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Da Vinci's Purposeful Mistakes

Posted by timothy on from the like-the-cheesegrater-parachute dept.

puppetman writes "According to a story out today, Leonardo Da Vinci deliberately introduced mistakes in his inventions. The series, Leonardo, produced by the BBC, claims that simple mistakes were introduced; mistakes that would not become apparent until after the contraption was built. The series hypothesizes that this was either a form of patent protection, or a way of ensuring his work did not end up being used for military purposes (Da Vinci was a gay, vegetarian pacifist)."

17 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Da Vinci the programmer by thinkliberty · · Score: 5, Funny

    Da Vinci would have made a great programmer. Just look at his beard!

  2. this is still done... by kasper37 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    hackers many time release slightly broken code when it comes to exploits so that if someone wants to actually compile the code they will have to have some knowledge of programming.

  3. Ah! I get it now! by Alethes · · Score: 5, Funny

    That explains why Microsoft puts all those bugs in their software. To protect their intellectual property and prevent their software from being used for military implementations.

    Oh wait... it didn't work.

  4. A lot to learn from Leonardo by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think many programmers have a lot to learn from this tale. We now have two useful phrases:

    "It's not a bug, it's a feature."
    "It's there to protect my intellectual property and keep my program from being exploited by the military."

  5. Thanks for the insight. by moonboy · · Score: 5, Funny



    The fact that Da Vinci was a "...gay, vegetarian..." really helps drive home the point that he was a pacifist. Thanks for the wonderful insight.

    --

    Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
    1. Re:Thanks for the insight. by Mad+Quacker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually it does. Remember the military does not tolerate gays. He is the poster child for right wing hate. He is what modern right wingers would call 'a damn tree-hugging hippie!'

      Who had the last laugh?

      --
      "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
    2. Re:Thanks for the insight. by aminorex · · Score: 5, Informative
      It is highly doubtful that he was a homosexual. What is known is that he was anonymously charged with being a homosexual once, and acquitted of the charge. See this link.

      The degree of his pacifism is also quite suspect:

      1482 saw him writing to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza listing his capabilities as a designer of both civil and military machines. Italy was being afflicted by wars between the various city-states; this was followed by a French invasion. This was a time of rapid development of firearms and explosives and military engineers were important figures. Leonardo's had many ideas for fortifications, bridges, weapons, and river diversions to flood the enemy.

      The article's author is certaintly quite correct, however, that he was a vegetarian.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
    3. Re:Thanks for the insight. by McCarrum · · Score: 4, Funny

      Thank you ... I was going to write this up, but you beat me to it :) Leonardo was accused to being gay very early in his life, as it was one of the most effective (and highly used) political tools of the time. Bloody Inquisition!

      Oh, and stop the three thousand replies due to occur ... Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

      --
      Robert Anton Wilson :: Rest in Slack
    4. Re:Thanks for the insight. by deepvoid · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually artists of the time who were of "respectable" status did not take in young ladies and ask them nicely to take off thier clothes if they ever wanted to get another commision from the church. The artistic schools of the age would often perform the indicated anatomical substitutions once the carefully chaperoned sittings were complete.

      Artists who broke this rule were isolated by the church. There were some exceptions, but as a rule, models were as male as the actors of the day.

      If he had been a little less inquisitive and a little more compliant he might have ended up as a Jesuit monk, but was considered unsuitable for the holy vocation, somthing which colored his attitude for the rest of his life.

      His disdain for sex is more likely due to his devotion to his own mother who was a simple barmaid who could neither read nor write. Her simplicity, yet country horse sense, educated him in compliment to the formal education he recieved from his father's family.

      Da Vinci had two qualities which when coupled with his lack of want, produced a great man. Curiosity, and ingenuity.

      --
      Fast machines, powerfull AI, impulsive invention,... All I lack is a good espresso machine!
  6. Da Vinci was paranoid by Hubert_Shrump · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IIRC, he also wrote in boustrophedon, and in italian, which is just crazy paranoid.

    It'd be like double encrypting your entire HDD because you're the world's finest pornographer.

    I should know, I'm a medical doctor.

    --
    Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
  7. Vegetarians vs pacifists by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 5, Informative

    And not all pacificts are vegetarian, and being vegetarian (or gay) doesn't make you more of a pacifist.

    Da Vinci designed a tank, an assault chariot armed with whirling scythes, and numerous pieces of Artillery. Not very pacifist.

    Adolph Hitler sometimes considered himself to be a vegetarian, (A loose definition by today's standards: He ate some pork and fowl, but also ate alot of vegetables, spoke of the benefits of vegetarianism. Pretty radical in those days in Germany, the Pork Capital), and did not consider himself a pacifist.

    This certainly supports the point that not all pacifists are vegetarian.

    --
    "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  8. Just what I was thinking by GuyMannDude · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The fact that Da Vinci was a "...gay, vegetarian..." really helps drive home the point that he was a pacifist. Thanks for the wonderful insight.

    I assume you're being sarcastic here. Yeah, I had to chuckle when I read the post too. Being gay or vegetarian really has nothing to do with being a pacifist. It's just to poster slipping his personal stereotypes into a slashdot article. People become vegetarian for a variety of reasons, mostly independent of whether they agree with whether wars are a necessary part of humanity or not. As for being gay, well, I'd like to see some stats that prove that gays are more likely to be pacifists than heteros. You'd think that with all the hub-bub about Trent Lott these days that people would be a bit more careful to let slips of the tongue (or keys, in this matter) say more than they really should but, oh well...

    GMD

    --
    watch this
  9. Babbage did the same thing by Caractacus+Potts · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Babbage supposedly did the same thing in case spies got ahold of his work.

    Babbage printer

  10. ... was one of the most effective political tools by jolshefsky · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Leonardo was accused to being gay very early in his life, as it was one of the most effective (and highly used) political tools of the time.
    Heh heh. "Was."
    --
    --- Jason Olshefsky

    Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)

  11. Kinda funny... by craenor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That Da Vinci was a pacificist..and yet was also the first sniper. Using a rifle of his own design, he shot and killed a french commander at over 300 yards. At the time, this was considered an impossible task.

  12. Life protection. by Irvu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IMHO It could also be a life insurance policy. Think about it, although Machiavelli's insights onto how to run a kingdom were not widely availible (The Prince wasn't written until 1513 the same year that Da Vinci died) there was enough backstabbing and evil to go around in DaVinci's day. What's to stop the local prince (or would-be prince) from killing or torturing the man himself and stealing all his books and papers. Only the fact that without him the designs are useless. If you want the weapons then you'll need the man, alive, well, and on your side not in your dungeon.

  13. Well He Did Write in a Mirror by serutan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't know if this is relevant, but to make his notes harder for others to read DaVinci often wrote backwards. Is is possible that some gearing and other things are reversed because he was also drawing backward and just made a few mistakes?