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Bell Dethroned as Telephone Inventor
On Hold writes "The US Congress has decided that A. G. Bell was not the real inventor of the telephone. According to this article, it was invented by a Florentine immigrant called Meucci. Meucci later worked with Bell in a lab, but couldn't afford the patent fees. It seems like Bell could." Wait until you read the stories giving Shawn Fanning credit for inventing P2P...
Don't forget, Al Gore invented the Internet...
If I remember correctly similar things were true of Edison in that inventions made by those in his lab were patented under his name. Maybe they could have used some IP Lawyers back then :P
So does this mean that now we'll be calling Bell Lab "Meucci Lab" instead? Will we be referring to the Baby Bells as "Mini Meuccis?"
However, Bell is still recognized for creating a popular character who sold telephones in radio and telegraph ads with the hip catchphrase, "dude, you're gettin' a Bell."
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Here in Italy it's always been well known that Meucci invented telephone! ;-)
Ok, there's also always been the doubt, too, whether it's been him or Bell, but surely nobody thought it was Bell all on his own
dakkar - mobilis in mobile
It's all about the name !
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Or is that 50% predatation, and 50% liquidation?
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
This sounds like a possible hoax to me. Too many odd questions surround this story -- Since when does Congress make rulings on who properly holds a patent/invention? Isn't that something for the court system? Why is it I cannot find this story at other sites? And why is the one with the story an Australian site, why hasnt the US press picked this up? Hence, I think it's a hoax.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
hmm... I always thought Elisha Gray invented it...
has anyone else heard of her? - or is this just one of those weird memory-lapses I seem to get every one in a while...
Why does it take a Congressional resolution for this? Aren't there professional historians who are supposed to research historical documents to find out what really happened?
Software Wars
Whoever it is, I'm glad the inventor of the phone was not Alexander Graham Siren, Alexander Graham Foghorn, or Alexander Graham Bee-Gees. The ringing of a bell to indicate that the phone needs answering is so much better than many of thse alternatives.
Eliza Gray invented the simple computer psychologist program. It is named after her.
Remember Commodore Grace Hopper? When she was 64 years old, she invented a very popular wonder computer in the early 1980s that bears her title and age.
"Dude, you're getting an iHewlett Compaqard Dell 2000. Moo!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Well, if Congress says it's true, it *must* be true, eh?
In my city, a developer signed a contract to renovate a building. After spending a couple million dollars, they gave up. Conveniently, the city passed a resolution determining that the renovation project was "complete". Of course, the building is still sitting there unused.
I hate it when the government makes things "true" by legislative fiat.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
First off the first person to ever make a phone, and call it the "telephone" was a German school teacher in the 1800s... also remember the story of how Bell and another man got to the patent office only an hour apart?
Carpe meam simiam!
The actual innovator of a concept or technology is almost never credited for it. Rather, it's the second-tier opportunist that takes the work and creativity of the innovator and reinvigorates it by repositioning it within the market or refining it in some way.
Sometimes it's because of the lack of savvy or capital posessed by the true innovator; other times it's that the innovator was operating just outside the realm of either technical practicality or social acceptability.
The true genius of Microsoft was building a business model around that oft-missed truth.
The real inventors of things often never get credit. Nikola Tesla invented radio before Marconi. Weed Eater was invented by a backyard tinkerer who got nothing. Edison took credit for things invented by others who were working for him, and bashed Nikola Tesla, making most people think he was nuts. It does not suprise me at all that Bell took credit for someone else's work.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Wouldn't you rather that Congress spend its time re-writing Italian history from 2 centuries ago instead of designing ways to waste our money and limit our freedoms?
Seems like a relatively harmless undertaking.
Actually, if Congress has nothing better to do, they should take the day off, dock their pay, and return it to their employers - the taxpayers.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Rather, it's the second-tier opportunist that takes the work and creativity of the innovator and reinvigorates it by repositioning it within the market or refining it in some way.
Like Thomas Crapper, whose name is now synonymous with toilet?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
This is (sort of) completely off-topic, but I have to toss this in - Elisha Gray is my great, great, great grandfather.
The supposed story is that Bell was in collusion with the patent clerk (who was, I believe, his brother-in-law or son-in-law). Elisha Gray began the patent filing process earlier than Bell, but was told that without a working model, no patent would be granted.
While I have no problem with his having to produce a working model, after Elisha Gray turned in his plans for a telephone, the patent clerk (knowing Bell was working on a similar project) gave Bell the plans, and then allowed Bell to apply and receive a patent even without a working model.
So, dammit, I could've been a billionaire. Stupid patents.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
He is but he didn't invent the toilet.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
So hopefully the US will recognise that Joseph Swan invented the lightbulb next.
Michael Corleone: Meucci -- Who's Meucci?
Joey Zasa: He's the Italian-American who invented the telephone. He did it one year before Alexander Graham Bell.
Well, I'll be. Zasa was right.
In Italy we have been always taught it was Meucci who invented the telephone. Bell is barely mentioned as someone the americans think invented the telephone. Personally, I always thought it was some old-time residue nationalism inherited from the fascist era.
"Personally, I always thought was some old-time residue nationalism inherited from the fascist era."
Quote from Chekov: "Scotch?"...It was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Who's going to go back and revise all those history books, PBS specials, etc. to tell the truth? The unfortunate truth is that Alexander Graham Bell will likley remain the 'inventor' of the telephone for at least another generation, if not in perpetuity. It's easy enough to 'fix' things going forward, but rewriting the millions of copies of bogus wetware out there is next to impossible. I'll probably have forgetten this fact within the next 24 hours.
Damn the truth, just give me the facts!
Same thing. If he said he created it, he is also saying he invented it.
I have to disagree with you there. Creating and inventing are inherently different. If I create an Apple Pie (by mixing the ingredients together & putting it in the oven) that is very different from inventing Apple Pie, which only one person ever did. The same with the Internet. As a Senator, Gore pushed the legislation that mixed together the ingredients that made the internet, and put them in the oven. (and by the time that oven timer dinged, he was already Veep, and didn't have much say in it anymore. (BTW, anyone else, feel free to use and refine this metaphor I just came up with.)
Reality has a liberal bias
By the same token, one could argue that there is only one Internet, so anyone involved in the creation is thereby involved in the invention. But I only offer that for the sake of argument, not to offer an opinion on the matter.
HOT PASTRAMI!
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Here's a quote from Vincent Cerf (Yeah, that Vincent Cerf, the one that 'surfing' the internet comes from.) and Robert Kahn (You know, the guy who invented TCP/IP.)
'The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship.'
Yes, those are the fucking fathers of the internet collaberating Gore's 'lie'. If Vicent Cerf and Robert Kahn say someone helped create the internet, I'll believe it.
As for the union song, people laughed. It was a joke, period. People don't remember songs sung to them in the craddle, it was a throwaway line. Gore grew up in a very pro-union house, and was making a joke about.
But the real kicker is why the fuck would he 'lie' about that? Let's guess which is more plausible: He was making a joke about the pro-union feeling in his house, or he decided to make a completely unbelivable lie, because people can't even remember things in the cradle, and everyone knows that, for no appearent benefit?
Geez, if he walks in with a line 'I just flew here from Washington, and boy are my arms tired!', will people start nitpicking that he just had a nap on the plane and thus his arms can't be tired?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
This works. Begin OT ....
My old mathteacher said that, as long as you declared your assumptions at the beginning of a piece of work, then anything goes... I declared Pi = 3 at the start of an end of term paper, worked everything out to NO decimals, used log tables (remember those?), with workings in the margin, and finished in no time with what amounted to a sheet full of approximations. I passed....
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Mr Weed. Inventor of the amazing Eater (TM)
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.