Saturday, November 24, 2012

WASTE, Money and a Area for Innovations

"Eat what you have on your plate, many children in the world are starving," is a comment heard by many American children made by their parents. Recently when examining the cycle of food production to waste, it occurred to me we need to be to be more innovative. Add into the fact that only 50% of food produced gets actually eaten, the area needs help. Link to these facts: Food waste.  Our current state of life on this planet is unsustainable unless we find ways to better manage the resources we have. Do you want to start a business? Maybe your innovative contribution creating inventions, here are just some needs that waste presents.
  1. Wouldn't this be a better world if we could just put our information of the required food caloric needs of family members, the exact meal palatial needs, the exact amount of meals, taking into account product spoilage lengths make a printout. We would take it to the store, the producers and we only purchase what we need. Only exact purchases of the exact quantity is purchased and produced. That is one part of the need.
  2. Food products and other consumer products require shipping materials that are often just removed  and disposed. Creative and innovative shipping procedures, product production locations as well as recycling processes of the materials is need two.
  3. Matching needs with the non-edible products. The introduction of the intranet has gotten us closer to helping us reach this goal. Black Thursdays and Fridays are a great example of the problem. On these days millions of consumers waste resources such as fuel in their cars to time they could be with families and still not finding what they want or need. Can we do this step and not interrupt the consumer markets?
  4. Product sharing can help save resources of need. People have been coming up with ways to share cars, computers or creative ways to use the cloud (internet storage) to reduce the computer, notebook, camera and phone needs.  
  5. Examples of companies trying to keep this thought in mind can be good areas to invest as well. Here is a link to check out: 8 companies with results.

How You Build the Worlds Tallest Building in 90 Days

Can this be true? Just putting in the foundation is an undertaking in itself. The company that is saying that they can build the tallest building in 90 days is building most of the building in a factory setting. The world will be watching to see if this can happen. The enormousness of the project to be completed in 90 days leads many to say they don't want to go into this earthquake proof building when it is done. It seems to be a impossible task. Specifics and details at this link: CNET Post

This project will not only put China as a leader in building construction innovations but show they have some truly top project managers. I would have to add to this statement, some very cooperative city regulators. In the USA project managers would agree that city safety, building regulators and planners would have to redevelop their processes to make this happen in the United States. During building construction the inspectors can be the biggest challenge to on-time completions. However, many could argue that a USA building of this magnitude would draw less comments like, "You wouldn't catch me in that building."

Could we learn from the Chinese about this process, absolutely! We have modular, and factory component construction. We have a transportation system that is not the best in the world but competitive. We have some very knowledgeable and veteran project managers. We have some of the most skilled construction workers in the world. Yet if you were to ask, "Could we do this in America?" Few in the business would say it could be done.

The cost of building construction done "China style," could make building buildings like this in America very attractive and affordable. Material and energy wastes could be cut. Building big buildings could change the trends of urban sprawl and change apartment rental and real estate trends. More people could share the views of oceans and bays near large cities. Manufacturing in America could get an extra boost as we start building more building structures in factories designed to do so. It would require a change in how we do things. Can we do it? Yes we can!
Link of interesting Skyscraper facts: Building Big

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Could The Dark Knight Be The Next Star Wars?


The Star Wars movies were given credit for pushing the imaginations of  engineers to what lasers could do. It also pushed the brains to imagine of space travel and what other worlds could be like. The Black Knight has several creative ideas of what today's military could look like. Today's special forces have some primitive looking equipment compared to what Hollywood has put together.  

It was said in several other reports, that the producers of the Dark Knight played with toys in their garages to get the right look for their movie. The Bat Tumbler was designed by putting a  Hummer and a Lamborghini together. The Bat and the Bat Pod are definitely creative. I am very sure the the military will have vehicles in the future that resemble these clever machines that will give military troops an advantage in battles.



Dark Knight Bat - Flying machine (above) and the Tumbler and the Bat Pod are pictured at the right. The Movie is worth seeing just to see the special effects.