A Wired areticle this month really got my heckles raised talking about Engineered Obsolescence in America’s Technology. A book they mention in the article is a must read, Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America by Giles Slade.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves.
An idea I’ve had for a very long time would be a business that specifically designs products Woot.com style. Start with just one product, say a blender and engineer it to last forever, then sell just that product until it takes off and makes the company financially stable enough to continue.
Yes, you read that right, use modern technology and the art of simplicity to design a device that will literally run forever. Sure, dropping it, or running gravel through the machine would tear it up, maybe, but under normal wear and tear it should not stop in our lifetime.
Businesses figured out that by engineering products to break, they guaranteed themselves repeat business and product turnover. This new company, lets call it Forever Inc. would have no such compulsions. Before the Forever Blender sales started to decline they would begin engineering their next Forever product, like a Forever Toaster, Forever Lawnmower, or Forever Coffee Pot.
The idea behind Forever Inc. is that they plan to kill each market they enter. Sales of the Forever Blender, and proceeding products, would spike as people realized they would last forever, then after “every household” had a Forever Blender, sales would decrease. But who cares? At this point the founders of the company, their employees and shareholders would all be very wealthy, America would have a phenomenal product, Forever.
As Forever Blender sales tapered off, Forever Inc. would release their next Forever product. The Blender sales would continue for some time afterward, even if not at the same level.
Companies around the would would hate this company and strive to see them destroyed, but with the power of crowd sourcing and the grass roots power of the internet behind Forever Inc. the people would prop them up, defending this benevolent company that finally gave them what they wanted, a product Engineered to Last Forever!
ForeverInc.com and ForeverProducts.com is already taken, but that should not stop you from starting this company. As I explained in this is an Idea Blog and I would love to see people use my ideas.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Lifehacker.com pointed to a blog I had not encountered before today, Divine Caroline.com. They had a phenomenal post detailing 18 Uses for Vodka.
Personally, I loathe alcohol, abhor it’s use internally, but these 18 points are all great when a cheap bottle costs less than $10 and the uses detailed cover hundreds of dollars worth of other products.
Here are a few of the 18 points I pulled out. Number Seven is the funniest.
2. To clean the caulking around bathtubs and showers, fill a trigger-spray bottle with vodka, spray the caulking, let set five minutes and wash clean. The alcohol in the vodka kills mold and mildew.
3. Clean jewelry. Soak the jewelry in vodka for five minutes, then rinse, and dry.
5. Remove the glue left behind by a bumper sticker. Rub the glue with a soft, clean cloth soaked with vodka
6. Prolong the life of razors by filling a cup with vodka and letting your safety razor blade soak in the alcohol after shaving. The vodka disinfects the blade and prevents rusting.
7. Spray vodka on vomit stains, scrub with a brush, then blot dry. ( I left this one in because it’s ironic. Drink the Vodka, then clean up your vomit with it! )
8. Using a cotton ball, apply vodka to your face as an astringent to cleanse the skin and tighten pores.
9. Add a jigger of vodka to a 12-ounce bottle of shampoo. The alcohol cleanses the scalp, removes toxins from hair, and stimulates the growth of healthy hair.
10. Fill a sixteen-ounce trigger-spray bottle and spray bees or wasps to kill them.
14. To cure foot odor, wash your feet with vodka.
16. Pour vodka over an area affected with poison ivy to remove the urushiol oil from your skin.
The subject of today’s post is a derivative of a Mao Tse-Tung quote, or Mao Zedong, the famous Chinese Communist leader, in his Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, or as it was known in the west, The Little Red Book.
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. – Mao Tse-Tung
DownsizeDC.org, an organization I recently joined posted a great article showing the very real different between Voluntary Cooperation and Government Violence.
As a staunch minimalist and a devout capitalist, DownsizeDC’s post rings deep within me. The government has shown time and time again they are completely incapable of being fiscally responsible and they have no business being involved in business ventures.
If not for the threat of government violence — of arrest, incarceration, and the loss of all your property — how would you choose to spend your money. Would you rather . . .
- Give money to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or Habitat for Humanity?
- Contribute to government foreign aid projects, or Doctors Without Borders?
- Rely on the FDA for safe food and drugs, or the Underwriter’s Laboratory?
- Deliver your mail through the post office, or Fed Ex and UPS?
- Contribute money directly to research clinics, or filter it through the National Institutes of Health?
- Receive treatment in a V.A. Hospital, or a private one?
- Give 15% of your income to Social Security, or use that money to buy annuities from a diverse portfolio of insurance companies?
- Continue paying taxes to a ponzi-scheme Medicare program that must eventually cut benefits and ration your health care, or pile-up those funds in a tax-free, interest bearing Health Savings Account?
- Contribute money to local charities to change and improve the lives of the poor, or to a food stamp program that merely maintains people in their poverty?
Now, I don’t want to go into to much detail, but please read the article, and join DownsizeDC if you agree.
InformationWeek normally posts great content, but today Ed Hansberry and I are about to have words.
It took a number of years for people to get religious about wearing seatbelts. Some have enough common sense to put them on and others had to get tickets. It is the same with holding a cell phone while driving. It needs to be a ticketable offense.
If someone is stupid enough to have an accident while not wearing their seatbelt and talking on the phone, Charles says LET THEM!
If they harm someone else because of their stupidity, then they had better have insurance and that person will receive reparations.
People, wake up and stop giving up your FREEDOM because of your FEAR!
You’ve seen the delicious, juicy burger on the TV. What does it look like when you order it at the restaurant?
Look at the difference between the Ad and Realtity.
See the following foods in Advertisement and Reality:
Who would have thought of an internet enabled vehicle that senses other vehicles, and more? Oh yeah, I did!
Read my take on Car’s Driving themselves.
My main points were:
InformationWeek posted an article showing off Segway’s new P.U.M.A. Even though the name sure reminds me of my favorite machinima program, Red vs. Blue.
This serves as the introduction of the Warthog; Grif suggests calling it a Puma, as he does not think it looks much like a warthog.
The InformationWeek article has a statement from Mr. Larry Burns himself, the Vice President of Research and Development for General Motors:
“Imagine small, nimble electric vehicles that know where other moving objects are and avoid running into them. Now, connect these vehicles in an Internet-like web and you can greatly enhance the ability of people to move through cities, find places to park, and connect to their social and business networks,” Larry Burns, GM’s VP of R&D and strategic planning, said in a statement.
Larry, were you inside my head, or did you just read my blog post?
I’m done airing my grievances. Besides, if someone finally creates a self driving car then I am going to be so excited, I won’t care who came up with the idea, I just want one!
This new Segway P.U.M.A. while very exciting, is not much of a step forward for us Mid-West dwellers, where a trip to Wal-Mart is 10 miles. However, if the technology is being developed then there is no reason it cannot take over an SUV later.
These diesel behemoths are the apple of my eye, and my dream vehicle. While you may want to argue that I’m a planet killing psychopath, I counter with Golden Fuel Systems right here in Missouri! Your gas “saving” Prius cannot stand up to my vegetable oil burning H1. Moreover, an electric conversion for a 40 mile commute in a Hummer would not be difficult as the vehicle is perfectly setup for this sort of retro-fit!
I addressed this in my own article I mentioned above, check it out!
Let me know what you think in the comments.
I searched my own site and noticed that Indexed has never been mentioned. That is simply a travesty!
First, a quick explanation of what Indexed is. Indexed is a blog which posts graphic representations of ideas, like below. Pie charts, line graphs, and more are hilarious and sad.
Being the curious person this blogger is, the following Indexed post struck a strong cord.
