think M$ is the only people with lawyers? You think Intel didn't have the capability to enter into an agreement that wouldn't give them the leeway to save face in case M$ didn't "make good" on whatever the agreement stipulates?

Come on now, don't take everyone here for a fool. Just look at the facts, the fact that Intel entered into a "Confidentiality" agreement over this issue is INTEL's problem. Not M$..... M$ obviously wanted it that way, but you can't tell me that Intel had no choice. I throw the BS flag on that one.

These types of agreements are made all the time and they have "stipulations" put on them. If Intel's lawyers didn't do their jobs in organizing this agreement in a way to protect their company then that is INTEL's problem, not M$ and/or anyone else.

Intel in my opinion just figured, "what the hell" we can blame M$ so it doesn't matter. What else could they be thinking when they agreed to this? If you have some special insight as to how M$ secretly runs Intel please let me in on that.

 

[dvdpiddy]

stupid microsoft!

 

[Dekkard]

I couldn't agree more Craigmandu. These companies are gonna be using the best lawyers out there with any kind of agreement so the argument that Intel were powerless in the whole process is utter hogwash. I think what we all want is our own lawyer for every purchase of PC components.....something along the lines of:
'....if the item purchased here fails to deliver on promised functionality and performance the sale shall be cancelled with full refund and thy arse sued for every penny it can carry....'.
...additionally, a charge of $1.00 will be made to the manufacturer/developer for all and each downloads required to maintain or regain functionality of this product - to be payable to each downloader.......oh that would be nice.

 

[WGruener]

slvr_phoenix,

Let me just say that I am simply stunned, by your statements. How exactly did we insult Anandtech? By not crediting them for going more thoroughly into something what has been known before?

You say "Obviously Anandtech was concerned enough to verify that USB1.1 wasn't a problem. Maybe it's about time that TG take notes from AT instead of insulting them or getting so defensive whenever someone suggests this. Just a thought."

We explicitly stated that this problem affects USB 2.0. I'd imagine that someone who reads the article closely would be able to draw the conclusion that 1.1 is not affected. But I am glad that Anand wrote that 1.1 is not affected, so everyone knows that when someone writes that USB 2.0 is affected, it also means that USB 1.1 is not.

That said, yes, I can see, that we could have written explicitly that USB 1.1 is not affected. We simply assumed that it would be clear. The article was about USB 2.0 and XP (there is a hint about SP1 and no SP).

You say: "Whoever said anything about USB1? I'm talking about WinXP SP1, WinXP-no SP, Win2K anySP, WinNT4, WinME, Win9x, Linux, and MacOS."

Maybe I misinterpreted your last post, but let me repeat the headline of the bug description once again: "A Windows XP SP2-based portable computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect when a USB 2.0 device is connected."

We looked into this very specific issue and we are looking into other platforms and may have reason to follow up. If that does not make sense to you, perhaps Anand is concerned enough to look into "WinXP SP1, WinXP-no SP, Win2K anySP, WinNT4, WinME, Win9x, Linux, and MacOS" and publishes another article? Or maybe he is not concerned at all and that is convincing enough to you that there may not be a problem, if you don't believe us? Or we are all wrong after all?

It may appear different, but I don't really care what Anand writes. He knows the topics he writes very well and I respect him for that. But I also have absolute confidence in the engineers at THG. There is absolutely no need for us to re-check our findings with Anand before we publish them - similarly, I would not expect Anand to re-check his results with us. If you prefer one site over the other and you do not have confidence in the findings of a site then I believe that there is a very natural behaviour how to respond. But I don't see quite the reason why you keep reminding us how much we missed in our article and how great Anand's article was.

To me, this very specific topic is not about Anand or TG. It's about every user out there. We should not forget that.

I'd suggest to keep this discussion out of this forum from here, before its out of control and boring for everyone else. If you are interested, send me a private message and I am happy to continue the discussion there.

 

[RichPLS]

If you prefer one site over the other and you do not have confidence in the findings of a site then I believe that there is a very natural behaviour how to respond.

Actually, I believe it is quite healthy to question the facts and seek other input. I respect both sites as far as technology is concerned, but realize that they are both prone to human error and omissions for numerours reasons.

But I don't see quite the reason why you keep reminding us how much we missed in our article and how great Anand's article was.

I agree, no need to rub anyones face in something, unless the next time you are willing to offer your face as the next one for the rub in...

 

[slvr_phoenix]

You think Intel didn't have the capability to enter into an agreement that wouldn't give them the leeway to save face in case M$ didn't "make good" on whatever the agreement stipulates?

Nice of you to completely ignore half of the argument. Of course they had the capability to do so. I don't even remotely question that. I do however bring up that they 1) had every reason to not expect to have to do so, and 2) where would they be if they refused to sign the confidentiality agreement, made the bug public knowledge, and promptly had M$ refuse to ever fix it? What I'm saying is that it's exceptionally reasonable for Intel to have simply not expected to need to be so cunning in the wording of the contract (a lesson which no doubt they've surely learned now), and for them to not have been in a position to fight M$ without costing them more than it would have cost them to not fight.

Come on now, don't take everyone here for a fool. Just look at the facts

Try taking your own advice.

 

[Craigmandu]

I'm simply amazed at the lengths you are going to, to defend Intel as if they had absolutely no responsibility for any of this. I am completely amazed by it.

I'm not defending the M$ enterprise, they do stuff like this all the time. I'm not blaming Intel either. But I'm not absolving them of all responsibility to inform the consumer about the problems.

THG brought the problem to light for the public. We are all happy about that, and action was done as a result. But the underlying issue is, it shouldn't have needed to happen like that.

INTEL should have informed the public there was an issue or M$ should have well before the THG article.

Citing some "Agreement" between the companies doesn't mean they don't have responsibility anymore for the products they are SELLING.

I'm done debating this with you, you are hell bent on blaming M$ (which I don't mind), and ABSOLVING Intel (which I DO mind). And that's fine.

 

[hergieburbur]

We all know silver phoenix is a little disgruntled with TG anyway, so no matter what you say, it isn't going to placate him.

BTW Silver, I'm not sure what kind of bosses you've had, but most of the bosses/clients I've had wouldn't give two $hits about Intels confidentiality agreement with M$ (which I gaurantee they had an out for, they always do). He or should would want to know why he or she paid for a problematic component (regardless of what causes the problems) that SHOULD have been fixed six months ago. Intel has plenty of means of putting poressure on m$ to get a patch out before their products are released.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Let me just say that I am simply stunned, by your statements.

And let me just say that I am simply saddened by 1) your answers, and more so 2) by your evasions.

We explicitly stated that this problem affects USB 2.0. I'd imagine that someone who reads the article closely would be able to draw the conclusion that 1.1 is not affected.

Which is my point. 1) You didn't explicitely state that the problem only affects USB2. You provided no evidence whatsoever that such was the case. You simply parroted the knowledge base article, which in my experience with M$, often proves very dangerous to trust their documentation to be 100% correct and literal in such a manner. The only thing worse to do is trust their example source code. Any expert with experience dealing with M$ would instantly have a similar concern. You'll note that AT had that very concern. I'll leave the concusions on what this says about TG to everyone else.

Maybe I misinterpreted your last post, but let me repeat the headline of the bug description once again: "A Windows XP SP2-based portable computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect when a USB 2.0 device is connected."

Again, without offering conclusive evidence to the contrary, all that anyone can do is assume/hope that it's true. There was a very strong amount of questionability left hanging on this.

There is absolutely no need for us to re-check our findings with Anand before we publish them - similarly, I would not expect Anand to re-check his results with us.

Actually, if you review sites would stop strutting around like peacocks and work together for a change to do exactly that, it'd be much better for the consumer. But then, obviously, TG doesn't actually care as much about the consumer as they pretend to, as is just evinced.

If you prefer one site over the other and you do not have confidence in the findings of a site then I believe that there is a very natural behaviour how to respond. But I don't see quite the reason why you keep reminding us how much we missed in our article and how great Anand's article was.

It would seem that comprehension isn't a strong point. Confidence in the findings is not the issue. It never was, and I never even remotely suggested that it was. I can only see this as an defensive evasion. My points are about the quality of presentation, the depth of proof, the level of assurance, the fairness of portrayal, and the actual amount of helpfulness.

I'd suggest to keep this discussion out of this forum from here, before its out of control and boring for everyone else. If you are interested, send me a private message and I am happy to continue the discussion there.

And I'd suggest that if you have nothing to hide and care to give this an honest consideration then you won't take it into a private conversation. If you'd like to start a new thread on it because you feel uncomfortable talking about the very topic of this thread, then so be it. But the second that TG begins hiding anything from readers (such as removing the op-ed piece as was done) is the second that I begin to lose respect for TG.