Indeed, the difference between brilliance and insanity is often quite small. Many of the world's top scientists must have let out a good chuckle when they heard a college dropout and patent-office employee claimed to have worked out a theory that explained how the universe worked. They, of course, ended up solving the mystery of flight. Finley was crazy.
Some innovations are just plain unnecessary.
Baseball might have lots of problems, but seeing the baseball isn't one of them. So when I read last week that the Stafford County Board of Supervisors approved the Embrey Mill residential development, I couldn't help but think of orange baseballs. Maybe I'm wrong. But I have my doubts about the suburban Utopia that Vienna developer Ed Peete has planned for Stafford County. The 957-acre subdivision will include more than 2,200 homes, mixed in with more than 1 million square feet of commercial space.