In this business, you soon learn that what people say is far less interesting than what they don't. Take chips. Intel and AMD will fall over themselves to tell you how their new processors work. Press conferences and white papers are full of the fascinating mechanisms of hyper-threading, cache design, bus architectures and much else too darn dull to list. They tell us all this in an attempt to prove that they and they alone have the best bang per buck, the fastest chip bar none, or just because we should feel that they're very clever chaps with lots of bright ideas. Who are we to argue? But it's all so much flummery, like a church claiming it's much holier than the rest because its bishops have the tallest mitres. When you're sitting at your computer getting work done, how many times do you sigh to yourself and say "Oh, if only the processor was just that little bit faster?" Outside the greasy worlds of oil and Hollywood, we don't care. We haven't cared for years. What matters to us these days is communication. Networks. I want my data here and now. When I pick up my laptop and walk I want my data there and now too. Most of my computing delays of late have been due to wireless hiccoughs, cable modems not coping with bad connections, networks not delivering what I wanted when I wanted. So how much information do we get from the chip companies about our network components? We're expected to understand the details of processor arcana, but not to care about the stuff that shovels the data in and out -- here, the great engines of publicity mumble and cough. I have a suspicion why. Take wireless, the masked superhero carrying the hopes of the industry on its wide yet ethereal fairy wings. A friend reports from a huge conference run by an enormous and very famous software company that the wireless bits just weren't working properly: the state of the art installation had hundreds of 802.11a/b/g access points scattered across the site, and on paper it should have been what that company likes to call a compelling user experience. In reality, it was what us compellingly experienced users like to call frustration. Real pig-kicker class. "What did you expect?" said an engineer to whom I related the story. "You've got hundreds, thousands of transmitters in a small space, and the receivers are tosh. They haven't got a hope in hell of working. Couple of access points, handful of laptops? No problem. More than that? Might as well use Morse code. Ever had two cards refuse to work together? Ever have any idea why? That's why."