shrug It just says he hasn't worked with any really big web shops. Almost all the Fortune 1000's I've worked with have used it. None of the smaller folks have.
If they don't survive, it will not be because of damage to their quality, but because of an outcry. There would be in outcry in that case because it is bad and obviously.
There is not a perfect marriage between what is good for Google and what is good for the world.
What's wrong with that? Read the material critically. Scratch out a few letters on a piece of paper. If it makes sense and you want to go further, buy the book.
As far as advertising goes, this is pretty useful -- it gives me some value even if I don't buy the book, and directs me to a resource that I might be genuinely interested in.
You have already started your inevitable downmodding, but I think you have a lot of truth to your comment. When people assail the change from Futura to Verdana, most give only their personal aesthetic preference for Verdana -- a pure assertion of its superiority.
It's also "random" (more like unpredictable) which kids receive what types of environments. Sometimes, Dad's favorite is the eldest son, sometimes Daddy's favorite is the youngest daughter.
A self-replicating printer isn't that until it can build machines to go out and source the materials needed for the continued operation of the printer.
I'm not sure if you were trying to provide an example or a counter example -- the post you linked to is modded 3 points, but the parent is at 18 points, showing a great deal of respect for the achievements of Mr. Wallace.
Gangster rap isn't hip hop. I hate anything that promotes violence, and would agree that Biggie didn't contribute much to the world. I still like Hip Hop though.
The FDA, on the whole, is quite reasonable and well-run. For treatments where there isn't an alternative and the disease is fatal, they do accelerate approvals and they allow more people to use the drug experimentally. For things like Rogaine they are very cautious and even then sometimes make fatal mistakes.
The Nobel prize is usually awarded for basic science, uncovering the mechanisms of something, rather than engineering applications based on that science.
That changes over time. Nobel's intention was to give it to people that gave the greatest benefit to mankind during the year. A few prices in the later years have been directed toward less base-research like inventions.
Also... why do people keep refering to the "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" as a nobel prize in economics? It's not one of the subjects that Nobel himself thought worthy.
Indeed, if you look at the very earliest Nobel prizes they were less focused on basic research. For example, the 1909 Physics prize to Marconi/Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy" or the 1912 Physics prize to Gustaf Dalen "for his invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys".
