Yes moving on from the comments of Jones and Tex the biggest problem is NIH (not invented here).
I say if you have a massively subsidized state sector, then big business doesn't want to know because "surely the best and brightest are already on the case with our tax money". Big physics has skewed the market. And oh dear, the LHC in CERN has shut down for two months because the magnets failed. Quick, quick, get it working again! Damn, it's so urgent to know what happened probably 13billion years ago or then in several billion at the big crunch. Once again the power mad, suppressive personality types love the state, even over rising to the top in big business because they can then stultify everything or make hypothesis look like fact. Then there are the empty vessels just following them. Keep politicians out of science it's not a system where the truth is got by shouting enough to make people believe. It is impersonal and has no agenda, it simply is. The only choice is where we set our priorities in discoveries. Much discovery happened by philanthropy or personal input but if it is of commercial or national strategic importance then business and state step in respectively. -----Original Message----- From: R C Macaulay [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 20 September 2008 18:34 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Hidden Societal Megatrend? Howdy Jones, Back in the 1960's I sat across from man owned a 500 million control valve mfg business. He was in his 70's at the time.. He allowed he started it from scratch and now the leading mfg in it's category. I remarked that he should take some of the 500 mil , plus 5 of his brightest young minds in his company, move them to Dallas and design and build a radical new control valve. He was astounded and asked me why he would want tto create a competitor to his wonderful business? Answer is "if you don't somebody else will" I mentioned I was in constant contact with these bright guys and they felt he was holding them back. fast forward 45 years later.. nothing happened.. the 500 mil is gone and nothing to show for it but memories of "old times gone but not forgotten". Interesting the valve design idea I had offered and was rejected .. was recently picked up by one our people and "bingo" Rangrrr Valve Company is off and running. combined cost of startup.. $150 k. What was the idea? make a flow meter with thrrottling characteristics for extreme wide range flows.. how? by measuuring the valve position and not the flow. fun stuff. Dont tell me these auto company's lack brains and imagination in the ranks.. the problem is the head man. ask ole George Patton. My long time friend was his head motor sargeant.. Patton would come to him and tell him to make things happen regardless of what the officer corps said. They once built a bridge across a river by running 2 1/2 ton trucks in the creek until, they had a bridge for the battle tanks.. later everybody got court marshalled for the damage to the trucks. Richard Jones wrote, Interesting insight on the importance of the "tinkerer" and his resources. [think: the "Homebrew Computer Club" and similar idea-seeders: perhaps even Vortex on occasion] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/science/13make.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&sq=m aker%20faire%20&st=cse&scp=1&oref=slogin Also interesting: can this megatrend be taken to the next level by a company like GM, and possibly avoid nearly inevitable bankruptcy? Edward Tenner, an author and observer of the way that technology affects society, said "tinkering" had waxed and waned but never disappeared in American culture. A great deal of mechanical know-how, he said, came from people raised on farms, where they had to fix their own equipment. [think: Henry Ford and the early auto pioneers] But these days, he said, "this improvisation is starting to flourish in a mainly suburban and perhaps urban milieu." [think: Apple, Hewlett Packard, etc and now the new-energy] It is pretty clear the the $500 million that GM has already sunk into the Volt will pay off sometime in the next several decades, but could it have been done sooner, better -- or for much less cost - by encouraging smaller companies and even individual inventors to participate? As it stands now, in addition to what they have already spent, GM will be forced to buy any breakthrough which comes along at greatly inflated cost. Which is not to say that throwing money at a problem always results in a breakthrough ... but consider the oft-mentioned EEStor - which GM could have participated in, but declined. After all they have no real way to weed out the shysters: http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1517 Therefore - the proper strategy to stimulate the nearly unpredictable breakthrough, which is never guaranteed at any price, is much easier to pinpoint in hindsight. For instance: Unlike some observers, I strongly feel that the EEStor thing is for real- and just going through the expected growing pains. The Wiki page is being continuously updated, and it seems that there must be an 'inside' source for this (probably at Lockheed). OTOH - if EEStor is high-level BS then this is the way a good viral marketer would work; so it is easy to see why there can be a valid difference of opinion. But as for the Megatrend itself - if this 'bettery' (bat-cap) technology does indeed work out as a major breakthrough - then yes it was essentially invented in the metaphorical silicon valley 'garage' by a couple of tinkerers, and then followed the VC model of getting into production quickly. Any car company could have gotten involved on the ground floor for $25 million now instead of several billion later. Which -- all things considered, IF one wanted to benefit and 'bootstrap' from this societal insight even further -- i.e. to up the stakes in megatrends to the next level, it would seem to be prudent for the successful car company of the future to operate more like the VC and less like the entrenched bureaucracy..... .... so that instead of shunning outside innovation - they actually embrace the notion of "not invented here" and actually seek out the good 'tinkerers' proactively, and invest on the ground floor (even if most of them do not succeed). ... what is that pun-ny old truism about the quick and the dead? Jones ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.169 / Virus Database: 270.7.0/1682 - Release Date: 9/20/2008 10:24 AM
