Invention of the Day: Barbed Wire.

Railroads opened up the American West to farmers and entrepreneurs.  To secure their large newly acquired properties, prevent crops from being trampled by cattle, and for many other purposes, they needed a way to build cheap fences. The old method of erecting wooden fences didn't scale because wood was either not available on the prairie or too expensive to transport in large quantities. Simple wire fences, though cheap to build, didn't work either because they were too easy on trespassers, both people and cattle.

In 1873, J.F. Glidden invented the barbed wire fence, as we know today. According to his invention, the barbs on the wire fence didn't rotate around the wire itself, providing two-sided rigid thorns.

Ten years later, Edenborn and Griesche invented a barbed wire machine that greatly improved the efficiency of making the wire.

 

In the 20th century, barbed wire was extensively used by the military to create defensive positions.

I thank Paul Henderson, whose father was a barbed wire collector, for alerting me to this remarkable invention.

tags: invention, efficiency, problem, evolution, productivity, history

The optimal number of legs is between 2 and 3

VentureBeat has a post with various metrics for startups, trying to capture the relationship between success and the team's level of commitment, technical expertise, ability to adapt to market requirements, etc.

I found it interesting that the most successful number of founders is 2 to 3, which is the same number recommended for problem–solving work. Generally, a person working alone can come up with better ideas than a group, but doing it alone is very difficult psychologically: tough problems tend to be frustrating, the problem-solver needs a lot of persistence, social support, access to additional information, and friendly criticism. As the team grows over the magic number of 3, tensions increase, social loafing kicks in, and productivity suffers. There's even what is called Philippe's Law for software development productivity, which states that a team's productivity declines by the factor of cube root of number of people on the team:

Continuing with team numerology, the theory of social information in small worlds says that the optimal number of worlds for discovering useful information is between 2 and 3, but closer to 2. With the new data from startup research, the magic number seems to gravitate to the same value.

tags: psychology, social, network, productivity, startup,

The association is urging locals to come up with their own ideas for the area's gardens and post them in the online world of Second Life, where people create virtual doubles of themselves called avatars.

Accomplir will shortlist five of the best projects, which will then be displayed on an island in Second Life.

The winner will be announced at the end of June and receive a reward of 275,000 linden dollars (785 euros, £530), the currency used in Second Life.

Accomplir will then go to the town hall with the winning idea, aiming to put pressure on officials to speed up the redevelopment process.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6544377.stm

The alternative universe provides more opportunities for influencing the so-called real life. Blogging was just the beginning of the evolution. With regard to ideas, virutal world is a lot more productive than the material one. The selection process is also very scalable.