Patents, schools, and false equivalency

I posted the following two comments to "Lost Einsteins, the Innovations We Are Missing", David Leonhardt, New York Times, 2017-12-03.

One could also make a correlation between innovation and the type of industries in the area.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul area once drew a lot of people to work in the computer industry.  I was one of them.  Then the medical device industry drew a lot of people.

Rochester MN has been drawing medical talent for generations.  It also once had a large IBM facility.

I wonder what all the patents in NW Minnesota were for.  Snowmobiles, fishing gear?

And then there is politics.  Do the local governments make their places nice places to live, and so many people move there?







Follow-up comment

Well, I looked up several facts about Roseau County, MN, way up north on the Canadian border.  It was where Polaris snowmobiles were invented.  For more seehttp://www.polaris.com/en-us/company.

The Census 2016 estimate of Roseau’s population is 15,629 with 18% of school age 2813 students.  So, it would be quite “easy” for Polaris to have three patents.

The research triangle of North Carolina is another high patent area.  The triangle is University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Duke University, all well-known research universities.

I think a more interesting correlation would be how much people were open to new ideas.  I think the willingness to do something different would have a better correlation than number of children.

Declaration of Independence is still a work in progress

For its July Fourth celebration of 1852, the city of Rochester NY invited Frederick Douglass to speak.  Danny Glover gives an impassioned reading of that speech.

The accompanying notes intimidate the speech didn't go over so well but gives no further information.

But according to one account, it went over quite well.  A letter to Douglass was "Dear Sir-The Ladies of the "Rochester Anti Slavery Sewing Society," desire me to return you their most sincere thanks for the eloquent and able address delivered in Corinthian Hall, on the 5th of July. Anticipating its speedy publication in Pamphlet form, they request that you will furnish them with one hundred copies for distribution:
In behalf of the Society,
SUSAN F. PORTER, President.

See http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=2945

As I suspected, the Danny Glover version is a shortened version of Douglass' speech.  Few 19th Century orators would give an eight-minute speech.

I admit it, my 20th Century eyes don't have the patience to read through the complete speech.  Now, will I get back to it before I read all the Federalist Papers or the Wealth of Nations?  I have my doubts I will read completely through any of the three.