From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Dec 7 20:15:33 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from picard.skynet.be (picard.skynet.be [195.238.3.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C9ACB37B41C for ; Fri, 7 Dec 2001 20:15:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from [10.0.1.16] (ip-27.shub-internet.org [194.78.144.27] (may be forged)) by picard.skynet.be (8.11.6/8.11.6/Skynet-OUT-2.16) with ESMTP id fB84FCi06705; Sat, 8 Dec 2001 05:15:12 +0100 (MET) (envelope-from ) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: bs663385@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <006901c17f70$19a2f820$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <0112071641320B.01380@stinky.akitanet.co.uk><000b01c17f42$c23ab140$0a0 0000a@atkielski.com><3C110351.4748B559@duth.gr><005001c17f6c$e60c0ef0$ 0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15377.17350.796336.801464@guru.mired.org> <006901c17f70$19a2f820$0a00000a@atkielski.com> Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2001 04:58:16 +0100 To: "Anthony Atkielski" , "Mike Meyer" , "Konstantinos Konstantinidis" , From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: A breath of fresh air.. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 11:39 PM +0100 on 2001/12/07, Anthony Atkielski wrote: > No. The not-so-hidden assumption is that the system that best meets the > customers' requirements will tend to become dominant, because most customers > are mostly rational. No. They are provably irrational. Can you say "Betamax"? It is provably superior in every way to VHS, and to this day it continues to be used by professional video camera operators (such as those working in the field for TV stations). Yet it is a commercial failure -- VHS won that war a long time ago. What about the Tucker? It was provably superior in every way to all the other cars made at the time (what with disk brakes, safety glass, padded dashboards, etc...), but there were only ever 51 made before the company went bankrupt. No, people are provably irrational. Moreover, it is also provable that this irrationality is non-linear -- the larger the group of people, the less rational they become (because most are blind to their true needs or desires, and are lemmings that follow the moron in front of them off the side of the bridge). > Since Windows is dominant, then, logically it meets > the requirements of most customers, and so it is the rational choice. This whole statement is based on a false assumption. -- Brad Knowles, H4sICIFgXzsCA2RtYS1zaWcAPVHLbsMwDDvXX0H0kkvbfxiwVw8FCmzAzqqj1F4dy7CdBfn7 Kc6wmyGRFEnvvxiWQoCvqI7RSWTcfGXQNqCUAnfIU+AT8OZ/GCNjRVlH0bKpguJkxiITZqes MxwpSucyDJzXxQEUe/ihgXqJXUXwD9ajB6NHonLmNrUSK9nacHQnH097szO74xFXqtlbT3il wMsBz5cnfCR5cEmci0Rj9u/jqBbPeES1I4PeFBXPUIT1XDSOuutFXylzrQvGyboWstCoQZyP dxX4dLx0eauFe1x9puhoi0Ao1omEJo+BZ6XLVNaVpWiKekxN0VK2VMpmAy+Bk7ZV4SO+p1L/ uErNRS/qH2iFU+iNOtbcmVt9N16lfF7tLv9FXNj8AiyNcOi1AQAA To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message