Inside Dean Kamen's Seceded Island of Geekery

mattnyc99 writes "The new issue of Esquire has a long, in-depth, intricate profile of Dean Kamen and his quest to invent a better world. Earlier this month, we discussed Kamen's Sterling-electric car, but this piece goes into much more detail about how that engine works — he got the original idea from the upmodded Henry Ford artifact in the basement of his insane island lab — and about how his inventions often go overlooked, including the Slingshot water purifier that Stephen Colbert made famous but that no one has actually bought yet. Quoting: 'To get the Slingshot to the 20 percent of the world that doesn't have electricity, Kamen came up with the idea of splitting it in half. Leaving the Stirling aside, he would try to develop a market for his distiller in parts of the developing world that have electricity but not reliable clean water. "There are five hundred thousand little stores in Mexico," he says. "If we can put one of these in 10 percent of them, that's enough to put it in production." That may be the killer app for the distiller.' So, is this guy all hype with overpriced devices, or is time for someone to take his genius (Segway aside) to the mass market?"

Comments

question

[larry bagina]

has he managed to solve the pickle matrix in his hamburger earmuffs yet?

Or...

[Zordak]

So is this guy all hype with overpriced devices, or is time for someone to take his genius (Segway aside) to the mass market?

Or is he, as the title implies but the summary fails to make clear, a guy who has made tons of money selling stuff he's invented since the 80s, and has made enough money that he bought his own private island (with its own "navy" and "air force")and then half-jokingly seceded from the United States something like 20 years ago.

Re:Or...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice segue.

Re:Or...

[fprintf]

I grew up sailing in Fisher's Island Sound, off the coast of Connecticut. We sailed by North Dumpling hundreds of times over the years. At some point in the 80s we noticed a lot more activity on the island than we had seen before, and this must be the point that Dean bought it. Suddenly there was a nice helicopter atop the island, and a grey amphibious landing craft always on the beach. We *never* saw anyone outside, certainly not any hot young things sunning themselves on the upper deck... this guy is apparently not James Bond, despite his penchant for bondian-type toys.

Anyway, it is a very cool spread. Personally I think anyone that owns an island like that should be able to seceed from the union, providing he pays for the protection afforded by the Groton sub base and can afford the duties/tariffs on any exports from CT! :-)

Re:Or...

[TheRealMindChild]

We *never* saw anyone outside

It must be run by Oompa Loompa's

Sterling != Stirling

[MikeV]

C'mon folks, if you're gonna pretend to be geeks, at least get it right - it's Stirling technology, not Sterling.

Kamen needs to invent a marketing machine

[DustyCase]

There are a lot of great R&D guys out there who have no idea how to get their product into the consumer's hands. Kamen started out making medical equipment (portable dialysis IIRC), and the Segway is the little brother of one of the best mobility devices (wheelchairs) in existence. But his track record is horrible when it comes to mass market devices. OTOH, you have the iPod, which is a very functional and stylish, yet underperforming, piece of technology, and the sell like mad. If he wants to turn the trend around he needs to spend some of that mountain of cash on a top shelf PR and Marketing firm, as opposed to the stunt publicity that "announced" the Segway.

Re:Kamen needs to invent a marketing machine

[Anonymous Coward]

There are very few inventors who have had the incredible mass market exposure that Kamen has enjoyed over the last ten years.

If his inventions during this interval have met with less than stellar success, it is certainly NOT because they were sheltered away.

They are super cool, but they just miss the market.

Genius?

[retech]

Next time you need kidney dialysis you won't need to question his genius.

And kudos to him for seceding from the union!

Better water purification

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the best new water purification device comes from Seldon Technology. It uses carbon nanotubes and doesn't need electricity.

Re:Better water purification

[Tastecicles]

there's a survival kit device that is basically a straw with a filter laminate in it - the claim is that you can stick the end of this thing in raw sewage, suck on it and get a drink of pure water. Not something I'd try myself for gits and shiggles, but I have half a dozen of these in my "End of Civilisation" bag so if it does come down to it, I'm not going thirsty. Caveat: it doesn't filter out radioactive particulates, so sticking it in a river estuary after a nuclear strike would be a no-no.

Re:Better water purification

[snspdaarf]

Have you ever tried one of these straws? Even with clean water, you will collapse your asshole trying to suck anything through them. I used to think they were a slick idea, until I tried one.

Re:Better water purification

[Tastecicles]

I've not actually cracked one of these yet (saving them for a real emergency), but I do get the principle by which it works:

first layer: particle filtration
second layer: germ filtration
third layer: chemical filtration

is basically it. So, using common, all-garden kitchen equipment, and a glass tube out of a barometer, you can build a gravity-fed system using nothing more than a couple coffee filter papers or percolator mesh in a funnel for large particle filtration, a top layer of sand for smaller particles and large monocellular organisms (ie amoebae), crushed charcoal for general germ filtration and mix bed ion exchange resin (available from good camping stores and water treatment specialists; also electrodialysis membrane can be used but that makes life a little more complicated) for finishing and chemical purification. Such a basic system works, doesn't cost a mortgage to set up or operate and *requires no electricity*. Depending on how dirty the water is to begin with, you can reuse filters x number of times before you either have to replace the column substrates or occasionally you can backwash them using distilled water (providing you're anywhere near a source!) and use them again as if from new.

Commercial water filters such as the Brita range uses only mix bed IER. You can tell the difference if you live in a hard water area as the filter substrate does in fact work to remove base metals (and chlorine!) from solution. I have a filter I bought from ASDA two years ago; it uses the same cartridge it came with, I've never seen the need to replace it as a backwash of distilled water once a month whether it needs it or not is all it takes to refresh the resin and have it working like new again.

Re:Better water purification

[Rude Turnip]

Uhm, trying putting the straw in your mouth instead :-)

Re:Better water purification

[c_forq]

What about reversing it? Like make a water tower above it funneling down to a spicket with a fitting for the tube in the end?

Re:Better water purification

[HungSoLow]

There's a goatse.cx joke looming in your post...

Re:Better water purification

[BForrester]

Yeah... whoa. That's totally *not* what reverse osmosis means.

Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[the_macman]

...including the Slingshot water purifer that Stephen Colbert made famous but that no one has actually bought yet

Unfortunately philanthropy won't ever take off unless it's profitable. Just an inherit part of human greed. Sad but true. We have MORE than enough food to feed the entire human population, yet people still starve to death.

Case in point. For those of you who have seen Charlie Wilson's war, they end up giving millions of dollars in arms money to Afghanistan to repel the Russian invasion then when they ask for a million dollars to help rebuild the schools a US politician says, "Charlie, no one gives a shit about the schools."

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[jfengel]

Unfortunately philanthropy won't ever take off unless it's profitable.

When it's profitable, they don't call it "philanthropy". They call it "business".

There are plenty of important philanthropists out there, willing to spend money at a "loss" in financial terms. Most notably, Bill Gates is spending more money than the entire network of all of Slashdot's readers to try to cure malaria and other global development programs. Carnegie Mellon University is the result of a massive philanthropic donation.

I'd say philanthropy has already taken off, despite not being profitable, because a lot of people think that there's more to life than profit. They have to start with the profit to make the money to donate, but they don't end there.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[SydShamino]

Unfortunately philanthropy won't ever take off unless it's profitable. Just an inherit part of human greed. Sad but true.

That's one reason why we should bring back massive (i.e. 90%) inheritance taxes. We need to force rich aging people to recognize their own finality. They can then choose four options:

1) Pass on the money while they still live, giving gifts to family/friends under the tax limits each year for many years.

2) Pass on the money while they still live, giving it to charity with no limits.

3) Allow the money to go to charity when they die, with no limits.

4) Have the government take most of it.

The option 4) in my list above, brought about by the 90% inheritance tax, replaces the current option 4) Keep a death grip on money and power in their family until the day they die, then have their children reach in and take over that grip.

Honestly, I'm not sure why we as a society would like the old option four at all. I agree that (living) people have a right to do what they wish with their acquired wealth (with some limits). And, once someone dies, it's nice to be able to respect their wishes. But if people know that the new option four is inevitable if they don't make their own choices while they live, or give it all to charity when they die, we'll all see more philanthropy and a better world.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[Beezlebub33]

...including the Slingshot water purifer that Stephen Colbert made famous but that no one has actually bought yet

Unfortunately philanthropy won't ever take off unless it's profitable. Just an inherit part of human greed.

So, how do you make his things profitable? The water purification process seems pretty good, but there's a serious problem getting it to market.

Seems like the best way to do it is to make it profitable for the little stores, which means that they need to be able to get the device and power and maintain it for less than they can make selling the water. Maybe through microloans or something like that.

The real difficult part here is the maintenance and energy costs. If he really wanted to get it everywhere, the thing to do is to design it such that it could be built and maintained in a poor place, then give the plans away, so that small entrepreneurs could make them to sell to the small stores. And then he'd do the same with a cheap, efficient Stirling engine to power it.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[madsenj37]

Inheritance tax like many other ideas has merit to it, but when implemented is not actually a good idea. I do not stand to inherit much in the scheme of things, but would be pissed if the government took it away. I do chores and general upkeep at my parents house. I save them money and keep the house valuable. They keep money in their pocket, in banks, the stock market etc, and keep the economy going. The same goes for rich people. Just because they are filthy rich, does not mean that their kids have not help maintain some of the parents goings on. How do you judge what filthy rich is and who is deserving? Rich people keep much of their money invested and keep the economy going. That is how they stay rich. That is how Americas stays strong. There is too much bloat in the American government. Reduce that spending, because taxes are high enough. I recommend that you read Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth. The gist of it is this: The rich have a moral obligation to do good while still living, but not a financial one. Hopefully you do not believe in forcing morals on someone else. Otherwise, you stand for man and woman marriage only, no drugs, prudence, etc. and are not much for tolerance.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[demonlapin]

The problem with this, of course, is that if you have enough money, you can create your own charity. Said charity can then employ your descendants to perform not-too-difficult jobs for rather-higher-than-average salaries.

If you have upwards of $10-$20M, this is a completely valid way to do things The hit in high inheritance taxes falls on those with just enough to be taxable but not enough to fund ways around it.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[msblack]

Sometimes philanthropy has negative side effects that we didn't expect. In the case of the Gates Foundation, medical professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa are bypassing jobs in the local communities where their help is desperately needed. Instead, they are taking cushy well-paid positions with the GF inoculating children against deadly diseases or treating AIDS patients. The downside is that routine medical care is in short supply as workers flock to the high-paying positions to fight sexy epidemics. The big loser is basic health care.

More from here.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[canUbeleiveIT]

That's one reason why we should bring back massive (i.e. 90%) inheritance taxes. We need to force rich aging people to recognize their own finality.

I fail to see why wanting to transfer my hard-earned wealth to my children is any of the government's business.

The problem with your plan is that many of the supposed "rich" are merely people who have been prudent with their money by investing in their retirement from an early age instead of blowing it on new cars and oversized houses. Why should people who are thrifty enough to resist the consumer mentality be penalized?

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[theLOUDroom]

Rich people keep much of their money invested and keep the economy going. That is how they stay rich. That is how Americas stays strong.

Do you think having a bunch of useless Paris Hilton's is what makes out economy strong?

First off, money doesn't disappear. If there's a million dollars when someone dies and 90% of it goes to the gov't, that million dollars doesn't simply blink out of existence.

Second, labor generates wealth, not money.
People with money, make money because they own the means of production and society forces us to pay them for the use of this.

Take your idea to the extreme. Imagine I personally owned every square inch of land on the planet. All I do is sit on my ass and collect rent checks. I inherited this land from my parents and my children with inherit it from me.
Do you really think that helps society?
All it really does is suck money out of the economy. I do nothing. I get checks anyways.

This simple thought example proves how fundamentally flawed your reasoning is. If you admit that it would be bad for me to own every square inch of land on the planet, then you must then open the discussion regarding "How much is too much?" and "What do we do when some hits that limit?"

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[theLOUDroom]

So all of this money you collect, you just sit there with it?

You don't get it.
Yes I have money I can spend on a 100 foot mega-yach that otherwise could have paid for 1,000 people's college educations. Yes that will "create jobs".

The thing you just don't comprehend is that I never created any wealth to get that money. Someone else did all the work. I never even managed anything, I just collect checks.

This is money that someone else had to earn, but that goes to me. If it didn't go to me, it could go to the gov't or to the guy who created the wealth in the first place. The money going to me is a de-motivator for the people who actually drive the economy.

The thing you haven't shown is that I would do something that is any better for the economy than any or person or the gov't. Your theorizing is all trickle-down economics. Rich people aren't rich because the give their money away in order to stimulate the economy. Rich people horde their money and use it as a tool to get more money. As more and more money is sucked out of the working class, the reward for actually doing work becomes less and less. Everyone then suffers. While college educations for 1000 people would have employed as least as many people as building my mega-yacht, it has far reaching positive impacts into the future as opposted to my yacht which is just a rich man's toy.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[The_Wilschon]

Right, and when 30-year old Mom and Dad are killed by a drunk driver while coming home from the annual Christmas party, of course the government should take 90% of the money that they have, instead of it going to fund their two kids' housing, care, food, education etc, just because they didn't have the foresight to know exactly when they would die so that they could give all their money away first. Dumkopf.

Re:Something completely different..

[techno-vampire]

I can't even view the idle pages

Personally, I consider that a feature, not a bug.

But is his water-maker better? Cheaper?

[Animats]

If you want to get clean water from non-clean water, there are plenty of systems available. Here's a small watermaker that runs on salt water. It's a reverse osmosis device, with the prefilters needed to get rid of the solid crud. Here's a simpler one for non-salt water. The U.S. military uses reverse osmosis units heavily. They work fine. They scale down to straw-sized things for survival use, and scale up to city-sized desalinization plants.

So why is Kamen's system better? Lower power consumption? Lower initial cost? Fewer consumables? The article doesn't tell us that. It's not like he's the first person to build a packaged water purifier.

Re:But is his water-maker better? Cheaper?

[sagneta]

You hit the problem I've always had with him. In fact, I could add to the list a device that extracts water right out of the air with very little power. That could be powered by electricity and solves the issue of actually getting water at all which the other devices do not. Did he ask "Is the issue lack of technology or lack of access to technology?" He never asks that question. So everything is a technological solution which is not really what the world wants nor needs.

Re:But is his water-maker better? Cheaper?

[hey!]

Yes, but capacity isn't the only dimension on which a water purification system has to "scale". How long it can operate it without resupplying filters is a relevant factor.

One of the reasons that poor people are poor is that they have to buy things in more expensive packages. We in the US have fabulously expensive infrastructure that that allows us to "buy" a teaspoon of clean water by turning the tap. Water filtration is a much more expensive, but it doesn't take the millions of dollars of investment a city water supply would. It may well be a cheaper solution in situations where people share a well and carry their cooking and drinking water home. Not cheaper per gallon, just a cheaper way to get people the minimum amount of clean water needed for health.

The sticking point, as far as I can see, is there isn't enough money dedicated to any kind of solution, whether the fabulously expensive to build but cheap per gallon first world solution, or the relatively cheap to install but expensive per gallon approach of water filtration.

If there is a place for Kamen's invention, it would be in a world that is willing to invest up front in some kind of filtration system for everybody. We do not, I suspect, live in such a world, but if we did we might be interested in ways of reducing the cost per gallon of filtered water, say by installing a system like this with solar panels.

Re:Way to go Dean

[Abreu]

Well, I am in Mexico and I can tell you that a lot of small businesses here consist on buying some midsized reverse osmosis/filtration/UV equipment and make money distributing 20 liter bottles of water in a given neighborhood.

So yeah, a lot of those small stores are already "crushing our feeble electricity distribution infrastructure", so there wouldn't be too much of a difference there. Not to mention that it is a way-too-powerful union what's crushing the electricity distribution here, but I disgress...

Re:Something completely different..

[Mr. Slippery]

it's like someone at Slashdot figured out CSS a few weeks ago and keeps messing with everything since then.

The problem seem to be that they haven't figured out CSS...if they had figured it out, these pages would be usable and non-ugly.

typo in headline

[Sleepy]

Inside Dean Kamen's Seceded Island of Greekery
There, fixed it for you.

Re:Something completely different..

[Locke2005]

You've unwittingly stumbled upon Idle's plan to take over slashdot... soon ALL of slashdot will look like Idle! Muahahaha!

Re:Dean Kamen should stick to medical devices

[TellarHK]

Thinking like that is exactly _why_ the world needs people like Dean Kamen.

Irrational engineering has led either directly or indirectly to many, many of the world's great advances. Guys like Kamen are out there on the "crazy edge" of bleeding edge, for a good reason.

Re:Something completely different..

[cayenne8]

"What the hell happened to my USER page?

It has weird new formatting...post my last post in big text at the top of the screen? That can't be good for work usage...

:)

I cannot find a way to change it back to the simple mode of just a few minutes ago....anyone?"

Ok...it is offtopic...but, how else will you find out what's going on on Slashdot when they change stuff like this? Modding topics like this to oblivion don't help when you're trying to get info out or about happenings within the forum...

Genius and marketing not necessarily hand in hand

[kaizendojo]

So, is this guy all hype with overpriced devices, or is time for someone to take his genius (Segway aside) to the mass market?"

Speaking as someone who has met Dean and worked with him on more than a few FIRST competitions, he's someone who is truly geek and lives to discover and improve things. That skill set isn't necessarily the same skills that would serve marketing and promotions people, and once Dean is set into motion he's a hard cat to stop - something you definitely want in an R&D genius.

At some point, Dean needs to do the market research before the announcement phase but if you spend even a few minutes with the guy, you can see how excited and dedicated he is to wanting to change the world in positive ways. I imagine that when you see the world in that framework, it becomes hard to contain your excitement to the meeting rooms....

Still, for one of the smartest and richest guys I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, he's extremely down to earth. Rare breed.

Not "Segway aside," but the same marketing pattern

[CadmannWeyland]

I think mattnyc99 (the poster) misses one of his own points by saying "Segway aside."

mattnyc99 points out that Kamen is trying to leverage the distiller side of the market to help fund / drive down costs to get the Stirling side of the product to market.

The technology in the Segway comes originally from a wheelchair system that Kamen and company designed and produced. The Segway was an effort to popularize the technology to drive down costs, so that the wheelchair would be much less expensive, and widely available.

At least, that's the way I see it.

Use your arms

[Nerdposeur]

People who camp often use hand-pumped versions of this to make creek water drinkable. The advantage is that you can use the muscles in your arm to pump the water instead of sucking on a straw until your face implodes.

Re:Use your arms

[Tastecicles]

ah screw it, I'll just strain it through my moustache like I usually do.

Cult of the Armchair Zeroes

[copponex]

Please, don't take this personally. I know you're just making a post on Slashdot. But why can't you even read one article about this before you make useless guesses?

After two minutes of Googling, I found this diamond in the rough, a patent application secretively titled "STIRLING ENGINE THERMAL SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS", submitted by Dean Kamen. Though you may dislike the Segway, and I can't blame you for it, the technology came from his iBot wheel chair, which is the closest thing I've seen to offering someone who doesn't have use of their legs a chance at full mobility. This has improved the lives of thousands of people. Unless you're an aid worker or another genius inventor, your comparable contributions to society are far less, without even touching his more traditional medical inventions.

So, with all due respect, before you pat yourself on the back for shooting down an idea you are totally ignorant of, stop typing and read about the idea first. Then, if you have something useful to say, the world will be glad to read about your idea, and then reply.

Read the Document

[copponex]

Carnegie at his best:

Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free ; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; intrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself.

So, a rich man knows what to do with your money, but you do not. That's individualism and freedom according to Carnegie, and not coincidentally, everyone who is sitting at the top of the caste instead of the bottom.

Well, you can stick that kind of freedom up your ass, for all I care. If the wealth belongs to the community, let the community decide how to spend it. What Carnegie describes is tyranny exerted by corporate power instead of state power, which is better in some ways, but still not good.

Re:not impressed

[2short]

You seem to have left out his first significant invention: the portable infusion pump that is now bolted to every iv stand in the industrialized world. Leaving him in a financial position where I don't think he much cares how impressed you are with his subsequent efforts.

Re:not impressed

[That's Unpossible!]

What have you invented for humanity? At any price?

Kamen has invented the portable dialysis pump, the iBot and related technologies (segway), a water filtration system ($1500 to purify 1000 liters a day), this slingshot device, and apparantly some stirling tech for developing nations.

Should the man give everything he makes away for free, or might it be OK to continue giving him another incentive to build some of these awesome devices?

You really know how to take the fun out of things, I'll bet.