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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?"
has he managed to solve the pickle matrix in his hamburger earmuffs yet?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
C'mon folks, if you're gonna pretend to be geeks, at least get it right - it's Stirling technology, not Sterling.
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.
Next time you need kidney dialysis you won't need to question his genius.
And kudos to him for seceding from the union!
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.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
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.
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.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
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.
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...
No sig for the moment.
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.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
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.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
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...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
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.
Uhm, trying putting the straw in your mouth instead :-)
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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.
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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.