Interpress & PostScriptInterpress and PostScript enabled display technology, initially printers and eventually screens, to display output exactly as it would look between media. Printouts and screens, no matter the size, would look exactly the same. The technology is another from Xerox PARC. Background Warnock left Evans & Sutherland, a computer graphics company founded by Ivan Sutherland, to … Continue reading "Interpress & PostScript"
BicycleProlific innovator Karl Drais invented the bicycle, first without pedals then, later, with. He also invented the typewriter w/ keyboard, first stenograph, and player-less piano. Drais was a civil servant ineligible for patent protection but was given patents and a pension. However, he found himself on the wrong side of a Prussian war, going so … Continue reading "Bicycle"
Processed Foods with Statistical Quality ControlBy design, countless food products look and taste exactly the same. Nobody opens a name-brand candy bar and wonders if it will taste different than any other bar they may have chosen. Each can of Coca Cola, Pepsi, or Guinness Beer tastes exactly the same as any other. All major food companies can thank Guinness … Continue reading "Processed Foods with Statistical Quality Control"
LithographyLithography allows highly detailed drawings to be inexpensively reproduced at high volumes. Before lithography, printing remained similar from Gutenberg until Senefelder’s lithographic process. Senefelder worked as an actor and playwright. Unable to earn a living, he turned to printing as a trade but could not afford the typographic fonts and materials. Frustrated, he started experimenting … Continue reading "Lithography"
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET Plastic bottles)PET plastic reduced the cost and weight of beverage containers. Originally, only glass and metal containers were suitable for storing carbonated drinks. Other plastics would bulge and break. However, PET plastic enabled plastic bottles suitable for carbonated drinks. Soon, it became used for all beverages. In the 1960s, plastics engineer Wyeth questioned whether carbonated drinks … Continue reading "Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET Plastic bottles)"
Jet EngineAn RAF pilot he thought up the jet engine and tried convincing the English military to fund development. When they refused, he created a private company to develop his jet engine, Power Jets Ltd. Undercapitalized, development of the new engine plodding along slowly. During WWII, the Allied forces realized the military potential of the jet … Continue reading "Jet Engine"
Credit ReportingAccurate credit reporting vastly lowered the risk of lending and, with it, the cost of capital. Lewis Tappan Tappan was a strident Christian who did not believe in credit. His brother and he went bankrupt, twice. Tappan and brothers were busybodies, known to snoop and report on New York City gaming houses, brothels, and other … Continue reading "Credit Reporting"
MusketWhile Guttenberg’s forge was working to bring about the Renaissance, a more common use was to create weapons to kill one another. One of the most noteworthy is the musket. Background Early muskets were more like small cannons than the later-day rifles. Sometimes two-people needed to operate the earliest weapons due to their weight. Armies … Continue reading "Musket"
RailroadRailroads vastly lowered the cost of moving people and goods over land. Richard Trevithick invented the locomotive engine. However, he never quite created a fully functioning railroad: Trevithick’s locomotive was a literal circus act, pulling children around a track at a circus. His core innovation was the idea of a high-pressure steam engine. Prior steam … Continue reading "Railroad"
Transatlantic CablesTransatlantic cables shrunk the world, vastly increasing the speed and lowering the cost of intercontinental communications. The first cable functioned only a few weeks. Transmissions, in Morse Code, were especially slow. Field, as a young businessman, joined a paper company that failed six months later. Despite his status as a young employee, with no responsibility … Continue reading "Transatlantic Cables"
- Bitcoin, Fruitcake, and Christmas Pudding
On the importance of being open to divergent ideas & non-experts. Cross-posted from the blue ocean thinking substack: https://blueoceanthinking.substack.com. About a decade ago I’d just moved with my new bride into a house we rehabbed. We owned our house mortgage-free and my work was routinely cited in leading newspapers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, … Continue reading "Bitcoin, Fruitcake, and Christmas Pudding"
DialysisDialysis machines do the work of kidneys, cleaning the blood of impurities. After two years of experimentation on terminal patients, 15 who died, Kolff successfully kept a woman suffering renal failure alive with his “artificial kidney” dialysis machine. After WWII he donated the machines to hospitals around the world then immigrated to the US in … Continue reading "Dialysis"
General Purpose CatalogBackground The general purpose catalog increased the selection and decreased the costs of small-town stores that could only afford to carry limited innovatory. Tiffany’s Blue Book is one of the oldest catalogs, from 1845. There were book, seed, and fabric catalogs in Europe dating back centuries. Ben Franklin created the first US catalog, for scientific … Continue reading "General Purpose Catalog"
Mass-Scale DesalinationReverse osmosis enables large-scale desalination of seawater, efficiently transforming it into drinking water. People have been trying to desalinate seawater into drinking water for millennia. Firstly, Aristotle and other ancient Greeks unsuccessfully attempted to desalinate seawater. Eventually, by the 16th century, ship-based evaporation desalination systems created potable water. In time, by 1955, the first multi-stage … Continue reading "Mass-Scale Desalination"
Coke Fueled Blast Furnace / Pig Iron1709 Abraham Darby used Coke instead of coal to fire blast furnaces, making the production of iron from pig iron (a weak iron), much more economical. Coke burns significantly hotter than coal which, combined with his new design to concentrate the heat, his factory was significantly more efficient than prior methods. He created the Bristol … Continue reading "Coke Fueled Blast Furnace / Pig Iron"