The Battle for the Color Monitor
When e began developing his Venn applications, color monitors were a rarity. When one appeared in his department, the battle lines were immediately drawn. Who would possess this gem?
e began his campaign with a flurry of Venn diagrams. A draft of one is shown. Here we see how e has cleverly biased the debate with his primary rival, John Swanson.
Note that U is the universe of all color monitor locations. Two are shown, namely OJD indicating the monitor will reside On John's Desk and OMD indicating the monitor will reside On My (i.e., e's) Desk. While the probability of ending up at a particular location is suggested by the size of the Venn disks, e deemed it necessary to specifically indicate the transfer probability is proportional to the area of the destination.
e also became highly skilled in the generation of Venn diagrams in real time. Below we see an example from a debate with John Swanson on disposition of the coveted color monitor. Again working in the universe of all color monitor locations, e has indicated the intersection of OJD and OMD as the null set. To further the point, e indicates through the hypothetical DV, or Double Venn, that the color monitor will only appear on 'John's desk' if they shared a desk (which they did not). e has also noted the fallacy of John's use of the Venn diagram as a dynamic analysis tool. This being nothing more than a friendly jab and cheap debating trick.
Our last example indicates the professionalism e applied to his precious Venn diagrams. By this time, the theme of 'Use and Abuse of the Venn Diagram In a Modern Corporate Society' had been codified as evidenced by the header. e had also come to communicate almost exclusively through the medium of the view graph. Here he considers the universe of infinite probablities. Despite being utter nonsense logically, it does clearly state that there was a high probability the color monitor would be on e's desk Monday morning. The logical error has been denoted Swansonistic - a term which came to mean any poorly conceived concept.
