Robert X. Cringely has been covering the foibles and follies of Silicon Valley since 1986. With a fedora on his head and a keyboard in his hands, he wrangles rumors, gathers gossip, and reports the stories the world's high-tech honchos don't want you to hear. In the mid 1990s a cataclysmic event caused two Cringelys to appear. Some speculate this was the result of a momentary rift in the space/time continuum when parallel universes converged, trapping both Cringelys on the same side of the rift. (This is known colloquially as the "Evil Spock theory.") Another hypothesis holds the Cringelys are twins separated at birth who were mistakenly bestowed the same name due to a bug in the hospital's database software. A third school of thought posits that Cringely is in fact two highly talented journalists using the same name while writing for different publications. This theory has been largely discredited. Whatever the cause, one Cringely went on to fame and fortune, writing a best-selling book and hosting several PBS series on technology. The other poor scrivener continues on the beat for InfoWorld.com, working tirelessly to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" in the world of high tech.