The NYSE is down, and TNT’s lead story is a thermostat

Who gives a fuck? The NYSE is down. Don't they know what a real tech story is?
Who gives a fuck? The NYSE is down. Don’t they know what a real tech story is?

The New York Stock Exchange is down due to an internal technical glitch and Mike Elgan, the news director of “Tech News Today,” decides to lead off his program with a story about the Nest thermostat and an “easter egg” hidden inside the code.

Mike Wehner of “The Daily Dot” was on to talk about some bullshit Asimov gobbledy-gook stuffed inside the programming of the gadget that advertises on the network. Hmm? Native-advertise much, Elgum?

This is TWiT.

31 thoughts on “The NYSE is down, and TNT’s lead story is a thermostat”

    1. Were you wearing pants when you typed that? I have a theory that Rene Ritchie NEVER puts on pants unless you go to a convention. That leads into my next question, why do you have fifteen pairs of pants that hardly ever get used? If APPLE made pants would you then wear pants ALL the time?

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    1. Just because those were the first words out of his mouth, doesn’t mean it was the “lead story.” You would think that with a “lead story” they would spend more than ONE MINUTE on it.

      Ergo, eat a dick, StevieD.

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      1. “Just because those were the first words out of his mouth, doesn’t mean it was the “’lead story.’ ”

        Sorry, yes it does. Words have meanings. The lead story is the story reported first. That’s its only meaning. If Helloworld thought the lead story wasn’t given enough time (which may well be true) he should have written THAT.

        Helloworld is either face-saving with a dumb excuse for not having even seen what he purported to cover, or he doesn’t understand the meaning of “lead.”

        In addition, is it really wise to have a blogger with severe Tourette’s with an uncontrollable compulsion to repeat “eat a dick?” He HAS to be driving people away from TD in droves.

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  1. The NYSE story was the top story, followed by the united airlines glitch, and then the nest thermostat easter egg story.

    Jesus, you fucking loser can’t even get the most basic thing right. Like your post yesterday reporting news from a year and a half ago where you lied about why Iyaz and sara left the show.

    And this post is almost as boring and pointless as that one.

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    1. Cortez, it was coincidence that all those people left in one year, i am with you.

      There is often banter before the major lead story. Usually banter relates to a meal or weekend plans. On this day, he did 30 seconds of banter on the NYSE piece and then 15 minutes on some joke in a text file.

      TNT is not a news show. The lineup is dictated by who is able to appear as a guest. If there is a huge tech innovation with major socio political consequences, but no guest and simultaneously a story about a subreddit with two guests, he will lead with, and delve into, the subredditt.

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  2. I just can’t get over how stupid HELLOWORLD is. He’s criticizing Gum for not doing EXACTLY WHAT GUM DID, IN FACT, DO.

    So now HELLOWORLD you will praise Gum for doing what you said was the right thing to do, right?

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    1. Hey EffenDunn as Mike’s number one fan and critic I think he’s been knocking it out of the park recently. If you need that HomeRun guest though, I think Greg Ferenstein would be PERFECTO for this subject. It seems that his proximity to the situation is one that is hard to pass up, especially for a struggling flagship daily news show on a barely afloat network. His analysis on anything tech related and life applicable is coveted in some very elite circles. He’s an insider’s guy that knows how to convey very difficult messages to the everyman. Having him on as a weekly cohost would be a PHENOMENAL GET for the TWiT network. Good Luck and GODSPEED as you circle the drain with Soup and CeHo!

      P.S. I bet you are rethinking the pension you gave up in Orange County for this bullshit.

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  3. HelloWorld is a hundred times worse than GUM at reporting news, and that’s saying a lot. As shitty as Mike is, this ‘story’ has no merit.

    Waiting patiently for the oh-so-clever “Eat a dick” comeback that is so clever and original.

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  4. It was awful. 30 seconds on these two items, and then “on to the news”-type comment. HelloWorld got this one totally right: there’s a massive difference between giving a few sentences of headlines about a major tech story, and actually covering it by getting a guest on who is knowledgeable.

    TNT didn’t do that. Elgrim spent the bare minimum time on the major stories, pretty much a few sentences, then getting his guest to agree with what he’d said, and then he moved on.

    For people such as Jason Cortez, no amount of idiocy by Elgrim will stop him being blind and deaf to just how bad that show is.

    Surely, *surely* you would expect Elgrim to find a guest who can talk about a) the nature of modern computerised stock trading, which is actually a fascinating subject, given that computers trade far faster than humans can, and that small traders have been pushed out of the game, b) the potential impacts of glitches, how many have happened before, what the causes can be, and c) the politicisation of these events, where the first thing that happens is, someone has to “rule out terrorism”, despite the fact that there are close to zero terrorist attacks (I’m not including the ones where the US uses drones to fire missiles into civilian areas in Yemen and kills children, of course!). It’s interesting how there is now a “terrorism” angle on every major event, despite the fact that it should be obvious that such things are done to ramp up fear. A tech news show could examine that – it could agree with me, it could disagree with me, but the fact that “terrorism” has a peculiar definition when applied to tech stuff (as does “spying” – it’s bad that China does it to the US, but it goes unmentioned that the US does it to China) is interesting.

    Can you imagine what a serious tech news show could’ve done with a story like that? Actual commentary! Actual discussion!

    But no. Jason Cortez and the Grimbots are happy that the main story was about a text file in a small electronic device.

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    1. Well said. I luv HELLOWORLD and the work they are doing to expose all the TWIT nonsense and corruption. TWIT is ripping off advertisers and LEO is sicking viewers exposing his penis and acting like a DICK while flipping the bird to his idiot devoted fan base. Anyone who doesn’t see this should “eat a dick”.

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  5. It’s about content and TNT has none period.

    I got the gist of what Helloworld was getting at. Apparently there are some trolls here who think 30 seconds in passing about what was a MAJOR tech news story should take a back seat to a thermostat.

    It would be like the network news reporting on 2001 Fall fashions instead of a couple of planes heading for the Twin Towers.

    Yeah, it’s that bad and it brings Elgan’s credibility into the harsh light of reality. The man is a talentless snob whose only qualification for the position he’s in is that he has a similar forehead to Tom Merritt.

    Too bad there’s nothing behind it…

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    1. I’ve heard that’s a delicacy in some countries. So assuming you’re a thoughtful intelligent person I can only surmise that you’d suggest that I broaden my culinary horizons.

      Sadly, the closest I may ever get is Rocky Mountain Oysters which like your suggestion is a part of bovine anatomy I cannot see myself indulging in.

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  6. No one is surprised at this. First of all, they DID talk about the NYSE bug, but they did it as if it was just another story, while every other news outlet (mainstream media not new media) covered it like crazy.

    That aside, it was odd that TNT did not go in depth into this story, it could have been a good couple of minutes, bring in some expert guest, talk about previous occasions when this has happened, talk about the future in this field, what happens when this bug causes all these problems, how does it relate to the United story, how can we fix it/prevent it, etc.

    TNT is not up to its old standards, and that must be the news director, sorry but it has to be. Even DTNS which operates out of Merritt’s living rom with a producer that is not on prem, guests from different parts of the country and world, and through Hangouts works a lot better than this, sorry but that’s how it it.

    I don’t personaly dislike Mike, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see how the quality has downgraded over these past 18 months or so.

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