Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:69368 comp.sys.ibm.pc:54485 comp.sys.dec:4289 comp.sys.atari.st:31808 comp.sys.mac:56234
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!sdd.hp.com!caen!math.lsa.umich.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc
From: hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.dec,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: The Man in the Machine - Article
Summary: Sure it's a joke, but some people just don't get it...
Message-ID: <1990Oct19.055541.1514@math.lsa.umich.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 90 05:55:41 GMT
References: <16470@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Sender: usenet@math.lsa.umich.edu
Followup-To: /dev/null
Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor
Lines: 22

A lot of folks have been paying a lot of attention to Halio's article, even
though the observations she makes were not made in a scientifically controlled
setting. (Of course, it's really hard to even try to set up a good experiment
for this. Get volunteers - where do you look? what media do you use to present
the experiment? For an experiment that wants to make a broad statement about
a general population, getting volunteers, and selecting which to employ, is
probably 80% of the experiment. Statistically speaking, how many people from
how many different working/living environments do you need to "test" to get a
good representation of the population at large?)

Even assuming you can somehow select the ideal mix of volunteers, what can
you prove - that Mac users are poor writers, or that poor writers like to
use Macs? It's all such hazy stuff.... And yet, people are spending real money
to do research on just these questions. I admit to being curious about what the
real answer may be, but I don't think it's the sort of question that can be
answered to anyone's satisfaction....

--
  -- Howard Chu @ University of Michigan
  one million data bits stored on a chip, one million bits per chip
	if one of those data bits happens to flip,
		one million data bits stored on the chip...