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Unless I'm mistaken this community is about innovation. Making his prototype is a long way along the implementation process and beyond from 'pie in the sky' st

• SeanLuke 16y ago
  Any monkey can innovate. Watch while I innovate the following new word: gronkuiotis. What matters is not innovation but well-engineered ideas. That is, ideas which will work in reality rather than in gronkuiotis, I mean, design-world. Now I happen to think that this project has some merit, though the rotation of the two main plugs will never pass muster -- it'll break quickly and at any rate almost certainly will rapidly become a fire hazard internally after a few turns. But that's probably fixable. But what I think the GP was getting on about, and what also annoys me greatly as well, is that there are many "designers" (i.e. artists) who think that engineering is the easy part, and what really matters is "innovating". The mindset of "designers" goes like this. "Let me think of this cool version of a chair! Now I just need to find a lowly engineer to do the menial engineering part, I'm sure it's inconsequential." Design-first-engineer-second is how you wind up with poorly engineered "innovations" like these: http://www.strida.com/en/products/ http://www.strida.com/en/products/ The basic problem is that most artists have no training in making something which actually works. It's not sexy to get something to work. It's sexy to draw pretty pictures. When I was a little kid I used to draw spaceships where a lightbulb was focused through a long series of lenses until it became stronger and stronger and was blasted out the back, Star Wars Propulsion style. I was quite the innovator, and had some awesome spaceships with impressive lens sequences. That didn't mean my idea contributed to the global discourse.
  • kjuhygtfrde 16y ago
    I have a patent on using gronkuiotis in a sentence - you're being sued for a squllion $$$. Of course if you have used "e-gronkuiotis cloud 2.0" we would have funded your innovation with a squilliuon $
  • Semiapies 16y ago
    Yes, this sort of thing is of a piece with architecture students getting internet kudos when they design neat little shelters for the homeless to be made out of recycled cardboard - terribly clever, except that they estimate thousands of USD for each unit and admit that these "homes" won't survive being rained on.
  • proee 16y ago
    I've read somewhere that automobiles are typically created by the designer first - they draw up the prototype and then maybe make some 3d models of the vehicle. Then, once it's approved they move the project over to the engineering team and they're tasked with figuring out how to fits all the cars parts inside this new design (shocks, motors, drive terrain, etc.). So for the case of automobiles, the designer is first, engineers second. Obviously the teams will work together to make compromises but it certainly gives merit to the power/value of the designer.
  • pxlpshr 16y ago
    i think you over-engineered your comment and it broke. your statement is a gross generalization about "designers", biased toward "engineers", and completely ignores two facts; 1) great products are a combination of both, and 2) most products don't achieve greatness for a variety of reasons that may be unrelated to either party.
• scott_s 16y ago
  You're not wrong, but swombat has, like myself, seen this at least four times on HN already. So, we're not interested in it anymore until it's a product.
• swombat 16y ago
  He was at the prototype stage last time, and the time before, and the time before... I don't think there has actually been any progress...