Tag: Innovation

Tesla’s New Cybertruck: A Picasso design that reflects American lifestyles

Everyone is talking about the wrong things in regard to the new Cybertruck from Tesla. Elon Musk during the recent unveiling of the new electric vehicle from his line of products was demonstrating the impact resistant glass, and it shattered. But that didn’t matter to me, when I first saw the vehicle I instantly fell in love with it, and would buy one right now if I hadn’t just bought a new car, one of the big Chevy Traverses that they are making these days for the SUV market. For all the reasons I bought that car I would like to have a Tesla Truck, and then some. I thought the design was brilliant and way out of the box, and it is on my list to purchase the next time I’m buying a car. What’s not to like?

For me, a bullet proof car made out of stainless steel is a very attractive option. I do have a need for such things. It would also be good for ANTIFA protests where demonstrators attack capitalism with bats and sticks. The hard-pressed steel panels would hold up and still look good for dinner later that night. No scratched paint, no dents from parking lot foils. You could take it off road and through the brush without tree limbs and rocks kicking up and scratching your paint job. I can think of a million reasons to own a Tesla Cybertruck. Finally, someone is giving us a look into the kind of future that we should have had all along, and I like it.

I think I’m looking at the Tri Motor AWD option when I do get one, it goes 0-60 in 2.9 seconds and has a towing capacity of over 14,000 pounds. There are concepts for a Cybertrailer that goes with the truck that I think would fit my lifestyle in a very good way for the next decade so I’m excited about it. Very. The vehicle itself I think is much more American than even the traditional truck market has been, which to Musk’s point, hasn’t innovated much since its inception a hundred years ago. This vehicle is a bold new step into a world of out of the box lifestyles that are typical for most Americans and a perfect compliment. I can think of a lot of uses for a truck that goes that fast and can travel 500 miles on a single charge.

When people say something is “genius” which I would apply to this new Tesla Cybertruck, is that it breaks the mold of some status quo and is being disruptive toward previous assumptions. I think that is true in science, economics, and certainly vehicle transport. Something like this truck has been contemplated in science fiction for years, yet unimaginative designers at the big three automakers have just been lazy, and complacent to allow themselves to chase after the Japanese automakers, instead of really giving American truck drivers what they want. My son-in-law just bought his dream truck, a Ram which I think is wonderfully large and complete with a top tech approach to the big roads of American lifestyles. And as I said, we just bought in my household a very nice Traverse from Chevrolet. Big like a truck, but as maneuverable as a sports car in a lot of ways, with great power. Much better power than I would have expected. But always in these products is the feeling that they are just a bit better than other offerings. Why not be a lot better? What would be wrong with that? I feel like that is what Tesla is trying to give the market, especially in America.

I’m not a big electric car advocate, in fact that is the only drawback I see on this Cybertruck design is that it runs on batteries. I hate the idea of not being able to stop easily on a long trip to South Dakota and not get a ten-minute fill-up then be back on the road. But for the power that these new electric engines do give, I’d be willing to overlook some of those pitfalls. Without question, Tesla is getting more power out of its electric engines than traditional fuel combustion can, and that is exciting. Power for me is more important than practicality. And that is true of most truck buyers in America. I need something that has tremendous power, that can ride off road in some remote areas getting pelted with rocks, rammed by bears and elk, and still be ready for a night on the town with just a good rainstorm to clean away the mud. As much as I like my new Traverse I still park it a hundred yards from the nearest car in a parking lot because I worry about some runaway shopping cart hitting it from some distracted mother trying to buckle in her screaming kid from nearby, not tending to her business. With the Cybertruck, I wouldn’t worry nearly so much because its essentially a tank.

Watching the unveiling Elon Musk had outside on display the DeLorean from Back to the Future and the Lotus from the movie The Spy Who Loved Me, which were two of my favorite cars growing up as the inspiration of this Cybertruck. That obviously is part of the appeal for me, as people in my age group have been thinking about these kinds of things all of our lives. People have been critical of the angular shape of the Cybertruck, but I think its all extremely practical and American. Hard lines meeting at unique angles to tell a kind of Picasso story of American outdoor life, that is what this truck says to me and the design is actually very brilliant to my eyes. That’s what you get when you think that far outside the box of a very established truck market. Tesla continues to push the limits and it gives me great reason to root for them. This is one of their most exciting installments yet.

Innovation for me is far more important than protecting existing markets. If there is a way to make something better from what we’ve always assumed was a dead market, then why not. And if the electric engines turn out to be better, then why not use them. That is obviously the case with the emerging Skycar markets which is another consideration. If we use skycars more and more in the future for our casual transportation, then we will certainly want something like the new Cybertruck to fulfill our recreation needs. It all makes a lot more sense than in what we’ve been seeing over the last several decades and finally gives us a peak at the possibilities of tomorrow. I can see so many reasons that I’d want to use this truck over other offerings that the benefits far outweigh the draw backs. I have been thinking of getting a big RV for some of my needs for the upcoming decade, and that is still very much a need for me, but this new Tesla Truck has changed my thinking on the matter quite a lot. And that is a very good thing which I greatly appreciate. This is one of the most exciting vehicles I’ve ever seen and I think I need to find a way to put one in my driveway for many adventures to come.

Rich Hoffman

A Philosophy for the 22nd Century: iPhone 6 and Glenn Beck’s American Dream Labs

My wife and I have been getting acclimated to the new iPhone 6 for a few days now and the thoughts I’ve had while going through all the subtle new technology and the emerging business model so obvious, have only convinced me that the 21st century will be full of such extraordinary breakthroughs that by the time mankind gets to the 22nd century the world will be much different. As I write this Apple is not only in the market for making fabulous personal devices like iPhones and personal computing systems—but are developing a new car with their nearly 1 trillion dollars in market value. It costs roughly a billion dollars to perform the R&D for a new car, and Apple is at the front of that cutting edge by 2020 because they have the cash to do the job. The terrorist group ISIS is using some of that technology to broadcast to the world their level of Islamic theocracy in a negative way, and the American government is trying to create Net Neutrality through the FCC to get control of the run-away-technology so to slow it down and put it back in federal control. But more than that, my T-Mobile plan informed me that they offer free data streaming for music—such as iHeart Radio. That means twenty-four hours a day seven days a week no matter where I am, I can listen to The Blaze without any interruption in service. I don’t have to worry about consuming too much data from one place to another where free Wi Fi isn’t available which for my lifestyle of motorcycles and other unconventional travel means I can have 100% access to the new radio station for the first time since its creation without any worry. No wonder the FCC wants so much control.

The iPhone 6 is about the size of my iPod but it does so much more as the technology has shrunk to fit into such a small device. Even now if I am rappelling in the middle of Red River Gorge or backpacking to the top of Mt LeConte I can still listen to The Blaze Radio Network the entire time—which for me is relaxing. I don’t always want to hear the birds and the babbling brooks of nature. I like to hear the ideas of mankind and find out what the disputes are against modern philosophy, and The Blaze gives me that kind of information. More than anyone else in broadcasting on such a large-scale with a large and well-respected retinue of current politicians offering their insights Glenn Beck’s The Blaze is positioned in much the same way as Apple is to bring broadcasting, news, and entertainment to the next century while traditional companies shrink away and go extinct because they couldn’t keep up with the technology. Beck through his American Dream Labs is about to unleash several feature films and is unveiling several new innovations on April 4th of this year—just a few days before my birthday—which I am very excited about. There is a lot going on in the world that is truly scary, but there is a lot to be excited about as well. Glenn Beck’s innovations are among them and I will use my new iPhone equipped with a wonderful T-Mobile deal to stay plugged in along the way.

A few friends of mine from a secret Atlas Shrugged type of real life Galt’s Gulch just yesterday were contemplating the implication of the new iPhone also coming in April. I am certain that I will be getting one at some point in time, but just the sheer opportunity that such a device holds in such a small package is a stunning display of technological ability. If you mathematically apply the types of innovations being unleashed just in the last couple of years to the youthful generation that is taking them for granted in their replication of advancement every 18 months or so—that same generation will expect that type of progress in everything from televisions to automobiles. The self-driving cars from Minority Report will happen regardless of political road blocks because these young people will demand it. They want to play Xbox and text their friends while driving and Apple along with Google looks to be among the first companies poised to provide such a thing. I joked to our T-Mobile rep as he was displaying all the unique features of the iPhone 6 that in two years the phone would be outdated and he laughed, because he knew it was true. Things are moving that fast—yet government isn’t moving with it—because they are functioning from the failed philosophies of the past.

During the week my wife managed to convince me to go to Costco with her, which I seldom ever like doing—not because I dislike shopping or Costco—but because time is often short. I have a very busy and packed life—so grabbing a hot dog at Costco and shopping for necessities is last on the list of things to do. But she managed to convince me, and upon arriving I had to marvel at the prices on their 80” flat screen televisions and their new curved screens which were reasonably priced at under $5000. The prices are coming down to the point where every room in a home could have one of those large televisions without any trouble at all. The technology in them is simply incredible. The next challenge is going to fall on production companies to provide content that people actually want because the technology is there. Again, that’s where I think Glenn Beck will have an advantage over even the most deep pocketed traditional studio. The old way of producing video is long gone. The iPhone 6 has a mini camera in it far superior to what even a $10,000 camera cost in the 1990s so everyone with an iPhone is holding in their hands a television studio if they desire to utilize it. Of course that is another reason the FCC wants to create a Department of the Internet—because that notion scares them intensely.

My two-year old grandson is already speaking in complete sentences. Much of that I would attribute to the various learning devices he has available to him such as the television program on Nickelodeon called Blaze and the Monster Machines—which is a cartoon designed to teach kids about language, science, and physics. It is not as clunky as Sesame Street was—nor as agenda driven. It’s just about learning and having fun while doing it. Consider on top of that he has a Leap Frog tablet and other similar devices that allow his imagination to just soak up all this vast information so quickly the education model is obvious. Everything I have said negative about public education just became much, much, much more relevant. I am convinced that kids could learn everything they would typically learn by age 22 in college by age 10 because of the education options available now, that simply weren’t there 5 years ago, let alone 10.

So given all this rapid acceleration in technology, there is nothing in the adult world that is preparing for this onslaught in thought. Fox News is talking every night about the 2016 election where Republicans will likely put up another boring candidate based on the old machine politics of tradition and Democrats will put up Hillary Clinton, another old hippie progressive out of touch and expecting feminist nut cases to carry her into the White House. Neither political party is poised to deal with the typical iPhone user. Just as the car companies are lecturing Apple about how hard it is to get into the car market. But Apple will expect to do in two years what it takes General Motors a decade to perform, and they have the available R&D cash to pull it off. Just this past week Amazon.Com was upset that the FAA created regulations against their proposed drone delivery system, and they also have the cash to challenge the government’s attempt to preserve the old-fashioned way of delivery by UPS, FedEx, and the United States Postal Service. From the government its business as usual reacting to lobby money poured into their offices—but the marketplace represented by Amazon wants their products delivered within hours not days—and the collision will impact the government more than it will the marketplace because the next generation will expect fast delivery-because technology has always provided them with quick and immediate gratification on anything they have wanted.   They will expect the same out of their politics. Politicians standing in the way of that desire will be chewed up and spit out. Trust me. It’s coming fast and furious.

That is why it’s important to now focus on a philosophy for the 22nd century because it will take that long for the dust to settle. It has taken a 100 years to arrive at this current juncture, and it will take that long for the intellect of mankind to catch up to the philosophy needed by their recent inventions. Politicians like the Hillary Clinton types who expect to show up and walk on stage uttering a few lines of dialogue to pretend they are in the most powerful position in the world aren’t going to be able to deal with the advantages given to the typical person through all these new inventions. The explosion of invention coming available requires a new philosophy to deal with it all, and one of the first things that will have to go is the old adherence to the political machines of the past. The tools given to mankind currently allow for such a philosophy to develop. The old systems will be swept away in the current—car companies will go out of business as new ones emerge, power generation will change dramatically as more and more people learn of the options kept from them through unnecessary regulation, and stonewalling politicians will be crushed by a coming generation deeply impatient and empowered with knowledge at their fingertips. There’s no way to stop it now. What is needed to help the transition is a new way of thinking—a philosophy for the 22nd century so that when the dust clears, the mind of mankind will be aligned with the products of its innovation.

Rich Hoffman

CLIIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

 

Ideas are Scary: The important task of being a place that lets them grow

By far my favorite commercial of 2014/2015 is the one below from GE about how ideas can sometimes be scary featuring a little alien looking ET creature being born and ridiculed until GE opened its doors to the innovative prospects of the fledgling creature. It’s a very honest commercial for such a huge corporate giant and it tells me that at least in practice GE hasn’t lost its way in understanding where it came from and what role it plays in America’s future. Growing up in Cincinnati it is impossible to not have GE a major part of my life and whenever I have to travel downtown and drive by the Evendale plant there is a little happy place that keys off in the back of my mind knowing to what a great extent GE has advanced technology and really lived up to the aspects of the commercial on innovation.

Being a corporate giant isn’t easy, and I am often distrustful of them to stay nimble in the field of innovation simply because there comes too much pageantry and fluff just to keep rules and regulations off their back to maintain the kind of forward thinking that made them great in the first place. Jeffrey Immelt after Barrack Obama was elected was put into a very difficult position. Here was a president openly hostile to corporations and business that would see GE as a massive target for socialist implementation. As a CEO it is first the job of such a person to guide their corporation through the potential threats that exist so that those gates of innovation can stay open for such fledging ideas shown in the commercial. So Immelt did what he thought was best, he made a partner out of Obama running the president’s Jobs Council for a few years. In so doing he was able to exploit the lack of financial understanding of the barely concealed socialist by enacting 54 of the 60 recommendations made by the Council—such as fast tracking key infrastructure projects and selling more leases for both oil and gas production. But in the end, only 4 of those recommendations were completed as is typical of government which loses focus quickly as life in the Belt Way quickly kills off ideas like an African hunter on the Serengeti. Under the auspices of government ideas quickly become extinct—and Jeffrey Immelt’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness was one of the first things that Obama hung on his trophy wall. Obama tried to use GE to stimulate his economy, and largely took Immelt’s advice without knowing anything else to do—but failed to nurture those ideas into fruition

http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/01/31/the-one-job-jeff-immelt-might-be-happy-to-lose/

For the last 20 years the GE90 engines from GE have been a game changer in commercial aviation. It is largely because of this engine that oversea travel has been on the increase just because now airlines can perform such a task with such a powerful engine without massive fuel consumption. That engine is exactly what the metaphorical commercial about GE innovation was all about. It was one of the great leaps of innovation from American culture that could have only come from such a large corporation that embraces such invention. And to make the GE90 work, it took a lot of the best minds at the time in the field of aerospace to pull it off.

There is a new generation of engines coming to serve for the next two decades, so the GE90 today is something of a Payton Manning in aviation. It’s still a great engine, but it has set the bar very high and newer, younger players are entering the market to break those previous records—but it took the pace setter first to show everyone what the innovation looked like. While some may look at the GE commercial in respect to Immelt’s work with President Obama and cry foul, I have a tremendous amount of respect for those open doors which allow scary little creatures like new ideas a place to go. I wish there were a thousand GEs in America—and I believe there is plenty of room for all of them—but unfortunately for most, they end up in the trophy case of some politician’s game wall—hunted, killed, and stuffed for memory.

I don’t watch much television so I didn’t see the GE commercial until I was watching the start of NASCAR last weekend. I love NASCAR because of the innovations—the new MAC tools, the tires, the corporate sponsors. I love seeing a pit crew in action trying to troubleshoot a problem in record time to get their driver back on the track as quickly as possible. There are a lot of ideas born on those tracks which end up in the cars we drive, so I love to just watch NASCAR for a glimpse into the future. It was in looking for innovations that I actually saw the GE commercial.

Recently I had one of the worst days of my life where everything that could go wrong did and there was just a mess of activity that had to be cleaned up from more of those idea killing vermin. So to brighten my day, my wife went to McDonald’s and picked up a couple of Big Mac meals so I could watch the news while enjoying that wonderful idea from McDonald’s ancient past—which I still think is one of the greatest inventions ever created. Big Macs would be an impossibility to the typical hunter and gatherer in New Guinea or Africa—yet out of the mind of Ray Kroc came a company called McDonald’s that made quality fast food easy and affordable on the go—the Big Mac was created. When I have a really bad day-one of those days where it’s difficult to breathe from one moment to the next, I typically get a Big Mac and just like that—I’m good to go. My worries and concerns evaporate. It’s not just the taste of the burger that drives my interest, it’s the story of McDonald’s itself that does. It reminds me of what innovation is supposed to look like. As rapidly as McDonald’s makes Big Macs it is astonishing that they always come out well, cooked perfectly, possessing just the right amount of lettuce, onions and sauce, and can be done so quickly. To this very day if I buy a Big Mac in Florida, it will be made nearly to the same specifications as one that I might buy in Wisconsin. They are little miracles—now taken for granted like the GE90 jet engine—but they have changed the way the world interacts with each other—and each one of those ideas is beautiful.

So I have a major soft spot for the GE commercial with the little alien idea being born to the voice over about ideas being scary. Ideas are the natural-born enemy of the way things are. They are ridiculed and mocked, and are often hunted by members of the political class for sport. When Immelt joined Obama’s Job’s Council, the move to me was to protect all the ideas brewing at GE from the hunters of the political class who want to destroy those wonderful creatures before they can bloom into beautiful creatures. That’s what a CEO should do, and if that sometimes means drawing fire away from those they are trying to protect—then so be it. Because as the commercial says, “under the proper care, [ideas] become something beautiful. They do.

The task of a massive corporation like GE is to create an environment where ideas can grow. Not everyone within that culture embodies such a spirit, of course, but in general, the philosophy of the company must seek to strive for such creation. If it does, then it will bring into the world ideas that would otherwise be destroyed by humanity always speculative, and short-sighted. It was a bold commercial from a company that really didn’t need to push the limits of perception—yet they did. They didn’t have to ruffle any feathers, yet they did—and for that I deeply appreciate the commercial. It is good to see that GE is not playing it so safe in the public relations market—and that they are remembering who and what they are—and how they got where they are today. Ideas are beautiful—even when they look scary to the un-enterprising and clandestine political hunters. It is good to be the natural-born enemy to the way things are. That is the spirit of innovation—and the direct benefit is humanity and its offspring.

Rich Hoffman

CLIIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

 

The Future of Medicine: The Art of Regenerative Tissue Repair

I’d much rather cover positive topics than negative ones. My anger at many of the rants that can be found here has a common source. A student from Mason that is enchanted with Stacy Schuler, the teacher that was arrested for having sex with five students from her school, told me that she was sure that if she analyzed me the way I do other people, that there were sure to be Freudian slips reveled in my behavior too.

Well, she’s right. There is a pattern to my so-called rants. I have an extreme anger at institutions that stand in the way of exciting new scientific developments. So I tend to lash out at politicians, union leaders, corrupt employees that favor job security over innovation and universities that cling to their past discoveries and subvert new discoveries that are controversial. I even set my sights on religion that holds back civilization with a desire to control the masses like sheep of which they offer themselves as a shepherd. In general, I support religious activity because it gives people something to hold themselves together, and the fear of god will keep them from committing wasteful sins such as over indulging in sex, substance abuse, and being vengeful toward their neighbors. But I often get frustrated when religion stands in front of science, because science offers constant new information that requires frequent adoption adding to religious ideology. To become fixated on events that happened 2000 or 4000 years ago holds people back, because there are miracles happening right now in front of our faces, but people don’t have a spiritual mechanism that allows them to see it. And that can be a real crisis.

When the congress of 2010 marched Health Care Reform down our throats in March of that year without even reading the bill, and voted on it strictly on ideology started by philosophies begun in the 1960’s and even earlier while communism from the Soviet Union was making a push to replace capitalism. Those congressmen didn’t care if Health Care was in violation of the United States Constitution because their plan is to change the law with Supreme Court Case Law. They also didn’t care that Health Care, as we’ve been doing it is going out of style.

Health Care of tomorrow won’t be controlled by pharmaceutical companies like it is now, the days where our elderly will take drugs and have costly operations with artificial body parts as replacements will be a thing of the past within the next decade. People won’t take drugs to extend their lives and regulate their bodies as they age and stop performing normal function. Science is literally on the cusp of regenerating parts of the body with its own cells, and that is the future of medicine.

Doc Thompson had on a doctor promoting a new show being exhibited on Nat Geo 10pm on February 7, 2011. After its initial run, the program will run again and probably be on YouTube, so make certain to look for it. It’s about the science of regenerative tissue. But for now you can listen to that doctor talking to Doc.

By the time Health Care becomes a staple of normality in our society like Social Security and Medicare is now, assuming that it stands up to a Supreme Court Ruling, which I don’t think it will, this new science will be mature enough for average people to participate in. And I can tell you right now that all those companies that are looking to the Health Care Industry to make money will oppose regenerative tissue technology. I will also say that religions will violently oppose it, because suddenly the whole idea of life expectation will change. If people can continue to heal all through their lives and build their own regenerative tissue from their own cells DNA, then people will live a LOT longer, and that will force religion to catch up and adapt, which they will be reluctant to do.

That’s why the Health Care Bill is a foolish, pointless piece of legislation. It needs to be repealed and politicians need to start looking to these emerging sciences to solve the problems we have with Social Security, and Medicare. With regenerative science, the cost of keeping people alive will dramatically decrease, and people who have built their lives in the health care field will have to find other things to do for careers. We are on the cusp of true technical marvels that will change the ideology of the human race. And we need to embrace those changes boldly, and not cling to the status quo.

So that young lady is right. My purpose here is to let people know where I see the walls that are holding back that changing ideology. I do rant about the walls I see. And my overall Freudian logic behind those rants is to do my part to break down those walls so we can all enjoy the benefits of mankind’s science without becoming lost as godless heathens. It’s important to recognize what we’ve done right as humans, and what we’ve done wrong, and to boldly go to the next step, because we are standing at the foot of those steps. All it takes now is to have the courage to walk up them.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com