Lancelot Braithwaite cannot get through my visit without bursting forth a mantra that once served him and thousands of consumers well: “Read the frickin’ instruction manual!” he bellows. “And don’t throw it out unless you’re pretty good at memorizing it!” Never mind that products—from iPhones to Facebook—have made manuals into curious artifacts of a distant era. That era is alive if not well in Braithwaite’s smokey, cramped one-bedroom on West 14th Street.
Before tech product reviewers were brand names, there was Braithwaite, thundering his wisdom and geekery from publications that now exist only in yellowing copies. It was a time when the best critics were so familiar with technical specifications that their knowledge rivaled the engineers who built the products. And none were as omnipresent or as savvy as Braithwaite, who even served on industry standards committees.
Manuals are for sissies.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:58PM
I write documentation all day long (no, it's not my job, but it makes my job so much easier when we [inevitably] circle back to the SSDD). My colleagues ask me questions in e-mail, I send them links to the documentation. Doesn't stop them from asking the questions, but it does save me from repeating myself endlessly.
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