TTBrown

"Flash of Genius" - A Timely Reminder

The release of the new movie "Flash of Genius" has brought the subject of  How Inventors Always Get Screwed into the daily media diet.

BTW, if you don't know about Armstrong, you should read Lawrence Lessing's (he's not the Internet Lessig) 1956 biography, "Man of High Fidelity." The book is sadly out of print (old paperback copies are selling for $25.00 on Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN)). ortunately, though, the complete text of the book has been posted here by the Internet Archive...

Anyway, if you think American technological prowess begins and ends with the Mac and iPhone, you owe it to yourself to read this tale of a true genius struggling against those out to steal the fruits of his brilliance. In Armstrong's case, his nemesis was RCA impresario David Sarnoff....

RCA -- along with Westinghouse and a host of other companies -- infringed Amstrong's patents for years. He was less lucky than Kearns, though. He committed suicide by walking out of a hotel window in 1954...

The point I want to make is that people who think modern technology sprung fully realized in some easy and fun way from the landscaped corporate vistas of Silicon Valley don't know squat. Every development from Maxwell, Edison, and Tesla; up through Marconi and De Forest; to Eckert, Mauchly and the present day has not come without a humongous struggle. (For another great tale of inventor screwing -- tellingly, also involving RCA -- read Tube: The Invention of Television by David Fisher, about the travails of Philo Farnsworth.)

 

The importance of this topic in the current scenario cannot be over-stated.  Our leaders keep telling us that we're going to innovate our way out of the current energy / economic / environmental crises.  Maybe somebody needs to remind our leaders what really happens to the individuals who produce the innovations we're counting on to reshape the world.

If they really want to "transform America" (as one of the major party candidates stated upon launching his campaign), then they need to take a long hard look at how individual genius suffers in a world dominated by monolithic corporate capitalism.

Remember the Women

This might not have anything to do with Townsend Brown (you never really know...), but it has been brought to our attention in a post to the forums from Mikado14, and here is one of a number of You Tube videos about Irena Sendler, who passed away earlier this year:

Irena Sendler was nominated a number of times for the Nobel Peace Prize, most recently in 2007, when the award went to somebody named Al Gore.  He made a movie.

Y'all Might Want To...

...tune into this:

Please Tune in this Friday to the World Puja Network for an interview with Orion Project director Dr. Steven M. Greer and chief science advisor Dr. Ted Loder.  The interview will take place on Friday, May 9th at 11am PST / 2pm EST, and again at 6pm PST / 9pm EST.  The interview will also be archived on the Orion Project website.

From the World Puja Network Website:

Dr. Greer's guest will be Dr. Ted Loder, professor emeritus at University of New Hampshire, who has worked with Dr. Greer for years on the issues around the coming energy revolution that must happen to heal the planet.

Dr. Greer and Dr. Loder will discuss The Orion Project, which is a project to gather the most promising inventors in one place so that their combined knowledge will give us the solutions we need for home energy generation and beyond.

They will give an overview of the history of the new energy discoveries (Tesla, T. Townsend Brown, Stan Meyer and more.)

http://www.TheOrionProject.org

Stephen Greer's name you all might recognize, he's also the chief instigator of "The Disclosure Project" as well as something called SEAS Power.  Seems to me I spoke to Ted Loder a couple of years ago about a paper he'd written which reiterated some of the more familiar stuff about Townsend Brown. I'll tune in if I'm home, or listen to the archive later.