[kmtrowbr]

I adore Benjamin Franklin and I've read many many books about him.

This is my favorite biography of Franklin: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300095325/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

It is also very worth reading his actual writing -- one anthology is "The Portable Benjamin Franklin" -- it's quite long, but it gives you a much better sense of who he was. Benjamin Franklin himself was a better writer than ANY of his biographers: https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Benjamin-Franklin-Penguin-Cl...

Ultimately he is a very amorphous, playful, and loving individual. In some ways you might think of him as being like David Bowie or the Beatles. A person, who having achieved wealth and fame, used it in the best possible way. If you have read the book "Finite and Infinite Games," he was playing the Infinite Game.

Not that he needs more adulation! But as you dig deeper in Franklin becomes more mysterious & that part of him is not appreciated enough. The icon is not the man, if that makes sense.

My favorite Franklin anecdote: "Did you know that Benjamin Franklin invented windsurfing?" It's not strictly true, but he loved kites, and loved swimming (he was one of the first swimming educators as, in the 18th century many people had a deathly fear of water and many many people drowned) and one day, he was swimming on his back, while flying a kite, and he noticed it dragged him through the water very quickly. "I believe this could be a mode of transport, or of recreation," (paraphrased) he wrote in a letter.

[User23]

His Autobiography[1] should be required reading for young persons. One of the more cutting insights is that freedom of the press doesn't mean a thing if you haven't got one. And so he got into printing. He also advises against drinking hard liquor, because everyone he knew who took to "dram drinking" never amounted to anything. It's a short and entertaining read.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autobiography_of_Benjamin_...

[capableweb]

> My favorite Franklin anecdote: "Did you know that Benjamin Franklin invented windsurfing?" It's not strictly true

I don't think it comes anywhere near to being true. While he's surely an interesting man, there is no need to attribute him as the discoverer of something that many tribes around in Polynesia have been doing for centuries.

[kmtrowbr]

Well, thank you -- I shall endeavor to better contain my enthusiasm in the future, and also to correctly attribute the invention of windsurfing to Polynesian tribes.

[Igelau]

> tribes around in Polynesia

Please refrain from this sort of imperialist language. Refer to the particular nations and peoples by their real names, not a catch-all concocted by a Frenchman.

[capableweb]

This is the first time I hear about that people in Polynesia have something against the term "Polynesia". Do you have any resources where I can read more about how they feel about the term as when I've visited many of the islands, I've never come across this before.

[WalterBright]

Anyone on a surfboard would notice that the wind pushes them along, and a more creative person would think to amplify that with a sail.

Like what happened with boats => sailboats.

Heck, I noticed that the wind pushed me along on my bike. I rode without using my hands, and instead would hold my jacket open to catch more wind.

[User23]

This sounds like the battery story. It used to be that batteries all came in cardboard casings. Then some clever fellow invented the metal battery casing like we use today and patented it. His patent was immediately infringed by all battery makers who claimed that the invention was "obvious." But they lost, because the judge rightly ruled that if it actually were obvious then why had everyone been encasing their battery cells in cardboard?

[WalterBright]

I take it you've never been on a surf board or a rowboat when the wind was up.

Take a watercraft ==> add a sail

Take a routine task ==> on a computer

and all that other patent nonsense.

[User23]

I know a halyard from a sheet, thank you. But a better example is that I've run outdoors on a windy day, which virtually every person ever has done at least once. And yet the overwhelming majority never thought to use a spinnaker on a skateboard. All new inventions, every single one, are one or more old inventions composed together. The novelty lies in the composition, not the components.

I share your antipathy toward software patents though. Mathematical theorems aren't patentable, and programs are just gussied up theorems so they shouldn't be either.

[WalterBright]

I just don't see as patent-worthy the concept of sticking a sail on something to allow the wind to push it. Sails have been around for thousands of years.

It's as lame as adding a wheel to something so it will roll instead of slide. Or putting a sign on something with instructions. Or putting an ON button on a device.