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Someone wants something better so they must be a Bolshevik? Dude, you're conveniently forgetting one of the most important global economic revolutions in the history of the world. How'd that one turn out? Pretty freaking well.

In our modern society, there is no real way to hold debtors responsible for the obscene amounts of debt they run up. Why should we as a society let asshats run up 100k in debt and then have to hear them cry about how they can't afford to pay their debts, yet if they don't pay them..there is no real punishment to them. I say bring back Debtors prisons

Why they're worried: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Digital_dark_age

Also, the pest affected different areas quite differently. See this map

The Green areas should not be green. Data about mortality rates is incomplete. Large unaffected areas are a myth. http://past.oxfordjournals.org/content/211/1/3.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=loGlgExG0zZlz49#F1

its spread is a function of distance, population density and commercial exchanges.

Tor the most part, yes. The map I linked, however, says that Milan was relatively unaffected, as was Warsaw, or Brugues. Which were important cities (apart from warsaw, okay ^^)

But, alas, that wikipedia map is most certainly wrong in that those green areas were not unaffected, but only *relatively* less affected areas. Milan had its share of pest deaths, but not as bad as in other cities Also, east Germany and Poland actually *were* affected

It's not just the reels on top. The mechanical film path through the camera is also gone, which involves a lot of big metal parts.

Seriously, look at these things: http://www.red.com/products/epic ... The body is 5 pounds. Another 5 pounds for a lens, and you have a cinematography camera in about 10 pounds.

Picked up a Panavision lately? The body alone weighs more than that. By the time you've strapped on a lens and a loaded reel, it's quite a load to lug.

Picked up a fully loaded RED1 recently? It doesn't weigh 5 pounds anymore. Between the monitor, the stand, the recorder box, and half a dozen other little gizmos they can bulk up pretty fast. Actually getting a 4K system that is light and small and useful is a problem that a number of people actively are addressing.

People get around this by using smaller cameras like the Sony EX3 and changing their shooting style to match the camera (like the 'documentary' scenes in District 9) (which was mostly shot on RED 1's).

(more parenthesis for (extra) effect.)

It is certainly plausible that Y. pestis is much more pathologic in a weak, starving host living in awful non hygienic circumstances. This is a testable hypothesis but hopefully no one is ever going to do that experiment.

Forget the "starved". The Black Death got people regardless of wealth. In Hamburg for example, 16 of 21 City Council members died - certainly no poor people.

Also, the pest affected different areas quite differently. See this map (green: no or minor occurrences of the Black Death). As far as I can see, the areas unaffected by the pest were not special in any way (not specially poor or uninhabited or anything) as far as my - admittedly small - knowledge goes.

Maybe someone there got the "hygiene" or "quarantaine" thing correctly, though.

Essentially, yes. Justice should be about making the victims whole, not placating some abstraction. Restorative justice.

That is fanboy cherry picking. Go google tablet PC and check out all the old XP running tablet PCs that looked basically just like an iPad years ago.

I did. Here are the first five; tell me which of them looks remotely like an iPad to you?

Really? This car and this car don't look pretty much identical at first glance? Sure, there are couple things you can pick out when you look at them side by side, but you'd have to specifically memorize the distinguishing features in order to tell them apart. That's pretty much the case with the Apple and Samsung products too.

"On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

I wonder, re we going to see a LibreSQL sometime soon?

I'm not comfortable with the Oracle / MySQL direction.

That's been around for awhile now.

This is certainly not a new idea. It is sometimes referred to as the "rapture of the nerds" version of a technological singularity. Ray Kurzweil is a big fan of the idea and one of the major proponents.

As to the actual feasibility, I ran across Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap a little while ago, which discusses the possibility given our current knowledge of how the brain works. It provides dates on how long Moore's Law would have to continue based on varyingly optimistic assumptions about how much work is necessary to actually emulate a brain.

Overall, I think there are two main problems with expecting immortality via brain uploading: (1) 40+ years is a very long time to assume Moore's Law for and (2) even if we can emulate a human brain, scanning an existing one and transferring it into a computer may not be possible.

This is certainly not a new idea. It is sometimes referred to as the "rapture of the nerds" version of a technological singularity. Ray Kurzweil is a big fan of the idea and one of the major proponents.

As to the actual feasibility, I ran across Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap a little while ago, which discusses the possibility given our current knowledge of how the brain works. It provides dates on how long Moore's Law would have to continue based on varyingly optimistic assumptions about how much work is necessary to actually emulate a brain.

Overall, I think there are two main problems with expecting immortality via brain uploading: (1) 40+ years is a very long time to assume Moore's Law for and (2) even if we can emulate a human brain, scanning an existing one and transferring it into a computer may not be possible.

This is certainly not a new idea. It is sometimes referred to as the "rapture of the nerds" version of a technological singularity. Ray Kurzweil is a big fan of the idea and one of the major proponents.

As to the actual feasibility, I ran across Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap a little while ago, which discusses the possibility given our current knowledge of how the brain works. It provides dates on how long Moore's Law would have to continue based on varyingly optimistic assumptions about how much work is necessary to actually emulate a brain.

Overall, I think there are two main problems with expecting immortality via brain uploading: (1) 40+ years is a very long time to assume Moore's Law for and (2) even if we can emulate a human brain, scanning an existing one and transferring it into a computer may not be possible.

This is certainly not a new idea. It is sometimes referred to as the "rapture of the nerds" version of a technological singularity. Ray Kurzweil is a big fan of the idea and one of the major proponents.

As to the actual feasibility, I ran across Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap a little while ago, which discusses the possibility given our current knowledge of how the brain works. It provides dates on how long Moore's Law would have to continue based on varyingly optimistic assumptions about how much work is necessary to actually emulate a brain.

Overall, I think there are two main problems with expecting immortality via brain uploading: (1) 40+ years is a very long time to assume Moore's Law for and (2) even if we can emulate a human brain, scanning an existing one and transferring it into a computer may not be possible.

Because it is worth more to them to (1) have something that looks good on their resume and get hired for a different project (or, hey, possibly get hired to work on the same project) and (2) have other people encouraged to give them code for free (see: gift economy).

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call Mitchell an "American Hero" (TM).

Yes, he walked on the moon and that puts him in very rare company. However, I think he was a bit of a loon. I think NASA may still be bothered by the whole unauthorized ESP experiments that took place on the return trip. That kind of thing is definitely "not in line with NASA expectations"

You mean like the same ESP that our (USA) government has studied? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Remote_viewing#US_government-funded_research

You do realize, that when you say thinks like you think he's a loon because of ESP studies, your are trying to make him seem lesser then "normal" so it's acceptable to say he doing bad things.

Let's be real, if the gov wanted the camera back, they've had over 40 years to get it back.

>the ocean is big

Sigh. Mercator Projection.

The "ocean" around Scotland is NOT big. The SEA around Scotland is actually quite small. It's as far north as Newfoundland and Labrador.

It just LOOKS big on the map due to two-dimensional maps stretching out the northern and southern extremities of Earth.

Scotland, in particular Faslane, is where NATO keeps its nuclear submarines. The locals live cheek-by-jowl with these submariners and for the most part get along just fine. But closing off all the sea between all the inhabited islands in the west of Scotland just isn't feasible.

You might consider InQtel http://www.iqt.org/ and Visible Technologies http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/exclusive-us-spies-buy-stake-in-twitter-blog-monitoring-firm/, both which fit this article's description, and have had tons of CIA seed money put into them. We know the pentagon has a sock-puppet program, and whatever law prevent them from operating in the US can be bypassed through private contractors hence (perhaps) Fusion Centers. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fusion_center Both the FBI and DHS are quite busy here too. I frequently observe FBI, .mil, dhs.gov, DoD, and other government IPs visiting my website and subscribing to comments. Do a whois on my latest visitor: 153.31.113.26 ~~ And yeah, go right ahead and mod this as "troll" too. Bloody snobs!

I said "trash" in jest. IANAL, but on an intuitive level, it is questionable that this property was "abandoned". Leaving it behind was a strategic decision by NASA leadership: bringing it back now would be needlessly expensive, would pose additional risk to astronauts' well being, and wouldn't provide any scientific value. Just because something was left on the surface of the Moon doesn't make it abandoned. The flag, for example, wasn't "abandoned"; do you want to argue with that? I would be totally on NASA's side if they were to argue that things like plastic bags were abandoned, but historically interesting scientific equipment was not. If we get a bit more technical, was all the equipment left "in such a condition that it is apparent that [the owner] has no intention of returning to claim it"? Unless melted by the Sun or crushed by a meteorite, all of that junk will still be in absolute mint condition thousands of years from now.

And I certainly don't feel the pain of astronauts who try to make money by selling equipment they brought from the Moon, especially if it was in violation of the mission objectives. Walking on the Moon at the taxpayers' expense already seems like a very generous reward for their work.

I don't understand why we don't just build pyramids, but with radioactive waste instead of dead pharaohs. They've proven that they can last for 4500 years and counting. You can build them almost wherever you want (subject to only to fault lines, nearby human populations, and proximity to radioactive waste generation).

That's not a bad idea. Lots of jobs. Above ground so we can see it. Use part of the high level waste to make an RTG, use the electricity to power giant billboards and use the billboard rental fee to pay off the whole thing.

Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I am also reminded of Albert Camus' Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Resistance,_Rebellion,_and_Death

You think they weighed the rocks? They had a pretty good idea of how much material they could lift / throw away. The astronauts had a pretty idea of those limitations seeing as they were involved with the mission and it's various arcana for years. Mitchell knew he would get away with it. He wasn't going to jeopardize the mission.

Mitchell was a funny guy, not the typical astronaut (if there really was a 'typical' astronaut). He was big into paranormal stuff / UFOs. This sort of thing is pretty much in character for him.

And the previous posts about Deke Slayton knowing all about every little bit that got brought back on the Apollo trips isn't quite correct. Yes, astronauts were typically diligent about declaring patches / mementos and such. No, they weren't good at being very thorough in their listing. A bunch of little stuff went up and back and is off the books. Problem is that it's hard to prove provenance if someone just tells you "it went to the moon". The big advantage that the listed stuff had was somebody at NASA actually thought it went to the moon and wrote it down somewhere. Basically a bit of bragging rights, not much else.

THIS, is the start of the Zombie Apocalypse!!!!

No, they were just up on the appropriate instructional videos. This is NASA.

I naively thought that John "Iran-Contra" Poindexter was just going to fade away after his too-creepy-even-for-congress TIA project was cancelled...

Not a triangle but a Reuleaux triangle. Not inside a peanut but inside an epitrochoid. C'mon, don't those sound cooler than triangle and peanut?

According to your link, the rotor is frequently mistaken for a Reuleaux triangle, but in fact, is not one.

Not a triangle but a Reuleaux triangle. Not inside a peanut but inside an epitrochoid. C'mon, don't those sound cooler than triangle and peanut?

According to your link, the rotor is frequently mistaken for a Reuleaux triangle, but in fact, is not one.

Certainly the sockpuppet wormtrolls should mod my above comment BELOW zero. I mean, there isn't a shred of validity to anything I said, and after all, the Patriot Act isn't all that bad - the constitution is for q-tips and Ron Paul extremists. And the drone idea was stupid, I admit; between Mcafee and Norton, they'd never let that happen. But don't stop there - - mod it 6 ft under. Rex-84 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Rex_84 is good. Executive Directive 51 is gooder. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/National_Security_and_Homeland_Security_Presidential_Directive And of course, transparency regarding such things is the goodliest of all. Nothing to worry about here folks; although the Obama administration has been the worst yet for prosecuting whistleblowers, we still have HOPE and the memory of freedom. And you can get redacted FOIAs faster than ever! ~~ Mr. Baggins

Certainly the sockpuppet wormtrolls should mod my above comment BELOW zero. I mean, there isn't a shred of validity to anything I said, and after all, the Patriot Act isn't all that bad - the constitution is for q-tips and Ron Paul extremists. And the drone idea was stupid, I admit; between Mcafee and Norton, they'd never let that happen. But don't stop there - - mod it 6 ft under. Rex-84 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Rex_84 is good. Executive Directive 51 is gooder. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/National_Security_and_Homeland_Security_Presidential_Directive And of course, transparency regarding such things is the goodliest of all. Nothing to worry about here folks; although the Obama administration has been the worst yet for prosecuting whistleblowers, we still have HOPE and the memory of freedom. And you can get redacted FOIAs faster than ever! ~~ Mr. Baggins

Not a triangle but a Reuleaux triangle.
Not inside a peanut but inside an epitrochoid.
C'mon, don't those sound cooler than triangle and peanut?

Not a triangle but a Reuleaux triangle.
Not inside a peanut but inside an epitrochoid.
C'mon, don't those sound cooler than triangle and peanut?

It's kind of as if the computer engineering world had taken a look at the first integrated circuits (also "IC," by an interesting coincidence) and said, "we need to do this with vacuum tubes." No doubt we'd have all kinds of cool miniaturized vacuum tube technology we don't have today, but there's little doubt that computers would still be horribly bulky, slow, and expensive compared to what we actually got.

Well, the whole integrated circuit theory pre-dates transistors, it just wasn't terribly practical with hollow state. (in the later years, you could make the whole circuit contained in the above much smaller than the "integrated-tube", so... not so useful).

But regardless, since the 30's it was common to put two discrete tubes in a common package, and by the end of the road TVs used a lot of awesomely named 'compactrons' which had as many as four, tubes in one envelope. Which isn't really an IC, but more like some of the transistor arrays in a single DIP package, I suppose.

They also had... wtf were they called. A little ceramic sheet with several passives in it, that replace all the normally used discrete components for coupling two tubes. They were pretty plagued with problems though.

The old IBM stuff had tube plug in modules, flip flops, inverters and so on, the whole circuit was socketed. Then they did the same thing with transistors, smaller and more reliable. Then they integrated it at the die level instead of the card level, seems like logical progression.

too much ramble...

I thought that was the case too, but the wikipedia article on the controversy paints a more complex picture. Apparently there is a video of the flag raising that clearly shows it was not staged initially, but there was a second photo that was staged, the "gung-ho shot;" however, no one tried to pass the second photo off as being anything other than a posed shot... so there's a myth that sounds scandalous, but the reality is that it was simply a misunderstanding.

It's to cheat on tax numnuts. Corporations pay a lower tax rate, income can be fudged into capital tax gains by making certain types of investments and cashing in those investments. A substantial portion of the income can be written off as tax deductible investment expenditures. Why do you think the psychopathic right wants no tax on corporations, so they can shift all personal income into a corporation. A corporation is a company created by charter, that charter stating it purpose etc' and with nominated directors to maintain corporation status it must be audited to ensure the corporations funds are managed legally. It is all a tac cheating fudge, a shift of criminal liabilities to a non prosecutable entity and a straight up socialisation of risk with privatisation of profits.

Normally, I wouldn't add my $0.02 into an already uncivilized comment thread with absolutes and insults abound...but I'll try to dispel some confusion in the hope that we can keep this polite and civilized: Corporate income tax is significantly higher than personal income tax in America. Yes, there are some companies who have moved profitable divisions offshore, and thus do not pay taxes on income not generated in America. This appears to be the exception, not the rule. Second, I'm not sure that heavy-handed tactics will reap benefits here, as they tend to penalize those who do pay taxes. Raising business income taxes further may have a few negative effects as well: 1. Higher business income tax will mean that the consumers will simply pay more. Remember that when it comes down to the bottom line, this stuff just gets passed down the chain to whomever ultimately foots the bill (the consumer). 2. Chase business away from the US entirely - and this means that we lose on the tax basis and we also lose jobs.

It's Die Fledermaus

That's not the point of an FTA. Have a look at economic convergence and comparative advantage.

That's not the point of an FTA. Have a look at economic convergence and comparative advantage.

Is there a name for the fallacious belief that everyone who purchases a new device is replacing an equivalent functional older device?

Yes. It's called hasty generalization

Wow. I had no idea I was so close to touching a nerve there. Based on your response I think we may be talking past each other. There's a lot of rhetorical chaff in there, though, so let me see if I can pick out the correct thread of reasoning you're trying to express:

The problem is that software is not in the same league as human rights and freedoms. . . There is nothing stopping you form developing your own software. No government raids or corporate security officers are going to be raiding your house because you are writing you own word processor. . . And unlike software rights my 2nd amendment rights are actually defined quite clearly in the Bill of Rights with little room for misunderstanding.

I think I see where you're coming from there. I agree that the rights afforded in the U.S. Constitution are indeed important, and I'm impressed by your enthusiasm for your right to defend yourself. I'd like to remind you, however, that the philosophical basis of the U.S. revolution was the notion of "natural rights"; notably life, liberty, and property (referring to Locke, not Jefferson here).

Based on your devotion to the 2nd amendment I see you value your natural right to life. Is it too much of a stretch to say that if a software company's products cause 30,000 days worth of wasted time that they have taken a life (in a distributed fashion)? Steve Jobs reportedly thought this way. It's hard to read whether your tone was serious or mocking when you suggested that everyone dissatisfied with MS Office should re-implement it themselves; I hope you'll agree, however, that having everyone who wants to write build their own word processor first would be a waste of everyone's time and many people's talents. Even if you don't agree that it's an effective loss of life, it's clearly a loss of quality of life for everyone involved.

As far as liberty goes (software slavery in our discussion here), I see clear parallels in today's software market to the company stores of yesteryear's mining towns. They didn't send Feds/corporate goons to force the mine workers to buy from the company, they were just cheaper than driving out to the next store; they charged what the market would bear, and knowingly bled their customers dry. What they did was legal (consumer protection laws had not yet been implemented), but morally wrong. Software companies take advantage of the high barrier of entry to the market and leverage their market position to prevent competitors for emerging, Free or otherwise.
Unfortunately, there are corporate goons ready to take on those who step away from the Microsoft Office. I don't know if you're old enough to remember the Word vs WordPerfect wars, but in those days it was common for Microsoft to "audit" businesses and schools, threatening to enforce extortionate fines if the auditors found even one instance of Word that the organization couldn't produce a license for. Of course, purchasing a site license for the full office suite covering every employee (at a cost conveniently lower than the fines) would stop the inquisition. Since these tactics were all legal they carried the implied threat of government enforcement (time to make fun of myself for a moment: "Come see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!") You may not be shackled with these chains, or perhaps you find the software yoke's burden to be light, but RMS and many others find it intolerable.

Finally, the clearest fundamental right that RMS is trying to defend here is property. He truly believes that your software should be your property, not licensed or rented from a company hostile to your interests. All of the rights detailed in the free software definition are essential property rights: (0) run it for any purpose, (1) change it to suit your needs, (2) give it away unchanged, and (3) give awa

TOTO will do this for you, if you can figure out the control panel:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Wireless_toilet_control_panel_w._open_lid.jpg

No, No it doesn't mean that at all. What your post really means is that you don't know much about TCP/IP and the internet.

They could easily be doing load-balancing or anycasting on those IP's. There could be hundreds of servers behind each IP.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Load_balancer
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Anycast

(I have no idea if RIM actually does this though - I just thought I'd point out that this technology exists and is in widespread use)

No, No it doesn't mean that at all. What your post really means is that you don't know much about TCP/IP and the internet.

They could easily be doing load-balancing or anycasting on those IP's. There could be hundreds of servers behind each IP.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Load_balancer
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Anycast

(I have no idea if RIM actually does this though - I just thought I'd point out that this technology exists and is in widespread use)

In parts of North America, this need is addressed (in summertime, anyway) by a plant known as "bumwad maple" or more formally, striped maple.

Rest of the year, people would need to get more creative.

If you vote for a third party, all you're doing is making it more likely that the candidate who is closest to your views will lose.

At least it will be that way with the current voting system in most states.

FIRST you have to change the voting rules so that a candidate you want to endorse has a chance of actually winning the election.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Voting_system

Start locally by improving the voting system in your district / state.

The "debates" are now hosted by the parties themselves instead of the League of Women Voters.

Control of the presidential debates has been a ground of struggle for more than two decades. The role was filled by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters (LWV) civic organization in 1976, 1980 and 1984. In 1987, the LWV withdrew from debate sponsorship, in protest of the major party candidates attempting to dictate nearly every aspect of how the debates were conducted.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates
So they're nothing more than a forum for the candidates to issue sound bites now.

Software choices don't . . . enslave people.

I don't agree. I know many people who don't feel they have any choice in office software - it's Microsoft Office. There is no alternative, and not buying it isn't an option for them. The business world is being held captive by Microsoft, and has developed a form of Stockholm Syndrome. The wikipedia article on vendor lock-in has a whole section dedicated to well-known players in the software industry and their efforts to prevent their customers from moving to another vendor.
As another example of software slavery, have you ever seen a large company transition from SAP to CA or vice versa? The difficulty and cost of doing so are prohibitive, so many stay with what they have despite huge known problems. For ERP systems just bringing forward your customizations from one major release to another is painful enough to require months for a dedicated IT crew to complete, and as a result I've seen companies adjust their business practices to the software to avoid that problem in the future. That employee time isn't producing anything that will give the company a return on investment, it's just a sunk cost. And no, the software vendor isn't going to send out an associate to help with the transition, they'll instead sell you training on how to do it yourself. From my perspective, the time I spent on version transitions for Computer Associates software weren't spent working for my employer, I was working for CA.
Captive, forced to work for others instead of yourself, and the only way out is difficult, dangerous, and painful? Sounds like slavery to me.

Of course [Stallman] already has the financial resources that enable him to totally ignore how his theories effect [sic] those actually working for a living.

Are you suggesting that the Free Software movement is putting programmers out of work? Like, right now? Or is it somehow stopping people from using Microsoft Office or SAP's ERP software? On the contrary, I'm pretty sure RMS is aware of the impact he's having and I agree with him that it's beneficial, not harmful. The LibreOffice suite is giving people options other than paying ridiculous prices for tools they need for their jobs. For those people (who work for a living) it's a benefit, not a problem. For others that doesn't work for, there's still Microsoft; no programmers have been fired in Redmond because too many people are using Free Software.
And if Stallman's fantasy world ever does come about and Microsoft has to close its doors, the reason will be because the world will be full of useful, freely available tools for doing useful work. There will still be programmers being paid, but it'll be by people who need new tools or improvements to existing tools. And once the tools are built they won't need to be imitated elsewhere, the work once done will benefit everyone. Even if this world requires fewer programmers, they'll be all working on new projects or improvements rather than wasting their time imitating someone else's work. That sounds more like actually working to me.

tl;dr: Asshole or not, RMS has a point about proprietary software enslaving you, and I'd rather live in the world he's trying to build than the ones Steve Jobs and Bill Gates spent their lives building.

P.S. - There's a rant to be made here about how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's goal "to help all people lead healthy, productive lives" apparently only applies to poor Africans, not Microsoft competitors, but I'll leave that for another post.

There are a few modern Americans in this list. Oddly enough, Ted Kaczynski is one of them.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_child_prodigies#Legendary

At least Buddhism teaches real things, real values and there's no imaginary persons, as Buddha himself has actually lived. And he said to think and evaluate things with your own brains, instead of following some stupid book.

But history also is replete with episodes of Buddhist polities fighting and invading one another and inflicting the usual horrors of war on entire populations. Consider the many internal wars and mutual invasions of Burma and Thailand, for example, both being Buddhist for many centuries.

Religion, of any form, is a tool for control of populations by their rulers. Any attempts to demonstrate the falsehood of the local religion will be fiercely resisted - and likely punished by the authorities as much as by the credulous zealots. It has always been thus.

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." - Ira Cardiff (he attributed the statement to Lucretius).
"The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful." - Edward Gibbon (possibly loosely translating from a work of Seneca the Younger).

O RLY?

According to a book entitled Michigan Yesterday & Today authored by Robert W. Domm, the assembly line and its basic concept is credited to Ransom Olds, who used it to build the first mass-produced automobile, the Oldsmobile Curved Dash.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Assembly_line#History