On Sun, Feb 04, 2007 at 11:52:15PM +1300, Chris Bannister wrote:
> And there is probably a mumble-oven-user list where people are
> discussing things like: "...with this mod, think of the power they would
> save ... but they just don't listen."
Totally OT, but perhaps amusing true story.
I had a co-worker who used to work with robots and electromechanical
stuff for Dow. Her group designed a washing machine (not sure if it
was dishwashing or clothes) that blew bubbles with the water/soap
mixture. From the size of the bubbles, they could tell how much soap
it needed. They found that the suggested amounts were too much, and
more importantly, most of the granulated soap never dissolved and went
down the drain unused.
Dow never did anything with the project, because it meant that people
would buy less soap from them.
Stories like these are great for those arguments where your opponent
believes that what is good for corporations is good for everyone.*
Basically, the corporation isn't paying for the cost of removing soap
from the environment, and so this (plus incomplete customer knowledge)
means that the invisible hand of the free market is not yielding an
optimal result.
[*] Which can be paraphrased as "what is good for your tumors is
good for you", at which point the absurdity is self-evident.
--
The driving force behind innovation is sublimation.
-><- <URL:http://www.subspacefield.org/~travis/>
For a good time on my UBE blacklist, email john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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