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Even something as obscure as the Breast Drill - http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/12/hand-powered-drilling-tools-and-machines.html#more

Apparently can still be purchased at Sears. http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00934093000P

According to Kevin Kelley, Technology never dies. -- http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/11/kelly_on_techno.html
About midway through this hour-long podcast, Kelly describes an experiment where they took a 100 year old Montgomery Ward Catalog, and managed to find everything in it still being manufactured somewhere.

I myself still manufacture ancient Catapults and Trebuchets, -- http://www.rlt.com/ -- both small model and full-sized machines. (Fortunately, I was NOT the maker of the drug launching catapult found at the Mexican border that was in the news recently.)

I downgraded my Vista machine to XP. A critical pice of software I use was dog slow on vista. Dead-dog slow. By accident, i found out how to speed it up considerably - I unplugged the network cable.

No, this was not a network app. It's a CAD program. It does absolutely nothing over the network. Whassup with that? Unfortunately, I need the network, and after much fiddling and tweaking the network settings (I am qualified...) There was no change.

But, every time I disabled the network, my CAD program sped up. Until I wiped out the HD and installed XP. Now it's always fast as ever on my vista-class hardware.

VIsta gave me absolutely no benefit over XP. What's the reason for this OS?

--

http://www.rlt.com/14100 See our newest perpetual motion machine (as designed by Leonardo DaVinci)

After 15 years in IT, I quit (actually, not by choice. The dot-com meltdown of 2000 left me unemployed.) I couldn't find another job either, and to be honest, I didn't really want to. I wasn't happy and I was ready to move on. So, I started a toy company. You can see some of it at http://www.rlt.com/

Now that the waves of destruction from the internet big boom have subsided, would I go back to IT? No way! I'm a toymaker now and loving it. So do my kids, and we have a LOT more fun together this way that I ever could as an IT professional.

As I've said before, programmers and sysadmins have some incredible advantages over most MBAs. You have LOGIC. You are CREATIVE. You have a propensity for PROBLEM SOLVING. You can think through and visualize a plan of action from beginning to end. You can change course and re-program the system when requirements change. You know that very few, if any, projects are ever really finished. You're a hacker who knows how to shoot from the hip to get a job done on deadline, even if it isn't "elegant". You know that "Done" usually only means "it works at the moment and when it breaks, we'll fix it".

Guess what, these qualities plus a willingness to try and fail then try again (kind of like compiling) are what make entrepreneurs successful. Another advantage you have is that you won't have to hire some expensive tech guy to do your programming/sysadmin/DBA stuff for you.

You can do it. Just remember- there are a million reasons why you'll fail, and everyone will be happy to remind you of them constantly. But there's only one reason why you will succede- because you make it happen. So, ignore the naysayers and the critics, trust your instincts and go start a business.

My neighbor bought some freezers and started making block ice. He takes most of the winter off, but in the summer time he makes more money than I ever did as a programmer! Just by making ICE!

I know someone else who quit a VP position at a tech company, to print t-shirts. Raking it in, having a great time.

Yet another friend opened a restaurant- but not wanting to eat into his family time, he's only open for breakfast and lunch. He closes at 3:00 every day to pick his kids up from school. If it's your business, you can make your own rules.

I have a cousin who dropped out of school and made a fortune with a tune-up and oil change shop (actually a small chain of them - opened one at a time over several years) Now he travels and goes fishing most of the time.

Don't be scared, be bold. Love your kids, and remember- whatever you do, it will also be an education to them. They'll learn how to deal with hard times as they watch you struggle through them, and conquer them. They'll learn how to relish the good times as you reap the rewards of your efforts. Just don't forget to include them, and don't underestimate them.

Help fed my family and teach your kids some physics at the same time - http://www.catapultkits.com/

"Keep young children in the walled garden, those that survive and escape can be schooled those that don't are no longer a drain on my resources."

Don't we already do that?

It's called "religion".

Except the ones still inside the garden are now a valuable resource we call "consumer".

Don't leave the gate open!

http://www.rlt.com/ -- for Reason, Logic and Truth in your kid's education.

As someone who's actually had a product line manufactured in China, I can say this. In general, they consider product specifications as a guideline only. They'll do whatever they can to relax tolerances, substitute materials and shortcut processes to lower costs, without the engineering or product research background to support those decisions. They don't pass those lower costs on either.

I gave up having anything made in China years ago. The quality control alone ended up costing more than any savings I got from Chinese labor. In some products, we had as high as a 20% defect rate, and 5% was normal. Now I use automated machines to make my goods, and I hire local employees to do the design and operations work. You know what? now I have a better product AND a better price than I used to get from China!

http://www.rlt.com/

I started a toy company. You can see some of it at http://www.rlt.com/

And how many lawsuits have you been hit with from parents of kids injured while using the contraptions pictured there? I mean, they look like lots of fun, but I wouldn't want to be in charge of a company that made those middle two gadgets, not with all the wacky freeze-tag-banning parents and school districts out there these days.

You, sir, are a braver man than I.

When I started in IT, my mentor confessed to me that all he wanted to do was quit and open an ice cream shop. At the time, I didn't understand. Now I do.

After 15 years in IT, I quit (actually, not by choice. The dot-com meltdown of 2000 left me unemployed.) So, I started a toy company. You can see some of it at http://www.rlt.com/

Now that the waves of destruction from the internet big boom have subsided, would I go back to IT? No way! I'm a toymaker now and loving it. So do my kids...

As I've said before, programmers and sysadmins have some incredible advantages over most MBAs. You have LOGIC. You are CREATIVE. You have a propensity for
PROBLEM SOLVING. You can think through and visualize a plan of action from beginning to end. You can change course and re-program the system
when requirements change. You know that very few, if any, projects are ever really finished. You're a hacker who knows how to shoot from the
hip to get a job done on deadline, even if it isn't "elegant". You know that "Done" usually only means "it works at the moment and when
it breaks, we'll fix it". Guess what, these qualities plus a willingness to try and fail then try again (kind of like compiling) are what make entrepreneurs
successful. Another advantage you have is that you won't have to hire some expensive tech guy to do your programming/sysadmin/DBA stuff for
you.

You can do it. Just remember- there are a million reasons why you'll fail, and everyone will be happy to remind you of them constantly. But there's only one reason why you will succede- because you make it happen. So, ignore the naysayers and the critics, trust your instincts and go start a business.

Have fun!

I've actually done work on something like this for a science project- a compressed air powered engine. In my research, I stumbled upon a French inventor and saw the video of his compressed air powered car. Not a concept, an actual working prototype.

The difficulty in using compressed air instead of an explosion to move the piston is in the dwell time of the piston in the cylinder. He has a patented system of rods to connect the piston to the crankshaft for increased dwell time and longer stroke.

Like a diesel engine, the torque can be adjusted on the fly by leaving the valve open longer during the downstroke. It's really pretty cool and naturally, I can't find the web site now.

The other major obstacle is the air tank. the French prototype used a single carbon-fiber sphere to hold the pressure.

I don't remember the details of the thermodynamics. Maybe someone else can enlighten us, but I recall that it's not very efficient. Heat loss is generated during compression that is lost to the environment, then more inefficiency as the tank is cooled during operation.

The thermodynamics are the killer. Like the Stirling Engine, this has been tried many times in the last hundred years or so. It never gets very far.

--

Have some fun and help feed my family. Visit http://www.rlt.com/ today!

Case in point- Using almost exclusively freeware and extremely cheap hardware, I've been able to create and build a company that needs only TWO employees to run ( http://www.rlt.com/ [rlt.com] ). And it makes a good income for both of us. Both of us are IT capable. Both of us know how to use digital technologies to our advantage.

Hear here!

I've managed to build a company (as the CTO) that manages some 70 schools and school districts - grades, attendance, massive quantities of paperwork, etc.

Our hardware is midline, Linux-based. We recently assumed a customer who had a big, expensive software package that ours replaced. All of their data was loaded onto a single server, and works fine, where the server's resources are shared with many other districts.

The kicker is that they had a cluster of 8 late-model machines to keep their old software going, and performance was always a problem!

Additionally, our administration overhead is VERY low - backups are performed regularly, off-site, with dual-network redundancy, and it's all fully automatic! (thanks shell scripts!) At every stage of the game, our servers and software are carefully set up to exhibit "positive dynamic stability" - they should just "do the right thing" without alot of guss.

This can be hard to do, but is ohhh so worth it when you start to scale upwards!!! I read once somewhere that this concept is called "autonomic computing". Sounds nice, eh?

Hah! What you don't know about marketing shows. I'm not trying to win any awards, and my customers aren't influenced by flash and dazzle. Yep, I've tried Amazon, and Ebay, and I even had a fancy web redesign done once on a bet. The designer lost- sales actually dropped, and I reverted back to the old one. I've also abandoned Amazon and Ebay- too expensive for too little returned. Cost efficiency is important too you know.

First rule of small business- know your market! Your market IS your business. Great service is what my customers value! Robert T. Kiyosaki said, in his mega best seller Rich Dad, Poor Dad, "I'm not a best writing author, I'm a best SELLING author!" In response to a pulitzer prize winner who was criticizing his work.

Case in point- I used to supply ThinkGeek with the Shot-Blade toy (I'm the exclusive dealer in the US) However, I sold FAR more of them on http://www.backyardartillery.com/ than ThinkGeek ever did, in the same time frame. It's a really cool toy too! review- http://www.dansdata.com/shotblade.htm

Design is mostly an ego trip for the designers. Results are what counts, and I doubt many of my customers are designers!

Now, go have some fun! - http://www.rlt.com/

Using almost exclusively freeware and extremely cheap hardware, I've been able to create and build a company that needs only TWO employees to run ( http://www.rlt.com/ )

It shows...hehe, but seriously is there any reason why I should feel like I've taken a trip back to 1994 when I look at your website? How many potential sales are lost due to the amateurish website? If I were you I would invest a few bucks in a redesign or perhaps partner with a bigger retail outfit like Amazon. The business may be profitable now but imagine how much more profitable it could be with a better look and brand image, especially considering that you are in retail sales.

Digital technology DEFINITELY increases productivity, and decreases it too. It's all about the people, and what they do with it. It's not about spending money by any means.

Case in point- Using almost exclusively freeware and extremely cheap hardware, I've been able to create and build a company that needs only TWO employees to run ( http://www.rlt.com/ ). And it makes a good income for both of us. Both of us are IT capable. Both of us know how to use digital technologies to our advantage.

Digital technology is the TOOL. Henry Ford said that if you need a tool, and you don't buy it, you end up paying for it anyway but you don't get to use it. Do tools make us more productive? Ask any carpenter to give up power tools and see what he says. By the same token, give a hopeless amateur a world-class workshop and the best materials to work with, and any chair he makes will still wobble. But give a master craftsman a hammer, a chisel and some scrap wood, and he'll make you a chair that will be sturdy, strong and will last a lifetime. It's all about the people, their skills, and their tools. I'd like to see any modern company try to compete without any computers in today's world.

Want to be more productive? Make more money? YOU are the master carpenter! And mostly, your employers are the hopeless amateurs who are using you as the tool! When I finally figured that out, I started my own business and I've never looked back.

As programmers and sysadmins, you have some incredible advantages over most MBAs. You have LOGIC. You are CREATIVE. You have a propensity for PROBLEM SOLVING. You can think through and visualize a plan of action from beginning to end. You can change course and re-program the system when requirements change. You know that very few, if any, projects are ever really finished. You're a hacker who knows how to shoot from the hip to get a job done on deadline, even if it isn't "elegant". You know that "Done" usually only means "it works at the moment and when it breaks, we'll fix it". Guess what, these qualities plus a willingness to try and fail then try again are what make entrepreneurs successful. Another advantage you have is that you won't have to hire some expensive tech guy to do your programming/sysadmin/DBA stuff for you. I can't count how many people have asked me who does my web sites. It's fun to watch the blank stare on their faces when I tell them "I did".

In short, don't BE the tool, USE the tool. Skills first, equipment second.

I concur with this posting. Not only do I have a four year old and a two year old in the same situation, I also happen to own a toy business - http://www.rlt.com/

My observation of not only my own kids, but also of my customers, is that kids really prefer to use toys they can learn something from, without feeling like they're being taught. In other words, they want to explore and discover things on their own.

Give them a toy that only seems exciting, and they'll play with it for five minutes and put it away forever. Give them something where they can learn a skill, and they'll keep playing with it. Case in point - The Hula Hoop, legos or a frisbee vs. 99% of the colorful cheap crap on toy shelves today.

Same with Tech toys. Tech toys that amuse adults are designed to capture your attention within a few seconds, and get you to buy it. Just like a Roger Corman film. Once you've bought the ticket, what's in the box doesn't really matter. Colors, shapes and cool noises won't make a toy a good one.

Here's another example- recently, I took my kids to Utah. The skiing wasn't so hot, so we went to a place called "The Treehouse." It's a playroom for kids, crammed with all sorts of toys and adventures. We spent the whole day there, and to my surprise the most popular thing was a block toy called Kapla.

Kapla is just wooden sticks, all the same. 1/4" x 1" x 4". There were about 4000 of them in a big wheelbarrow, and a few pictures of some amazing things that people have built with them. Kids loved to try and duplicate what they saw in the pictures with the blocks. Meanwhile, in another part of the exhibit, a very friendly looking robotic grandma waited to read stories to anyone who would sit in her lap. No one did. They were all playing with the Kapla blocks. I watched a three year old girl build a tower over several attempts, until she finally made it taller than she was.

The lesson I learned was that hi-tech or not, the best toys offer kids the opportunity for discovery and achievement. Any hi-tech toy that's just tech for tech's sake gets boring pretty quickly. Old tech can be pretty cool too. One of my most popular products is a catapult - http://www.catapultkits.com/ - high tech from 800 years ago! The feedback I get from parents is that nothing has gotten their kids more excited about learning math than the catapult, and the equations for calculalting range and efficiency that come with it. "That egg only went 100 feet. How can we get it to clear the fence?!" Longer sling? More counterweight? Different release angle? -- opportunities to explore...

I've read all these posts, and they almost exclusively focus on the music business and a little on the book business. But what about the rest of us little businesses who would not, could not exist without the Internet?

In 2000, I shocked my friends when I told them I was going to start a business selling catapult kits ( http://www.trebuchet.com/ http://www.catapultkits.com/ http://www.mangonel.com/ http://www.trebuchetplans.com/ and more). "Who needs a catapult kit?" was the reaction I got. "People do." was my response. I told them I'd sell my kits on the Internet- this was just after the big dot-com stock market meltdown. Because of that meltdown, all too many people believed that e-commerce was a doomed business and that I was a fool.

Maybe I am a fool, but I started my business with about $200 (not a typo- two hundred dollars), a digital camera and a fistfull of open source software. I spent zero dollars on marketing, zero dollars on advertising, and after a few months, I was already profitable.

Now I employ myself and some other people too. It's a very small niche market. So small, that it's actually NOT cost effective to manufacture these things in China (I tried). It's such a small niche market, that if I had to spend any money on advertising, I wouldn't survive. I tried actually- Radio, magazines, direct mail (not spam!) even a few appearances on TV. None was cost effective. Not even Google's AdSense is cost effective for my product line.

So, I live by the internet. I do no advertising other than a simple affiliate model. It's a widely distributed market, impossible to target. Thanks to the search engines, I don't have to find my market, they can find me.

Without the Internet, I wouldn't be in business. I am a cell in the long, long tail of niche businesses that simply do not make sense for a brick and mortar world, but thrive in cyberspace.

The long tail is real. My business is proof of that.

http://www.rlt.com/

My 5 year old daughter broke a window while no one was looking. She wanted to avoid being punished, so when I asked her what happened, she told me a lion had jumped through the window and that's how it was broken.

On pressing her for details, I remembered that we had watched a TV show where a lion jumped through a hoop in a circus act. She also knows that birds occasionally fly into the windows- we've had to clean up the carcasses and go through that explanation several times. But, using pure logic, and knowing that no one was here to see otherwise, she concluded that it was logical to tell me that a lion was walking by and jumped through the window because he didn't know the window was closed. Apparently he jumped in because he wanted a drink of water from our toilet- like the dogs. It was beautiful logic coming from a 5 year old! But, as you can see, what you don't know can truly ruin your day when it comes to haphazardly applied logic.

One degree Farhenheit, multiplied by the volume of the entire atmosphere, is an incredible amount of heat energy. All that extra energy sloshing around can make some pretty nasty storms, and it can shift global rainfall patterns too. Remember Etheopia in the 1980s? Where is your food grown? Are you prepared to get it from somewhere else?

That chemical you asked about- how's this logic:
1. We burn a measureable amount of fossil fuel each year.
2. It's well known how much CO2 that produces.
3. We know how much CO2 we're putting in the air.
4. We know how much the atmospheric CO2 has been rising over the last 100 years, and there is a correlation.
5. We know that CO2, among other things, traps heat.
6. New research is showing that the earth should have trapped much more heat than it has, but, atmoshperic particulates (smog, smoke, con trails, etc.) are blocking some of the sun's energy- as much as 10% it seems. That's why we cooled between 1940 and 1980, but now the CO2 heat-trap is catching up. IF we clean up our act in terms of particle pollution, we could actually increase the rate of global warming without any new CO2 going into the air.
7. Cars and trucks are not the biggest source of CO2, it's the coal fired electric generating plants. While they're still in business, those silly little hybrid vehicles are entirely pointless.
8. Another chemical marker produced by coal fired power plants is mercury. Consumer Reports has advised, based on EPA data, that pregnant women should NOT eat tuna in any form due to concentrated mercury poisining.
How's that for a chemical marker?

Pure logic, without empirical observations and testable hypothesis, is little better than religion.

In other words, it's equally succeptible to abuses by arrogance and ego.

-----------

Keep my family fed, visit http://www.rlt.com/ today!

--

Keep my family fed. Visit http://www.RLT.com Today!

After I stopped laughing, I'd say "Sure, I could, but a computer is not necessarily the best place for it". I would explain that computers and automated systems are excellent for routine, highly predictable things, but after years and years of research and experimentation, the US Marines and the US Navy couldn't get computerized control rooms to work out very well.

Their solution, the one that worked best of all, was colored T-shirts for crew, and a scale model of the aircraft carrier in the control room. The scale model has coins and other tokens on it that represent aircraft, fuel, bombs, people, etc. And people are there moving the tokens around in real time, so at a glance, all the decision makers were on the same page and knew the entire scene. The interface is simple- childishly simple and effective. No training required. Also, the tokens can be shifted to "try out" a scenario too. Sure, a big-ass LCD screen with digital tokens could be used to do the same thing. But would it be cheaper or more effective? Especially in a battle situation?

Was is also a creative excersize as much as anything- perhaps moreso. So far, you can't automate that.

--

Keep my family fed! Visit RLT.com today!

www.RLT.com (My own)

As long as we're advertising web sites like Amazon, Ebay and Fishes inc., I might as well get a plug too.

"He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks." -- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I know many people who've started small business, even one who sells software on-line. In every case, they started producing and selling first, then went on to find out what documents and licenses they were supposed to have gotten. I know of one person who went for an entire year before learning that he even needed a business license in Los Angeles.

But guess what- the city, the county, the state, the national government, they all want the same thing, your tax dollars. It's not in their interest to shut you down, instead, they're well aware that by "helping" you become compliant, they'll get more revenues in the long run.

It's not my main business, but I sell software on-line too. Starting a business is trivial. Here's the steps I took:

1. Get a credit card with about $10,000 available. This will be your line of credit.
2. Scrape up about $200 in cash.
3. Open a bank account.
4. Get a PayPal account linked to that bank account.
5. Web site, product, start selling.
6. Establish a (small) market, then look for someone (Lawyer, Accountant) who can help figure out whether to incorporate and how. Use a professional.
7. Ask your bank to help you with your merchant account and taking credit cards on-line. It's easy.
8. Be frugal, but don't be afraid to spend money where it's needed. Henry Ford said "If you need a tool but you don't buy it, you pay for it anyway but don't get to use it."
9. Always be ready to adapt.
10. Customer service really does matter. Remember, your market IS your business.

One thing I learned from all those MBAs is that nothing is permanent. Put a stick in the mud, and you can always move it. Pricing, location, corporate status (Sole Prop, LLC, C-Corp, S-Corp, LLP, etc..) number of employees, bank accounts, payment options... Just details. They can all be adjusted. First you have to build your MARKET. Without a market, you have no business.

Here's the funny part- I've worked for several of those dot-coms who's names you'd recognize but which no longer exist. On average, they were funded with about a hundred million each (yes, dollars). Each one hired as many people as they thought were needed to do all the things- dozens, if not a hundred or more people on payroll... At lunch with a CEO and VP of marketing one day, I confided that I thought the best way to approach business on-line was to start as small as possible and build a niche first, then add to it. Both those MBAs laughed at me! It took about a year, but I finally quit and walked away from all those stock options. They turned out to be worthless of course. And out of all those companies, the one I started with $200 and a credit card is the only one that still exists.

As programmers, you have some incredible advantages over most MBAs. You have LOGIC. You are CREATIVE. You have a propensity for PROBLEM SOLVING. You can think through and visualize a plan of action from beginning to end. You can change course and re-program the system when requirements change. You know that very few, if any, projects are ever really finished. You're a hacker who knows how to shoot from the hip to get a job done on deadline, even if it isn't "elegant". You know that "Done" usually only means "it works at the moment and when it breaks, we'll fix it". Guess what, these qualities plus a willingness to try and fail then try again are what make entrepreneurs successful. Another advantage you have is that you won't have to hire some expensive tech guy to do your programming/sysadmin/DBA stuff for you. I can't count how many people have asked me who does my web sites. It's fun to watch the blank stare on their faces when I tell them "I did".

In the 1990s I was a very highly paid consultant (pure techie) and a VP at one well-funded dot-com, but I've been in business for myself six years now, and it's great to be the one who calls the shots. I'll never go b