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  • Posted by Rocky_Road 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "Your statement was " Have you ever considered that a real life Rearden doesn't exist". I am saying they do, and produced one."

    So did I...Bill Gates.

    "And why on earth would someone from the Gulch ask if she "donated" her discoveries to mankind? She has no requirement to donate anything to anyone unless she wants to."

    Maybe because you said this: "...she cares nothing for fame or money,"

    As of now, nobody knows who you are even talking about...but we all know what Bill Gates has done, and returned to the people.

    This all began with the dissing of Bill Gates.

    Your mysterious Mother Theresa of blood testing may be all that you hope, but you haven't explained why Bill Gates is a demon.

    Maybe because he isn't any such thing. And thousands (maybe millions) of people are thanking him for his value.
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  • Posted by $ Maphesdus 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I never said Edison used force. I said he used fear and intimidation. Edison was deeply invested in the direct current (DC) system, and used fear-mongering to try and scare the public into thinking that the alternating current (AC) system, which was invented by Tesla and funded by Westinghouse, was a danger to the public.

    Edison's tactics included the frequent killing of "stray" dogs via electrocution, the killing of Topsy the elephant at Coney Island (which was filmed), and even the first electrical execution of a criminal (William Kemmler) using the newly invented electric chair. Edison used these events (all of which he helped mastermind) to create anti-AC propaganda, telling the press that only DC electricity was safe for public use.

    After losing bids for contracts to Telsa and Westinghouse, Edison printed numerous pamphlets which he sent to journalists and lighting utilities companies that were considering purchasing equipment from Tesla, claiming that Tesla's inventions violated his patents, and Edison threatened that as soon as the patent infringement cases had settled, any company that had purchased Tesla's equipment would find themselves without a supplier.

    If you want more detail about the feud between Tesla and Edison, as well as an intricate look at the immoral tactics used by Edison, there's an excellent book about Tesla's life that I highly recommend:

    "Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity," by David J. Kent
    http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tesla-da...

    There's also a fascinating documentary by the Discovery Channel titled "The Unknown Genius of Nikola Tesla," which you can watch here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpn33EunG...
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  • Posted by $ nickursis 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The point I was making was that there ARE real life Hank Reardons (people who create, innovate and produce). Your statement was " Have you ever considered that a real life Rearden doesn't exist". I am saying they do, and produced one. And no, I do not believe Bill Gates was a s close as it gets either, he had others helping him, and his innovations more often than not depended on things they, uh, er, borrowed from others. For instance, the GUI (visual interface with mouse) was not a MS creation, it was hijacked from Xerox. And why on earth would someone from the Gulch ask if she "donated" her discoveries to mankind? She has no requirement to donate anything to anyone unless she wants to. I also do not think she is "living large" she is in fact, a pretty damn good example of how it should be done. i wish I had her abilities, even 10% of what she's got. She is a great example of what can be done.
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  • Posted by LionelHutz 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Are you familiar with this?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_o...

    The tie-in of OS to hardware has been around since the 1950s in large part due to computer languages not being in existence that could generically target various hardware platforms at high speed and the OS therefore being written in low-level, non-portable languages. The situation began improving in the 1970s, before the PC architecture as we know it existed. In the 1980s, it was absolutely possible to install something like Unix on hardware using the Intel 80x86 architecture, and Motorola 68000 architecture. In the face of this reality, Microsoft went an unethical direction, IMO.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Have you read the Innovators Dilemma or Innovators Solution? These books talk about the cycle of commoditization and decomodiatiztion. When a technology is new, the components are integrated. As it matures and commoditizes, it becomes modular.

    I wonder if this is the case with OSs. Computers are appliances that can do many things. Embedded computers, say those that control the fuel/air mixture in an engine, are more reliable but only do one thing. Personal computers were a disruptive innovation, making computing accessible to a market for whom it was previously too complicated. The way to do that is with an OS tightly partnered with the uP vender (the Wintel alliance) and applications that are made by the same vender as the OS. This seems like the OS vender using its position anti-competitively to control the application market, but maybe it worked out that way b/c personal computers were a disruptive innovation (brought a technology to a new market) and benefited from more integration / less modularization.

    As you can tell I'm fuzzy on these concepts. I'm a tech expert trying to learn the business side. My main point is I'm not sure that Micro$oft's and Apple's success is owed as heavily to anti-competitive practices as it seems.
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  • Posted by Rocky_Road 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    And she differs from Bill Gates, how?

    Did she start in a smaller basement than Gates?

    Is she not living 'large', regardless how she views profits?

    Has she donated her discoveries to mankind?
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  • Posted by $ nickursis 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I would disagree with you, there are real life Reardons. There is a woman who started a medical company in her parents basement, with a revolutionary new way to do blood tests. She got a few bucks from some start up investors and today her company has already grossed many millions and is rocketing. I read an article on her and it was fantastic, she can take a small sample of blood and do a gobslob of tests with it, with incredible accuarcy, and for 30% or so of what labs are charging. I will try to find the article and post it. But they ARE out there, but just like the Reardon character, she cares nothing for fame or money, she is actually into seeing her success.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What did Edison do to intimidate his rivals? Edison was one of the most amazing electrical engineers of all time. He didn't necessarily invent new technologies but he worked doggedly to perfect them while at the same time marketing them well (i.e. introducing them to people who might want them). He understood marketing despite being at least as aspie as the typical EE. His Menlo Park lab didn't have employees as we have them. It was more like an elite hackerspace where only brilliant electrical engineers could work. If they developed something that turned out to be profitable, they would get a cut. They didn't get paid for showing up. It had huge windows to provide light because ironically lamps were not reliable before he came along.

    Telsa was amazing in a different way. He made circuits that I do not understand how to analyze, so I cannot explain why they work. My colleague built a Tesla coil and show it to me. I don't think he understood it in terms of formal circuit analysis. I get the idea it was more of an art for him.

    These are some amazing engineers who made the modern world possible. Whom did Edison use force on besides the elephant he electrocuted?
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  • Posted by Rocky_Road 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Revisionist hogwash.

    The men that made this the greatest nation in recorded history can be counted on one hand. You mentioned two of them....

    Get you hands on the DVD 'The Men Who Built America' by Patrick Reams, and learn how capitalism unfettered can change the world...just as it built this nation.
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  • Posted by LionelHutz 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I feel there are many in business who thrive on competition in the early days, arrive at the front of the pack, and then lose their interest in the competition that comes about from continuous improvement to maintain their lead. They instead seek to maintain their position by political pull and other various tactics. They may still be in business, but they are not the "businessman" that Rand is talking about anymore.
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  • Posted by Rocky_Road 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Have you ever considered that a real life Rearden doesn't exist?

    And that Bill Gates could be as close as it gets?

    Gates has made many middle class folks millionaires, including one of his early secretaries. Not to mention that he gives virtual fortunes to charities....
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'm not "demonizing" anybody. I'm referring to their business practices, which, like Walmart, were closer to Taggart and Boyle than to Rearden.

    I wonder how many jobs would have been created had superior technologies been allowed to prosper but for their "pull" with government and existing industry insiders (IBM, for example).


    There are many myths abounding in the modern world (Jap cars were actually superior in the 70s, illegal aliens are decent, hard-working folk, etc) and among them is the idea that there was just Microsoft and Apple, and everything they did was superior to the competition, which is demonstrably false.

    Rand's philosophy asserts, as I understand it, that free market competition will bring about superior products, yet that *hasn't* been the case in the OS/personal computer field.

    And, with the unbridled success of iToys and the emergence of Windows 8, the decades old goal of these two nears fruition...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CtjhWhw2...
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  • Posted by Rocky_Road 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Why demonize Jobs, or Gates?

    Can you picture just how many jobs these two created?

    Or the wealth for their investors?

    Or the sideline businesses that support their products?
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