Support Wikipedia.
December 07 2008 William writes:
You know you use it. Make it better.
Categories: Thoughts | No Comments »
Archive for the 'Thoughts' Category
My move to Culver City and SolarCity
December 06 2008 William writes:
I have moved back to California for a job with SolarCity, an aggressive residential solar company that aims to make solar installations as easy as a phone call. I am very impressed by its horizontal management style and cutting edge financial instruments. LA could become the epicenter of the residential solar industry with its intense sun, many roofs, and strong incentives.
Culver City is a nice area and is similar to the Lower East Side of Manhattan with its many diverse restaurants, young population and random hipsters. I live only a bike ride from the beach and work so my car is one of the many just take up a parking place.
LA in general is interesting. Huge roads and too many cars define the city but this situation of a frustrated public and many lanes might help the city create pragmatic transportation solutions. California recently authorized funding for the costruction of a bullet train system to link all major CA cities.
I do miss the open space and mountains of Wyoming.
Categories: California and Energy | No Comments »
The Tycoons - Charles R. Morris
December 06 2008 William writes:
A story about four men who helped shape America’s modern economy. Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan, each in their own sector, pulled America past its competitors to the scales and technological supremacy that we complacently enjoy today. This story that follows each character through their influential lives gives a clear picture of America during the turn of the 19th century when it surpassed Britain and Germany in GDP per capita.
New Favorite Invention
I did find my new favorite invention in this book. It is not something I had ever heard of nor would ever had known existed without reading this book. It was one of the many technologies that helped the north win the Civil War. The three dimensional lathe or gun-stock machine invented by Thomas Blanchard in 1818. It is a lathe that can produce an unsymmetrical three dimensional shape. Prior to this invention all gun stocks were made by hand by a skilled crafts man. The machine is designed to have one block of wood and one wood pattern turn in unison, side by side. A tracer wheel rested against the pattern that connected to a rapidly spinning cutting wheel that transfered the same path on to the block of wood (see a picture here).
Tale Spinners
The most moving quote from the book seems timely with all hell breaking loose on wall street and everyone with a mouth has something to say about it.
“The surge of raw power at the commencement of a great empire can sustain expansionist momentum long after its internal dynamism flags. A telltale sign of ebbing energy is when its intellectual elites start construction imperial narratives. The tale spinners of Augustan Rome were priests and poets; in the twentieth-century empire of American business, they were pundits and professors.” p291
Categories: America and Books | No Comments »