Let's grant that 'digging deep' means a certain number of gems -- like the fact your next meeting is with someone who drinks too much.
But as Tom Costello admits, this approach also "ensure[s] that we will have mistakes". If those mistakes are similar to the gems -- like erroneously associating a report of drinking too much with the wrong person -- I'm not sure that makes the case that the "bottom-feeding" was worth it.
Well, you can tell he cares about his work. It may be somewhat funny now, but someday we'll say this was ahead of its time. I'm sure it wasn't easy to make this. I think there's something to take away, and maybe incremental improvements will eventually make it more useful. At least it's original.
> It may be somewhat funny now, but someday we'll say this was ahead of its time.
Things are usually only 'ahead of their time' if you ignore a lot of the implementation and operational details. For example, Vannevar Bush's famous Memex, always cited as the important precursor to hypertext, was flatly unworkable: A desk-sized machine built around microfilm? It makes as much sense to talk about Jules Verne as the father of manned spaceflight because he thought of firing men from cannons.
My point is that being the first to an idea is rarely the important thing. Being first to a good, solid implementation is what counts.
seriously though, he's trying to construct an argument around the necessity of bottom-feeding for information?