michael said:
Methodologies are continually being upset by those who find some other way to do an expensive [time or money] function for an infinitessimal amount of the original.
well, i think we're both on the same page... except you're reading it and i'm writing it... :+) (in other words, if one is interested in the actual upsetting of methodologies, then one pays some attention to them. otherwise, one waits until they play out.) google is upsetting the methodologies here. and you are counting that machine translation will become up to snuff sooner or later, and you're not interesting in the interim period. both positions are equally fine to hold...
If not, then why talk in such generalities
i don't think i'm talking about "generalities" at all. in the current case, google is the entity doing it -- or so it has been reported, whether true or not -- and keith is the entity saying "it can't be done"... (well, he said "not in the next 100 or so years".) and in the other case i've mentioned -- the "dispute" between me and my "detractors" on this listserve -- there are no "generalities" either. we spent 2 years going back and forth at each other, so the positions are well-staked-out in the archives if you're curious.
It only matters when you get to the point of ending the debating and actually doing something the outside world can see and work with.
right. except when you're playing poker, the object is to win as much money as possible with the hands you win, and to lose as little as possible with the ones that you lose. and that means you don't always show all of your cards right away... google ain't showing all their cards. and i ain't showing all mine either... but i'm starting to show _some_. so we're past the point where any of this matters any more, in the matter of me vs. this list, since pudding is being served... -bowerbird