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For your amusment




Quotes to (not) Live By...

   "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular
   Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

   "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." --Thomas
   Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

   "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked
   with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a
   fad that won't last out the year." --The editor in charge of business
   books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

   "But what ... is it good for?" --Engineer at the Advanced Computing
   Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

   "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken
   Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,
   1977.

   "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered
   as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to
   us." --Western Union internal memo, 1876.

   "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would
   pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's
   associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in
   the 1920s.

   "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn
   better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." --A Yale University
   management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing
   reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal
   Express Corp.)

   "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner
   Brothers, 1927.

   "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not
   Gary Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading
   role in "Gone With The Wind."

   "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports
   say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you
   make."--Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields'
   Cookies.

   "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
   --Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

   "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." --Lord Kelvin,
   president, Royal Society, 1895.

   "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The
   literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
   --Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M
   "Post-It" Notepads.

   "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing,
   even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about
   funding us? Or we' ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our
   salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went
   to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You
   haven't got through college yet.'" --Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve
   Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve
   Wozniak's personal computer.

   "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and
   reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against
   which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily
   in high schools." --1921 New York Times editorial about Robert
   Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

   "You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all
   of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just
   have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable
   condition of weight training." --Response to Arthur Jones, who solved
   the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

   "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil?
   You're crazy." --Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his
   project to drill for oil in 1859.

   "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
   --Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

   "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." --Marechal
   Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

   "Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H.
   Duell,Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

   "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". --Pierre
   Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

   "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the
   intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". --Sir John Eric Ericksen,
   British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria
   1873.

   "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981

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Bye.

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Nir Yeffet, Israel Antiquities Authority
          Computer department
     E-Mail: nir@israntique.org.il
  Office: 972-2-292632, 972-2-285512 
           Fax: 972-2-285054
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