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Famous Invention's They Said Would Never Work

null-hypothesis.co.uk — Quotes from some of the greatest minds on the planet on inventions they deemed had no future. From the Head of Century Fox declaring TV had no more than six months to the Chairman of IBM declaring that there is no need for more than five computers in the World.

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  • ironeus, on 08/01/2008, -19/+167"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." boy was he waaaay off!
    • BlueSkyfish, on 06/20/2008, -4/+65Thank you, that was the point of tis article.
      • BlueSkyfish, on 06/20/2008, -1/+34Crap, someone should invent spell check.
        • equinoxChild, on 06/20/2008, -2/+26use firefox =P
        • gdehms, on 06/20/2008, -1/+17An open-source web browser not in any way controlled by Microsoft? BLASPHEMY.
        • skratchnerd, on 06/20/2008, -13/+4use safari
        • imsoclever, on 06/20/2008, -1/+15I see little or no use for a software spell checking mechanism. I believe the public feels similarly.
    • akkibaba, on 06/20/2008, -3/+41Yup, I don't know what I'd do without my porn machine.
      • deanoplex, on 06/20/2008, -4/+15Pornograph.
      • skratchnerd, on 06/20/2008, -3/+4tittie mags?
      • NGliam, on 06/20/2008, -0/+11We'd have to go back to paying for porn, a phase in our history I think we all wish could go away.
    • Haoie, on 06/20/2008, -1/+24Also missing is the prediction that computers will be so expensive, that only the 5 richest Kings in Europe will be able to afford them.
    • KingGorilla, on 06/20/2008, -2/+2Look at us now!
    • Locke23, on 06/20/2008, -2/+5What is this computer you speak of?
      • jmkiii, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3It's like the box you use for hiding all your porn in your closet, except the government gets to watch what you have and what you do with it.
    • pe5t1lence, on 06/20/2008, -3/+5Never under estimate the power of porn!
      • happyseamonster, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2It was porn online that drove plenty to spend plenty and fund further upgrades.
    • VegaObscura3, on 06/20/2008, -3/+8Actually, I'd say he was right on. There really is no reason why we have them. All they do is consume our time, and so rarely do we get anything out of it.
    • jim1977, on 06/20/2008, -0/+10"Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions standards for man-made sources. "

      Well, yeah, if you let it die and become encased in rock for millions of years and then dig up said hydrocarbons and burn them...
    • skinflute, on 06/20/2008, -2/+10He said "There *is* no reason", which may actually have been true in 1977.

      When extrapolating statements like that into predictions then they will (naturally) be waaaaay off.
    • CCSprinter11, on 06/20/2008, -0/+10I hate it when people say this guy was wrong. He had no idea that we could build small computers. He was talking about refrigerator-sized, weak machines. And yes, there is absolutely no reason anyone would want to have one of those. The guy was right.
    • mark_in_bc, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2Was he actually all that wrong? I know a few people who don't have a computer at home and they seem to make out just fine in fact one of them is a retired surgeon and has everything you'd want except a computer. I know that some people work from home and a computer is a must but how many of us would actually curl up and die if we didn't have a computer? For some people I know a home computer is just a big time waster and in many ways has done them more harm than good.
      • utnow, on 06/20/2008, -1/+2That's not exactly the same question/answer....

        To say that nobody has any use for something (his statement... which may be true for the monster machines of his day) is a bit different from saying that people could make do without it.

        I have a use for a car... I could probably figure out life without it. I have a use for a cellphone with a browser and gps... I survived for years before I owned it.

        I have a use for a 2.5 TB raid media server and 50" HD television.... you can pry it from my cold dead hands. :)
        • chipperrocks10, on 06/20/2008, -0/+0"you can pry it from my cold dead hands."

          Sweet, where do you live? I'll be right over...
    • neko6, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3When Israeli mathematicians planned to build the first computer in Israel in 1947 (amusingly, before Israel was actually created), Einstein asked von Neumann "What will that tiny country do with an electric computer?"

      I still wonder sometimes.
    • dougmc, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2He was probably predicting/talking about myspace at that point.
    • xxMarka, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1who dugg this man down?

      thirteen people..
    • Inohavehalos, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone."-Darwin

      That also suprised me.

  • GidsR, on 06/19/2008, -2/+73Good to remember that even the greatest minds are capable of getting it very wrong!
    • garnetrook, on 06/20/2008, -1/+8b..b... but could that mean the most blundering of president's could be capable of having got it very, very right?
      • Elranzer, on 06/20/2008, -1/+2"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." - Ronald Reagan, 1980

        LOL
    • ElBeh, on 06/20/2008, -6/+2*Points at Bill Gates*
    • RobotBuddha, on 06/20/2008, -5/+4To be fair, a lot of the quoted people were "some guy who wrote in to a newspaper", or old-timey versions of Paris Hilton, instead of actual researchers.
    • deanoplex, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1Simon Newcomb really hedged his bets. It makes me think he should not have made the list.
    • therightside, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3famous quotes that were likely never said
    • SergeantSavage, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2@garnetrook...

      no
    • Bilabrin, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3Yeah Lord Kelvin was way off about a number of things.
    • picsectionpleez, on 06/20/2008, -0/+4But a lot of those ARE technically true: IBM has 5 global supercomputers, the nuclear waste COULD be stored under a desk, computers don't weigh more than 1.5 tons, etc......
  • Glugory, on 06/19/2008, -3/+45The problem with this is that in the context of when these quotes were said you can understand why a lot of them thought the way they did. We have the benefit of hindsight, obviously they didn't.
    • SonicRush, on 06/20/2008, -2/+21Yes, but the idea is to make you wonder if the statements we find perfectly reasonable today are gonna be ridiculous sounding in 50 years. It's like Adidas says: Impossible is nothing!
      • bionictrout, on 06/20/2008, -1/+7Great motivational speech, but the fact is that most of these are either (1) correct (at least in part, given the context and qualified as they were), (2) driven by personal bias or business strategy, or (3) spoken by morons or the purely ignorant (like a Senator or other politician--harldy an informed technologist.)

        I see no value in taking a strained quote from Einstien out of context and saying, "ha, ha... Silly Einstein..."

        How about on of the original ARPA founders predicting that the Internet would be accessible over radio frequencies (WiFi) and require the ability to rapidly change networks during the same transaction (rapid switching/mobile internet)?

        There are just as many prophetic statements out there as seemingly short-sighted ones.
        • Tenlow, on 06/20/2008, -1/+4And you still missed the point. Things that seem quite reasonable (or biased) today will sound absurd in time. Just because it all makes sense now, and won't make sense later, doesn't mean you can't say it won't make sense later just because it does make sense now.
      • lbdinh, on 06/20/2008, -0/+10Errr....Dividing by zero will be possible in the future?
        • metalpres, on 06/20/2008, -9/+1Chuck Norris CAN divide by zero
        • ldkronos, on 06/20/2008, -0/+4Well, at one point people said you couldn't take the square root of a negative number, but imaginary numbers certainly turned out to be useful. Who's to say that dividing by zero won't someday have some useful and meaningful result?
        • stk198323, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2Dividing by 0 is already possible since a pretty long time, it's called using the limit convergence of the equation...
    • PATSCRU, on 06/20/2008, -1/+8Logical reasoning and a lack of half-witty one liners vaguely pertinent to the topic? In MY Digg? HERETIC!
    • dopplerdog, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3Exactly. Watson's quote about the market for computers was in the context of large, multi-room sized, electricity guzzling behemoths with limited processing power costing millions. At the time, the market WAS limited to that number.
    • browe07, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1Glad to see the hindsight argument Glugory. I find a lot of people don't have the empathy to consider it sometimes.
    • manitcor, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1I agree, some are based on context, the IBM chairman's comment comes to mind. Others are just plain ignorant like the comment about gas and electric lighting. If this list of comments is meant to teach anything is that it is not wise to dismiss advances in science or technology out of hand.

      One should always keep an open mind and understand that what we cannot conceive of today may be trivial tomorrow.

      I'm also willing to bet that many of these comments are taken out of context.
    • theseventhyear, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1It's irrelevant... the article's purpose was all in fun. the Purpose IS hindsight.
  • ericcire, on 06/19/2008, -18/+461APOSTROPHE USAGE ***** - DO YOU SPEAK IT?
    • SuperWinner, on 06/20/2008, -57/+2you mean comma?
    • mikesbaker, on 06/20/2008, -29/+9no apostrophe - and its kinda sad that you didn't see what is wrong there. its inventions not invention's
    • floridiot2, on 06/20/2008, -4/+113wh'at?
    • ElBeh, on 06/20/2008, -18/+2What?
    • Laiden, on 06/20/2008, -20/+11Whats you're problem? Get ahold of yourself.
      • Bilabrin, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3F**k your whole comment!
        • skyroket, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1***** everyone in the hemisphere. ***** them across the world, and ***** them right here.
    • machocheese34, on 06/20/2008, -2/+79WHAT DOES AN APOSTROPHE LOOK LIKE?
    • zen53, on 06/20/2008, -9/+80I FAILED THANKS FOR POINTING IT OUT!
      • yatucaMP, on 06/20/2008, -3/+21NOT AN EXCUSE LOL
      • skyroket, on 06/20/2008, -1/+3Hey at least he's honest about it instead of arguing he's right, like a douchebag.
    • tiberone, on 06/20/2008, -2/+37This seriously has to be one of the worst offenders I've ever seen on digg. I am appalled by how someone could actually think that belongs there.
    • themonkman, on 06/20/2008, -18/+3Nice. Apparently you don't understand the use of a period rather than a hyphen to separate two complete sentences.
      • nextyoyoma, on 06/20/2008, -2/+8since when is "apostrophe usage *****" a complete sentence?
    • mightycbu, on 06/20/2008, -2/+28THIS APOSTROPHE THING WILL NEVER MAKE IT!
    • NickLee808, on 06/20/2008, -8/+4I LOVE shopping at Aeropostale!
    • jaiwithani, on 06/20/2008, -6/+164WHAT DOES A PLURAL NOUN LOOK LIKE?
      what?
      WHAT DOES A PLURAL NOUN LOOK LIKE?
      it's...big
      GO ON
      they're...usually colored black
      DOES IT LOOK LIKE A POSSESSIVE??
      what?!
      ::BANG::
      DOES IT LOOK LIKE A POSSESIVE?
      n - no!
      THEN WHY'D YOU TRY TO PUNCTUATE IT LIKE A POSSESSIVE?
      i - i didn't!
      OH, YES YOU DID, *****. YES. YOU. DID.
      AND PLURAL NOUNS DON'T LIKE TO PUNCTUATED BY AN APOSTROPHE
      EXCEPT WHEN THE PLURAL POSSESSIVE IS BEING USED.
      • ericcire, on 06/20/2008, -0/+36Beautiful.
      • BedPost, on 06/20/2008, -0/+22I'd just like to say - this is easily my all-time favorite comment.
      • JohnnyRhino, on 06/20/2008, -0/+12
        That is brilliant.

      • pcghost, on 06/20/2008, -1/+9I am now going to immediately go watch that kick ass movie again.
      • Indierocka, on 06/20/2008, -1/+16Wow, i'm half tempted to bookmark this digg just for that comment
      • jinxplayer, on 06/20/2008, -1/+4Bookmarked. *****'ing amazing!
      • skylights, on 06/20/2008, -1/+6You left out "BE," *****! "Plural nouns don't like to BE punctuated by an apostrophe."
        • skyroket, on 06/20/2008, -1/+3Oh well...the rest of his comment makes up for that.
      • Wenchmark51, on 06/20/2008, -0/+4Most kick ass comment. Awesome.
    • gtank92, on 06/20/2008, -1/+5thank you. god i hate that
    • logicalriot, on 06/20/2008, -4/+5i'm going to shoot myself if someone screenshots this and submits.
    • springboks, on 06/20/2008, -9/+1Calm down all you windbag English students.
    • jmkiii, on 06/20/2008, -1/+1Count on it.
  • MarkusX, on 06/20/2008, -5/+27These statements are all cool and funny (on hindsight), butI personally love these two statements the most:

    "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
    - Thomas J. Watson Snr., IBM Chairman, 1943"
    Really???


    "There is growing evidence that smoking has pharmacological effects that are of real value to smokers.
    - President of Philip Morris, Inc., 1962"
    How true!

    • yacks, on 06/20/2008, -0/+12I have those 5 computers in my room. :)
      • Gggarth, on 06/20/2008, -0/+8I'd like to have a room big enough to put five 1943 IBM computers in it! :)
    • Final, on 06/20/2008, -3/+2The machine gun is a much overrated weapon; two per battalion is more than sufficient.
      - General Douglas Haig, 1915
    • davewashere, on 06/20/2008, -1/+1He must have been smoking blunts when he said that.
    • Nescirian, on 06/21/2008, -0/+0Makes sense.
      There WAS a world market for maybe 5 computers.
      There isn't now, but his statement wasn't future tense.
  • DeskFlyer, on 06/20/2008, -7/+66http://i26.tinypic.com/v79uah.jpg
  • Dumbledorito, on 06/20/2008, -4/+102"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
    - Marshal Ferdinand Foch"

    Well. Foch him, then.
    • Calinthalus, on 06/20/2008, -3/+15What did he know, he was French.
    • NickLee808, on 06/20/2008, -3/+3"Did you mean: French military DEFEATS?"
      -Google, on French military victories
    • masamunecyrus, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3That's also what they told Nikola Tesla about radio-controlled weapons.
    • stonedthot, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1I wonder if thats the same guy that decided to attack German entrenched machine guns with cavalry charges?
    • Nescirian, on 06/21/2008, -0/+0That Fokker.
  • DiggCrusher, on 06/20/2008, -13/+4Didn't Bill Gates once say that computers would never need more than 128k of memory?
  • daRoach, on 06/20/2008, -1/+102All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
    - Ronald Reagan, 1980

    Why is this wrong? Haven't you seen Ronald Reagan's desk?
    • tippmann1, on 06/20/2008, -4/+96nuclear power plants are completely safe, I've lived near one my whole life and my three testicles are as healthy now as they've ever been.
      • virtualball, on 06/20/2008, -0/+36You might want to get that.... ya know what? You're fine...
      • lbdinh, on 06/20/2008, -2/+4It's safe, unless you live in Ukraine.
      • colinmhayes, on 06/20/2008, -1/+4truly, you are living the american dream.
    • bionictrout, on 06/20/2008, -5/+25How much space does nuclear waste require? As far as I understand it, it isn't an issue of volume, but rather the danger of storing/disposing of it. You could probably fit the waste from one plant under Reagan's desk, but it would fry his genitalia. If we are talking about the actual physical waste, and not the heat/radioactivity generated, he was pretty close, I would say.
      • Gggarth, on 06/20/2008, -5/+2According to http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf103.html#1, 12,000 tonnes of high level waste (which is 3% of all nuclear waste) are produced worldwide each year. It's still a huge desk :)
        • stix213, on 06/20/2008, -1/+3Reagan was talking about per reactor, not total reactors
        • Gggarth, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3There are only around 400 nuclear power plants in the world. Still a huge desk.
        • stix213, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1and there are multiple reactors per power plant. so what?
      • stix213, on 06/20/2008, -2/+1He was referring to volume though, and not talking about the health effects of actually storing nuclear waste under a desk. you people are rediculous
    • agentbob, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3I actually came to the comments to ask the same question
    • MozzieTS, on 06/20/2008, -0/+5It will fit under his desk, but the desk is encased in 30 tonnes of lead
    • mGARANDEUR1, on 06/20/2008, -0/+8Nuclear power plants produce very little waste for the amount of energy they are capable of producing. I think most of our waste is being stored in a mountain.
      • kingmanic, on 06/20/2008, -0/+6Part of the large quantities of nuclear waste produced is due to US policies on never fully processing waste for fear of creating large amounts of weapons grade Plutonium. The policy was made by people who didn't know anything about nuclear reactors and means the US have pretty inefficient fuel processing. Most other nations produce less waste per gigajoule.
        • mGARANDEUR1, on 06/21/2008, -0/+2I believe that most of the waste is still stored on site at the power plants.
    • Eezyville, on 06/20/2008, -0/+4I say we dump it in space and worry about it in a few generations. :P
      • chrismusaf, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1Why worry about it? Start producing cheap (but highly reliable) rockets and lauch that sucka into the Sun!
      • ricerfuel, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1Only problem is if the rocket blows up before it reaches space and covers the whole planet in radioactive waste. Would be an awesome explosion though
    • diggydougie, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1You could put sever hundred pounds of highly radioactive metal under any desk. That doesn't make it any less dangerous. That said I would rather have some radioactive waste to bury than an overheated planet.
  • OffPiste, on 06/20/2008, -7/+63What the hell was Lord Kelvin right about?
  • tehbored, on 06/20/2008, -1/+50I tell you, we will never create artificial intelligence and nuclear fusion is nothing more than a neat trick!
    • SpeedSteamBoat, on 06/20/2008, -0/+7*fingers crossed*
    • KingGorilla, on 06/20/2008, -0/+19You've just ensured those things will happen
    • diadem2, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3Skynet will never archive self-awareness and destroy humanity in a nuclear holocaust, then attempt to track down the surviving members through subterfuge to archive total annihilation of the species.
    • sakuraz, on 06/20/2008, -0/+11"I tell you, we will never create artificial intelligence and nuclear fusion is nothing more than a neat trick!"

      - Anonymous Digger, 2008
  • golemeter, on 06/20/2008, -1/+35I love "Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean. " Two birds with one...um...nevermind.
    • TTURabble, on 06/20/2008, -1/+15"Two birds with one...um...nevermind"

      cup?
  • xrisnothing, on 06/20/2008, -20/+18I always thought that Reagonomics was $%%$ up but I had no idea that the man was that much of a moron. No wonder the neo-cons pretend to idolize him.
    • dopplerdog, on 06/20/2008, -2/+8George Bush called it something economics.... anyone?.... anyone?.... voodoo economics.
    • thh204, on 06/20/2008, -4/+3I suppose you think that Einstein and Kelvin are morons as well.
    • WWJeffersonDo, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1The Regan quote is scientifically true. The oceans produce even more than vegitation.
  • maretten, on 06/20/2008, -17/+3Silly Penis!!!
    • possiblyneil, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1You are unnecessary. Please leave.
  • johnlandes, on 06/20/2008, -10/+44I am tired of all this thing called science.... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.
    - Unnamed republican, right before cutting funding to NASA and transferring to department of Creationism
  • AlucardtheIII, on 06/20/2008, -1/+63
    I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone.
    - Darwin (writing in Origin of Species), 1859

    I Laughed Heartily.
    • Locke23, on 06/20/2008, -0/+8I always found it interesting that Darwin was a very orthodox man at some point in his life, even while upon The Beagle where he used to quote the Bible quite often to his surrounding companions..
    • lukak, on 06/20/2008, -2/+20he was right. There's nothing in there to hurt the feelings of any mainstream followers. It's the fringe looneys that he's pissing off, and it's the fringe looneys who are getting the media attention. If he wasn't pissing them off, they'd be pissed off at something else.
    • snapcase, on 06/20/2008, -2/+11He was completely right that there really are no *good reasons* why religious people should get upset over evolutionary theory.
    • OftEccentricity, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1I'm surprised this took so long to get mentioned.
  • grumpyrain, on 06/20/2008, -11/+36> Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
    > - Marshal Ferdinand Foch,
    > French military strategist and World War I commander.

    Clearly he was wrong. We now know airplanes could have helped them in their endeavors to run away.
  • grumpyrain, on 06/20/2008, -1/+67> Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
    > - Popular Mechanics, 1949

    What's wrong with that?
    • benmiller313, on 06/20/2008, -2/+28my computer sure as hell doesnt way more than a ton! they must have been psychics!
    • Ugotownedo, on 06/20/2008, -5/+3Well back then, computers were the size of streets so it would've been very cool back then to have a computer that "only" weighs as much as a car.

      • ZincSaucier, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1and they weighed as much as forests!
    • BlakeEM, on 06/20/2008, -0/+15The new IBM worlds fastest computer "Roadrunner" weights around 250 tons...
    • Loxias, on 06/20/2008, -0/+8I dunno, the 1,150 node supercomputer down at campus might break 1.5 tons, that must be what the author of this article had in mind when he selected that quote.
      • Locke23, on 06/20/2008, -7/+2Have you see the Macbook Air? That ***** weights around 1.5 tons doesn't it?
    • HeroForHire, on 06/20/2008, -2/+16Well computers now weigh less that 1.5 tons. So the quote is correct.
    • c4sh, on 06/20/2008, -0/+8That's about how much my xbox weighs.
    • BOFH2, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2he must have an Alienware MJ12 7700 - rel weight 12+lbs
    • Wakkyweed, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1My custom gaming laptop weighs about 1.5 tons. That's why I prefer to leave the heavy-ass thing at home when possible.
  • mooseontheloose, on 06/20/2008, -4/+19Haha it's funny taking comments out of the context they were said in!
    • Chainheart, on 06/20/2008, -3/+4Depends on the quote. The quotes in the article do not even need their context to make sense, unless it were said directly afterward, "Oh, by the way, the previous sentence wasn't serious."
    • beabis, on 06/20/2008, -0/+0Offering no documentation on the source makes it even funnier. Reminds me of all of those fabricated undocumented Darwin Awards stories.
  • SDL486, on 06/20/2008, -1/+19"The Internet will catastrophically collapse in 1996." Well Mr. Robert Metcalfe the so called inventor of the internet you may have been wrong about 1996 but last time I heard it was 2012.
    • lukak, on 06/20/2008, -0/+8Incorrect. That statement is funny because we all know Al Gore invented the internet.
    • snapcase, on 06/20/2008, -3/+3Yes, everything will go wrong in 2012! The Mayans said it so it must be true!

      Ugh, people need to drop the damned 2012 predictions already.
    • numb, on 06/20/2008, -0/+4For the record Bob Metcalfe invented Ethernet, not the Internet.

      I remember reading his column predicting the collapse of the Internet--it was in Infoworld I think. He also said he would "eat his words" if he was wrong. IIRC in 1997 he ended up putting a copy of the column in a blender with a milkshake or something (not making this up btw) and drinking it at some event. Not exactly "eating his words," but I guess close enough.
  • Khanvalescent, on 06/20/2008, -4/+92Our grammatical grandfathers said the apostrophe would never work.
    • pr0lixity, on 06/20/2008, -1/+3The apostrophe works. Just not the minds of the people who attempt to use them.
  • FreeTalkLIve, on 06/20/2008, -3/+8Who invented fiat currency again?
  • akohut, on 06/20/2008, -2/+16As long as we're on the subject of things not working, let's take a look at that apostrophe in the title.
  • vinceislegend, on 06/20/2008, -8/+23Lord Kelvin was a douchebag.
    • dopplerdog, on 06/20/2008, -1/+14And yet his contribution to science, and humanity, beats anything you (or I) will ever do.
    • Bilabrin, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2An absolute doucehbag!
    • Wakkyweed, on 06/20/2008, -1/+1Earl of Sandwich: Douchebag, how are you? I haven't seen you in the House of Lords in ages! Don't tell me for the first time in memory we are going to have a House of Parliament without a Douchebag?

      Lord Douchebag: My dear Sandwich, Parliament has always had its share of Douchebags, and it always will.

      Lord Salisbury: Spoken like a true Douchebag. I have often heard the King speak of your family... and of yours, as well: "Give me a Sandwich and a Douchebag, and there is nothing I cannot do."
  • sleepyjjk, on 06/20/2008, -3/+26"Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."

    In a way, I wish this was true.
    • bionictrout, on 06/20/2008, -0/+5This was true ... until they invented plastic plasma screens! I can stare at my plastic box all day long.
  • Touchyou, on 06/20/2008, -0/+36"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone, PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
    - Palm CEO, Ed Cooligan (on perspective of Apple´s new cell phone, Nov 2006)
  • Phoenix462, on 06/20/2008, -10/+29Marshal Ferdinand Foch,
    French military strategist and World War I commander.

    I'm pretty sure "French military strategist" is an oxymoron.
    • TheR3dMenace, on 06/20/2008, -5/+11Then you lack knowledge of history
      • Phoenix462, on 06/20/2008, -4/+13Then you lack knowledge of a joke.
        • yacks, on 06/20/2008, -3/+3you lack the knowledge that surrendering right away is actually a military strategy.. Not a very good one if you want to keep your country sovereign though.
        • Spankov, on 06/20/2008, -0/+11I'm pretty sure the US needed the help of the French to kick out the English...
        • thh204, on 06/20/2008, -2/+3I'm pretty sure the French needed the help of the Germans to surrender so many times.
      • balazsbela, on 06/20/2008, -3/+4Write "french military victories" into Google and press the I'm Feeling Lucky button.
  • nevetando, on 06/20/2008, -0/+4what this really is, is a great example of distruptive technology... and how hard it is to predict and judge what is going to be a huge success...

    This is something business struggle with every day. being able to look to tomorrow and stop being fixated on what people are doing right now.
  • d4ktu, on 06/20/2008, -6/+47"A social news website where the users choose the top stories? That will never work!"
    -Bill Gates
    • webkami, on 06/20/2008, -1/+12.. and now he him self posts as MrBabyMan

      /s
    • mGARANDEUR1, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2I know of no such website. The only thing close to that is this biased website I post on where the algorithm only allows stories to show up if RIAA, Obama, marijuana, or iphone is in the title.
  • mike4410, on 06/20/2008, -2/+3I had no idea!

    There is growing evidence that smoking has pharmacological effects that are of real value to smokers.
    - President of Philip Morris, Inc., 1962
  • EvansHall, on 06/20/2008, -0/+28You all laugh at my Jump to Conclusions mat now, but I will have the last laugh.
    • crazzy88ss, on 06/20/2008, -0/+12Hey man, nobody said we were laughing at you. Don't jump to conclusions so fast...
    • bgrah449, on 06/20/2008, -0/+5That's the worst idea I've ever heard.
    • rezonq3, on 06/20/2008, -1/+5Yes, it's horrible, this idea.
  • thedp, on 06/20/2008, -15/+4Did you notice that "Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist." is staring all over the list?!
    That moron has an IQ of a banana peel, and I'm currently insulting the banana peel.
    • stix213, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3Doesn't he have an entire temperature scale named after him? Ohhh, they must do that for every moron.
  • keithburgun, on 06/20/2008, -2/+11nice grammar's
  • themonkman, on 06/20/2008, -1/+2It's easy to understand personal interests, limitations in technology for those time periods, and total ignorance of the intuition and progressive nature of mankind and the human brain in these statements.
  • LoudMusic, on 06/20/2008, -5/+19Well, much like my comments on the iPod 7ish years ago.

    http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22940&ci ...

    You have to keep in mind that when those comments were made about those inventions, the invention might have actually sucked, horribly. And the things that made that invention what it was had to either be ditched or drastically altered. In many cases they were, and the invention worked. But I don't think you can say that the people who made the comments are stupid or foolish - they were just focusing on what they saw, and not what could become of the invention.
    • trumpcard, on 06/20/2008, -0/+4Year 2001 that brings a lot of memories.
    • SpeedSteamBoat, on 06/20/2008, -1/+5But isn't that really just rationalizing incredibly poor fore sight?
      • LoudMusic, on 06/20/2008, -1/+2No, I think it has more to do with calling out the marketeers and harbingers of hype. Take the iPhone for example. It was pretty dang neat when it came out, but the iPhone 3G is closer to how cool they claimed it would be originally, and I still don't think it's as cool as the general populous says - and I own one. Same goes for the iPod. The original one wasn't great. It was actually pretty lousy. But three years into development it finally got to be that awesome world changing device that was marketed back in 2001. And sales reflect that.

        It's not so much poor fore sight as distrust that the product will ever fulfill the hype that is selling it.
    • SasquatchBill, on 06/20/2008, -0/+5"This is why Apple is a company with $4 Billion in the bank, and you're trolling on slashdot."

      Hah!
  • ryodoan, on 06/20/2008, -0/+25I am reasonably sure this one is true, "All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk."

    Yes, the waste can be stored under a desk, but I dont think you want to be anywhere near said desk...

    Also, something else to keep in mind is that for many of these quotes, they were valid in their time period. Such as, "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. " - WWI
    If you look at the planes that were available, they were not rugged, or maneuverable enough to be really critical as they are today in warfare.
  • koji29, on 06/20/2008, -3/+1The concept of only five computers could be very prophetic.
  • ConfusedCartman, on 06/20/2008, -4/+5"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value"? How can you not understand how this would help a military?

    "- Marshal Ferdinand Foch,
    French military strategist and World War I commander."

    Oh.
  • thedp, on 06/20/2008, -8/+2Did you notice that "Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist." is staring all over the list?!
    That moron has an IQ of a banana peel, and I'm currently insulting the banana peel.
  • sjmorton, on 06/20/2008, -3/+9Can somebody invent a machine that detects unnecessary apostrophes in Digg submission headlines?
    • dopplerdog, on 06/20/2008, -0/+6"I see little use for such a device. Even if it were possible, such a machine would have little to no practical value."
      • sjmorton, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1Except for reducing my blood pressure.
  • metalpres, on 06/20/2008, -6/+1To see all these things that highly respected and trusted people (at least at the time) said that turned out to be completely false really makes the thought of any religion being any more credible seem quite foolish.
  • crash331, on 06/20/2008, -1/+6Dugg because it doesn't have the oft misquoted Bill Gates one about 640k.
  • clutcher, on 06/20/2008, -6/+1When reading-through this, I wish I could go back in time and talk to one of thse guys say "hey, you what, you're wrong, let me explain how wrong you are?. and then i would get all this flack from joe bob and harry dick but then i would, fly back to my present time and read the history book about this weird looking guy dressedin weird-looking clothes who was always right.
    but not dugg because of bad grammer by the poster.
  • TheR3dMenace, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3"general science" is my favourite invention on that list
  • xmrkkr, on 06/20/2008, -10/+8"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!" -- Bill Gates
    • mark_in_bc, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2Turns out that he never actually said that. The quote referring to 640k of RAM and was debunked by David Pogue. He tried to find the original citation and eventually concluded it was apocryphal.
  • edwinjose, on 06/20/2008, -0/+5Just BECAUSE your idea gets poo pooed doesn't mean it is a good feasible idea. The inventor needs to demonstrate it with evidence.

    I had to comment about this because, all the praise I see given for "ex- loser stories" always seems to focus on the drama in their stories. Very little is ever said about their hard work and reasons for their strong convictions in spite of expert criticism.
  • theword12, on 06/20/2008, -2/+11Radio has no future.
    - Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist.

    This shouldn't be on the list. It could very well be true.
    • MickJT, on 06/20/2008, -5/+1That depends on your definition of "radio". Television is radio, Wi-Fi is radio, mobile phones is radio, etc.. etc..
      • TheStrongForce, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1Those are microwaves buddy. They're one step up from radio.


        Inbefore i'm not your buddy, guy.
    • traveler1217, on 06/20/2008, -2/+0Yeah, at this point, Lord K may be right, but I still want to jump on the 'bash Lord Kelvin' wagon because he's a smug pompous brit who thought he was a cut above the rest of humanity.
      • atgmac, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1Because he WAS a cut above the rest of humanity. Have you seen the number of things he invented/discovered?
  • teebird, on 06/20/2008, -0/+3The Popular Mechanics statement about computers is one that came true and was actually pretty forward-looking, considering it was made in 1949, long before solid state, ICs or miniaturized machines. In 1949, a computer would have been an assemblage of tube-throttled circuits, electromagnetic relays and mechanical linkages that would have filled a large room.

    I started working around computers in the '60s, just before the first solid-state mainframes came on the market and even those were big and heavy machines because their mechanical parts were huge compared to their modern counterparts and all the circuits used discrete components. I think our first disk drives weighed nearly a quarter of a ton.
  • mastazed, on 06/20/2008, -4/+3yea apple got the computer down to 1.5 tonnes with the emac
    • smoger, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1don't bury this guy... i had to carry 40 of those ***** through a mall because every single one in our office was from the bad capacitor wave. :( not fun.

      actually.. the apple store reluctantly sent someone out with a small cart that could hold 2, so i carried 1 in every 3 of them. still not fun.
  • gllopc, on 06/20/2008, -0/+24At least one of these guys ate his words - literally:

    The Internet will catastrophically collapse in 1996.’ - Robert Metcalfe, internet inventor

    Later in a Wired article:

    "..he makes predictions - like his famous pronouncement that the Internet would "go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse." When that prediction failed to come true, Metcalfe engaged in some highly theatrical public penance: In front of an audience, he put that particular column into a blender, poured in some water, and proceeded to eat the resulting frappe with a spoon. "

    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.11/metcalfe.h ...
    • arjie, on 06/20/2008, -0/+7I remember that, it was dugg. But most of all, I dugg you up because you actually meant 'literally' when you said it.
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