And lo on Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:02:10 +0100, somebody <x### [at] ycom> did spake,  
saying:

> "Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote in message
> news:op.uh81hewkc3xi7v@news.povray.org...
>> And lo on Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:44:32 +0100, somebody <x### [at] ycom> did spake,
>> saying:
>
>> > If the goal is to support building of faster computers through demand,
>> > give each employee of LHC a copy of FarCry 2 and send them home. It
>> > would be much cheaper than $10 billion.
>
>> I agree, if the goal was to build faster computers; however that would
>> require someone with a ton of cash to say "Hey we need faster computers"
>> to which the response would be "Why?"
>
> You got to be kidding (on both accounts). IBM, Intel, AMD, Sun, nVidia...
> etc are those someone's with a ton of cash, and I don't think anybody  
> asks why we need faster computers (no POV user that I know of anyway).

Except that would appear to be faster computers for the sake of faster  
computers. What you're repeating here is the "We need faster computers to  
do this" which is just indirect demand.

>> > He was working at CERN when he made the invention, but he could have
>> > very well
>> > have been working at IBM or Apple or Walmart or Starbucks
>> > (well, he'd have better access to networks
>> > at that time with the former two).
>> <snip>
>> > The important point is, CERN's high energy physics research did not  
>> give
>> > rise to Tim Berners-Lee's invention.
>
>> Most importantly a) The abilty at CERN to display pictures and text at  
>> the
>> same time would have been very useful, and b) No-one at CERN came in and
>> told him to stop working on it and get back to what he was supposed to  
>> be
>> doing. Somehow I don't see that happening at IBM, Apple, Walmart, or
>> Starbucks.
>
> Admittedly not likely at Walmart and Starbucks, but IBM, Apple, Bell (in  
> its
> heyday, now Lucent to an extent), Xerox, even the newcomer Google... etc
> have thousands of such inventions for each one that came out of CERN. Can
> you name a *second* practical invention that came out of CERN off the  
> top of
> your head, for example? Can you name a practical invention that came out  
> of
> Fermilab, RHIC, SLAC... etc? Not that there haven't been, but my point is
> that Tim Berners-Lee's is a singular and more or less a random case.

Except that Bell etc have set up the type of 'open' research departments  
that you are complaining about.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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