An Example of Time Wasting on the Web

Here’s a personal example of how the web can suck a reader into a bottomless pit. I’m sure you all have your own versions.

I receive a daily email newsletter related to my job – information security. The newsletter mentioned a new documentary on Court TV called “Tiger Team.” I searched for the Court TV schedule and clicked the link to open their site. I quickly found the section on specials that included the show I wanted to watch. The show is about a team of security specialists who are hired to find flaws in company’s security systems. They are sometimes referred to as penetration testers.

The description of the show provided by Court TV’s website used the the term “vérité.” I didn’t know what that meant, so I looked it up on the Merriam Webster website. The definition told me it’s a film technique that attempts to show things as candidly as possible. That wasn't enough for me, because I wondered if this included shows like "The Office."

I then performed a Google search for the term and came up with a Wikipedia entry for “cinéma vérité.” I read the entry (it wasn’t too long). The entry started off with the disclaimer saying the article is in dispute. So I read the entries on the page containing the disputed items. Because I read all the disputed items, I don’t know what “cinéma vérité” means. The film experts disagree on the term. They can’t even agree on which films exhibit the cinéma vérité stlye.

The question remains, what is it? But more importantly, has access to all this information helped me?

I feel more confused now then when I opened the newsletter. What was all this about?

p.s.

I still want to know how to pronounce the term. Once I know how to pronounce it correctly, I can mockingly mispronounce the term.

p.s.2

With the Num Lock on, type Alt-130 on the numeric pad to get "é."