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Interesting that there was no mention of Dean Kamen's "slingshot" http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/colbert-and-kam/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/

• thaumaturgy 14y ago
  Almost two years ago I commented in an HN thread about this, "DEKA is a strange duck. They have some genuinely brilliant people there, working on some genuinely revolutionary inventions -- but they just can't seem to actually bring them to market. Or, they're not interested in bringing them to market. ... I've yet to hear of the Stirling engine / water purifier being deployed anywhere; ... I really don't "get" them. The best I can figure is that everyone (influential) there is happy just to be working on these puzzles, and they don't really care if anyone uses them or not." (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1793446 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1793446) That opinion seems to be withstanding time's test.
  • planetguy 14y ago
    Actually, I'd say the truly brilliant people are in the marketing department, building huge hype for something which... presumably doesn't work as well as advertised or else we'd have heard about it again in the intervening three years. I don't know precisely what is wrong with it, but it's safe to assume that there's something.
• coldarchon 14y ago
  Isn't there a factory just like that in Spain, and it was turned off due to the concerns of activists because it brings highly salted water back into the ocean?