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Statements from experts


Jimbo
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"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."

--Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of

science, 1949

 

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

--Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

 

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked

with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is

a fad that won't last out the year."

--The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

 

"But what ... is it good for?"

--Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM,

1968, commenting on the microchip.

 

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

--Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital

Equipment Corp., 1977

 

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously

considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently

of no value to us."

--Western Union internal memo, 1876.

 

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who

would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"

--David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for

investment in the radio in the 1920s.

 

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn

better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."

--A Yale University management professor in response to Fred

Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service.

(Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

 

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"

--H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

 

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and

not Gary Cooper."

--Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in

"Gone With The Wind."

 

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports

say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like

you make."

--Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

 

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."

--Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

 

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."

--Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

 

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment.

The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."

--Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives

for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

 

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing,

even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about

funding us? Or we' ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay

our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So

then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't

need you. You haven't got through college yet.'"

--Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get

Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal

computer.

 

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and

reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum

against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge

ladled out daily in high schools."

--1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's

revolutionary rocket work.

 

"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across

all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life.

You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an

unalterable condition of weight training."

--Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable"

problem by inventing Nautilus.

 

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil?

You're crazy."

--Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project

to drill for oil in 1859.

 

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."

--Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

 

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."

--Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole

Superieure de Guerre.

 

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."

--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

 

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".

--Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

 

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from

the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon".

--Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-

Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

 

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."

-- Bill Gates, 1981

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:lol: Jimbo and Ritchie blatantly chatting on MSN and have decided to do some thread carpet-bombing.

 

 

Zip it hom :)

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To be fair, a few of them are reasonable statements. The telephone probably did have too many shortcomings at the time, the overnight delivery service idea may well have been unfeasible in the form proposed in some vague college project, etc. etc.

 

That said, some are well worth a cheery :lol:. Who'd be an expert and stick their neck out? Mediocrity rules. :)

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Was watching QI and apparently at the start of the First World War aeroplanes were used purely for reconnaissance and they used to give people on the other side a friendly wave. Then the first weapons involved lobbing stuff at each other. Slightly dubious about the second point there though.

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Was watching QI and apparently at the start of the First World War aeroplanes were used purely for reconnaissance and they used to give people on the other side a friendly wave. Then the first weapons involved lobbing stuff at each other. Slightly dubious about the second point there though.

 

I saw that, started chucking daft things at each other, then got steadilly more aggressive with what they were doing, then started firing guns at each other and finally they mounted machine guns on the planes. What was impressive was they had the gun in synch with the propellor blades so the bullets fired between them as they rotated!

Edited by Papa Lazaru
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Was watching QI and apparently at the start of the First World War aeroplanes were used purely for reconnaissance and they used to give people on the other side a friendly wave. Then the first weapons involved lobbing stuff at each other. Slightly dubious about the second point there though.

 

I saw that, started chucking daft things at each other, then got steadilly more aggressive with what they were doing, then started firing guns at each other and finally they mounted machine guns on the planes. What was impressive was they had the gun in synch with the propellor blades so the bullets fired between them as they rotated!

Aye, I still can't get my head around that last bit even though I knew about it before seeing it on QI.

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Was watching QI and apparently at the start of the First World War aeroplanes were used purely for reconnaissance and they used to give people on the other side a friendly wave. Then the first weapons involved lobbing stuff at each other. Slightly dubious about the second point there though.

 

I saw that, started chucking daft things at each other, then got steadilly more aggressive with what they were doing, then started firing guns at each other and finally they mounted machine guns on the planes. What was impressive was they had the gun in synch with the propellor blades so the bullets fired between them as they rotated!

Aye, I still can't get my head around that last bit even though I knew about it before seeing it on QI.

 

Its amazing really, how they'd think of it and carry it out! I just loved the idea of them initially waving to each other and then the reaction when the first person chucked something instead! :lol: Or maybe it started with sticking two fingers up!

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Was watching QI and apparently at the start of the First World War aeroplanes were used purely for reconnaissance and they used to give people on the other side a friendly wave. Then the first weapons involved lobbing stuff at each other. Slightly dubious about the second point there though.

 

I saw that, started chucking daft things at each other, then got steadilly more aggressive with what they were doing, then started firing guns at each other and finally they mounted machine guns on the planes. What was impressive was they had the gun in synch with the propellor blades so the bullets fired between them as they rotated!

Aye, I still can't get my head around that last bit even though I knew about it before seeing it on QI.

 

Its amazing really, how they'd think of it and carry it out! I just loved the idea of them initially waving to each other and then the reaction when the first person chucked something instead! :lol: Or maybe it started with sticking two fingers up!

That's the thing about the Great War. It started off as people thinking they'd shoot a few Jerrys and be home for Christmas. Fuor years later and they were still up to their knees in their own shit in a trench in Belgium. What a fucking waste.

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Was watching QI and apparently at the start of the First World War aeroplanes were used purely for reconnaissance and they used to give people on the other side a friendly wave. Then the first weapons involved lobbing stuff at each other. Slightly dubious about the second point there though.

 

I saw that, started chucking daft things at each other, then got steadilly more aggressive with what they were doing, then started firing guns at each other and finally they mounted machine guns on the planes. What was impressive was they had the gun in synch with the propellor blades so the bullets fired between them as they rotated!

Aye, I still can't get my head around that last bit even though I knew about it before seeing it on QI.

 

Its amazing really, how they'd think of it and carry it out! I just loved the idea of them initially waving to each other and then the reaction when the first person chucked something instead! :lol: Or maybe it started with sticking two fingers up!

That's the thing about the Great War. It started off as people thinking they'd shoot a few Jerrys and be home for Christmas. Fuor years later and they were still up to their knees in their own shit in a trench in Belgium. What a fucking waste.

 

Its one of many reasons why Blackadder Goes Forth is so great, its not just hilarious, its actually in some ways quite realistic and shows how ludicrous the whole thing was. Stephen Fry as Melchett will not be far away at all from some of the complete dicks in charge back then!

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It really was. And it probably helped that generation of kids get their heads around the reality of what they were learning in History classes far better than any textbook could, in its own little way.

 

Although I assume no teacher went as far as actually showing it in class. The three back-to-back lessons we spent watching JFK when we were learning about the Kennedy assassination was already taking the piss a bit.

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It really was. And it probably helped that generation of kids get their heads around the reality of what they were learning in History classes far better than any textbook could, in its own little way.

 

Although I assume no teacher went as far as actually showing it in class. The three back-to-back lessons we spent watching JFK when we were learning about the Kennedy assassination was already taking the piss a bit.

By making it out to be factual you mean?

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Yeah, that's right. The ending was really poignant I thought.

 

It was brilliantly done, literally one minute you were laughing as normal with that series and suddenly it was really upsetting and you realised it wasn't a joke anymore.

 

Mind they always liked a dark ending! They pretty much all died in the first one, all killed by Hugh Laurie in the second one and in the 3rd the prince Regent is killed and Blackadder takes over with his mad father!

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It really was. And it probably helped that generation of kids get their heads around the reality of what they were learning in History classes far better than any textbook could, in its own little way.

 

Although I assume no teacher went as far as actually showing it in class. The three back-to-back lessons we spent watching JFK when we were learning about the Kennedy assassination was already taking the piss a bit.

 

I know what you mean about it hitting home better than books in history classes.

 

Just like in GCSE history when we were doing the american west and our teacher let us watch Blazing Saddles :lol: It doesn't get any better than that!

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It really was. And it probably helped that generation of kids get their heads around the reality of what they were learning in History classes far better than any textbook could, in its own little way.

 

Although I assume no teacher went as far as actually showing it in class. The three back-to-back lessons we spent watching JFK when we were learning about the Kennedy assassination was already taking the piss a bit.

 

I know what you mean about it hitting home better than books in history classes.

 

Just like in GCSE history when we were doing the american west and our teacher let us watch Blazing Saddles :lol: It doesn't get any better than that!

 

 

Superb ! Now thats education !

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It really was. And it probably helped that generation of kids get their heads around the reality of what they were learning in History classes far better than any textbook could, in its own little way.

 

Although I assume no teacher went as far as actually showing it in class. The three back-to-back lessons we spent watching JFK when we were learning about the Kennedy assassination was already taking the piss a bit.

 

I know what you mean about it hitting home better than books in history classes.

 

Just like in GCSE history when we were doing the american west and our teacher let us watch Blazing Saddles :lol: It doesn't get any better than that!

You're fucking kidding me! I bet you never thought you'd here the words "Up yours nigger!" as part of a History lesson.

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It really was. And it probably helped that generation of kids get their heads around the reality of what they were learning in History classes far better than any textbook could, in its own little way.

 

Although I assume no teacher went as far as actually showing it in class. The three back-to-back lessons we spent watching JFK when we were learning about the Kennedy assassination was already taking the piss a bit.

 

I know what you mean about it hitting home better than books in history classes.

 

Just like in GCSE history when we were doing the american west and our teacher let us watch Blazing Saddles :lol: It doesn't get any better than that!

You're fucking kidding me! I bet you never thought you'd here the words "Up yours nigger!" as part of a History lesson.

 

Well there was the bit when they hit the quicksand and he says: "send down some horses" and gets the reply, "Don't waste good horses, send down a couple of niggers!"

I laughed quite loudly, but was the only one :)

 

That teacher was great though, he could do the job well but was also a laugh and on mondays let us go a bit early for lucnh, pretty much because he wanted to i think!

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"I will drink every drop of oil found in the North Sea" BP Chief Geologist 1955

 

 

"Don't be afraid men - they couldn't hit a barn door from that....." last words of a US general in the Civil War

 

 

"sings, can dance a bit.." notes on Fred Astaire audition

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My History teacher at Benfield (Mick Lovell, tom will know him) used to let us listen to the Gulf War during lessons and his re-enactments of JFK were a sight to behold, guns, uniforms etc. Made History one of my favourite lessons He would often burst in the classroom dressed as Hitler and if we were really lucky he would bring his guitar and mouth organ in and blast a few dillon tunes out.

 

Top bloke

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