2 ms·

If you are not producing any academic output, are not producing any commercial output, and are not even producing any patents, all you are producing is high-lev

by lambda 12y ago

If you are not producing any academic output, are not producing any commercial output, and are not even producing any patents, all you are producing is high-level handwavy talks, how do you distinguish that from a charlatan? Ideas in a vacuum are not worth much. I have some random ideas for systems that I think would work better than current systems that people use all the time; stuff I would like to get to some time to develop into something real. However, without actually either rigorously formalizing those ideas and having them reviewed against the current literature, or producing a shipping implementation that demonstrates their feasibility empirically, they're pretty much worth the cost of the paper they are (not) written on.

noblethrasher 12y ago
(sent from a mobile; please pardon the typos) Detrminatuon of charlatanism and crackpottery is also a function of past performance; no one considers that Shinichi Mochizuki’s proof of the ABC Conjecture is the product of a crackpot, even though people are still working to understand it nearly 3 years hence. According to the Financial Times: “Godard has done eleven compilers, four instruction set architectures, an operating system, an object database, and the odd application or two. In previous lives he has been founder, owner, or CEO of companies through several hundred employees, both technical and as diverse as a small chain of Country Music nightclubs and an importer of antique luxury automobiles. Despite having taught Computer Science at the graduate and post-doctorate levels, he has no degrees and has never taken a course in Computer Science.”[1] Mill may turn out to be another Xanadu. On the other hand, the nice thing about computers is that you can use them to simulate anything, including a better computer (with respect to X), so it's not crazy to think that Mill may have something serious to offer. Also, Godard sounds a lot like this this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Barton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Barton who designed this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems. [1] http://www.ftpress.com/authors/bio/de5f140d-e5bf-4e83-b020-1db28a80b71c http://www.ftpress.com/authors/bio/de5f140d-e5bf-4e83-b020-1...

by lambda 12y ago

noblethrasher 12y ago

(sent from a mobile; please pardon the typos) Detrminatuon of charlatanism and crackpottery is also a function of past performance; no one considers that Shinichi Mochizuki’s proof of the ABC Conjecture is the product of a crackpot, even though people are still working to understand it nearly 3 years hence. According to the Financial Times: “Godard has done eleven compilers, four instruction set architectures, an operating system, an object database, and the odd application or two. In previous lives he has been founder, owner, or CEO of companies through several hundred employees, both technical and as diverse as a small chain of Country Music nightclubs and an importer of antique luxury automobiles. Despite having taught Computer Science at the graduate and post-doctorate levels, he has no degrees and has never taken a course in Computer Science.”[1] Mill may turn out to be another Xanadu. On the other hand, the nice thing about computers is that you can use them to simulate anything, including a better computer (with respect to X), so it's not crazy to think that Mill may have something serious to offer. Also, Godard sounds a lot like this this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Barton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Barton who designed this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems. [1] http://www.ftpress.com/authors/bio/de5f140d-e5bf-4e83-b020-1db28a80b71c http://www.ftpress.com/authors/bio/de5f140d-e5bf-4e83-b020-1...