Stanley Bostitch

HurriQuake Nail

This invention demonstrates the separation principles:

different parts of the nail are working against different types of destructive load.

separation in action and space

tags: interface example invention course book solution patent dilemma

also see US Patent 6,758,018

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2006/innovator_5.html

Britain's online video viewing rises at expense of TV | Tech News on ZDNet

Britain's online video viewing rises at expense of TV | Tech News on ZDNet: "The ICM poll of 2,070 people for the BBC found that some 43 percent of Britons who watch video from the Internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less traditional TV as a result.

Three quarters of users said they now watched more TV online or on mobiles than they did a year ago.

Online video viewers are still a minority though, with just 9 percent saying they go online regularly to watch clips.

Online and mobile video is far more popular among the young, with 28 percent of those aged 16 to 24 saying they watched more than once each week. That figure fell to just 4 percent among those older than 45."

tags: cluster growth video internet user experience

strategy - analysing competitive industry structure

strategy - analysing competitive industry structure: "Defining an industry

An industry is a group of firms that market products which are close substitutes for each other (e.g. the car industry, the travel industry).

Some industries are more profitable than others. Why? The answer lies in understanding the dynamics of competitive structure in an industry.

The most influential analytical model for assessing the nature of competition in an industry is Michael Porter's Five Forces Model, which is described below"

tags: control points strategy model competition

Charlie Munger : Art of Stock Picking

Charlie Munger : Art of Stock Picking: "His rule for all the Braun Company's communications was called the five W's ‑ you had to tell who was going to do what, where, when and why. And if you wrote a letter or directive in the Braun Company telling somebody to do something, and you didn't tell him why, you could get fired. In fact, you would get fired if you did it twice."

what - describes payload and method to process it; where, when - location and timing for delivery to the tool; why - makes explicit decision making process ( model ), i.e. control

tags: control quote

Charlie Munger : Art of Stock Picking

Charlie Munger : Art of Stock Picking: "What is elementary, worldly wisdom? Well, the first rule is that you can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together o�n a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form.

You've got to have models in your head. And you've got to array your experience both vicarious and direct o�n this latticework of models. You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You've got to hang experience o�n a latticework of models in your head.

What are the models? Well, the first rule is that you've got to have multiple models because if you just have o�ne or two that you're using, the nature of human psychology is such that you'll torture reality so that it fits your models, or at least you'll think it does. You become the equivalent of a chiropractor who, of course, is the great boob in medicine.

It's like the old saying, 'To the man with o�nly a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. 'And of course, that's the way the chiropractor goes about practicing medicine. But that's a perfectly disastrous way to think and a perfectly disastrous way to operate in the world. So you've got to have multiple models.

And the models have to come from multiple disciplines because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in o�ne little academic department. That's why poetry professors, by and large, are so unwise in a worldly sense. They don't have enough models in their heads. So you've got to have models across a fair array of disciplines. "

tags: model facts system evolution art quote

Official Linden Blog � Blog Archive Copyrights and Content Creation in Second Life �

Official Linden Blog � Blog Archive Copyrights and Content Creation in Second Life �: "Today I met with a large group of Residents, members of the Sellers Guild, to talk about the implications of a recently-developed LibSL product called CopyBot. CopyBot allows the user to create a replication of an object, including textures, that is fully permissive. Needless to say this product has caused tremendous worry among content creators who want to understand how its use may possibly affect their business. In particular, they are concerned about theft of their creations, and the potential for unscrupulous people to undercut their prices and essentially take away their business."

tags: virtual world economy replication system integrity control

Images: 35 years of Intel chip design | CNET News.com

Images: 35 years of Intel chip design | CNET News.com: "The 8008 microprocessor was twice as powerful as the 4004. Released by Intel in April 1972, the 8008 could process data in 8-bit chunks.

The 8008 chip was designed for Datapoint, a terminal manufacturer in Texas that couldn't pay for it at the end of the contract. To settle, Datapoint granted Intel the rights to the chip, including the instruction set, which Datapoint developed. The instruction set eventually became part of the basis for the x86 architecture behind Intel chips today."

Another example of a control point giveaway.

tags: computer processor tool control point

YouTube to call on your cell phone | CNET News.com

YouTube to call on your cell phone | CNET News.com: "YouTube, the popular online video sharing site, said on Wednesday it hopes to launch a service for wireless devices within a year.

Chad Hurley, YouTube chief executive and co-founder, told an advertising conference that offering video services on mobile phones was a key opportunity for the company.

'Within the next year we hope to have something on a mobile device, it's going to be a huge market, especially for the video mind-set we're dealing with, it's a natural transition,' Hurley said."

tags: video internet mobile tool distribution

Amazon moves deeper into selling Web logistics | CNET News.com

Amazon moves deeper into selling Web logistics | CNET News.com: "Amazon.com is turning its expertise running the world's largest online store into a kind of utility business that supplies Web logistics services to companies.

In a series of projects, some announced and some in public trials this year, the company has assembled the pieces of a strategy that positions Amazon to supply underlying computing, data storage and other services to Web businesses."

from utility computing to utility logistics

tags: logistics distribution efficiency evolution