Posted on 04/22/2014 8:58:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
We recently gave you a list of 25 trends that would be making people billions. Most of the phenomena will end up benefiting everyone.
But if you fancied yourself as someone who could be turned into a billionaire, you were arguably cheating — these were things everyone has already figured out.
The real challenge, and the greater value and more lucrative pursuit, would be to come up with the solutions to problems that have befuddled engineers for decades or more.
We thought of 10 of them:
Digital devices have become so small that it can be cumbersome to plug them into a power source. Longer-lasting batteries? Nope — Apple iPod God Tony Fadell says pursuing greater efficiency in batteries is a trap. The key is to find ways of squeezing more efficiency out of the devices' other parts — and stealing power from what's around you. University of Washington engineers, among others, are at work on harvesting existing TV and cellular transmissions and turning them into a power source. "This novel technique enables ubiquitous communication where devices can communicate among themselves at unprecedented scales and in locations that were previously inaccessible," they say.
Everyone agrees this is a priority. But there appear to be a hard way and an easier way to achieve it. The former involves lots of expensive regulatory clearance and installations. The latter, currently spearheaded by Google, is called Project Loon. The company plans to send renewables-powered balloons to the edge of space to create an Internet network in remote parts of the world. "We believe it's possible to create a ring of balloons that fly around the globe on the stratospheric winds and provide Internet access to the earth below," they say. Whoa.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I was thinking on order to give each “node” a unique name, you could have a GPS chuip in each router that would determine it’s own name by it’s physical location and every so many oof them would be designated as a “primary node” based off of location.
Basically it would be a noded type of internet that would be immune to government shutdown and cheap enough to make/power via solar panel that it could be distributed out, maybe as a bonus make it EMP proof...
Think of it as a wireless internet grid with two channels, one for the grid and one for people to tap into and use...
Based off some of the cheap routers I have seen this could be done cheaply in a few years where the elctronics could be boiled down to a few chips and use long duration lead acid batteries to provide service during night/cloudy days.
Hmm, this could be a way to circumvent gov internt control...
I would make the base backbone IPV6 as it would be easily able to handle the address problems...
Maybe have a model that can interface with HAM radio....
I will have to think about this....
Your recommendations are part way there.
Unfortunately you leave in place the unregulated monopolies that really drive health care costs — the physicians, who constitute a monopoly-guild which constricts the supply of members artificially, suppress effective competition as “unethical” (just as lawyers and trade-unions do), inveigle state legislatures to ban competition from allied health professionals (e.g. nurse midwives, psychologists), and pharmaceutical and medical device companies which sell their products under explicitly granted monopolies called “patents”.
When the government grants a monopoly for a product which has inelastic demand (like life-saving drugs or medical devices), or creates a guild-monopoly by so regulating a profession that there is no effective competition (even when done in the interest of public health or safety), there is no free market, and the government ought, as is done in the case of utilities, regulate the monopolists rates and fees in the public interest.
And to top them all... The political will to allow any of these things. The feds will stop ANY of this until they get their cut.
“You’re too slow. Black project already dun that.”
It is my understanding that they are ‘working on it’ but are having difficulties actually doing it. I can end their ‘difficulties’.
Since Kennedy’s administration the bastards have been able to project holographic imagery into the sky. Don’t help the buggers!
But if you fancied yourself as someone who could be turned into a billionaire, you were arguably cheating — these were things everyone has already figured out.
Thank goodness we have Business Insider. Otherwise, nobody would know what to do.
No they use batteries and their cars charge by being plugged in. Their gigafactory is to mass produce more efficient Lithium Ion batteries.
LOL, I was thinking of a different Tesla.
Oh. Stupid me. Sorry :-)
The idea of obtaining useful wireless power is a pipe dream. It has long been demonstrated possible to extract a few milliwatts of power from a nearby radio tower by using resonant radio circuits. Extracting useful amounts of power to light a house or power a car is impossible even from a short distance away. Suppose there was a practical device for doing so, the transmission radiant energy is still limited by the Inverse-Square Law, which states that a specified physical quantity or intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity. In other words, an object twice as far away, receives only one-quarter the energy. Double the distance several times over, and you will see the radiant intensity falls off so rapidly as to be practically useless.
and rural internet in the same swipe.
.........
how do thorium reactors solve cheap rural internet issues.
Don’t forget to invent dehydrated water. A lot easier to transport.
I thought the same thing. Combine this with LOS and build cells and away you go.
Use the Commerce Clause like a chainsaw to end local regulations, zoning and permitting/licensing systems that harm interstate commerce. That’s the purpose and raison d’etre for the Commerce Clause.
To comment on your reply, I may be misunderstanding your point, but the monopolies you referenced are not created because they are unregulated, but are created because of regulation. Regulation always creates some degree of monopolies, whereas deregulation promotes competition. I would like to see a push for more drugs moved from requiring prescriptions to over the counter status and I would like to see the number and type of professionals that can prescribe drugs expanded, such as nurse practitioners and even nurses for some drugs. I do believe there is some role for government licensing of professionals such as doctors, nurse and civil engineers where public safety is involved. Determining the optimal amount of regulation is always difficult and controversial, but necessary.
Although the supply of doctors is restricted by licensing, doctors’ pay plays a minor role in overall health care costs. The main reasons health-care costs are so high are, 1) the high and unnecessary cost of the insurance bureaucracy for routine care, 2) freeloaders who don't pay for their health-care (the uninsured many who are illegals), 3) unjust malpractice suits, 4) misallocation of resources due to market distortions caused by third party payers (primarily government and insurance companies) and 5) unnecessary regulation, mostly of hospitals and medical device manufacturing.
Patents are actually a constitutional right, although one every engineer has to sign away as a condition of employment. Patents do promote investment in research and development by the private sector. Without patent rights, new drug development would cease unless funded by the government or possibly charities. Effective and safe pharmaceuticals are extremely difficult to invent, but in most cases relatively easy to manufacture. Without the monopoly provided by drug patents, the development of new drugs would be a losing proposition.
However, patents are not a constitutional right, but a constitutional prerogative of the Congress. It doesn't have to grant them. It doesn't have to grant them under the current terms. For life-saving drugs and medical device, I'd advocate a regime under which the developer can chose between a short-duration monopoly with unregulated prices, and a long-duration monopoly with regulated prices. And I'd subject *all* patents to much closer scrutiny for lack of obviousness -- in the case of pharmaceuticals (albeit not life-saving drugs) the patent on esomeprazole (Nexium) was plainly an abuse of the patent system.
I also think you underestimate the degree to which the unnecessary cost of insurance bureaucracy is a creation of physicians. The whole system of CPT codes which govern insurance reimbursements by minutely classifying medical procedures is a creation not of the insurance industry, but the American Medical Association, which collects monopoly rents on the basis of its required use.
Invent a balloon app that can be rubbed on one’s head to generate static electricity.
They HAVE that stuff, I swear.
I accidentally bought a 40-lb bag of it at a True Value store (it was privately bagged, maybe locally or something--not a big corporate product) and it was called Something-something Short Grass.
I put that stuff in to cover the big patch in my front yard where the new septic tank went in, and (again) I swear it never grew past an inch and a half.
You might think that would be fine but the rest of the yard around it continued to stretch toward the heavens...and the short grass stuff never thickened up and would burn and wither in the sunshine no matter how much water I poured to it...
I also think you underestimate the degree to which the unnecessary cost of insurance bureaucracy is a creation of physicians. The whole system of CPT codes which govern insurance reimbursements by minutely classifying medical procedures is a creation not of the insurance industry, but the American Medical Association, which collects monopoly rents on the basis of its required use.
While it is undoubtedly true, that the primary purpose of the AMA's existence is rent seeking, I don't believe there is any evidence they are very good at it. While doctors earn significantly more than most other professionals, their pay is not exorbitant when their intelligence, training, skill, financial risk, job stress are compared to other professionals such as engineers or university professors. The fact that doctors make what one would expect given the value of the services they provide is evidence that any monopoly they might have is slight. Primary care physicians make 50-100% more than the average electrical engineer and specialist make 200-400% of an EE. Seems reasonable to me.
And how do CPT codes create a rent seeking monopoly? Could anyone provide doctor services if they only knew the secret CPT codes? And if the bureaucracy of the CPT codes is inefficient it is not due to AMA rent seeking, it is because a third party (the insurer) is the payer who has to negotiate generic fee schedules in advance of yet unknown service to be rendered. That is not an optimal system for price discovery. If the patient paid the doctor and the hospital directly, then the patient could easily shop for the best price for the procedure in question. Insurance would still be necessary to reduce risk, but it would not play the role of a one size (one CPT code) fits all purchasing agent. Yes, insurance companies may increase the buying power of consumers, but I doubt much better than I could do for myself especially when shopping for primary care services.
However, patents are not a constitutional right, but a constitutional prerogative of the Congress. It doesn't have to grant them. It doesn't have to grant them under the current terms. For life-saving drugs and medical device, I'd advocate a regime under which the developer can chose between a short-duration monopoly with unregulated prices, and a long-duration monopoly with regulated prices. And I'd subject *all* patents to much closer scrutiny for lack of obviousness -- in the case of pharmaceuticals (albeit not life-saving drugs) the patent on esomeprazole (Nexium) was plainly an abuse of the patent system.
Yes it is true that the Constitution leaves the granting of patent rights up to Congress, but it does authorize Congress to do so and only to so for individuals. Sounds like a right to me. And yes I agree the US Patent Office is broken. Nonetheless, the whole concept of patent rights and copyrights is to grant a monopoly for a period of time to incentivize the "progress of science and useful arts". Despite its flaws it has worked amazingly well. Personally, I wouldn't disclose any invention in return for the promise of a "regulated price".
Injury, disease and death will be with us till Christ returns. How much each individual wants to spend addressing those evils ought to be the prerogative of individuals. The only other option is futile slavery. I can't add a day to my life by spending 100% of my resources. I can't add a day by stealing yours either. So live free and die free and thank God for His providence.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.