Actually, that was Coral Sea, about a month earlier.
Well, Tom Selleck didn’t really turn it down. IIRC, he wanted to do it, but he had already signed on to do Magnum, PI and the producers wouldn’t grant him permission to do Indiana Jones.
My Dad.
Had an opportunity to buy the first McDonalds franchise in Milwaukee Wisconsin, back in the mid/late 50’s.
Turned it down, thought “the concept wouldn’t fly.”
Oops!
Tim Patterson retired in 1998 with tens of millions in MS stock, all granted to him as a part of his agreement to sell DOS and later employment agreements with MS.
If he’s kicking himself, it’s for another reason, not the sell of DOS to MS (whom, Patterson will freely admit, was able to do far more with the program then he ever could.)
I had a chance to buy Burger King stock when I was twelve.
Regards,
Shodan
And on a more serious note -
I read somewhere that Hitler insisted on switching from military targets to blitzing London in the Battle of Britain, and that if he had concentrated on targetting the RAF, he may have laid the groundwork for a successful invasion of Great Britain. I am constantly stunned by the level of expertise on WWII I read hereabouts - any truth in this?
Regards,
Shodan
Before choosing DOS as its PC operating system, IBM was interested in using CP/M. But before negotiating, they asked Digital Research (the owner of CP/M) to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Digital Research declined. IBM then went to Microsoft and DOS.
The escape of Louis XVI of France: had Louis managed to leave France, the whole french revolution might never have happened.
Actually, it was a bit more complicated than that. Gary Kildall went out for a flying excursion the day he was supposed to meet with IBM. He left his wife, Doris (I think), in charge for the day and she was the one who refused to sign IBM’s non-disclosure agreement, at least w/o consulting with her husband first.
Depending upon when you were 12, this might be a good thing or a bad thing. 
About two generations after Constantine converted to Christianity and basically made it the state religion, Emperor Julian seized the throne. He declared himself to be pagan, and tossed the Christians back out of the government (but wasn’t into any particular religious persecution).
If he hadn’t gotten himself killed in a military campaign against Persia, Europe might still be pagan, or at least mixed pagan/Christian.
I went back and checked about when we bought our first house.
I would have been a millionaire. :smack:
Regards,
Shodan
IIRC, the big mistake of the Japanese line commanders at Pearl Harbor was not going after destruction of the drydocks and the fuel depots, thus enabling the Navy to (a) continue supporting the carrier/sub-based rump fleet and (b) rebuild many of the damaged combatants, from a base in Mid-Pacific rather than California.
Actually the BEST way that the IJN had to close Pearl to the US Navy for a very long period of time would have been to sink the USS Nevada in the lone channel into or out of the harbor when she made her run for open water. Not only would that have denied the use of the port facilities you’re talking about, but it would have made even bringing in salvage equipment impossible until the hulk of the Nevada was moved.
(Sorry to sound like a broken record, I’m incredibly impressed with the actions of the crew of the Nevada that morning. Getting underway during the attack was tough enough with approximately 1/3 of the crew onboard. Preventing her from sinking in the channel was heroic. Even after she was beached/sank, she still continued to be a prime target for the Japanese, because she sank with her weather deck above water. Even after she sank the crew kept fighting, controlling fires, and shooting at Japanese aircraft.)
Me…A Small inheritance (17K) came my way in the mid-80’s. Someone suggested I put the windfall into a small computer company. Microsoft.
I often wonder where I would be if I had done that, but then again I probably would have sold it when it doubled as I normally do now when any stock I own does well.
Jobs allowing Gates anywhere near his inventions.
Here’s a list of blunders I have saved for a long time, some are disputed.
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” – Bill Gates, 1981
“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.
“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” --Marshall
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.
“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
–Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
Russia selling Alaska to the US for a song.
The NY Times did apologise to Goddard, in print.
Of course, this was some time after the good doctor’s death. While Apollo 11 was en route to the moon. :rolleyes:
This, it turns out, is a falsehood. Duell never said it, nor did anyone else running the Patent Office. There was a lengthy article researching this published twice in The Skeptical Inquirer. But the damned story (which originally didn’t give the name of the speaker) made it into Christopher Cerf’s The Experts Speak (which asigned it to Duell) and from there was widely disseminated. Sometimes ignorance is particularly hard to eradicate.
I’d like to look into this one further:
John Stringfellow had demonstrated his steam engine-powered heavier-than-air (although unmanned) flyuing macine decades before 1895, and heavier-than-air helicopter-type devices go back even further. It’s hard to believe that Kelvin didn’t know about at least some of these.
I suspect you’ll be lucky to locate a source for the quote, since it’s indeed also one of those that are repeated endlessly without anyone doing so ever wondering where it’s from.
By contrast, the other similarish Kelvin quote that is often paired with it can be traced. It’s usually quoted as something like “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning”. The full context is a letter of 1896 to Major Baden Baden-Powell (the younger brother of Robert) of the Royal Aeronautical Society:
The actual letter can be seen here. Even that quote can be screwed up by those repeating it uncritically: this page manages to attribute it to Lord Rayleigh.
It seems clear to me from Baden-Powell letter that Kelvin merely thought that the subject was unpromising at that time. He was wrong in this judgement, of course, but his stance doesn’t strike me as silly.
Now he may just have been being polite in giving Baden-Powell the brush-off, but I suspect that if he did ever say that “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible”, then some context is missing that may make the statement look less blunt.