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[Opinions] Re: Edison
I love it, it's in my top 5 for boys! I originally used to love Addison for boys but found it some what unusable now due to it being used almost exclusively for girls now. I found Edison had similar qualities so replaced Addison with Edison on my list, and I love the nickname Eddie :)ETA: I realise there is a huge connection with Thomas Edison but I really don't associate it too much with him anymore. If you name a child Edison, people will initially think of Thomas Edison but the more they interact with the child the more they will forget about the Thomas Edison association (which isn't a bad one!)

This message was edited 4/3/2011, 3:21 PM

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Edison was not a nice man.He employed goons to beat up his competition, stole ideas from other people and more or less ran a criminal organization.
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I have heard of these allegations but they aren't the part that sticks in my mind about Thomas Edison. He was an simply an investor to most people.
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Yes, but most people would only think of him as an inventor.
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I don't know about this.I thought of him solely as an inventor until I went to college, and that's when the truth came out. This is a case of someone who was previously respected slowly but surely falling out of that spot. Edison's antics were brought up in science class, in sociology class and especially my film classes. At some point the kid is going to have a class where Edison is discussed and it's not going to be favorable.
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I've never heard that about himAnd I'm educated, so not sure how I missed it. Proves that average joe more than likely doesn't know he wasn't a nice guy, either.
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Agreed
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Hm.I'll ask around then and see. I know that I took a lot of film classes and they talked about how Edison destroyed studios and what-not...I don't know.
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I only learned about Edison twice in school: once, in elementary school, when we briefly went over his life and accomplishments, then in college, where we discussed his contributions to the film industry. I learned he was kind of a bastard, too, but that was later, after I had read a book about him. Anyway, ask random strangers on the street about Edison and I guarantee they still wouldn't zero in on what a horrible person he was. Some might, but most would likely talk about the fact that he was an inventor first (and I bet a few would insist he invented the light bulb). Let's face it, a lot of people tend to forget what they learned in school, or never received a quality education in the first place...but that's a post for another day.

This message was edited 4/4/2011, 3:13 PM

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Also......the fact that Edison "stole" ideas from other people doesn't make him unique. Eli Whitney didn't come up with system of interchangeable parts- a Frenchman beat him to it by about ten years. Henry Ford's engineers were the ones who conceived the assembly line. George Pullman did not invent the Pullman sleeping car. Whether these people "stole" their ideas from others or were simply smart enough to patent it before anyone else did is up for debate, but inventors have a history of doing this sort of thing. This doesn't make Edison unusual.
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