Living on Internet Time... Like Thomas Edison Did 291
securitas writes: "If you think that dotcommers are the first people to live on Internet time, then take a trip to the 19th century (NYT Story, here's a Yahoo link). Thomas Edison had 10,000 researchers and scientists working at his Menlo Park labs, who slept on their desks, and had the same problems pleasing the investment community as today's tech companies. The result? Over 1000 patents and many inventions that we take for granted today."
Bad slashbot. (Score:2, Funny)
Bad slashbot. Patents are always evil. You are not correctly disseminating RMSthought or ESRspeak.
Time for re-ned-ucation!
--saint
Re:Bad slashbot. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, you'll notice that Edison only patented his idea of passing electricity though a special filament in order to make light. He did not patent the idea of making light. He patented the idea for a phonograph which could reproduce sounds encoded on a wax cilender. He did not patent the idea of recording and playing back music.
Re:Bad slashbot. (Score:3, Interesting)
In today's world, laws that were designed to protect people are twisted and gnarled to be used against people. I once read that as a small self-employed inventor you will need two or more patents to protect your invention. If you have only one, larger companies will be able to exploit your ideas. When you decide to sue the large company, good luck!
Large companies, on the other hand, utilize patents to control markets and lock out competitors. The whole system needs to be reviewed.
Re:Bad slashbot. (Score:2)
Patents aren't bad. Software patents are bad.
The government grants three primary forms of protection for IP: trade secrets, copyrights and patents. Until software arrived, very few products enjoyed protection under more than one of these concepts.
Software is often subject to restrictions from all three protections simultaneously. Copyrights (of course), trade secrets (closed source), and now patents. Top it off with the need to enter into a "contract" to install the software that further restricts your rights.
Each individual IP protection category was carefully developed over time to balance the rights of the producers and consumers. When software makers OR together all of their rights and AND together their customers' rights, this throws the whole system out of balance.
To return software to a more reasonable situation, at least one of the protections for it should be disallowed. Since patents are the worst fit for software, software patents should be severely curtailed or eliminated.
Re:Bad slashbot. (Score:2)
The copyright (at least before 1976), patent, and trademark require you to register with the government to be granted. Trade secrets are just that, secrets. About the only protection they offer is that in court proceedings, if you can convince the judge a piece of your evidence is a trade secret, it won't be entered into the court records.
Re:Bad slashbot. (Score:2)
I left out trademarks because they are pretty much orthogonal to the software patent problem.
Re:Bad slashbot. (Score:2)
Correct. The best tool I've found to understand the relationships between the different types of "intellectual property" is this IP map [tomwbell.com] by law professor Tom Bell [tomwbell.com].
Re:Bad slashbot. (Score:2)
That is an interesting diagram. Using that as a reference, what I originally meant to say is that they want to simultaneously apply all of the protections from the bottom half of that diagram to a single product. Plus an EULA as a bonus.
hehehe critical difference (Score:2)
None of this makes him a good person, Edison was still an evil, helpless-animal murdering, bastard.
But ideas are clean of their promulagators, inherently.
Sure he got a lot done. (Score:4, Funny)
Imagine of they had the Internet back in Edison's day.
"Hey, did you invent that light bulb yet"
"Sorry boss, I spent all day downloading 'Naughty Knickers 6'"
Re:Sure he got a lot done. (Score:2)
"The result?" (Score:3, Insightful)
- A.P.
Re:"The result?" (Score:3, Interesting)
kicked off the first truly big stock market bubble - electricity companies. bugs bunny numbers and valuations, just like the internet bubble.
followed shortly by the automobile and radio bubble.
the crash, boom, alakazam... Great Depression time....
well... at least this time, we dont have a horribly pro-big business president. doh.
Its called business (Score:4, Insightful)
Tesla (Score:2, Insightful)
Phrontist=Geek [phrontist.org]
Re:Tesla (Score:3)
Re:Tesla (Score:2)
From what I can tell, Tesla did a TON of work involving electricity and fields etc, but Edison seems far more well rounded.
Can anybody help me out? Where can I find more objective information?
Here's an example... (Score:3, Troll)
"After his death in 1943, his TeslaScope interplanetary communication device was turned on at the home of a friend in Canada, and the assembled group heard the Commander of an Alien vessel, explain the true hidden facts behind Tesla's fantastic 87 year life. Tesla apparently didn't discover until fairly late in his life, that he himself was an Alien, who had been left on Earth as a baby to help the people of the Earth evolve through the use of his inventive genius. From early childhood it was clear that he was quite different and odd compared to more "normal" Earth humans. The Commander mentioned that they had attended Tesla's funeral, and they had simply blurred all the photographs so that there would be no record of their attendance."
Re:Here's an example... (Score:4, Informative)
He was also, however, quite mad, and near the end of his life started working on some really far-out death-ray kinds of things. Unfortunately, too many people online have latched onto his latter "inventions" as being something other than dementia.
A good source about the life of Tesla is Clifford Pickover's book, Strange Brains and Genius : The Secret Lives of Eccentric Scientists and Madmen.
What I'm really curious about is why this fringe cult has grown up around Tesla. I mean, there have been plenty of unappreciated inventors before (look at Philo Farnsworth), and crackpot scientists, but for some reason the fringe people have a thing about Tesla in particular.
Re:Here's an example... (Score:2)
So from that point of view, he's far more compelling. They may laugh at his death rays, but they laughed at using alternating current for long distance power transmission, too!
Re:Tesla (Score:2, Informative)
of truths about tesla..
For example, Tesla holds the patent for wirelss
transmission, not marconi.
Without tesla we'd have power statiosn every few
miles because.. well. DC doesn't go too damned far..
Re:Tesla (Score:2)
1) The inter-connection of existing telegraph exchanges or offices all over the world;
2) The establishment of a secret and non-interferable government telegraph service;
3) The inter-connection of all present telephone exchanges or offices around the Globe;
4) The universal distribution of general news by telegraph or telephone, in conjunction with the Press;
5) The establishment of such a "World System" of intelligence transmission for exclusive private use;
6) The inter-connection and operation of all stock tickers of the world;
7) The establishment of a World system -- of musical distribution, etc.;
8) The universal registration of time by cheap clocks indicating the hour with astronomical precision and requiring no attention whatever;
9) The world transmission of typed or hand-written characters, letters, checks, etc.;
10) The establishment of a universal marine service enabling the navigators of all ships to steer perfectly without compass, to determine the exact location, hour and speak; to prevent collisions and disasters, etc.;
11) The inauguration of a system of world printing on land and sea;
12) The world reproduction of photographic pictures and all kinds of drawings or records..."
Wow, Tesla imagined the Internet and GPS and
radio clocks and the world stock market. OK was wrong in thinking he's magnifing transmitter would do the trick, but still thats an incredible
feat of prediction.
oh you are not paranoid (Score:4, Informative)
The edison companies were big sponsors.
So yeah it still goes on.
What is more paranoid to think about are some of the Tesla files that are still in fbi custody.
Are they keeping them secret because of incompetence, or is there something truly interesting in there?
My Favorite Tesla Story (Score:2)
Tesla apparently figured out how to turn the entire planet into a giant battery so that, in order to get power, you'd simply stick a copper pole in the ground. He went to J.P. Morgan and asked for some cash to implement his idea. Morgan listened and then asked Tesla how exactly he was supposed to charge people for it.
It's a shame he was so nuts (he lived in a hotel room filled with pigeons, hated spherical objects and was terrified of body hair) some of his ideas would've been wonderful to try, even if they didn't work. I mean, the guy invented the radio (marconi got the credit but Tesla got the patent)
Re:My Favorite Tesla Story (Score:2)
Branding, of course!
Hell, if Coca-Cola can sell bottled tap water at obscene prices, Morgan would have had no trouble selling people free power
I tried this once! (Score:2, Funny)
Reading this in one of the physics labs at uni. I decided this method might be the way to increase my grades and come up with that pesky solution, I mean, if it worked for such an obviously great inventor and man as Edison, surely it oculd do something for me!
So of course, I curled up on one of the benches in the labs, for a quick nap. let me suggest: DONT DO THIS! they dont like having students sleeping on their equipment.
.... of course, the very blurry hologram of my big toe is rather amusing
The next light bulb from some php slackers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Staying up all night trying to fix yet another eCommerce site before the VC funding dries up is 100% perspiration and 0% inspiration.
list of patents (Score:5, Informative)
Re:list of patents (Score:2)
At first I thought this was the Alan Thicke troll...
Re:list of patents (Score:3, Interesting)
Think I'm joking?
Edison did just that, in order to "prove" that Tesla/Westinghouse's newfangled Alternating Current was "dangerous". With this we can see that perhaps Edison's true invention was FUD, plain and simple.
Re:list of patents (Score:4, Interesting)
Telsa thought AC was the way to go for long distance power transmission; he'd fallen out with Edison after Edison had already ripped him off, and took the idea to Westinghouse.
Edison, meanwhile, had invested a lot in using DC for long distance transmission, even though it's quite inferior. Since he couldn't compete on the merits of the technology he was pushing, he ran a campaign to try and scare people away from AC by pointing to its use in the electric chair, and by slaughtering animals with AC driven apparatus.
Of course, at the kind of volatages and currents used for transmission, DC is just as dangerous as AC (grab the poisitive 550V DC terminal on a Wellington trolley bus while grounded if you don't believe me), but Edison wasn't about to allow the pesky facts to get in the way.
Re:list of patents (Score:2)
Accually DC is better than AC for long distance power transmissions. Corenia (sp) discharge is a problem at high voltage, eventially you cannot pump any more voltage into a wire. However, the maximum voltage reached counts, and AC varies the voltage, and is only carring the maximun for a moment, while DC can carry the maximun voltage forever.
AC also has phase problems if you create a loop. Not a problem on a small scale, but that a generator in NY and a generator in CA cannot be connected with AC because there is no way to synchronize the peaks everywhere on the wire.
I've just given a small overview. If you want to understand this, a good education followed by a job in power transmission is the way to go.
Re:list of patents (Score:2, Funny)
truly an american icon
Re:list of patents (Score:2)
overrated (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:overrated (Score:2)
Today's useless fact: When the electric chair was first developed and used, Edison pushed (successfully) to have the chair run on AC. His motive: He wanted to have AC associated with something deadly so that consumers would ask for DC instead.
Re:overrated (Score:2)
Not even Microsoft would have succeded in pushing DC instead of AC. There are limits to what marketing can do. MS might succeed in pushing Windows vs. Linux, but not MS-DOS vs. Linux.
Re:overrated (Score:2)
Re:overrated (Score:2)
The point was about AC as a technology in general.. not the standard 220v/60Hz we are used to now.
Edison was, in short, scared shitless that AC was so superior for power transmission.
He also tried to have laws passed limiting the voltage that transmission lines could legally carry, and make it the same for ac and dc.
The obvious benefit of this is that high-voltage DC is bloody dangerous, and high voltage AC is relatively safe.
This just in: People work long hours BESIDES YOU (Score:2)
But I'll bet Thomas Edison's crew didn't have Nerf guns.
In 50 years.. (Score:2, Funny)
Just you wait.
Where's the connection? (Score:4, Insightful)
So he had a bunch of researchers amassed in a big thinktank operation. This is similar to the decentralized Internet exactly how?
Unlike the Internet, Edison spawned entire useful industries. Unless you call revolutionizing the distribution of pornography a spectacular human achievement, there's nothing approaching what Edison accomplished here. Comparing the two is just silly.
Just about the only similarity I can see is in the realm of disputed patents, namely Edison's quadruplex telegraph [rutgers.edu], which A&PTC and Western Union bitterly squabbled about. But then again, disputed patents are nothing new either.
Re:Where's the connection? (Score:4, Funny)
Who are you?
Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:5, Informative)
Go check your encyclopedia to find the answers to the following questions: (answers are given in parentheses)
1) Who invented the radio? (Marconi)
2) Who discovered X-rays? (Roentgen)
3) Who invented the vacuum tube amplifier? (de Forest)
In fact, while you're at it, check to see who discovered the fluorescent bulb, neon lights, speedometer, the automobile ignition system, and the basics behind radar, electron microscope, and the microwave oven.
Chances are that you will see little mention of a guy named Nikola Tesla, the most famous scientist in the world at the turn of the century.
In fact, few people today have ever heard of the guy. Good old Tommy Edison made sure of that.
(copied from a website)..
So why is Edison so great? Because he used foul tactics to crush better inventors?
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:2)
I've heard of Tesla plenty of times. I continually had to deal with his invention in C&C: Red Alert.
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:3, Insightful)
Tesla invented radio as well (Score:4, Interesting)
He didnt make the commercial system before marconi because tesla was trying to use the investor's money to secretly develop another invention.
no (Score:2)
1. his idea to deliver electricity to every household without the need for wires by sending oscilating current in the ground.
2. some people say that he wanted to create some kind of a military invention
btw trying to communicate with aliens does not neccessarily make you insane. Are the people at SETI insane?
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:2)
Examples:
All of the Edison examples that you just presented.
Marconi-Tesla
Columbus-Native Americans
On that note, Columbus led a crew a couple thousand miles west. Chris thought that'd be enough to hit Asia. The Greeks had startlingly accurate figures for the circumference of the globe some 1600 years prior.
We're all plagirists. Deal with it. The innovator is the guy who can *convince* everyone else that he was first.
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:2)
and the basics behind radar -> Christian Huelsmeyer(?), 1904 working prototype
electron microscope -> ernst ruska, nobel price 1986.
microwave oven -> The guys who invented the klystron ?
Great post- wish it wasn't anonymous... (Score:3, Insightful)
As inventors / innovators, they have a great deal in common. They lack the sublime genius of their superior contemporaries (Tesla in Edison's day, Doug Engelbart in Bill Gates' day...). But what they lack in true vision they more than compensate for in cunning and ambition.
100 years from now, our great grandchildren will probably be informed by the education system that Bill Gates invented personal computing singlehandledly, in addition to the GUI and a bunch of other crap. The gazillions of dollars in the Gates trust will constantly be invested in extending the historical footprint of William Gates III, even while parts are also appropriated to noble philanthropic causes.
Some of you Linux-loving libertarian squints are telling yourselfs, "Ah! But you're wrong! Because the Internet will have a perfect record of today's history! The media in Tesla's day wasn't digital- it wasn't permanent. That's how he got so marginalized over time."
And all I can say is that whatever the digital network ends up turning into - even if its the bloody Matrix itself - or its a global cashless society where you can't buy or sell without having a barcode tattoo- it is going to be owned and operated by Microsoft.
Sucks. But history's gonna repeat itself. Until it ends.
Re:Great post- wish it wasn't anonymous... (Score:2)
As history repreats itself, Microsoft will fall under it's own weight long before history ends.
Re:Great post- wish it wasn't anonymous... (Score:2)
I want to spend my days looking through old CD ROMs and tape backups, digging through ancient browser caches, matching history's version of what things were like back then, with what things really WERE like back then.
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:5, Informative)
But don't say that Edison "won," or that Tesla "lost." You may have noticed that electricity travels long distances (across the country, from the plant to your home) by AC, and short distances (from component to component inside your computer) by DC. They are both used because they are both useful.
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:3, Informative)
Bull.
An electromechanical transformer cannot transform DC, which means it cannot raise the voltage to levels needed for low-loss long distance transfer.
But power semiconductors can transform to DC at very high voltages, hence the recent trend to transport power using 'HVDC' lines, to eliminate inductive losses, which become significant at long distances.
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:2)
Yeah, much as it pains me to admit a brute force idiot like Eddison was right over a thinker like Tesla, DC is better for long distance transmission than AC.
To Teslas credit though, technology of his day did not allow easy working with DC. In fact even today DC at high voltages cannot be worked with easially. (for instnace you cannot make a DC circuit breaker because when the breaker trips the power just turns air to plasma which is enough of a conductor that the triped breaker still send current. - this is solveable but the prefered way is just have the breaker on AC and then transform DC) Tesla also came up with the induction engine which requires AC. Today it is still cheaper and easier to change voltages with AC, and convert to DC where needed, than to transform DC into AC. So for the last mile I would have to say that AC is better. When going many miles (in the hundreds) DC is better. At the last foot level it is easy to transform to whatever you need at the end.
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:2, Interesting)
I hear people say this all the time. I work as a consultant to Bonneville Power Administration (US DOE), which is the holder of many long-distance power intertie lines. The high voltage DC "tie-line" that connects BPA (Oregon) to Los Angeles (California ISO) regularly sends hundreds of megawatts an hour to California, with far lower loss than the AC tie-lines. I know, because I work on the software that helps schedule transmission
I'm not entirely sure why this is, but perhaps someone in the energy business can fill in why...
Working on E-Tag 1.7? E-mail pblee@bpa.gov!
how did tesla "lose"? (Score:2)
Whose electric motors provide basicly all electricity created by man?
Whose electric motors are used for almost every electromechanical device?
There is no field where edison and tesla competed, in which edison made a better invention. In most istances Tesla completely overshadowed edison.
Tesla lost in financial and public relations matters, he often lost government contracts, but as far as inventing goes - he blew edison away.
Re:Edison = Microsoft of his time? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what they will be saying about Gates (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, Gates is not Edison, but think about how today's events are going to look in the future. That may give you a bit of a better idea of what to think of the past.
Re:That's what they will be saying about Gates (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course we can only speculate, but I think people will look back at Gates the way they look back at Henry Ford. Gates never claimed to invent the GUIs or OSs. He simply produced an OS that was popular and you could have your applications in any color you liked, as long as they were Windows applications. Likewise, Ford never claimed to invent the automobile. Daimler and Benz had the first practical car, but it was Ford that put them in the hands of millions of Americans and sparked the real revolution. Much like Gates' OS, Ford's cars were "good enough" and offered little choice in style. That was the right tactic for the first few years of the auto, and it was the right tactic for the first few years of computing.
Of course Daimler and Benz did just fine and became a premium brand--like Apple. There were certainly automobiles prior to Daimler-Benz. These would be analogous to the prototypes turned out by Xerox PARC or the DoD. They failed to reach the market either because the inventors were hogtied by short-sighted backers (Xerox) or because the projects were not suitable for the mass market (ENIAC).
I couldn't disagree more. (Score:2)
Gates, on the other hand, can make no such claims. While I agree with you to some extent that Xerox PARC was like the Daimler-Benz of its day, that is to say too much in the lab but lacking most of the engineering and development time to take it out, you are ignoring the likes of Apple and other groups that did and could have done just as well. Without getting into a holy war, I believe it is quite reasonable to assert that Gates' Windows and MS-DOS won the industry because of the nature of the PC industry (e.g., compatibility) and because of the backing of IBM and such. Gates could have easily have been replaced by IBM and we would be looking at an entirely different company. (That said, I will give Gates some credit for having the intelligence and tenacity to grab other markets,...but that's a seperate argument).
Re:I couldn't disagree more. (Score:2)
WTF? Go back and re-read what I wrote.
Ford's cars were more than just "good enough", this implies that he was somehow lucky to land that
No it doesn't. Otherwise, I wouldn't have described this as a tactic.
To say that his cars were merely good enough is to blindly dismiss his accomplishments
No it isn't. You are right to attribute genius to Ford's ability to bring economical cars to market, but the fact remains that other cars were much better--if you could afford them.
Once again, go back and read what I wrote. I didn't ignore Apple at all. I likened Apple to Daimler-Benz, not Xerox to Daimler-Benz.
I can agree with you that Gates is nowhere near the genius that Ford was. It's arguable that someone else could have done what Gates did. It is less arguable that someone could have done what Ford did; mass-produced cars would have come eventually, but perhaps not in so distinguished a fashion as Ford's.
To end on a more pleasant note, here's a nice piece of Ford lore that was related to me by my father: The dimensions, material and construction of wooden crates used to ship engines were specified with precision by Ford. Why? Because when the engine was un-crated, the crate was disassembled and re-used as floor boards for the model-T.
Re:That's what they will be saying about Gates (Score:3, Informative)
MS treats it's employees well!
So did Ford! The plants were famous for their five dollar day [bryant.edu] (just google that phrase and you can get a lot more links) which was considerably more than the typical daily wage at the time. Ford believed that if the workers made enough to buy the product, it would ultimately be good for the company too.
One thing Edison DIDN'T invent... (Score:3, Funny)
What about...? (Score:2, Funny)
Not all things are the same. (Score:5, Interesting)
Heres a quote from a news segment I've seen:
Reporter: "Mr. Edison, how do you feel about Einstiens theory of relativity?"
Edison: "Well, I don't quite understand it."
Edison inspired his staff by working EXTREMELY hard all of the time. Also, because of this, he was certianly qualified to be the boss: he was the one who made it happen, and he didn't play golf to do it. Can the same be said of the local IT industry? Is the management a group of people who got there because their career path in life was to work harder than their peers? Or did they choose a path that they thought would net them the most money with the least amount of work?
My guess is on the latter for most management.
I like Edison's management technique a lot better:
"What a man's mind can create, a man's character can control."
His character gave him the respect and admiration of his assistants, who helped him with the mundane task of trying out thousands of different materials to find just the right one for the light bulb, among other things. Do you think we find the same in the IT industry? Will I do something "stupid" for someone else because I have faith in them? I think not. I'd only do it for a high rate of pay.
There is a place akin to this one: MIT media lab, as well as a lot of other Universities throughout the world, where the professors work like dogs for a lot less pay than they would get if they would sell some of their inventions on their own. But don't be so haughty as to compare this lab to IT.
You know nothing of management of the media lab (Score:3, Insightful)
Outside of being born rich, there is no shortcut. Those that go into management as the easy route become middle managers where they stay for the rest of their lives. Even the cookie cutters work hard, they dog for 60-75 hour weeks for 3 years to get into a top MBA program. If they rock a top MBA program, they graduate and are 6-8 years away from financial success, but they bust ass to get there.
Sure, these guys may appear like spoiled children, but ask their families how often they are at the office. The fact that slashdot says it doesn't make it true. I've worked at startups where management has their act together, we all bust ass for a common vision. When management doesn't put in the hours or effort, I was out early. Now that I have my own business, I try to lead by example and bust ass all the time. And if you think that lunch meetings or weekend meetings are taking a vacation, you're a fool. I think about my company from the time I wake up till I go to bed.
The MIT media lab is a joke, great on spin, low on anything. No one puts in a full day of work, the PhD students sometimes work. The undergrads that work their suck down free money. It's an overfunded lab, they by toys to play with and make silly demos. They are mostly smoke-and-mirrors, with the job of spinning things for MIT's PR game.
Alex
Yep (Score:2)
I absolutely agree with what you are saying, it's irks me to see slashdot's repeated dismissal of all things corporate and praise for all things academic. While I don't necessarily agree that upper management at publically held firms are always or generally right, slashdot is seriously deluding themselves if they think it's that easy.
Re:You know nothing of management of the media lab (Score:2)
I just gave the media lab as an example because that's what it was like at the lab I worked for while in school, and I know thats what its like at CMU.
As far as being "a joke," that's just not true. They come up with stuff that obviously takes a long time to develop. If you don't believe me, you haven't been reading technical journals enough. It is precisely these technical journals that ensure that the lab continues to make a profit. Otherwise, they wouldn't be overfunded.
Re:You know nothing of management or the media lab (Score:2)
Have a friend who works in the Media Lab take you on a tour (not the official one) and see what really goes on. Go in before 9 (I've been there on middle of the night reuse runs when I was an undergrad... don't ask, but I have some 15 year old Decstations to show for it), it's empty. Show up after 5, find a professor that is working.
The Media Lab gets a lot of money from some corporations who can't cooperate on some of the research so they all chip in to the Media Lab. 20%-25% of the Media Lab produces stuff, the rest just plays with expensive toys to stroke their own ego... Don't worry, within a few years the new researchers will learn how to play with toys, then crank out another stupid demo right before the corporate donors come on a tour. It's a really sad organization.
CMU is a very different school from The Institute.
BTW: The fact that your friends are business majors and want a cushy job doesn't mean that they will graduate and get a cushy job. I mean, I wanted to graduate and get a cush job that pays a lot, I also want a million dollars, and a pony. You don't get things just for wanting them, you inherit them, marry into them, or earn them.
Gates is the Edison of Today (Score:3, Interesting)
He hired tons of "the best and brightest" and then allowed the press to claim their hard work as his own genius.
He tried his best to squash anyone who wanted to do it differently than him. See Nickolai Tesla, for example.
He pushed inferior technologies because of their proprietariness and money making possiblities. If it were up to him, we'd all have DC from every outlet in our homes, with Edison power plants every two city blocks (because DC doesn't transfer over long distances). He staged demonstrations in large metropolitan areas where he would electrocute elephants and horses to show the dangers of AC.
He was an IP-grubbing exploiter.
He wanted to unitarilly squash anyone who dared compete with him. See Westinghouse
Luckily, he eventually lost most of these battles. Let's hope Gates fares so well.
Bill Gates is doing nothing new (Score:3, Interesting)
A collaborator of Edison, George Eastman of Eastman Kodak, behaved like our own Bill Gates. Eastman tried to corner the patents on the new technology of mass production photographic equipment - lots of good stories about him stiff arming competitors and trying to become a monopolist.
Gives you an opportunity to see what happens to technology monopolists after a hundred years. Got Fuji?
A few things Edison didn't invent. (Score:2, Interesting)
The radio. The radio finally allowed communication across long distances without a wire. It revolutionized warfare and entertainment.
The Turing machine. While not a physical machine, it was Alan Turing's amazing machine that changed the world. The first definition of a computer, soon followed by crude mechanical and vacuum tube devices (which were built by Turing & his team)
To summarize, Edison was not such a great inventor. There were dozens of others who have affected our lives in much more powerful ways. Marconi, Tesla, Turing. Edison actually silenced these inventors using his fame and political clout.
Just my 2 cents.
D/\ Gooberguy
Re:A few things Edison didn't invent. (Score:2, Informative)
Edison didn't even invent the lightbulb. (Score:3, Insightful)
The light bulb [uselessknowledge.com]
Edison improved it.
Re:Edison didn't even invent the lightbulb. (Score:2)
It really is like this tho. Bill Gates was the opportunist, not the inventor. I mean, c'mon, Beethoven used to steal like 3 bars verbatim from other composers works. This story is the first
Haha, good thing we're strengthening the laws to protect the 'inventors', 'authors' and and 'composers'.
Internet Time is a Misnomer (Score:4, Insightful)
Internet time, however, is a different beast... For lack of a better word, it is a mental dependance on instantaneous gratification, eg: if it doesn't happen the nanosecond you think of or want it, bitch gripe and moan until someone does it for you (if you don't do it yourself)... Your music, videos, or websites must load now now now, and if your distributed computing doesn't come to par, it's not your fault, it's the guy running the (pick the OS you gripe about the most) OS of the week...
Your attention spans are measured in seconds, not minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years... If the work isn't done by then, then an incredible offense has been performed, the likes of which are worthy of jihad du jour, flamewars, or what have you... Take this from someone who was diagnosed with ADHD over 20 years ago, most of those today make me look like an attentive, slow, and otherwise average representative member of society *gag*...
For a best case example, compare this to Linux users who wait months for the newest kernel to fix their bugs, as opposed to those who wait weeks for Microsoft to come up with their patches/service packs... Microsoft is expected to rebuild a OS (from scratch) far faster than Linux, and is condemnned the moment it exceeds hours past another exploit being exposed, while Linux users wait patiently for months for the equivelent being released...
Re:Internet Time is a Misnomer (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Internet Time is a Misnomer (Score:2)
Not according to the dictionary. Workaholism is a compulsive desire to work, regardless of outcomes. What you are describing is called dedication.
For a best case example, compare this to Linux users who wait months for the newest kernel to fix their bugs, as opposed to those who wait weeks for Microsoft to come up with their patches/service packs... Microsoft is expected to rebuild a OS (from scratch) far faster than Linux, and is condemnned the moment it exceeds hours past another exploit being exposed, while Linux users wait patiently for months for the equivelent being released...
Holy crap. This is the most amazingly absurd couple of lines I've stumbled across in a _long_ time. Well done!
LEXX
Re:Internet Time is a Misnomer (Score:2)
"For a best case example, compare this to Linux users who wait months for the newest kernel to fix their bugs, as opposed to those who wait weeks for Microsoft to come up with their patches/service packs... Microsoft is expected to rebuild a OS (from scratch) far faster than Linux, and is condemnned the moment it exceeds hours past another exploit being exposed, while Linux users wait patiently for months for the equivelent being released..."
First, Linux users wait months for kernel bugfixes? Yeah, right. Ever heard of diff patches? If there's a bug within free software (eg: not propeirty hardware or software), It's fixed within days. Depending on urgency, less than 24 hours. No other community can claim that due to the sheer volume of users/developers/debuggers.
Having OPEN SOURCE helps quite a lot, too
Next, is this statement. See if you can identify the troll like part in this:
"Microsoft is expected to rebuild a OS (from scratch)."
That's like "Regrowing New hair", right?
Or how about this:
"and is condemnned the moment it exceeds hours past another exploit being exposed, while Linux users wait patiently for months for the equivelent being released...
"
Well how about NEVER fixing identified bugs? All the NT series OS'es suffers from the CSRSS backspace bug. The big gripe here is is that NT 4.0 has been "laid to rest", essentially junked. Many corporations use NT 4.0 , as it is a good product, when installed and administered correctly. But since this bug will NEVER be fixed, NT 4.0 is forever broken. Here's the website explaining the bug: http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/
Now about that Linux comment about lack of exploit patches: Like HELL. Whenever there's a root exploit or other comprimising problems, THERE IS A PATCH WITHIN DAYS. Usually, you just turn off the daemon till the patch comes through, or follow what a user found to stop the bug. It's exactly the opposite what this idiot said. Microsoft drags its heels in even admitting there is a bug. Then you hav eto wait for a service patch to fix it (hoping it doesn't break something else).
It's sad that a/few moderator(s) actually didn't see through your junk argument. It's people who use thier brains who break this crap.
Josh Crawley
Re:What I want to know is..... (Score:2)
internet time.. (Score:2)
At least.... (Score:2)
The dotcommers only invented creative ways to do nothing with lots of money!
Unpaid overtime's for suckers unless self-employed (Score:5, Insightful)
From government statistics, we know that Americans have surpassed even the Japanese in the hours worked per week and per year - Americans work more hours than people in any country in the world. This is very good for those who own the companies - the 1% of the US population that owns 42.2% of the stock. How about everyone else though?
Well, as the average working week gets longer and longer over the past thirty years, the average US inflation-adjusted hourly wage has dropped. Anyone who has a pulse can see what's been happening in the IT field lately - layoffs (with those over-burdened people still around picking up the "slack"), frozen wages, falling wages, ever expanding workloads requiring ever more hours worked.
If you work for yourself, and thus all work you do will profit you, then yes, hard work *does* pay off. If you're a wage slave working for someone else, all the unpaid overtime you work, all the hours on call you work are just making your boss look good, and the people who really own your company more wealthy. By really own I mean the people who really own your company, not the 1000 shares of underwater options you get that vest over 4-5 years and which are 0.000001% of the total shares, minus the strike price.
Sorry, I hear enough of this stick-and-carrot stuff at work, I hear people say it here and I have to say, BS! I wish I had listened to the guys at the Programmer's Guild during the bubble when they were pointing out how rising H1-B caps and the destruction of FLSA laws. If one looks at the industry polls which show engineers getting farther and farther away from the 40 hour workweek, it becomes apparent how many suckers there are in this industry. When somebody *aside from yourself* is getting your labor time for free, than you are the sucker.
The Green Mile... (Score:3, Insightful)
GEEK Hatred! (Score:2)
Okay, I'll admit that I'm getting something of an education about Edison and all the things he didn't do successfully on his own, but sheesh... the hatred! The bitterness! The utter contempt!
Some of you people should put yourselves in check... or in one of those funny couches, or maybe even one of those jackets without the holes for the hands to come out of...
"Just because he was successful, you guys all hate him! You're just jealous and always trying to bring him down!"
Re:GEEK Hatred! (Score:2)
Then of course, you have the underdog factor. The comparison between Edison and Gates isn't too far off, actually. (After all, Bill has done some real work in his life too!) Both managed to get ahead by stealing the thunder of other, possibly better inventors.
Finally, let's not forget the geographical factor. When an American gets credit for something that was done by a non-American, the ex-US subset of
[1] Unless it involves Linux. Oops. Forget I said that.
Edison: great man, but...... (Score:2, Interesting)
10,000 researchers and scientists - no way. (Score:5, Informative)
Edison's actual lab in Menlo Park was about 20 people in one big room. The whole place, with much of the original equipment, was rebuilt at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI, and can be seen there.
General Electric, which was formed by the merger of the Edison businesses and Thomas-Houston of Cleveland, became a very big company, of course. But that wasn't Edison's lab, although he was on the board of directors of GE for a while. Nor did GE ever do R&D in Menlo Park. GE R&D was (and is) in Schenectady, New York.
There's a substantial literature on Edison's life and lab. There are even movies; after all, he invented those, too.
Thomas Edison and the origins of Hollywood (Score:4, Interesting)
Nikola Tesla (Score:4, Interesting)
Tesla's experiments into wireless energy transmission would have spelled the end of the energy industry as we know it, as well as the end of conventional radio and television transmission as a limited resource doled out by the FCC, as we have seen all of this become. His Autobiography [lucidcafe.com] is very interesting albiet very quirky. It is also interesting to note that over half of his patents and papers remain classified by the U.S. government to this day. Try getting them through the FOIA act, I dare you. It would actually be an interesting experiment. You can read about alleged uses and abuses of Tesla's wireless technology in the book about Project HAARP [navy.mil], entitled Angels Don't Play This haarp: Advances in Tesla Technology [amazon.com] which puts forth evidence that Project HAARP's goals aren't as benign as they would like you to think, and that the weather modification aspect of the techology has been tried extensively for less than good purposes. Food for thought and grounds for further research. (http://www.haarp.net/ [haarp.net] HAARP book home page.)
+5 Interesting? (Score:3, Informative)
Thank god AC power won out over Edisons DC wishes however. Though maybe there's a lesson here for you conspiricy theorists out there. DC power transmission would also have been insane. And as usual saner and more practical heads prevailed. So now we have easily transmitted low loss AC power transmission and by WIRES not RF!
Edison did NOT invent the electric light bulb (Score:2)
None of this is secret, so why do so many people still credit Edison with the invention and who do they think the "Swan" was in the Edision Swan Co?
Davy (of the Davy safty lamp fame) had invented a bulb even earlier but it worked by producing an arc rather than an incandescent filament.
TWW
Edison's lab was highly improductive (Score:2)
The most significant discovery coming from Edison 's Lab is the lab in itself, that is, the concept of the modern research laboratory, which appeared for the first time in the US, not long after Louis Pasteur's labs in Paris.
Edison Vs. Tesla (Score:3, Informative)
Telsa invented these, among other things:
The whole AC system that we use today including:
Rotating magnetic field and the motors/generators that use it. Polyphase. The Transformers to convert to high/low frequency for transmission.
Flourescent lights
Arc lights
Radio (Supreme court said he had it first)
Radar
The first remote controlled vehicle (small boats he made for the army)
X-ray (go read his bio's before arguing)
The Tesla coil (you probably have one in your monitor/tv)
First truly accurate oscillator
The Tesla turbine
Electricity collector from the difference in voltage from the sky/ground. (kinda like the recent 'tether' experiment on the shuttle. but from the ground)
Toward his later years he was working on wireless transmission of electricity. also the 'death ray' he was working on was nothing more than a anti-airplane beam that would melt their engines through inductance.
All his life it was his dream to harness the power of niagra falls, which he did. Westinghouse put him in charge of setting it up, but tesla only hung around for a short time. He wanted to get back to inventing stuff.
A note on patents. (Score:2)
Shortly after WW2, several major electronics companies filed patents on "Digital Logic Gates".
The patents were denied, the USPTO cited several of Tesla's patents for the same system implemented in his devices.
The end result? Digital logic stayed public domain.
Re:Did they invent uppers? (Score:2)
Re:Did they invent uppers? (Score:2)
InterNet invented in 1844? (Score:2)