On Afghanistan's Thomas Edison

13.7BillionYears writes "The Institute for War and Peace Reporting details on the exploits of Ghulam Sediq Wardak, a 62 year old semi-literate Afghan with 341 clever inventions to his credit. His first was a radio powered by the low voltage produced by the human body. His most recent is a 1980 Volkswagen rigged to run on solar power. A handful of others are mentioned. Like many a Slashdotter, his parents were once very worried and he eschews patents. 'The main purpose of my inventing is not to earn money,' he says. 'I want to render a service to my countrymen and to all people in the world.'"

Comments

Geek, thy name is "Sediq"

[SYFer]

This man deserves some kind of geek homage. His picture (which I could not readily google up but would love to see) belongs on a Slashdot category icon. To "wardak" should be the expression to replace "jerry rig." If Futurama were still on, there would need to be a character named "Sediq." If we can invoke Kent Brockman here, we can honor this noble man.

I for one welcome our new clever, semi-literate Afghan overlord.

Re:Geek, thy name is "Sediq"

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, it's "jury rig," not "jerry rig." The phrase comes from the nautical term "jury mast," which is a temporary mast erected in place of a damaged one.

-Mike

Interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, why can't this attitude be shared by more people? Really?

Proof to Microsoft of prior art!

[u-235-sentinel]

His first was a radio powered by the low voltage produced by the human body.

I would say this is prior art. Guess their patent is history :D

well

[abscondment]

"The main purpose of my inventing is not to earn money," he says. "I want to render a service to my countrymen and to all people in the world."

If he wanted to that more completely, he could have gone about patenting his inventions and through that legal ownership making them freely available for all to use. Maybe it would be nice if someone used the system against itself once in a while, eh?

Re:well

[Neil Blender]

If he wanted to that more completely, he could have gone about patenting his inventions and through that legal ownership making them freely available for all to use.

No kidding. It's almost always the 'assignee' who causes all the trouble, not the 'inventor'. Problem is, it's pretty damn expensive to get a patent, at least in the US.

Re:well

[Pharmboy]

No kidding. It's almost always the 'assignee' who causes all the trouble, not the 'inventor'. Problem is, it's pretty damn expensive to get a patent, at least in the US.

This is probably a good thing that it is expensive. If patents were as cheap as domain names (Patents as Cheap As $7.99 When You Register 25 or More!), we would have applications flooding the patent office, thus more patents on every stupid thing in the world. It would render the internet useless in a matter of a couple years. We would have patents applied for everything, pressing certain keyboard combinations, methods of posting to a site, and other garbage that would create so much noise, that by sheer odds you would see some of these get approved.

Some people (or corporations) would be submitting hundreds of similar patents, in the hopes that just a few will get approved, so they can start sending letters for royalties. If you think the IP/patent situation is bad now, just think about spam is cheaper than bulk mail, and you get the picture.

Signs of a true scientist...

[GillBates0]

But fame and riches have never been what motivated him.

"The main purpose of my inventing is not to earn money," he says. "I want to render a service to my countrymen and to all people in the world."

Sadly a rapidly diminishing breed nowadays, what with overwhelming patenting and copyright laws and abuse. Hats of to this guy.

How generous

[WildBeast]

Now we know why Afghanistan is poor :)

Goal of the successful

[nuggz]

Notice how his goal isn't to make money.

The inventions are just things that happens along the way.

Clearly not like Edison

[hotspotbloc]

'The main purpose of my inventing is not to earn money,' he says. 'I want to render a service to my countrymen and to all people in the world.'"

Edison was notorious for jealously guarding his patents and squeezing them for every dollar he could. This man is a much better human being.

Re:Clearly not like Edison

[hotspotbloc]

But edisons invention were very groundbreaking

I completely agree. He can up with a wide range of inventions that made a very big difference in the world. He also was a shameless self promoter who did things like invent the "electric chair" solely to prove how "dangerous" his competitor's rival electrical standard (Nikola Tesla's AC) was compared to his DC.

Re:Clearly not like Edison

[GrpA]

Edison invented very little. His real skill was in taking the credit for other's work. Most of "Edison's Inventions" came from his employees, not the man himself.

Again, clearly not like this guy.

Edison represents everything that many real inventors resent about patents and the patent system.

GrpA

Re:Clearly not like Edison

[FleaPlus]

Exactly. He sounds a lot more like Nikola Tesla to me.

Re:Clearly not like Edison

[anethema]

It's true. Edison was a great business man, not so great an inventor.

What he was most famous for (the lightbulb) was invented long before him. He simply combined the old invention of the lightbulb, with someone elses long lasting filament, and bang, edison 'invented the lightbulb'.

Most of his inventions came out of his menlo park complex, where he had MANY employees who were told to invent any wacky thing they desired. But everything coming out of menlo park was credited to edison.

The mentioned nikola tesla was the exact type of inventor people idolize, its amazing that he doesnt recieve more recognition. He invented the AC generator, different types of transformers, the resonating (tesla) coil, the radio, and many other things.

Quite a few inventions of tesla's are somehow credited to other people in popular educational literature. For example, the radio. Ask most people who invented the radio they will say marconi. Yet tesla had patented everything marconi wanted to patent years before. There was a huge lawsuit going right to the supreme court and they ruled marconis patents invalid, since tesla's were prior art. Yet even wiht this supreme court decision, most encyclopedias will list marconi as radio's inventor.

Eiiither way, the main point beeing is edison wasnt all that great of an inventor, more a very shrewd business man. Unless you are in business, and wish to learn more about how a ruthless business man should behave, edison isnt really someone you should be idolizing.

Re:Clearly not like Edison

[Snad]

Eiiither way, the main point beeing is edison wasnt all that great of an inventor, more a very shrewd business man. Unless you are in business, and wish to learn more about how a ruthless business man should behave, edison isnt really someone you should be idolizing.

So what you're saying is that Edison was his generation's Bill Gates?

Potential Prior Art Here?

[Niet3sche]

Hmmm ... it seems to me that use of the human body as a power grid is immediately extensible to the use of it as any other type of grid upon which electron flow is contingent *cough* MS PAN Patent *cough*.

I happen to share his views that some things should be done For The Good of Mankind and should be Free, but with this aside (or maybe because of this), were I in his shoes, I'd strive for a few things:

1) Contact EFF for legal funding of Me v. Microsoft.

2) If/When MS's patent is overturned, then turn the patent over to Public Domain.

3) Don't profit! Just know that I righted a wrong and successfully defended Prior Art to boot!

just think...

[Anonymous Coward]

just think what he could have done with a formal education

i wonder

[hyperstation]

any relation to Junis?

Tidbit of the day

[TigerTime]

Edison made 1,093 patents in his lifetime. That averages out to 1 patent every 4 weeks of his life.

That definitely doesn't sound like this guy.

Re:1980 Volkswagen?

[orulz]

Notice that the article says 25kph, not mph. 25kph =~ 15.5mph. Sounds more reasonable like that, doesn't it?

Edison? Patents? What?

[Asprin]

I might be hallucinating, but wasn't Edison (who invented AC generators, the phonograph and the motion picture camera/projector system) a patent hawk who did everything he could to extract money for every little invention he had a hand in creating? In fact, IIRC, that's why the motion picture industry set up shop in the (then) isolated desolation of Hollywood, California -- they wouldn't have to pay his exorbitant licensing fees out there.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like comparing this guy to Edison is like comparing Linus to Bill Gates.... in a comparative sort of way.

Re:Edison? Patents? What?

[DaveJay]

FYI: Nikolai Tesla invented AC generators, not Edison. Edison pushed DC, and publicly electrocuted stray dogs using AC as a demonstration of AC's "inherent dangers" (keeping in mind that DC of the same voltage would have been just as deadly.)

Re:Edison? Patents? What?

[athet]

Try Tesla. Edison was stuck on the DC plan, which doesn't transmit over distance very well. And yes, Edison was a patent madman, any way you look at it. Not a bad comparo however, since Edison was really more of an 'embrace and extend' guy (he took credit for the entire output of his shop) and our middle eastern inventor seems more about practical good service to humanity. (but wait until someone starts waving money at him for an invention!)

Re:'Semi-literate' Slashdotter?

[Timesprout]

It isn't. This guy is way too smart to even look at /.

inventions

[Coneasfast]

many of his inventions seem to be cheaper versions of what we know to exist.

So I thought of a heater, which would turn off automatically when the water was boiled and when the water gets cold, it would turn on again. And then I made it

basically an alternative to a thermostat, but effective and cheaper.

His system involved surrounding a house with concealed wires that were attached to a battery, an audio cassette player and a camera. When the intruder stepped on the wire, it triggered the cassette player, which played a tape shouting, "There's a thief!". It also activated the camera, which would take a picture of the burglar.

again, simplified version of the modern alarm system.

i find his original ideas more interesting, the crying-baby-activated rocking cradle (does this already exist?), solar-powered well-lift, etc.

Thomas Edison? Sounds more like Ben Franklin

[Entropy2016]

From what I was taught, Franklin would invent something, then publish the design in his newspaper.
I'm not sure if Edison did that.

If Franklin did obtain patents, he obviously did so to ensure that nobody else would patent it first and keep the specs secret.

But which VeeDub?

[Buran]

I'm not sure what type of VW he's got, but given that he's in Afghanistan I wouldn't be surprised if it's not an air-cooled Type 1 (Beetle). But it could be a Type 2 (Transporter), too. Could even be a Golf -- it's the best-selling model they've got. We Americans are the only market that shuns it in favor of the Bora (Jetta) -- though I love my lil' white Golf IV!

I found a few more electric VWs with a little bit of looking:

Diesel-Electric (1.3L TDI) New Beetle

Electric 1969 Kharmann Ghia (the Ghia is a Beetle derivative)

Electric Rabbit (US Mk1 Golf)

And that's just for starters. VW AG itself considered a hybrid diesel-electric powertrain option for the Concept 1, which later became the New Beetle, but so far only the diesel portion has survived (the TDI is an option in the Golf, Beetle, Jetta, and now the Passat and the Touareg in the US, and in the rest of the model line elsewhere in the world.)

I'd love to see VW build a Golf-based CR-V competitor with a hybrid diesel-electric powertrain and the race-bred DSG transmission.

But yeah, this guy gets geek points from me. :)

Re:1980 Volkswagen?

[Buran]

Without knowing what kind of engine is being used, its specs, and other details, it's hard to say. The Beetle is a very modifiable car and it's not that heavy -- it was designed, after all, for a small 34hp engine to be able to push it to cruising speeds on the Autobahns and yet be easily maintained by the ordinary people who would buy them.

The Beetle changed little from its mid-1930s beginnings as the KdF-Wagen to the final version that rolled off the Puebla assembly line in 2003.

Re:tall tales

[Gorobei]

One atmosphere of pressure is about 10 meters of water. You can't pump water any higher than that. I smell exaggeration.

Um, you can't suck water higher than 10 meters. How to you think water gets to the toilets on the top floor of a skyscraper?

Rapidly Diminishing in Edison's Day

[weston]

Edison was a patent fiend. Mind you, he probably deserved the patents. That didn't mean he was above some unethical behavior, such as trying to convince people that DC was perfectly harmless (it's not) while Tesla's AC was much more dangerous (and my understanding is that AC is indeed dangerous, but more likely to burn you than stop your heart). Read the Edison's FUD section in Wikipedia's War of the Currents for an overview.

Edison was a great man, but I don't know that he had the spirit of our Afghani friend.

Re:Rapidly Diminishing in Edison's Day

[penguinland]

Mind you, he [Edison] probably deserved the patents.

From your own link:
Edison's patents "were actually made by his numerous employees - Edison was frequently criticized for not sharing the credits." He claims credit for some great works, and whoever invented them was a great person (or, more likely, people). However, Edison himself was a jackass. He employed people to invent things for him, and then he stole their IP.

Feel free to mod me "off-topic," but this needed to be said.

Project Wardak?

[Fred_Bloggs]

I don't suppose there are any /.'ers out there in or near Afghanistan. Are there?

If there were, it would be really cool to contact Ghulam and see if he would be interested in publishing his inventions on the web. There are a lot of third world countries out there who could use them.

So anyone out there up for Project Wardak?

Cheers

Re:Project Wardak?

[Colonel Cholling]

I don't suppose there are any /.'ers out there in or near Afghanistan. Are there?

I hope so... I was wondering how you say "you insensitive clod" in Pashto.

Re:Amazing

[GoofyBoy]

>the fact that he has persisted with his tinkering in the midst of an Arab culture speaks of incredible curiosity, freethinking, and persistence.

And you think that the American legal and social system encourages tinkering? Ever read the DMCA (just to name on instance)?

Not Edison

[tuxlove]

To compare this man to Edison does him a disservice. Edison was a capitalist to the core, to the point of pushing bad technology over good if it would make him more money. For example, he was an opponent of AC power, because with AC power you can have large central power centers; with DC power, you have to have many local power distribution centers because transmission is much less efficient over distance. He wanted DC power even though it sucks, because he wanted to have a stake in every one of the numerous distribution centers required to make it work. Lucky for all of us he lost that battle.

This Afghani sounds like a good person, one who actually cares about people more than money. That would set him far above Edison.

Re:Not Edison

[Idarubicin]

Every device/appliance has one, short of the original light bulbs and some heaters. Computers, TV's, stereos, microwaves, etc.. I could list at least 80% of the things in your house as needing a DC convertor.

Actually, microwaves contain a big step-up transformer--they need a big chunk of high voltage current to do their thing. If you had DC mains, you'd have to convert to AC first, then rectify back to DC at higher voltage. Others on the thread have noted that building DC to AC converters is more costly than going the other way, too.

Yes, you have many DC appliances--but they operate at different voltages. Heck, your PC has 3.3, 5, and 12 volt rails. Converting between one DC voltage and another is a real pain in the neck, unless you don't mind wasting a ton of juice.

The real killer problem is that if you want to supply DC to homes at a voltage directly useful in small appliances (say 12 V) then you need to have absolutely massive wires to carry all the current. Let's say you want 200 W at 12 V for your computer--that's going to be nearly 17 amps. To run a hair dryer (1000 W) that's going to be more than eighty amps. If you're cooking dinner in the microwave, the air conditioner is running, plus you have the computer and a few lights on, you're pushing three hundred amps. In newly constructed homes, my understanding is that 200 amp service is the norm; older buildings may only have 100 amp or even sixty amp service. At 200 amps you're looking at pretty hefty cables. If each home starts requiring cable that can handle a thousand amps, you're getting into a lot of copper awfully quickly--even if the supply is relatively local.

Internal wiring would also have to be much heavier to avoid overheating. Resistance heating goes up linearly with resistance--but as the square of current. You probably wouldn't want to have to lift a hundred-foot extension cord.

Yes, you could get away with the same thickness of wiring you use now if you supply high-voltage DC inside the home, but then you would need a step-down transformer for all the same appliances that have wall warts now.

Re:Thomas Edison? Sounds more like Ben Franklin

[Danny Rathjens]

"When offered a patent for the fireplace's design, Benjamin Franklin turned it down. He did not want to make a profit. He wanted all people to benefit from his invention."

Quote from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfra nklin_inventions.htm

Ah, and someone quoted Franklin on the issue in a slashdot article before:
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/18/1339201.shtm l

Can we please set up

[311Stylee]

a paypal account for this guy or something? He should be well-funded. He certainly seems to have proven the old fable that "nessesity is the mother of invention".

Re:he should get patents, and here's why.

[gl4ss]

it's not ripping him off if he wants the ideas to be implemented.. if he just displays the ideas in use and doesn't patent them then they're effectively 'free' ideas forever.

besides than that, it would probably cost him more than what it would be worth(the guy is living on 200$ per month, which might get a living in afghanistan but sure as heck doesn't make a lot of budget for applying for patents).

so, tell me, what difference would there be in him patenting the stuff he does and then licensing them for free(which is what he would want to do) and not patenting at all? and how the hell is the money lining up in someone elses pockets, you think they wouldn't forward the licensing costs to the buyers of the manufactured stuff if they had to pay for the licenses? the solar powered water pump business just doesn't work that way, if he had a patent and could demand say 30$ per pump then the price of the pump would be 30$ higher, this is something that the guy doesn't want.

so in short, he wants others to 'rip him off', he just calls it helping his fellow men.

Re:Amazing

[Lochin Rabbar]

The problem that Islamic countries in general have is not that they have stopped being inventive, but that strict prohibition of usury makes it difficult to create the kind of economy that we know in the west. Much of todays technological innovation requires big bucks to bring it to market, and it's hard to start up a technological firm without borrowing money.

Afghanistan's Tesla?

[Flamesplash]

Seems like a cool guy, but I'm still waiting for the second coming of Tesla. The man had a CAD program in his head, truly a genius, and yet the last I looked for a biography I could find only one. Very sad.

Re:Slashdot Honorific Life Membership

[Colonel Cholling]

If slashdot start to give an annual "honorific life membership" he should be one of the first to get the title. Kudos to the guy! :)

What would he do with a /. membership? I thought the article said he was "semi-literate."

He might put the rest of us at a disadvantage...

Re:He's a Wardak, alright.

[nacturation]

I think I know where the lions share of dotters stand.

By the way (hey, the other guy got +5), the lion's share doesn't mean the majority. The lion's share is 100%... everything. It's from one of Aesop's Fables:

The Lion's Share

The Lion went once a-hunting along with the Fox, the Jackal,
and the Wolf. They hunted and they hunted till at last they
surprised a Stag, and soon took its life. Then came the question
how the spoil should be divided. "Quarter me this Stag," roared
the Lion; so the other animals skinned it and cut it into four
parts. Then the Lion took his stand in front of the carcass and
pronounced judgment: The first quarter is for me in my capacity
as King of Beasts; the second is mine as arbiter; another share
comes to me for my part in the chase; and as for the fourth
quarter, well, as for that, I should like to see which of you
will dare to lay a paw upon it."

"Humph," grumbled the Fox as he walked away with his tail
between his legs; but he spoke in a low growl.

"You may share the labours of the great, but you will not
share the spoil."

Re:Slashdot Honorific Life Membership

[l810c]

What would he do with a /. membership? I thought the article said he was "semi-literate."

Exactly, he'll fit right in :P

Tinkering

[jtheory]

Like many a Slashdotter, his parents were once very worried and he eschews patents

We were very worried? But we didn't even know about him before the article...

Actually, I know I've seen other articles about Afghani ingenuity in "tinkering"... they've been making due for a long time with very little, so an inventive mind (especially with machines) is very useful. If something breaks, and there's no way you're going to be able to get a new one, you try to fix it. Seems like this guy really had a talent for it.

My grandfather loved tinkering as well, partly related to memories of tough times during the Great Depression (he owned an electric supplies company and had money later... but the guy still never threw ANYTHING out).

Some neat inventions: a device that would automatically close the windows when it rained, an automatic garage door opener (using a plate in the driveway), and a little train that carried concrete and such things (and children, later) around the property on sections of wooden track. His last project was a model train set he was building from scratch, with working signals and so on.

Anyone can independently confirm the story?

[PaulBu]

Well, some phrases did sound a bit fishy to me, and I thought that my fellow /.er would ask for a bit more of a proof or at least confirmation of the fact, rather than getting into the usual "patents-vs.-public good" discussion.

I grew up in Soviet Russia (yeah, for real this time!) and we did have our share of "backyard inventors" kicking socks off the capitialist pigs in semi-techical news strories (yes, it was just state-run propaganda, of course, though some ideas were not too bad). And, BTW, does the name of Lysenko mean anything to this crowd? ;-/

If the story is true, it is really remarkable, though I am not really sure how the fact of him being "semi-literate" really fits into the story (we have all been semi-literate at some stages of our life, and a guy like him would have learned the "tough skill" by now ;-) ), except that to maybe make other not-too-literate people feel good about themselves. (yes, that was the part that made me a bit suspicious)

Paul B.

Re:he should get patents, and here's why.

[Jamie Lokier]

so, tell me, what difference would there be in him patenting the stuff he does and then licensing them for free(which is what he would want to do) and not patenting at all?

By not patenting at all, other people can alter his inventions and patent those as new inventions - yes, citing his as prior art upon which they improved. Improvements are patentable, even minor ones. Those other people can then restrict the use of those alterations, charging license fees or even blocking all work along that line of improvement.

However, if he patented and licensed for free, then he could prevent other people from taking control of improvements of his inventions: he could force "derived inventions" to be just as free as his own (by analogy with derived works in copyright).

That's a huge difference. It's analagous to the difference between public domain and GPL, and the results might be just as significant. I don't know of anyone who's tried it yet.

-- Jamie

He will do like all slashdotter...

[ArcticCelt]

What would he do with a /. membership? I thought the article said he was "semi-literate."

He will do like all slashdotter... semi-read the articles.

I dont believe the whole story.

[Technomancer]

The Philips Compact Cassette was introduced in 1965 http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/tape4.html
and was first shown 1963 and mass produced starting 1966 http://www.sony.net/Fun/SH/1-17/h1.html
Also, more here http://www.fact-index.com/c/co/compact_audio_casse tte.html

In 1964, when he was 22, a theft in his village inspired him to invent a burglar alarm that would also take a picture of the intruder.

His system involved surrounding a house with concealed wires that were attached to a battery, an audio cassette player and a camera. When the intruder stepped on the wire, it triggered the cassette player, which played a tape shouting, "There's a thief!". It also activated the camera, which would take a picture of the burglar.


So I dont believe he had an audio cassette player in 1964.

Also, he has to be very rich, outfitting his 1980 VW with solar panels,

120w solar panel costs like $500 or more. To power a car he needs lets say at least 10hp engine, so this is 7456.999 watt. lets say his electric engine is close to 100% efficient, so he will need only 62 panels * $500 = $31k.

the panels will need 62*1.425*0.652 = 57.6042 m^2 area which is about 7.5*7.5 meters or 22*22 feet for americans. good luck fitting this on any Volkswagen.

I SMELL BULLSHIT!