
Pothole crushing invention is game-changer: What it teaches us - rmason
https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/columnists/josh-linkner/2018/04/07/josh-linkner-creative-business-solutions/493144002/
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bjterry
It sometimes feels as if I've entered into a strange simulacrum of reality
when I end up on websites like that. It has the logo of a known (albeit pretty
trashy) newspaper business at the top, but it is being entirely staffed by
aliens.

These aliens don't know how tumors are extracted... because you don't cut
perfect rounds out of the patient's body and fill it with bio-compatible
spackle. Neither do the aliens think it odd to describe a concept in the same
terms as actually physically instantiated concepts, what we would normally
call "inventions." Finally, the aliens draw a nonsensical relationship between
this non-existent invention and _my business_ and the lessons that I can learn
from it.

I understand conceptually how we have ended up in this world, but every once
in a while I am again surprised.

~~~
netsharc
"The large truck uses artificial intelligence, Internet-enabled sensors,
machine learning and advanced robotics".

It certainly is describing a very "tick all the buzzword checkboxes" machine.
"The sensors are Internet-enabled? Such modern! (/doge)"

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bradleybuda
Video of (I think) the machine referred to:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi3OvXrboGs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi3OvXrboGs)

~~~
twic
It's not clear to me that there's anything more than a video yet.

If you accept their invitation to visit their website, you will find a lot
more very detailed CGI of ambitious civil engineering projects:

[http://www.dahirinsaat.com/en/2015-12-09-18-23-52/videos.htm...](http://www.dahirinsaat.com/en/2015-12-09-18-23-52/videos.html)

I could be wrong, but i suspect this company is some sort of extended flight
of fancy for someone who is either good at CGI, or wealthy enough to afford a
lot of it.

~~~
pySSK
> I could be wrong, but i suspect this company is some sort of extended flight
> of fancy for someone who is either good at CGI, or wealthy enough to afford
> a lot of it.

Seems like it. Their YouTube is a treasure trove of unfundable and impractical
bad ideas. It's an interesting blend of ekistics, vacuum tubes and conveyor
belts and more conveyor belts. Their restaurant concept is hilarious.

The truck is basically a 3-axis CNC mill. It's a bad idea because:

\- road surfaces are complex and are not always flat

\- stuff underneath road surfaces are complex

\- a truck carrying all those slabs of granite all the time is going to cause
more potholes

\- hardness differential between road asphalt and granite plugs is going to
cause more damage down the road

All their other ideas are similarly easily refutable.

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privacypoller
>> The large truck uses artificial intelligence, Internet-enabled sensors,
machine learning and advanced robotics

Oh to be playing buzzword bingo during this boardroom presentation!

It's unclear how "real" this solution is, but this type of invention can be
very profitable. When I was a kid we had a family friend who built animal
control fences along major highways in Western Canada. That means lots of
rocky ground and traditional fence post pounders shatter a lot of posts; he
said bids accounted for 10-15% waste where the post would hit a pumpkin-sized
rock and get pounded into firewood. His innovation applied constant hydraulic
pressure and vibrated the post instead of pounding it. Rocks would be pushed
to the side and bubble up above ground, leading to breakage of < 1%.

Another example is daylighting services that excavate in complex areas, like
around electric and gas pipelines. Rather than the super dangerous and
disruptive act of digging it up with heavy equipment they use high-power water
to dislodge the material and vacuum up the slurry. They can go into a busy
city center, work around all sorts of infrastructure and barely disrupt
regular activities.

I'm not sure how much ML, internet-enabled _anything_ or blockchain is
required but these solutions are no less cool as far as I'm concerned.

~~~
rmason
You're calling the Detroit Free Press trashy? You realize that this 'trashy'
paper has won six Pulitzer prizes?

You may not realize that the author of this article is a well known serial
entrepreneur (ePrize) who also started Detroit Venture Partners with
billionaire Dan Gilbert and Magic Johnson.

Also eighteen years ago (though he barely knew me) got me my first meeting
with a VC. He won't remember it because he does stuff like that all the time.

~~~
bjterry
Actually I was referring to USA Today as trashy, and they've won even more
awards:
[http://static.usatoday.com/about/awards/](http://static.usatoday.com/about/awards/)

I appreciate the information you have provided and I'm sure he's a wonderful
person. It's not the author I'm talking about, it's the entire system that
encourages entrepreneurs to write articles like this for SEO and to
participate in the attention economy.

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dlwdlw
Rather than trying to bespoke solve things. Reduce the problem into a common
interface.

~~~
kristianp
Sounds like you're writing a design pattern!

