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Reminds me of the evergreen Joseph Heller anecdote: "At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that th
by westbywest 16y ago
Reminds me of the evergreen Joseph Heller anecdote:
"At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch 22 over its whole history. Heller responds, 'Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . Enough.'"
- michaelochurch 16y agoThat is an awesome quote. The viral r-factor here is at least 1.
- pixelbath 16y agoWhat does that term mean?
- gridspy 16y agoOf every person told this quote, they tell it to > 1 other new person on average.
- pixelbath 16y agoSo the "r" stands for what, repeatability? Where did this jargon originate (and more importantly, why do web searches only turn up insulation values)?
- Lost_BiomedE 16y agoreproduction: It is a math model for infectious disease http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infectious_disease http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infec...
- michaelochurch 16y agoFor a virus, the average number of people a sick person infects. If r < 1, the spread is self-limiting. If r > 1, it spreads exponentially until r drops (because, say, enough people develop immunity).
- westbywest 16y agoSo the r-factor more or less measures the capacity of a word/phrase/blurb to propagate itself as a meme?
- rchi 16y agothis is becoming a cliche!