I learned something entirely new this afternoon. This link leads to a very interesting story about Dr. David Warren (a chemist of all things!) from Australia who dreamed of and invented the cockpit voice and data recorder.

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Dr Warren lived to see Qantas name an Airbus A380 after him in 2008. Jenny Warren says she's been trying to get a seat on it ever since.

But he never saw a penny in royalties from the black box.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-49012771

Here's my tip of the hat to this man's genius, and his undaunted efforts against great odds to give the world such a precious gift!

David's response to being asked about the lack of royalties illustrates his sense of humor:

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"Yes, the government got the results of what I did. But then, they also didn't charge me for the other hundred ideas that didn't work."

David's children inherited his sense of humour.

At Peter's urging, Dr Warren's death notice included his personal catchphrase: "I'm a lucky bastard."

At Jenny's request, he was buried in a casket labeled:

"Flight Recorder Inventor: Do Not Open."

 

I loved your addendum to this post--better to have a sense of optimism about the afterlife and it also proves that his creators, his parents, had a sense of humor since it takes two to tango.  And as Al Pacino said in "Scent of a Woman": If you get tangoed up, you tango on....  That alludes to David's comments, like those of Thomas Edison, who lit up our lives, that it takes many mistakes to have a success.....  Same went for all of our transport pioneers--like those who decided square wheels made for too bumpy a ride, annoying the pharaohs of Egypt as they chased Moses and made ruts in the ground before the waves came crashing back in.   That is how I think round wheels were invented, lol, without which modern chariots, carriages, horseless carriages, aircraft and amphibian aircraft would not have been possible.  It reminds me of James Burke's series "Connections", worth a gander if you have not already seen it.  That is what this thread reminds me of, something I learned in both church and later, public school and college, enjoying all of our history and the connections we all share despite our views, we learn from even opposing views, which help us learn from our mistakes and give us open minds.... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burke_(science_historian)

Edited July 22, 20196 yr by John_Cillis

Surprised your post has not received more replies, however what can one say, such inventors are simply a blessing although I wish I would have invented Velcro and/or post it notes.  My ex wife liked them so much, she even had a post it note proggie for her workplace Apple.  But when they switched to PC's she lost it and she hated Windows just because of that, until I found an open source proggie her school district IT admins would accept, that did the same.  I used to help her school district IT admins with Windows issues and network issues, even talking them thru over the phone how to resolve a loss of some of their workstations over their LAN. 

My wife begged me to work there, but it meant long hours and I was long past being a WAN engineer by then--I grew tired of the MSE re-certification process, their tests (I am good on knowing my stuff, but I choke in tests) were very hard because the questions change based on how you answer the previous questions, to drill the certification applicant and to prevent cheating.  

I had teachers like that in school who handed out the tests to us piecemeal to prevent cheating, so no two tests were exactly the same.  Still the high school and college athletes found a way to cheat off me, I knew they were, they knew I knew, and I did not care--they did not want to learn the stuff, and since their main focus was athletics and entertaining us with their talent, I was not in a place to judge their academics.

To the OP, Bill--have you ever thought of an invention that someone else came up with? 

My ex swears that she had the original idea for a Harry Potter amusement park, but I told her Universal had a lock on the idea and plans in the works.  We were fans because of the architecture in the series of movies, since I had been to London twice by 2017.  We liked the Middle Age, British look and feel of the movie.  My ex was so happy when I took her to Universal--a surprise on our last trip to Orlando, to see what she had envisioned. 

It met her expectations but as ones who loved to fly, all three of us, my ex, my daughter and I, we were disappointed they took out the two suspended coasters to put in a future ride.  They were good coasters, great for those who love flight or who have even been upside down in an aircraft (I was back in 87 right over the city of Napa as our pilot, also a CFI, did a roll in a 182, a perfect, zero G roll even though not allowed in the 182).

My ex, daughter and I still love to talk over the phone and reminisce about our coaster days, but now that my daughter is older, she is in coaster limbo--until she starts her own family. 

John

 

17 hours ago, John_Cillis said:

Surprised your post has not received more replies...

Perhaps I didn't create an interesting enough Subject line. I should have made it more "click baitable", if I am allowed to coin a new word.

No, I'm not nearly inventive enough to dream of some new product except in my dreams, which I can never seem to remember enough of to write down. I have however frequently thought to myself, "Now why didn't I think of that!"

I was going to post on this earlier but I was busy at work. To me this is Aussie Ingenuity which is different than American Know How. The differences is Americans generally file for a Patent right away and Aussies don't necessarily, this guy is totally representative of that as he was doing this to make a difference and not to make money, his intentions were in the right place from the beginning.  😎