When the Experts are WRONG
This started my morning with a big grin. A friend sent it to me, and I hope it delights you as it delighted me.
Below is a nice collection of quotes that turned out to be very wrong. Many of the quotes are from very famous and respectable people. Maybe we should stop underestimating ourselves so much?
* “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.
* “The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.”
Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.
* “This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He’s doomed.”
Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast.
* “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.
* “Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.”
Dr. Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television.
* “Louis Pastueur’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
A Lot of Bull
Humor interests me – why do we find some things funny? In the US, we have an entire genre of jokes that have to do with big city/educated/city living people who get taken advantage of by the “ole country boy.” I always find them funny. And, I wonder if these jokes are funny in every culture? Here is one from jokes to go.
A big-city lawyer was representing the railroad in a lawsuit filed
by an old rancher. The rancher’s prize bull was missing from
the section through which the railroad passed. The rancher only
wanted to be paid the fair value of the bull.
The case was scheduled to be tried before the justice of the
peace in the back room of the general store. The city-slicker
attorney for the railroad immediately cornered the rancher and
tried to get him to settle out of court.
He did his best selling job, and finally the rancher agreed to
take half of what he was asking.
After the rancher had signed the release and took the check,
the young lawyer couldn’t resist gloating a little over his
success, telling the rancher, “You are really a country hick, old
man, but I put one over on you in there. I couldn’t have won the
case. The engineer was asleep and the fireman was in the
caboose when the train went through your ranch that morning. I
didn’t have one witness to put on the stand. I bluffed you!”
The old rancher replied, “Well, I’ll tell you young feller, I was a
little worried about winning that case myself, because that
durned bull came home this morning.”
Thursday? Friday? Saturday?
Today’s Kuwait Times quotes an “official source” as stating that Kuwait will move to a Friday Saturday weekend as of the 1st of September, and that Kuwait is also looking at daylight savings time starting next Spring. Seems like this trial balloon has floated a time or two before, do you think it will fly this time?
Somehow, it feels in Kuwait like the weekend now is Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The expats seem to be working a six day week (except for the maids, who work 24/7) and everyone seems to take it easier all three days. Wonder if this is really going to happen?
“It’s All YOUR Fault”
The manifesto received by NBC from Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui says “it’s all your fault” and “You made me do this!”
Has anyone ever said that to you? It is the most chilling experience. People who say things like that are so self-centered and so self-absorbed that they can see the world only in terms of how it effects them, and believe that all things are directed toward them. You can’t argue with them. They see themselves as the center of the universe, and you are only peripheral. Really, I think they have a hard time conceiving that you have any individual existence; you exist only in relation to them.
One of his teachers says Cho was “the loneliest person” she ever met. Uh, yeh. . . I can imagine being so self oriented can make you a little lonely! His former roommates say that at the beginning they tried to make conversation with him, but that he shut them out.
He felt alien. We all feel alien, sometime or another. Most of us don’t go out on a shooting revenge, blaming our alienity on “rich kids” or whatever the enemy flavor-of-the-day is.
I feel sorry for his parents. They must be devastated. They have probably known – but not wanted to see – that their son had serious problems. Their hearts must be breaking, for their son, and they must be wondering where they failed as parents. The damage this kid inflicted against his community resonates on and on.
James Morrow’s The Last Witchfinder
This is one of the strangest books I have ever read. I can’t even claim to have picked it up on any recommendation – I was on my way to grab a cup of coffee when my eye fell on the book. I don’t know why. Anything having to do with witchcraft is repugnant to me. And yet . . . my eye fell on it. I picked it up. I read the back cover – the write-up wasn’t that great. And yet, I bought the book.
It is a very weird book. It is written from the point of view of another book, Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, and starts off in the late 1600’s, as the Newton’s book falls in love with the main character of Morrow’s Witchfinder, Jennet Stearne.
As the book begins, you are reminded of sitting with a friend who talks too much. The book chats on and on, goes on detours, tells you too much about people you don’t even care to know, but somehow . . . you like this friend anyway, and tolorate the annoyance because somehow you come away better for knowing this person/this book.
And I really, really liked the main heroine, who is only 11 when we meet her, living in England, and studying with her aunt Isobel, who does all kinds of cool scientific experiments to demostrate principles from Newton’s books, using prisms and microscopes and calculations, and it all sounds very dull, but somehow – it isn’t. Jennet and Isobel are so irrepressably intelligent! and funny! and down to earth!
But there is a viper in all this merriment, and the viper is Jennet’s father, a witchfinder, who, when his sister-in-law, Isobel, is accused of witchcraft, proves the charges against her.
How do you prove a charge of witchcraft?
The signs, according to Jennet’s father were very clear. A witch caused bad things to happen, like your best rooster dies after you have cheated the witch, or your wife miscarries, or your crop fails. A witch had a “familiar spirit” around, like a cat. (You can see how that might make me very nervous.) A witch had a blemish, a mark of Satan, somewhere on her body, that doesn’t bleed when you stick a needle into it. A witch, when thrown into the water, will sink, not float. They had special equipment for testing for witches. Most people – a very few accused were men – failed the test.
Thousands of people, primarily women, failed the test throughout the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. Entire villages near Trier in Germany were killed for the accusation of practicing witchcraft. Women were burned at the stake in France by the hundreds. Women who acted as midwives, or used herbal medicines were particularly vulnerable to the accusation of witchcraft, although men were also, from time to time, accused and convicted. And the accusers were often the jealous, the ignorant, the spiteful and at best – the misguided.
Jennet’s aunt Isobel failed the test. She failed, and she was burned at the stake. As she was lit afire, she shouts out to Jennet to create a “grande arguement”, a proof, using Newton’s Mathmatic Principles, that witchcraft / sorcery does not and cannot exist.
Jennet’s life is bigger than most people’s lives. Her family moves to the Americas – actually, her father is sent there because his profession as witchfinder is becoming an embarrassment in England. She is captured by and lives with American Indians for several years. She returns to “civilization” in time to experience the horrors of the Salem witch trials. She meets Benjamin Franklin, with whom she is shipwrecked on a Caribbean island. And those are just the bare bones!
The book is loaded with great characters, huge ideas, and visionary people, struggling to escape the tangles of the small minded religious fanatics, clinging to old and superstitious ways. And yet, the book is both scientific AND religious, coming to some grandly unifying propositions.
It sounds so dull, but it isn’t. There are lots of big words, but also a lot of humor. It is a book for people who loved Kurt Vonnegut, and who have read and relished John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces. It has a lot of the tongue-in-cheek theology of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The characters are so alive, and so likable, and you will find yourself reading when you have other things to do, because you are eager for Jennet to succeed at her grand endeavor.
Read this book. You won’t be sorry. Available at amazon.com for a mere $10.85 plus shipping. I paid $15.95 plus tax at B&N ;-(
Florida Panhandle Weather
We used to live in Tampa, a long time ago. From Tampa, it took nearly a day to drive to the southern tip of Florida. It took a whole day – a very long day – to drive north and then west toward Alabama. Florida is a long state. And it can have a lot of different weather.
When we arrived most recently in Florida, it was hot, as hot as Kuwait is right now, but with more humidity. We had all the right clothes, thank goodness.
Until the Thursday before Easter, when we stepped outside and suddenly it was 40 degrees (F) and a stiff sea-breeze made it feel even colder. We had to run to the store and buy little sweatshirts with hoods to keep warm!
Now it is back up, even hitting 80 or so in the “heat” to the afternoon. We are reveling in the coolness, knowing what we face upon our return back to Kuwait. Last night we had thunderstorms and much needed heavy rainfall, greening up the grass. Today we went out and played with the in-ground watering system, so we could see which zones were which – 12 different settings!
My husband, Adventure Man, is waiting for me. He wants to go have some breakfast, with real bacon. down at the local diner. Then we will hit the hardware stores again, run a few more errands, mail off some items, do some work around the house and just goof around. Aren’t vacations fun?
My Kind of House Work
The last couple days, I have been in my own personal nirvana. I have spent more time in Home Depot and Lowe’s than in the last two years. We have a new house to work on, need some work contracted, can do some of the work ourselves. It is exciting – and also terrifying. You never really know how an idea will work out.
But this gets my juices going. I love getting my hands on hammers, putting in new closets, figuring out how to upgrade a dated kitchen, painting, even reupholstering. I love the flooring departments, with all the tile samples, wood flooring samples, and carpeting. I love to see what the newest kitchens and baths are using, and to read magazines about what works and what works better. I like a house with a custom feel, something like Susanka’s The Not-So-Big-House, available from Amazon for around $14.46, where quality of space and quality of materials counts for more than square meters.
And I like doing some of it myself. Sometimes in the middle of it all, I stop and think “what am I doing???” but at the end, I usually feel SO satisfied, like I have really accomplished something.
If I had my “druthers”, I would probably buy an older home in good condition and change the floor plans, knock out walls, put in new bathrooms, and have a wonderful time doing it. Meanwhile, I am having a sample of all that “fun” right now. Wooo Hoooooo!
The Kuwait Church Souk
In Kuwait, as in most of the Middle East, in the shopping areas, shops that sell the same kind of goods are grouped together. “Souks” in the traditional shopping areas are small stalls, or open displays, thus all the vegetable vendors are grouped in one area, the perfume dealers in another, the cloth dealers in another. It is handy – when you go looking for something, if one shop doesn’t have it, another surely will.
I remember once looking for masonry screws in Doha; when the first stall didn’t have it, he left his stall – and all his merchandise, unprotected – and took me to his friend, who did have them. Sometimes a stall owner will send a helper to another store, and return with the item you are seeking.
Even some of the large malls seem to group similar vendors in the same spots. In Saudi Arabia, I remember entire floors devoted to shoes, or to abayas, or to accessories, or cloth and tailors.
So it gives me a big grin to go to churchin Kuwait on Fridays.
Friday mornings are sleepy in Kuwait. It’s a day off for the majority of the population, and Moslems go to the mosque for Friday prayers around noon. In the middle of downtown Kuwait, however, even early on a Friday morning, there is a hive of activity – at what we call the “church souk”.
It’s really a very clever concept, and also one that tickes my heart. In one area are many many churches. They are all Christian, and range from congregations of mainly Indian men, to Phillipino families, Nigerians, Chinese, Western, Baptist, Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, at least one congregation which has live musicians playing loud, joyful hymns and then more staid and traditional congregations.
I’ve often wondered how all these different congregations manage to work out a schedule – there must be at least 10 – 12 different meeting locations – for sharing the chapels, for managing the time needed to get people seated, and then to clear up and get people out again. It’s exactly these kinds of little bureaucratic quibblings that can stir up a hornet’s next of problems between “like minded” believers. If there are problems, the church leaders seem to work them out without acrimony. I wonder how they do that?
In my heart, I believe this is how we were meant to worship – and although our worship has different styles, it delights me that we all – hundreds of us, if not thousands – meet in the one area, every Friday, and have the freedom, here in Kuwait, to worship each in our own style. That’s a very powerful freedom.
What is Your Greatest Fear?
Reach down deep. Take your time. Think about this.
A friend sent one of those “getting to know you” e-mails, and this question was on it: What is your greatest fear?
(Photo from Acclaim images)
My first reaction is – whoa! That is a VERY personal question! But I shared my answer with her.
One of the reasons we share when we blog, I think, is to connect with one another, to make this world a less lonely place. When we are going through a hard time – and don’t be fooled, no matter how good, how together, we look on the outside, we ALL go through hard times – it helps to know that we are not the only person in the world who has ever gone through this, whatever this may be.
There are things we don’t talk about. From time to time, you find a friend you can really really trust, and you take a chance. What a relief! You discover, if you are lucky, that maybe he or she has been there, too. At the very worst, you have someone who knows what you have suffered. It can be years down the road that they come back to you and say “I’m there now – can you help me through it?” And two people are less alone, and your suffering has not been for nothing; it has equipped you to walk this path with your friend, and lighten the load a little.
So here is is: my greatest fear is to die a meaningless, stupid death.
I don’t want to die on a Kuwait highway saying “oh sh$t” as I see some doped up, testerone-loaded, out-of-control driver barreling straight into me.
I don’t want to die as a random, unchosen victim of terrorist attack, like 9/11, or Pan Am 103.
I don’t want to trip over my high heels and break my neck falling down the stairs. (My own stupidity!)
I wouldn’t mind dying a heroic death, but my preference is to die quietly, prepared, even eager to meet my Creator. But my terror is to die too soon, for no good reason, as the result of someone’s stupidity.
So. I’ve taken the risk, early on this Thursday morning. Step up to the plate. Take a deep breath. Even if you’ve never commented before, take a risk, here, now. (Regular commenters, welcome!) Share your greatest fear.
What is your greatest fear?
“Woh ist der bahnhof?”
One of our family jokes is about how when you go to live in Germany, for some reason, one of the first phrases you learn isn’t “guten tag” or “Wiegehts” (hello! / how are you?) but “where is the train station?” And it is particularly hilarious because even if you ever say it exactly right (or so you think) no one can understand what you are saying. And if they DO understand – they start giving you directions with elaborate hand signals.
Germans are very precise. They won’t just point in a general direction, they will use all kinds of words for left, right, straight ahead, and my personal favorite “gegenuber” which means catty-corner, or diagonally across from something, all words that the beginner doesn’t have a clue. So even if you successfully ask for directions, you can’t understand the answer.
Most of the time, however, you will ask “woh ist der bahnhof” several times, as the response is continually “wie, bitte?”, the polite way of sayinh “WHAT??” and then finally they will get this “aha!” and they will say “Oh! Woh ist der bahnhof?!” and it sounds exactly like what you have been saying for the last five minutes.
I had a “woh is der bahnhof” experience here in Kuwait. I was searching for a souk I had heard about. I asked some of my friends – where is the souk Watiniya? I experienced that two seconds of total blank non-response that always feels like two days, and then one of them laughed and said “oh, she means the souk Watiya” and they told me where it was.
But I’m getting smarter. It wasn’t the part where I added the extra syllable that confused them. It was the fact that I used the soft “t” and not the hard “t”. It’s a small thing, but enough to make me dance for joy – I can hear the difference!
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