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Progress on open access is slow. 6 or 7 years ago I wanted to read a couple of papers by Cayley, who died in 1895. These were published in the Transactions of the Royal Society--and paywalled. (Google Books had a few volumes of his collected papers available, but not the one I needed.) A few years ago, the Royal Society finally made papers published before the mid-20th century available for free, which is progress, but considering the public funding for the Royal Society, it's hard to understand why anything they publish is still paywalled for 70 years.

>This should make people understand, that hiding knowledge away in obnoxious expensive science publications is one of the biggest hindrances to innovation today.

I'm still not sure how we get away with publishing items behind paywalls when a large percentage of the funding comes from the NSF/tax dollars. As an undergraduate, I was co-authored on two papers in fairly prestigious astronomical journals. The irony? I can't link my papers to potential employers or interested parties through the journal - I have to upload to arXiv to show people.

Well, a traditional wheel, made from three wooden boards (|), doesn't see much application today. ;)

But when it would have been patented then by one of todays patent attorneys and the patent would still be valid, you could trash our modern life!