[COMPLETE] Industrial Biography by Samuel Smiles - availle
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Section 4 uploaded and ready for PL.
Wow - this section has it all - illegitimate children of the aristocracy, invention, success, industrial sabotage, floods, debt, civil war, battles, sieges, capture, trial and threat of execution, escape, flight into hiding, more debt, and finally restoration. You could make this into the plot of an opera it's so extreme.
Clive
Wow - this section has it all - illegitimate children of the aristocracy, invention, success, industrial sabotage, floods, debt, civil war, battles, sieges, capture, trial and threat of execution, escape, flight into hiding, more debt, and finally restoration. You could make this into the plot of an opera it's so extreme.
Clive
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- Posts: 442
- Joined: December 9th, 2007, 3:02 pm
- Location: Hereford, UK
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Just checking in to say I am busy with family stuff at the moment (This week I'm off to Belfast for my daughter's university graduation ), so I won't be posting a new chapter for a couple of weeks.
Clive
Clive
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I have uploaded the first half of chapter 5 (section 6). Ready for PL.
The graduation was marvellous. I don't think I've enjoyed anything so much for a very long time! Belfast was cold and a bit rainy, but that couldn't spoil the event!
Clive (v. proud father)
The graduation was marvellous. I don't think I've enjoyed anything so much for a very long time! Belfast was cold and a bit rainy, but that couldn't spoil the event!
Clive (v. proud father)
Section 6 is PL OK
I'm glad to hear itCliveCatterall wrote:The graduation was marvellous. I don't think I've enjoyed anything so much for a very long time! Belfast was cold and a bit rainy, but that couldn't spoil the event!
Kathrine
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Section 8 ready to go! This chapter has Industrial Espionage - disguises, deception and cheating!
Clive
Clive
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True. It does seem to be a bit of a theme in 19th century engineering. There was a lot of money to be made very quickly if you could steal someone else's inventions.
Henry Bessemer describes a similar story about spies trying to steal the methods he used to make metal flake for paints and inks (this was the source of his first fortune). He had built the whole factory to resist the efforts of his competitors to steal his ideas. He only employed three people to run the whole factory, two of which were his bothers in law (the other was a workman who ran the steam engine in an outbuilding with no access to the main factory). The machines were all housed in separate locked rooms and covered with wooden cases when in use. Eve if you could get into the factory and peer into the rooms you wouldn't learn anything unless you had enough time to prise open the wooden cases and see inside!
Sure enough a spy from his German competitors came to steal his secrets, but his loyal staff warned him (he paid them outrageously well - they knew when they were on to a good thing). Bessemer arranged to have the spy call round to his house (he pretended to be an unhappy engineer working for Mr Bessemer). He then proceeded to give the spy heaps of false information, hoping that his competitors would waste large amounts of money trying out these crazy schemes.
Oh the joys of uncontrolled capitalism. What could possibly go wrong.
Clive
Henry Bessemer describes a similar story about spies trying to steal the methods he used to make metal flake for paints and inks (this was the source of his first fortune). He had built the whole factory to resist the efforts of his competitors to steal his ideas. He only employed three people to run the whole factory, two of which were his bothers in law (the other was a workman who ran the steam engine in an outbuilding with no access to the main factory). The machines were all housed in separate locked rooms and covered with wooden cases when in use. Eve if you could get into the factory and peer into the rooms you wouldn't learn anything unless you had enough time to prise open the wooden cases and see inside!
Sure enough a spy from his German competitors came to steal his secrets, but his loyal staff warned him (he paid them outrageously well - they knew when they were on to a good thing). Bessemer arranged to have the spy call round to his house (he pretended to be an unhappy engineer working for Mr Bessemer). He then proceeded to give the spy heaps of false information, hoping that his competitors would waste large amounts of money trying out these crazy schemes.
Oh the joys of uncontrolled capitalism. What could possibly go wrong.
Clive
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Section 9 up for listening.
We get corruption in high office, Rags to Riches to Rags, and brilliant inventors ruined through no fault of their own!
Clive
We get corruption in high office, Rags to Riches to Rags, and brilliant inventors ruined through no fault of their own!
Clive