david rothman said:
As for disrupting this list, keep in mind that out of the blue, without my attacking anyone, Bowerbird launched a strike on me and wants to do this every Thanksgiving. Great for holiday cheer, huh?
it wasn't "out of the blue". it was based on a bet from 4 years ago. you tried to escape from an unpleasant accounting of the realities by saying "check back in a year and see what it looks like then..." i set the terms of the bet at 5 years, precisely because i wanted to demonstrate clearly how awful your "predictive power" actually is. not only did you continue to be wrong one year later, but you were also wrong 2 years later, and then wrong again 3 years later, and -- now -- wrong yet again 4 years later. wrong wrong wrong wrong. so yeah, i'll check in next year at this time, to conclude the bet... you seem to think that anyone who dares to check your _accuracy_ is "launching a strike" on you. you want to spew your thoughts out without having any do any checks. you don't want to be challenged. and hey, i don't blame you. if my track-record was as bad as yours, i wouldn't want anyone bringing up pesky issues like "accuracy" either. and if my grasp on the issues was as tenuous as yours, i wouldn't want to engage in any dialog either, because it would be exposed that i couldn't really defend my position with rational arguments. you want to dish out platitudes and be praised for doing just that, instead of doing the difficult work of examining the hard trade-offs. you want to dangle the shiny in front of people, and not have to face the uncomfortable fact that it just makes them dissatisfied with the current reality of the situation on the ground and in the marketplace. you call my posts "rants", but that kind of doubletalk doesn't work, and you're so far outside your comfort zone you don't even realize it. -bowerbird