3 ms·

Interesting problem space, but not the only valid one, nor the only one likely to give one a sustainable advantage in the commercial space. In fact, there's pro

Interesting problem space, but not the only valid one, nor the only one likely to give one a sustainable advantage in the commercial space. In fact, there's probably more to be made in developing a heart-friendly Sachertorte-style dessert (trademark would keep one from calling it by that name) with an icing that is as good as or better than the original and marketing it (and a cookbook full of recipes that don't include your magical icing) via a twenty-minute PHP "project". HNe is not about the outer reaches of computing possibilities (although the subject tends to interest most of us, and if you pay attention you'll find that Shannon is familiar to at least a significant subset of the population here), it is about creating and capitalizing on value. It is about marketable innovation. Nobody is likely to win a Fields or an Abel for finding a way to make $9.95/mo from a few tens of millions of people, but whoever does it is likely to drive a much nicer car than the guy whose life's work is able to pluck useful security intelligence from a billion digitized telephone conversations a day (but, since it is classified as top secret ordnance, can never be marketed). And if you want to be realistic about it at all, anything that approaches the limits of the IR noise floor with precision, even limiting the problem space to text, is going to be so classified. The work may be the source of great personal pride, but little else. (And when the fifty-year window opens, you'll be too old for a Fields.) So much for entrepreneurship.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
HilbertSpace 16y ago
Okay, here we go: YOU mentioned Fields and Abel; I didn't. You just ASSUMED that the goal of math is Fields, etc.; I didn't. And I'm not interested in Fields, etc. at all. CLEARLY from your straining to make silly assumptions, you just do NOT 'get it'. Basically you are straining to denigrate math by assuming that it's just about Fields, etc. A guess is that you didn't like math; a solid guess is that you don't know much of it, certainly not enough to see its potential in Web 2.0 work. Sadly most math profs fall into this category. But you DID mention "make $9.95/mo from a few tens of millions of people", and the role of math I explained would be to get $19.95 a month from a few hundred million people. So, maybe now you begin to see the goal; still I doubt that you have any idea just how math could make that difference. I do. If I am successful, then someday you may hear of my success. In the meanwhile, I can't 'teach' you better than I did. I used to teach; I didn't want to; I didn't like it; I don't anymore; I don't want to again now. I gave you the truth; if you can't get it, then so be it. So far nearly no money has been made selling recipes: E.g., the guy who runs eGullet receives stacks of new cookbooks each month from publishers hoping that he will give a book some publicity. None of the books makes very much money, and few of them make any money at all. I have a good Sachertorte recipe and made it about twice. It takes a LOT eggs, chocolate, and time. So, it eats up the constrained big two -- time and calories. Solidly in practice, the target of a cookbook is just to use the technique of formula fiction to give the reader vicarious, escapist, fantasy, emotional experience entertainment. It's NOT about actually cooking; instead it's about entertainment. So is the food channel on TV: The solid belief is that for the viewers, watching entertainment is easy; watching meaningful instruction, difficult. So, for the books, people enjoy looking at the covers and flipping through the pages but mostly don't try to cook anything from the books. So, calories don't matter. A possible area of business is to develop some text and video to teach people how to do well making Sachertorte, Scharwälder Kirschtorte, Dobos Torte, all the Vienna things; but the assumption of essentially everyone in cooking is that such an effort would not work. The guy who runs America's Test Kitchen does want to teach, but he hasn't made much progress with things like Sachertortes. One big, HUGE, problem is that the whole cooking community has a norm of not being precise about instructions (more precise in baking than nearly all of the rest of cooking, but still not very precise). They find providing enough in details and precision for their work to be duplicated -- which is JUST what is CRUCIAL -- insulting. Also they are just awful on identifying and articulating solid principles. They resist careful specifications even more than you do the practical power of math. That whole cooking field just is nothing like applied chemistry. E.g., they just hate being precise about weights, volumes, times, temperatures, viscosities, pH, exactly what ingredients were used, etc. E.g., if have any hope of communicating to someone else how to get the frosting of a Sachertorte to look, act, feel, and taste right, then have to provide overwhelming detail. In practice, the way people do such work well is just by massive 'experience': They learn by apprenticeship from someone with that experience and then get good by making, say, 50 Sachertortes a day for three months. Then they ARE quite precise about everything, except they get the precision heavily by feel and appearance which they are totally unable to communicate except by, again, long apprenticeship. On all of this, Chinese cooking is MUCH worse. Another big, HUGE, problem is that the norm is that essentially everything to pass through a video camera has to be under the control of cinematographers, writers, directors, and producers with Hollywood values where vicarious experience is always the goal and actual information never is. So, would have to get some especially careful cooks, get some especially careful and clear specifications of what they do, get some video people who are ready, willing, and able to DOCUMENT, and then HOPE users will like the results. I believe that the Internet does make this path newly feasible in some respects and that some people WILL like it, but for me that project is for later.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

HilbertSpace 16y ago

Okay, here we go: YOU mentioned Fields and Abel; I didn't. You just ASSUMED that the goal of math is Fields, etc.; I didn't. And I'm not interested in Fields, etc. at all. CLEARLY from your straining to make silly assumptions, you just do NOT 'get it'. Basically you are straining to denigrate math by assuming that it's just about Fields, etc. A guess is that you didn't like math; a solid guess is that you don't know much of it, certainly not enough to see its potential in Web 2.0 work. Sadly most math profs fall into this category. But you DID mention "make $9.95/mo from a few tens of millions of people", and the role of math I explained would be to get $19.95 a month from a few hundred million people. So, maybe now you begin to see the goal; still I doubt that you have any idea just how math could make that difference. I do. If I am successful, then someday you may hear of my success. In the meanwhile, I can't 'teach' you better than I did. I used to teach; I didn't want to; I didn't like it; I don't anymore; I don't want to again now. I gave you the truth; if you can't get it, then so be it. So far nearly no money has been made selling recipes: E.g., the guy who runs eGullet receives stacks of new cookbooks each month from publishers hoping that he will give a book some publicity. None of the books makes very much money, and few of them make any money at all. I have a good Sachertorte recipe and made it about twice. It takes a LOT eggs, chocolate, and time. So, it eats up the constrained big two -- time and calories. Solidly in practice, the target of a cookbook is just to use the technique of formula fiction to give the reader vicarious, escapist, fantasy, emotional experience entertainment. It's NOT about actually cooking; instead it's about entertainment. So is the food channel on TV: The solid belief is that for the viewers, watching entertainment is easy; watching meaningful instruction, difficult. So, for the books, people enjoy looking at the covers and flipping through the pages but mostly don't try to cook anything from the books. So, calories don't matter. A possible area of business is to develop some text and video to teach people how to do well making Sachertorte, Scharwälder Kirschtorte, Dobos Torte, all the Vienna things; but the assumption of essentially everyone in cooking is that such an effort would not work. The guy who runs America's Test Kitchen does want to teach, but he hasn't made much progress with things like Sachertortes. One big, HUGE, problem is that the whole cooking community has a norm of not being precise about instructions (more precise in baking than nearly all of the rest of cooking, but still not very precise). They find providing enough in details and precision for their work to be duplicated -- which is JUST what is CRUCIAL -- insulting. Also they are just awful on identifying and articulating solid principles. They resist careful specifications even more than you do the practical power of math. That whole cooking field just is nothing like applied chemistry. E.g., they just hate being precise about weights, volumes, times, temperatures, viscosities, pH, exactly what ingredients were used, etc. E.g., if have any hope of communicating to someone else how to get the frosting of a Sachertorte to look, act, feel, and taste right, then have to provide overwhelming detail. In practice, the way people do such work well is just by massive 'experience': They learn by apprenticeship from someone with that experience and then get good by making, say, 50 Sachertortes a day for three months. Then they ARE quite precise about everything, except they get the precision heavily by feel and appearance which they are totally unable to communicate except by, again, long apprenticeship. On all of this, Chinese cooking is MUCH worse. Another big, HUGE, problem is that the norm is that essentially everything to pass through a video camera has to be under the control of cinematographers, writers, directors, and producers with Hollywood values where vicarious experience is always the goal and actual information never is. So, would have to get some especially careful cooks, get some especially careful and clear specifications of what they do, get some video people who are ready, willing, and able to DOCUMENT, and then HOPE users will like the results. I believe that the Internet does make this path newly feasible in some respects and that some people WILL like it, but for me that project is for later.