Jed said:
Regarding Franklin and the speed of communication, I wonder if the Proceedings of the Royal Society for 1750s are on line? Axil replies: The difference between then and now is that the words streaming forth from the “Proceedings of the Royal Society” would now be available to thousands of the interested as each one rolled out of Franken’s articulate mouth. These priceless words of Franklin would be available to throngs of interested co-inventors in real time, chiseled into their brains in their turn one by one; and after Franklin said his piece and he laid aside his parchment where his notes were kept, and his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose are placed back in his pocket, hundreds would rush out onto their own fields far and wide across the land with the kite and the string and the key; their souls in flight with the kite lifted on the roiling winds of the storm. Yes some would die, but in that small price, many would see the results of Franklins experiment played out with their own eyes and by their own hands before the sun had set on that day. And those grateful few who held thanks in their heart to Franklin for giving them the precious chance to participate in his noble endeavor and to see firsthand the universe laid bare before their very eyes; the selfless pursuit of pure knowledge, would post back to him to generously share their results and express the joy in their new discoveries. But as there always is in every age, a few would hold back their findings to gain a foothold in the nascent lightning rod market, but they would be left in the stagnant backwaters of proprietary selfishness by the headlong altruistic scramble of the open sourced majority to uncover this sparkling truth about that tiny flashing jewel in the crown of our world. Cheers: Axil On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Alain Sepeda <[email protected]> wrote: > > In corporate engineering you notice that relative regression. >> Data can be exchanged in seconds, designs can be simulated in days, >> however the regulation has became so complex, the "workflow" so long, >> involving so many fearful executives, so higher executives, that things get >> slow, until all is technical and planed. >> then it take 18 month. >> > > That is a big problem. In the 1940s and 50s when the Air Force was flying > the X-series aircraft, they implemented design changes in a matter of weeks > that would take years nowadays. That was partly the lingering effect of > WWII, when people made decisions rapidly. > > During the invasion of Iraq I saw a Pentagon schedule for a project to > train people in Middle Eastern languages. They were holding preliminary > meetings, circulating plans and so on. It was going to take years before > the first person sat in the first classroom. In comparison, after the > attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army set up Japanese-language classes > within a matter of weeks. Thirty years later I learned Japanese from some > the people who set up those courses or learned from them. > > Regarding Franklin and the speed of communication, I wonder if the > Proceedings of the Royal Society for 1750s are on line? Franklin wrote to > Collinson on Feb. 4, 1751. It would be interesting to see how long it took > Collinson to report it to the Society in their regular correspondence. I am > pretty sure Collinson found this news important enough to report. It was > probably the first time anyone was nearly killed by artificially produced > electricity, as opposed to lightning. > > In those days the Society proceedings resembled this forum rather than a > modern journal. They were a catch-all discussion group for anything of > interest to Natural Philosophy (science). > > - Jed > >
