[Mick]

[quote author=ferrari link=topic=11935.msg115586#msg115586 date=1427432081]
[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=11935.msg115583#msg115583 date=1427430535]
Best ever lists aren't meant to actually establish anything meaningful.  They are meant to be a topic of conversation for the people making them and reading them.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The "which was Shaw's best season" thread generated an interesting discussion.  That's an end in itself.  Of course the question of which season was Shaw's best is totally academic and unimportant.  But it is a fun topic to talk about.

BC

Oh, I agree.  I just smile when I see lists of "Greatest Stanford (name a position)" and it is heavily weighted to the last 10 - 15 years.  Rarely see Frankie Albert, John Brodie, Pop Warner, Gene Washington, BBall players who changed the game, etc.  Best Song is rarely more than 10 years old.  Greatest Invention usually came about within the past 10 years.  Just something for old men to ponder.
[/quote]

I think that is recency bias.  You remember something you saw recently. Plus, many of us weren't around to see Albert, Brodie, Warner, Washington, Lusetti, or in my case, even Lichti.  When so much of that is subjective, it is hard to rate or understand people you didn't witness or experience.

As to inventions... actually most "greatest inventions" are old.  We venerate the lightbulb, telegraph, and telephone.  There's a reason the expression "greatest invention since sliced bread" is such.  Even the transistor and computer are hardly recent inventions.  In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of an invention in the last 10 years except maybe the smart phone, and wikipedia tells me, "Devices that combined telephony and computing were first conceptualized by Theodore Paraskevakos in 1971 and patented in 1974, and were offered for sale beginning in 1993." so there.

BC
[/quote]

Props to the wheel, wedge, lever, inclined plane, nail, printing press, compass, telephone, light bulb, internal combustion engine, penicillin and contraceptives.

[Mick]

[quote author=ferrari link=topic=11935.msg115586#msg115586 date=1427432081]
[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=11935.msg115583#msg115583 date=1427430535]
Best ever lists aren't meant to actually establish anything meaningful.  They are meant to be a topic of conversation for the people making them and reading them.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The "which was Shaw's best season" thread generated an interesting discussion.  That's an end in itself.  Of course the question of which season was Shaw's best is totally academic and unimportant.  But it is a fun topic to talk about.

BC

Oh, I agree.  I just smile when I see lists of "Greatest Stanford (name a position)" and it is heavily weighted to the last 10 - 15 years.  Rarely see Frankie Albert, John Brodie, Pop Warner, Gene Washington, BBall players who changed the game, etc.  Best Song is rarely more than 10 years old.  Greatest Invention usually came about within the past 10 years.  Just something for old men to ponder.
[/quote]

I think that is recency bias.  You remember something you saw recently. Plus, many of us weren't around to see Albert, Brodie, Warner, Washington, Lusetti, or in my case, even Lichti.  When so much of that is subjective, it is hard to rate or understand people you didn't witness or experience.

As to inventions... actually most "greatest inventions" are old.  We venerate the lightbulb, telegraph, and telephone.  There's a reason the expression "greatest invention since sliced bread" is such.  Even the transistor and computer are hardly recent inventions.  In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of an invention in the last 10 years except maybe the smart phone, and wikipedia tells me, "Devices that combined telephony and computing were first conceptualized by Theodore Paraskevakos in 1971 and patented in 1974, and were offered for sale beginning in 1993." so there.

BC
[/quote]

Props to the wheel, wedge, lever, inclined plane, nail, printing press, compass, telephone, light bulb, internal combustion engine, penicillin and contraceptives.