I've just spent the last two months testing my invention engine by not using it.
It's the last of it's formal tests that I have in mind.
The test is to see if it really does anything, or if it's just me coming up with ideas that solve the problems.
I for one can see the difference.
Lately my ideas have all been a little thin, impractical, had no sense of direction, and seemed to involve phlegm. That last one may in fact account for all the others, but I've never been one to let reality crush a story.
In Australia, we (white invaders) have this traditional ingrained presupposition that we are all highly skilled in making do. We feel a country wide enthusiasm that makes us believe we can fix stuff, and that everything will be ok, as long as we have a bit of fencing wire. (I suspect north america has the same thing with gaffer tape) The result is we can be left as a wire-bound backwater in the struggle for national identity.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, so bear (forbearance, not the big furry thing you never want to find in your pantry) with me and see what happens.
Birds are dense in the head.
Their brains are packed with a stack of connections. More per cubic whatever than we have by a long shot.
The secret is in needing to be lightweight.
Now I have to mention evolution.
I've been avoiding this for a long time.
Evolution, as we know, is real.
It's a fact.
It happens all the time and is not something relegated to the past. It's something that happens all the time and was going on this morning before breakfast.
Some guy named Darwin came up with a theory called "Natural Selection" that speaks to what powers it... to what does the selecting of one critter over another, and leaving them safe to mate with the other successful ones, but that's just a theory as to how it happens.
The fact that evolution occurs isn't in question.
Anyway...
Some states are great and some never make it. And lately I've found myself wondering what it takes to make it. It's clear as a species, that we are moving away from joules in our diet as a predictor of a country's success.
If joules still rated as a success marker, I for one would be right up there as a candidate for some kind of award. I have virtually unlimited access to calories, but I'm not sure if it would do me any good. And even less sure it does my country any good.
So if not calories, then what? Some say necessity is the mother of invention. I say necessity is the non gender specific parent of making do with a bit of fencing wire.
I think the thing that creates true innovation is discontent.
The result is that it's not the meek that will inherit the earth...
It's the miserable.
120 Things in 20 years - In thinking "population density, innovation, and some evolution", it seems everything is progressing according to plan.
Here in the States it's duct tape (probably the same as your gaffers tape) that is the end-all fix-all.
ReplyDeleteBut duct tape is for the masses.
The REAL fixers know the power that is bailing wire. I keep a roll of wire and fencing pliers in my vehicle at all times. I also have a roll or three of tape too. I am a webdeveloper. People thing oddly of me until I fix their stuff that is 'unfixable' as duct tape won't stick.
Now that I think about it, I have no idea to what I refer.
DeleteWe sometimes call a rubbery, stretchy, silver product Duct Tape, and we also refer to the cloth backed stuff you can cut with your fingers as Duct Tape.
I think it was also called "hundred mile an hour tape" in the car racing industry because it would stick body parts back on to cars, and then "thousand mile an hour tape" when the air force discovered it's virtues.
I think gaffer tape is a variation that removes cleanly so that you can stick down your guitar leads without leaving a messy residue long after you finish your gig, and the stage goes back to hosting shiny people. Like an industrial version of masking tape.
Duct tape was I think originally the US military version that was used to water proof ammo boxes.
And just to confuse everything, there was a company that made a version called Duck Tape as well.
Presumably for taping ducks.
If I wasn't currently so involved with being jaded, I'd no doubt learn more :)
The main thing tape lacks over wire is the ability to be made shorter with twisting. Tape just cant compete with that kind of mechanical advantage :)
But...
Once I saw B.A. from the A Team make a hang glider with Duct tape.
So tape has that going for it.
I think I read somewhere that duct tape is actually *supposed* to be called duck tape. Because while it's not used to tape ducks, it does shed water like them, while it has nothing in common with ducts, AND is not used on them either.
DeleteIt made sense at the time.
These days it comes in all sorts of pretty colors and designs, and people make a bizarre assortment of things out of it, including wallets, ties, and prom dresses. Which makes me wonder a bit about that whole evolution thing and whether it's really working out well for the human race.
All that aside, gaffer tape sounds a lot more appealing. Duct/k tape leaves a nasty sticky residue that I hate almost as much as I love the tape itself. But now I'm wondering if gaffer tape is used for taping gaffers. And also, WTH a gaffer is, and why it makes me think of toothless guys with their caps on backwards.
I love the Gorilla brand duct tape. Really heavy duty, really sticky, not much residue and the most expensive one out there. Worth every penny!
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