Tag: Henry Ford
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No, it’s not neofeudalism
I’ve made this point before. It’s worth repeating. Everyone is referring to the gig economy as neofeudalism. The personalities are unquestionably feudal, the same insane inbred incestuous imbecilic aristocrats who ruled Europe for 500 years. The system is the exact opposite. Feudalism was based on TWO-WAY OBLIGATIONS. The lord was required to support his serfs…
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Three layers
There are three layers of customers, requiring different business approaches and different levels of risk. Bottom: Poor people. Poor people don’t have money. They can’t buy big items. Selling at this level is hugely risky, and only the biggest and most predatory firms can survive. There are two paths to success at this level: subsidize…
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More Thiel Questions
Thiel Questions are arguments or views that others don’t share. The last time I updated them was more than a year ago. Time to add a few more. I’ve written about each of these before but didn’t treat them as Thiel. = = = = = (1) Standard “history” tells us that we didn’t offshore…
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TVA, part 3 of 4
Some of the TVA house designs were intended for mass production, not local culture. This was called the Demountable house. In modern terms it would be Modular. The basic section was made in a factory and shipped out by railcar for quick non-permanent use. The flat roof wouldn’t have lasted long in rainy and snowy…
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Well, I can build that myself!
More from the REA news in 1940. The New Deal was all about DECENTRALIZING power. Henry Wallace hammered on the theme endlessly, and agencies like WPA and REA and TVA were serious about letting local coops and companies determine their own way of using the federal funding. Every aspect of their structure and rhetoric was…
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Henry would be proud
And I mean both Henry Ford and Henry Wallace. UAW is the good news in today’s mess. Through careful and clever analog strategy, they achieved tremendous victories against all of the Big Three. Now the non-union carmakers are starting to feel the pressure, raising their own starting wages to remain competitive. When corporations compete to…
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Spirits of the place
Nicely connected to Kingsnorth’s Holy Wells. A Halloween-themed article on organizational ghosts by a prof of Business at BYU. = = = = = START QUOTE: Bednar himself regularly experienced “ghostly encounters” with an organizational ghost when he interned at Walmart headquarters in 2005. He noticed that the buildings he worked in had pictures and…
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Return to Trinity House
MindMatters is pointing to the latest Carbon Craziness from a major “science” journal. Not new. This is the permanent norm in academia. Science is Dillinger. Science goes where the money is. The major magazines have been screeching about Carbon for 15 years, interrupted only by their louder and more genocidal screeching about “virus”. Pointing won’t…
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Pratt’s Pterotype, 1 of 3
First a story about John Pratt and his invention. This was found in a 1927 issue of Typewriter Trade Journal. = = = = = START QUOTE: Mrs Worl recently gave to the Wenatchee Daily World of Wenatchee, Washington, the following story of the invention of the Pratt typewriters, one of the earliest writing machines.…
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Adding a tech gene
Last year I mused on tech genes and epigenes. I’ve tacked on a new item that seems appropriate. = = = = = START REPRINT: I just finished pulling together the Morse prototype and the Endicott experiment into a single Poser set, released on ShareCG. Gathering up and debugging a set always stirs thoughts. The…
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If you really want ethics
Via Hollywood Reporter, the AI demons are plotting how to destroy more skills. Still, across SIGGRAPH, the use of new buzzwords such as “responsible AI” underscored broad fears about the impact the tech could have on Hollywood. “I’m hearing about actors scanning themselves and copyrighting their scans. I wonder if it’s going to be affordable…
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Cheapskates unite
Random thought, undoubtedly wrong because not based on experience. All US automakers of any size had a Canadian division at one time or another. We ‘carlonized’ other countries less regularly. Our Canadian products were different in two ways from our US cars. (1) More variety. (2) More practical and economical choices. I’ve discussed more variety…
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Ford of the day
These quotes from Henry Ford have dates because they appeared in the company’s newsletter. As it happens, most of them are exactly 100 years ago. Today’s quote from 4/15/1923: Experience is the harvest of life, and every harvest is the result of a sowing. The experience which young people must crave is that of success…
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I shouldn’t even try
Discussions of Sammy’s rise and fall repeatedly hit a point that I can’t grasp. Supposedly Sammy was a hypnotic figure. Supposedly he had a magnetic appeal to everyone he met. I don’t get it. I can sort of see the appeal of Elizabeth Holmes. She’s pretty and lively and radiates a sense of mission and…
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Pierce cars
I’ve done two features on Pierce trucks, first on the rule of sticking with your niche, and second on the trend toward compressed air starters. Pierce cars were stylistically unique. In the ’20s when all cars were basically the same shape, Pierce had the only headlights blended into fenders. You could spot a Pierce instantly.…
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