Jerry Pournelle's column was very entertaining and well written, but it taught me an important lesson. I knew something about the computers of the day (perhaps more than Pournelle), and I often found him giving bizarre, if not incorrect, advice (and sometimes, when he had a problem, he would just call his bud Bill Gates). Reading the column, it was clear he was the expert, even when he was not. So I learned that it is important to distinguish between good writing as entertainment, and good writing as expertise.