Errors of Judgement
Posted by: tonym on 05 August 2013
''The Bomb will never go off, I speak as an expert in explosives."
- - Admiral William Leahy , US Atomic Bomb Project
"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
"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 travelled 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.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981
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.)
"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."
"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.
"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 , France .
"Everything that can be invented has been invented"
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.
"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over
Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required."
-- Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University
"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents.
It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself."
-- the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.
"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.
And last but not least...
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
Great list Tony.
You obviously have a lot of time on your hands at the moment. Doesn't Mags have some jobs for you or did you earn enough brownie points by showing willing in reducing your box count? 
ATB
Steve
"Let's go and invade Poland" 
"Let's go and invade Poland"
Prior to that, there was this, Chamberlain and his piece of paper:
That's the problem! The Brits will give the benefit of a doubt. But once you mess with us, you'd better have a bloody good excuse not to get your butt badly kicked! Take note Spain!
I can think of four catastrophic errors of judgement from the past 30 years:
1. Privatisation of utilities and the railways;
2. De-mutualisation of building societies;
3. De-regulation of the banking system;
4. The selling-off of social housing stock without replenishing it.
The root cause of most of the current problems we face
Although the social housing stock was really given away in truth.
Didn't one of Lennon/McCartney get a school report along the lines of 'this lad will never acheive anything unless he stops fiddling with his guitar'? Maybe apocryphal.
Bruce