Steve Jobs: "Your phone is the dumbest f***ing idea I have ever heard"

> The charming side of Richard helped people forgive him for his uncharming characteristics. For example, in many ways Richard was a sexist. Whenever it came time for his daily bowl of soup he would look around for the nearest "girl" and ask if she would fetch it to him. It did not matter if she was the cook, an engineer, or the president of the company. I once asked a female engineer who had just been a victim of this if it bothered her. "Yes, it really annoys me," she said. "On the other hand, he is the only one who ever explained quantum mechanics to me as if I could understand it." That was the essence of Richard's charm.

http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine...

  ISAAC NEWTON
  Isaac Newton was not a pleasant man. His relations with other 
  academics were notorious, with most of his later life spent 
  embroiled in heated disputes. Following publication of 
  Principia Mathematica – surely the most influential book ever
  written in physics – Newton had risen rapidly into public 
  prominence. He was appointed president of the Royal Society
  and became the first scientist ever to be knighted.

  Newton soon clashed with the Astronomer Royal, John 
  Flamsteed, who had earlier provided Newton with much-needed
  data for Principia, but was now withholding information that
  Newton wanted. Newton would not take no for an answer: he had
  himself appointed to the governing body of the Royal
  Observatory and then tried to force immediate publication
  of the data. Eventually he arranged for Flamsteed’s work to
  be seized and prepared for publication by Flamsteed’s mortal
  enemy, Edmond Halley. But Flamsteed took the case to court
  and, in the nick of time, won a court order preventing
  distribution of the stolen work. Newton was incensed and
  sought his revenge by systematically deleting all references
  to Flamsteed in later editions of Principia.

  A more serious dispute arose with the German philosopher
  Gottfried Leibniz. Both Leibniz and Newton had independently
  developed a branch of mathematics called calculus, which
  underlies most of modern physics. Although we now know that
  Newton discovered calculus years before Leibniz, he published
  his work much later. A major row ensued over who had been
  first, with scientists vigorously defending both contenders.
  It is remarkable, however, that most of the articles appearing
  in defense of Newton were originally written by his own hand
  – and only published in the name of friends! As the row grew,
  Leibniz made the mistake of appealing to the Royal Society to
  resolve the dispute. Newton, as president, appointed an
  “impartial” committee to investigate, coincidentally
  consisting entirely of Newton’s friends! But that was not
  all: Newton then wrote the committee’s report himself and
  had the Royal Society publish it, officially accusing Leibniz
  of plagiarism. Still unsatisfied, he then wrote an anonymous
  review of the report in the Royal Society’s own periodical.
  Following the death of Leibniz, Newton is reported to have
  declared that he had taken great satisfaction in “breaking
  Leibniz’s heart.”

  During the period of these two disputes, Newton had already
  left Cambridge and academe. He had been active in anti-
  Catholic politics at Cambridge, and later in Parliament, and
  was rewarded eventually with the lucrative post of Warden of
  the Royal Mint. Here he used his talents for deviousness and
  vitriol in a more socially acceptable way, successfully
  conducting a major campaign against counterfeiting, even
  sending several men to their death on the gallows.