

Who Made That? - sethbannon
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/magazine/2013/innovations-issue/

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leoedin
Anyone who argues that innovation has stagnated in the last 50 years is
ignoring the thing that has changed the innovation process the most. Computers
aren't just an innovation in themselves, but also provide a tool for the
design of new things which is completely unparalleled in the past. Maybe we
haven't seen the step-change of the internal combustion engine (at least in
physical designs), but that doesn't mean that innovation is stagnant.

Pointing towards useless inventions as proof that we're not solving the big
problems is utterly ridiculous. We may remember the 19th century for the
industrial revolution, but the victorians were churning out countless useless
inventions at the same time. Just as we don't remember the victorians for
their moustache guards, it seems to me that this decade is far more likely to
be remembered for the self driving car than the popcorn gun.

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DesaiAshu
I'd love to see a "who made that" google glass app, where you can look at any
object and glass will generate a paragraph on the origins of the object.

If you could find a way to isolate the object from what the camera sees /
white out the rest of the image, you could search for similar images on google
to figure out what the object was. Then scan wiki / a few other sources to
generate origin info.

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reeses
I would never make it out of the house. It would be like contemplating your
hand while in an altered state of consciousness.

My wife would find me after a week, looking at the p-trap under the kitchen
sink, saying,"whoaaaaa..."

Then she would run fast and far, because she knows I don't forget these things
and I love to share the info with anyone who will listen.

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gregorkas
Is anyone else stuck on advertisement? :S

~~~
jonsen
NAVIGATION - upper left

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gregorkas
Actually the Navigation toolbar disappears on Advertisement in Chrome. But
thanks anyway :)

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emhart
Very pleased to have spoken to the author of the section on "keys" and locks
for a good long while. Seeing the final product, and knowing now how brief he
was going to have to be, I am impressed by his committed interest. We talked
for at least a solid hour and covered everything from the ancient
Mesopotamians to every modern variant of the mechanical lock. That he would
want to know everything in order to write a brief synopsis, I think, speaks
highly of him.

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adolph
Not you. You didn't make that.

