Thursday, April 01, 1971

Just becase you can .....

.... doesn't mean you should.

Occasionally I see people use wikipedia to try and position themselves as being an early adopter, thought leader or innovator of some subject. I've even seen people post date blog posts to give credence to their claims.

Whenever you have a good idea, there are probably 10,000 other people having exactly the same idea at the same time and about another 10,000 who had the idea years ago.

As for who was first, well I'm a great believer in The Law of Firsts hypothesised by Eliot Sivowitch of the National Museum of American History.

“Whenever you prove who was first, the harder you look you will find someone else who was more first. And if you persist in your efforts you find that the person whom you thought was first was third.”

Having the idea isn't important, it's what you do with it that matters. An idea is worthless unless shared.

There is only one exception to this rule, and that's "ColdPizza, a parody by Scott Lazar" about copyright protected food.

Bloody, thieving scallywags. Where's parody rights management when you need it!

The quotes of LHL

"If necessity is the mother of invention, then ownership is the mother of innovation".

"There is an obvious correlation between the amount we sue, and how innovative we are as a society".

"Ultimately we will be so innovative that we will just spend all our time suing others."