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Both seem to be cases suffering from a horizon problem. In Airy's case, the benefits of the Analytical Engine may not have been realizable in the area extendin
by firebones 13y ago
Both seem to be cases suffering from a horizon problem.
In Airy's case, the benefits of the Analytical Engine may not have been realizable in the area extending to the horizon of his ability to make recommendations. Had he been making recommendations with a 100-150 year timeframe, perhaps he might have been more generous.
The telephone case is more damnable, and reads like a combination of a short horizon for ROI combined with Innovator's Dilemma.
A lot of pragmatic negativity is simply evaluators making very rational recommendations based on a time horizon in which they are both technically correct and for which they are given incentive to be correct. Extend the horizon (stretch the time) or change the incentive (change it from spending today's cash flow to an investment for the long term) and the evaluations may change as well.
- protomyth 13y ago"The telephone case is more damnable, and reads like a combination of a short horizon for ROI combined with Innovator's Dilemma." I think it was a bit simpler than that. I really don't think they understood how much more enabling voice[1] was over morse code. It really seems like they didn't get the model would change via voice because you didn't need the morse code operators. 1) they mentioned voice quality in the report and it sounds like they weren't willing to be fix it as part of a NIH mentality
- firebones 13y agoThat is fascinating, and kind of a twist on Innovator's Dilemma. It would be innovator's dilemma IF they saw voice as inferior to telegraphy, for instance, if quality and quantity of information transfer were seen as lower, and less accurate than morse code. Perhaps they mistook the fact that Morse code messages were pre-written and could be transferred quickly, while spoken messages were more stilted, and conveyed less info per time unit.