Wow. This could prove an invaluable tool for teaching. Great UI (love the way you can build the dataset with a paintbrush), top-quality visualization, wide choice of algorithms... Much better than R scripts if you want to show basic algorithms at work to a bunch of students. Many thanks
For the record, the Lisp dialect that is mentioned in the comments is http://lush.sourceforge.net/
with respect to the discussion, it is on the R/Python side, ie. powerful general-puspose (Lisp) language, with builtin Statistics facilities.
"No central authority" ? Well, I think the guys who decide there will only be 21 million bitcoins can be considered a central authority.
Currency, in any form, is deemed to have a central authority -- national currencies, for example, have real-life value because states limit the available quantity. In this case, the Bitcoins people are acting as the central bank. Especially when I see that the total produced bitcoins will be halved each year by decision.
Someone proposed 21 million coins, and others, by voluntarily choosing to run the software, agreed to the 21 million coin limit. That's not a central authority...just an agreement between individuals.
In all of your statements you're conflating a protocol, and voluntary social agreement, with a central authority.
Anyone is free to fork the software and change the rules to create their own protocol for people to use! If they like the rules, they join...if they don't like the rules, they don't join. Freedom.
About monetizing: you could show the first 2 words only, and charge a small fee for the third ?
I guess people would pay to see what is said about them at least.
This is a terrible terrible terrible idea. You don't want your users to feel that you are exploiting them. It will just pi$$ them off. Just go with a bunch of well placed ads.
