I’ve noticed comments about similar things on Andrew Gelman’s blog and now I think I need to actually make a significant update towards ‘something is wrong with Stephen Wolfram’, tho I’m still not sure what the underlying issue is.
Do you have any links about that case (“Wolfram Research Inc v. Cook”) specifically? I’d think it’s possible that there was some reasonable reason for the lawsuit, but overall, on priors, I’d guess it’s just bad (if not terrible).
If you google the case name, you’ll find some discussions of from early on, and Shalizi covered Cook’s lawsuit & other lawsuits in the essay already linked. Unfortunately, most of the discussion has long since linkrotted but I remember at the time it being well known inside the small CA community, and I doubt oldtimers will have forgotten Wolfram’s behavior even if it no longer comes up much.
(Disclosure: I have met Wolfram, and he was enjoyable to talk to, or perhaps I should say, listen to, and I liked the Wolfram I met—but nothing was at stake, and I think I should not like the Wolfram I met in other contexts so much. Perhaps he has mellowed with age.)
Oof – that looks really bad!
I’ve noticed comments about similar things on Andrew Gelman’s blog and now I think I need to actually make a significant update towards ‘something is wrong with Stephen Wolfram’, tho I’m still not sure what the underlying issue is.
Do you have any links about that case (“Wolfram Research Inc v. Cook”) specifically? I’d think it’s possible that there was some reasonable reason for the lawsuit, but overall, on priors, I’d guess it’s just bad (if not terrible).
If you google the case name, you’ll find some discussions of from early on, and Shalizi covered Cook’s lawsuit & other lawsuits in the essay already linked. Unfortunately, most of the discussion has long since linkrotted but I remember at the time it being well known inside the small CA community, and I doubt oldtimers will have forgotten Wolfram’s behavior even if it no longer comes up much.
(Disclosure: I have met Wolfram, and he was enjoyable to talk to, or perhaps I should say, listen to, and I liked the Wolfram I met—but nothing was at stake, and I think I should not like the Wolfram I met in other contexts so much. Perhaps he has mellowed with age.)