A hose is not very elegant and should be removed. It would look much cleaner to have the gasoline just squirt into the car's open gas tank. Possibly with some LEDs around the gas pump's flush-mounted nozzle to create sparkles in the gasoline stream as it arcs through the air into the gas tank fill hole. Finally, clean hands!
History says no. He was never able to build a great business with the fashionable blouses he designed. He never was able to scale his refrigerator company beyond the customer discovery phase and sold the patent to Electrolux... Google these if you think I am joking.
I found the patents for the blouses / refrigerators, but it seems to me that this was more of a hobby of his, not a serious startup endeavour.
My imaginary scenario is more like this: let's assume that there is something like the relativity theory of programming, i.e. in order to build programs of a certain size and complexity you HAVE to use the relativity theory, otherwise you'll fail. Now, could Einstein have built a software company that takes advantage of this?
You're all wrong.
It's pretty clear they had to obfuscate what she really wrote so no one could use it to "hack into the mainframe," on advice from their lawyers to avoid liability.
Here's the deep analysis from the article:
"And as more people join Google+, more will follow, and in the end maybe Kevin Rose was worth $1 billion dollars."
uh. Stealing in wrong. Why would you advocate stealing? Are you using the word "steal" when you mean something else? Why not just use the right words? I mean there is inspiration, copying, using, implementing, following, quoting, learning from, etc.
If a physicist uses E=mc^2 in some research, is he stealing? Isn't everything in human culture based on something that came before? I am stealing these words by using them?
The point is that if you copy something, it's still someone else's work. You've just made a lifeless derivative. If you steal it, however, that implies more than making a copy - it implies making it your own. Things stolen no longer belong to the original owner.
An example: House of the rising sun is a traditional song, passing round loads of musicians - but the Animals "stole" it in such a way no-one can hear it anymore and not think of their work.
okay, first I have to say I appreciate the point you make, about taking something and making it your own. I think you actually makes a better and more subtle point than the original quote itself does and it is not something in the linked post!
Having said that, the OP is not talking about that "quote"-- frequently attributed to Picasso, but probably from T.S. Eliot (Thanks Nancy Prager: http://nancyprager.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/good-poets-borro...) Maybe Picasso stole that too. I think people know the quote from Steve Jobs' interview (mis)attribution? to Picasso.
Anyway, I think your point is essentially then of copying something without attribution or credit to the point of destroying the original authorship, and I would have to say that that from of "stealing" is also wrong.
Your blues music is a good example of stealing, literally the use of copyrighted songs written by impoverished black artists by artists like Led Zeppelin without paying royalties.
So a clarified version of my point is: Using an idea and making your own expression or extension of it is not stealing, it is the basis of all knowledge and culture. Copying someone's expression of an idea, whether legal or not, without attribution when you know who you are copying and you are able to give attribution, is wrong.
Like Hollywood that created the studio system and theater chains, and Music Labels that created radio promotion and recorded music sales, Y Combinator has created the cookie cutter vertical for this century's hot new tech opportunity- the Internets. And God Bless them. They invented it, this model, it works and they are going to be billionaires cause they are creating the Value.
If I could buy 7% of a the future (earnings and primary asset) of an elite college super achiever (with a proven skillset and a track record of cool hacks,) in exchange for 7 Grand, man oh man, that is a no-brainer. Like signing Marilyn Monroe to a studio contract or getting half the Beatles catalog for a ham sandwich, or whatever they were advanced by Northern Songs.
And no, I'm not being snarky, because Marilyn Monroe without the movie studios would have been a waitress or whatever, and the Beatles without the music copyright machine would have been guys who worked day jobs who had a cool weekend band that was their real passion.
Sign all the boys who can sing and dance--its Menudo Monkees Backstreet madness!! If your Johnny Bravos can fit the suit, I say sign them up! Everybody wins, except the wannabes who find a reason to complain instead of doing anything awesome because they are, in their hearts...and in their lives, afraid.
