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?"
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 [wikipedia.org] (with its own "navy" and "air force")and then half-jokingly seceded from the United States something like 20 years ago.
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 appa
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.
Kamen is far from poor, and his products are quite popular in the markets he targets.
The Segway isn't that popular, but I don't really see that as a problem: it's quite nifty for the people it would help, Segway polo looks fun, but for most people it's simply not worth the cost of owning it and the hassle of moving it around when you're not using it.
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.
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.
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
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.
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...
...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."
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.
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.
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.
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 [swarthmore.edu]. 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.
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 stil
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 pr
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
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.
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 wh
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.
...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
If you want to get clean water from non-clean water, there are plenty of systems available. Here's a small watermaker [appliedmembranes.com] 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. [appliedmembranes.com] 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.
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.
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 investm
My understanding of Sterling-cycle engines is that the greater the delta in temperature between the heat source and the heat sink, the greater the efficiency. Mobile applications have only air for a heat sink, and thus are non-ideal. Where Sterling-cycle makes since is in a stationary generator, preferably on the coast, where you can pump up cold water from the depths to get your greatest heat differential. The ideal location would be the Hawaiian islands, with geothermal heat and deep ocean in close proxim
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.
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 [wipo.int], 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 [ibotnow.com], 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.
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.
Yes, this is complete and utter bullshit. I thought it was greasemonkey acting up, but then I disabled it and wham, still looks ugly like hell. Great, now my user control panel looks like the ugly-ass idle pages.
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...
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.
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.
question (Score:4, Funny)
has he managed to solve the pickle matrix in his hamburger earmuffs yet?
Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org] (with its own "navy" and "air force")and then half-jokingly seceded from the United States something like 20 years ago.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Funny)
Nice segue.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 appa
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It must be run by Oompa Loompa's
Sterling != Stirling (Score:5, Informative)
C'mon folks, if you're gonna pretend to be geeks, at least get it right - it's Stirling technology, not Sterling.
Re: (Score:2)
Kamen needs to invent a marketing machine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Kamen is far from poor, and his products are quite popular in the markets he targets.
The Segway isn't that popular, but I don't really see that as a problem: it's quite nifty for the people it would help, Segway polo looks fun, but for most people it's simply not worth the cost of owning it and the hassle of moving it around when you're not using it.
Genius? (Score:5, Insightful)
And kudos to him for seceding from the union!
Better water purification (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, the best new water purification device comes from Seldon Technology. It uses carbon nanotubes and doesn't need electricity.
Re:Better water purification (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Better water purification (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:Better water purification (Score:5, Funny)
Uhm, trying putting the straw in your mouth instead :-)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Use your arms (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Funny)
ah screw it, I'll just strain it through my moustache like I usually do.
Parent
Way to go Dean (Score:2)
If you can get these devices distributed throughout Mexico you can crush their feeble electricity distribution infrastructure.
Plan, through, think cunning.
Re:Way to go Dean (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Parent
Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable. (Score:3, Insightful)
...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. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [newsday.com].
Parent
Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Read the Document (Score:3, Interesting)
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 stil
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 pr
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 wh
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...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
Seceded? Secluded? (Score:2)
But is his water-maker better? Cheaper? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to get clean water from non-clean water, there are plenty of systems available. Here's a small watermaker [appliedmembranes.com] 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. [appliedmembranes.com] 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: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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 investm
typo in headline (Score:3, Funny)
Inside Dean Kamen's Seceded Island of Greekery
There, fixed it for you.
Dean Kamen should stick to medical devices (Score:2)
Re:Dean Kamen should stick to medical devices (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Cult of the Armchair Zeroes (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wipo.int], 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 [ibotnow.com], 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.
Parent
Genius and marketing not necessarily hand in hand (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Yes, this is complete and utter bullshit. I thought it was greasemonkey acting up, but then I disabled it and wham, still looks ugly like hell. Great, now my user control panel looks like the ugly-ass idle pages.
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Re:Something completely different.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
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Re:Something completely different.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Personally, I consider that a feature, not a bug.
Re:not impressed (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.