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Happy 300th Birthday Benjamin Franklin
Guinnessy writes "Benjamin Franklin was born on 17 January 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts. Franklin was a man of diverse talents: publisher, inventor, ambassador, politician, wit with some human frailities says NPR. In Physics Today, Philip Krider presents Franklin's work on electricity and the development of the lightning rod, work whose fame helped Franklin obtain aid from the French against the British. In the same magazine, Joost Mertens considers Franklin's explorations of the calming effects of oil on water. Those investigations, it turns out, had a less than calming effect on Dutch scholars. Philadelphia is planning a series of events celebratng Franklin's life throughtout the year."
but not for The Burninator? The injustice!
Monstar L
Also of note for those who follow intellectual property issues, when he invented the "Franklin stove," he refused the offered patent preferring that the design be available to anyone.
Saw this in a few press-releases, and it seems to work pretty well.
http://ben.clusty.com/
Has a neat timeline of his accomplishments and has resources for teachers and students.
Also of note for those who follow intellectual property issues, when he invented the "Franklin stove," he refused the offered patent preferring that the design be available to anyone.
Lest anyone suddenly get the idea that Ben Franklin was an early "information wants to be free" sort of guy, don't forget that the only way he was able, in his early forties, to "retire" from the daily grind and turn his attention towards science, diplomacy, and nation-building was because he made himself relatively wealthy as a publisher. He set up printing franchises that made money off of publishing private works, and he took a share of the proceeds in his capacity as the guy helping to finance the operations and marketing thereof. He was very "modern" in that sense - a literary agent, a publisher/distributer, an investor in potentially lucrative creative material... intellectual property was exactly how he became wealthy. The "healthy and wise" part was how he lived long enough and well enough to put his proceeds to work for him, rather working for them. But without an early career in the sale of creative works, there would have been no Ben Franklin, Founding Father.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The podcast:l
http://www.sciencefriday.com/audio/scifriaudio.xm
The MP3:0 11325.mp3
http://libsyn.com/media/sciencefriday/scifri-2006
There are MUCH older proponents of this separation. In the Augsburg Confession (penned by Melanchthon to reperesent the early views of the nascent Lutheran movement to the princes of Germany and the Roman Catholic Church), the following was stated (rather colorfully!):
Therefore, since the power of the Church grants eternal things, and is exercised only by the ministry of the Word, it does not interfere with civil government; no more than the art of singing interferes with civil government . For civil government deals with other things than does the Gospel. The civil rulers defend not minds, but bodies and bodily things against manifest injuries, and restrain men with the sword and bodily punishments in order to preserve civil justice and peace.
The letters back and forth with his various amours aren't explicit, but Ben was no prude, not by a mile, at any point in his life. (You're right that he was, er, active as a young man; he visited "houses of ill repute" in England.)
For that matter he married in a relatively informal way -- Deborah Reid and he sort of moved in together and presented it as a marriage, and so it was accepted as a common law thing. Not that unusual back then.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
A number of US brewpubs are serving their own batches of Poor Richard's which was formulated to the researched preferences of Bejamin Franklin
FWIW: its an "Open Recipe" beer.
(mmmmmm, beeer)
Lurking in the desert
From wikiquote
In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, -- if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.
Speech to the Constitutional Convention (June 28, 1787)
...for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age
It's sad that people seem to think blowing shit up was invented in 2001. Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, anyone?
That's not what they're doing. They're listening to the phone calls of American citizens, without the Constitutionally required warrants.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood