Subj : Re: do serious programmers have a life? To : comp.programming From : Mabden Date : Thu Sep 29 2005 01:55 pm "Gerry Quinn" wrote in message news:MPG.1da476634de21fb98a623@news.indigo.ie... > In article <%8c_e.856$rl1.41@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net>, > mabden@sbc_global.net says... > > > He even tried to kill AC (alternating Current). He tried to ruin Tessla; > > The guy who promoted AC as the way to send power over long distances > > instead of Edison's plan for DC with many, many, many electric stations. > > > Edison was a mind-raping, pure capitalist thief. He should not be > > glorified. > > > It might be noted that J.P.Morgan and Lord Rothschild were in on the AC > project. Tesla was hardly standing alone against the robber barons. Yet neither was ruined in the process > > Edison did conduct demonstrations to show (quite correctly, in fact) > that Tesla's AC power system, with its higher voltage and 60Hz > variation, was more dangerous than his DC system. I've grabbed a pair of wires. I'm still alive. I also survived the Chernoble accident, by being very, very far away. I have even been so bold as to venture out into the day when a huge ball of nuclear furnace was pelting me with "dangerous" radiation. Some risks just need to be taken. > > Perhaps he should be considered more as a forerunner of the > environmentalist propagandist trying to instill panic in the public in > order to forestall the advance of technology. > .... and make money at the expense of scientific progress. He was greedy and ruined lives and stole other men's ideas and accomplishments. I will say that some of the ideas and inventions were bought through his funding - much like a modern day corporation taking credit for its employees doings while they work for the company - as every programmer knows. Edison was not so much an inventor as a man with money who stole inventions, and to some extent funded them. However, the attempt to bankrupt Tessla was over and above. It was wrong. It's kinda like saying Ford was an inventor. He wasn't. He was a guy with money that broke down the problem with building custom cars by turning them into a commodity. Smart, yeah, but nothing new. People were doing the same thing in plenty of other lines of work, from making clothes to canning food to whatever. Suddenly, these guys are geniuses. I mean, do you think in the 1200's when the maid of some Lord in England needed to do laundry she took a shirt from the hamper, wet it, soaped it, rinsed it, hung it to dry; then went and got another shirt... etc.? The assembly line has been around since women started having kids. Applying it to cars wasn't genius, it just happened to be the right time for more than a few custom-made cars. Once you could sell 100 cars, you get the guys together and say, "Harry, you make me 100 bumpers, and show Dick how to attach them to car. Jim, I need 100 engines, take 5 guys and make them." -- Mabden .