

Wil Shipley on TED 2010: Wolfram uses conversation tracking numbers - mark_h
http://wilshipley.com/blog/2010/03/ted-2010.html

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Zev
I have to ask: Did you _completely skip the part about zombies_? Because, to
me, that was far more interesting then how Wolfram keeps track of things.

I think what I'm really trying to say here is: There are many
funny/interesting anecdotes in this post and singling one out doesn't do the
rest of them justice.

~~~
mark_h
Fair call I guess; the Wolfram anecdote just resonated with me personally! I
thought that it had several interesting snippets, but wasn't sure that "Wil's
overview of TED" would be that interesting so it needed something else.

But yeah: Zombies, damn interesting!

~~~
gojomo
Note to others: if you want to find the 'zombies' part, search for [Mark
Roth], because the word 'zombie' isn't used.

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danbmil99
shipley on Wolfram: "If he were a patent-troll I'd have no patience for him,
sure, but he's a man of science in the truest sense of the word."

Wolfram is extremely litigious:
<http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2002-July/005692.html>

He's also notoriously skimpy on giving credit for ideas.

while I haven't heard any specific claims of patent troll-ism, I suspect he
has a ton of patents on Mathematica and Alpha.

~~~
abecedarius
Case in point on credit for ideas: Shipley reports him saying he invented a
parameterization of shell designs in nature. That subject got a few pages in a
Richard Dawkins book, and I'd remember if Dawkins had credited Wolfram. (Maybe
Wolfram got it independently. I don't know.)

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hexis
I'm just glad he didn't tell any Matt Groening stories. That would have been
over the top.

