The Invention of the Sewing Machine

The Volokh Conspiracy -: "With respect to the mechanical issue, the invention of a practical and commercially successful sewing machine comprised ten complementary elements. These ten elements were first explicitly identified by Andrew Jack in an oft-cited 1958 article: (1) the sewing of a lockstitch, (2) the use of an eye-pointed needle, (3) a shuttle carrying a second thread, (4) a continuous source of thread (spools), (5) a horizontal table, (6) an arm overhanging the table that contained a vertically positioned eye-pointed needle, (7) a continuous feed of the clothe (synchronized with the needle motion), (8) tension controls for the thread that give slack as needed, (9) a presser foot to hold the clothe in place with each stitch, and (10) the ability to sew in either straight or curved lines. The first sewing machine to incorporate all ten of these elements was the famous “Singer Sewing Machine,” which was first sold to the public in the fall of 1850. But Singer was neither the first person to invent all ten elements nor was he the first to patent them."

Well, you also need good metallurgy, some basic mass production skills, consistent thread creation and of course lots of relatively inexpensive fabric. Then don't forget a social and political structure that allows you to do all the work and make a profit.

The essential part of the sewing machine is the needle, that is where all the action happens, you need to make consistent and strong needles and consistent and smooth thread, if the hole is he wrong size the thread won't go through and if the thread isn't consistent it will either bind or break.

If there was a sudden collapse of civilization, it would be smarter to loot a craft store for pins, needles, cloth and thread then a grocery store for food, mainly because they would be really hard to start making again locally and wouldn't be a priority.

We have a very old sewing machine we got from my wife's mother, who got it for a wedding present. It is so old that it has an external electric motor bolted on. That is one piece of kit that we want to hang on to because it is very easy to convert that to some other form of power like a treadle pedal which my Oma in East Germany had so I have a good idea of how to make one.

Guns, Germs and Steel review

After a very exciting beginning, the middle of it goes into the important but somewhat tedious comparison of all the different regions, and to keep it to a reasonable length, paints with a broad brush. There are a few major parts that are vital to read. The prologue talks about Yali's quesiton why do westerners have so much cargo? Which started this whole investigation. Chapter 3 which describes the conquest of the Americas by the Spanish.
But then you get to the afterward of the 2003 edition and I was blown away. Apparently many business leaders read GGS and noticed similarities with the business world. So people looked into it and reports published and so on. And it boils down to just a few things:
The more food you can produce and store the more people you can have innovating.
The more freedom people have to adopt innovation the more productive they can be.
The more controlled the people are the less innovative they are and the worse the productivity.

China pretty much started a the same time as the Fertile Crescent yet due to government interference threw it away.
Boston used to be the major technology hub of the world but it turned controlling and secretive and now Silicon Valley reigns supreme, but that is decaying due to out-of-control state government spending which increased taxes and the entrepreneurs are leaving for cheaper climes. Paul Graham talks about how to buy your own Silicon Valley I think many communities can do it too, SV was founded by a quirk of fate and so it can be created many other places too if you are willing to give up control.

This also makes me worry about what is happening in our country. There has been a breathtaking seizure of control at the federal level, whatever else it may mean to people there is one thing it means for sure, a general loss of freedom and subsequently innovation. Unless things change we will be a poorer country then we should be. I am reminded of East Germany. We would visit family there as often as we could and it was like they were stuck in time. Flying into Frankfort there were always big changes and lots of construction. but once across the border it was as if time stood still, and considering how some of the buildings still had battle damage from WWII that was saying something.

Well this is my lame attempt to help stave that off or at least allow for a reboot.

I would call this a classic book, well worth reading at least twice. This is an introductory world history book, it covers from the end of the last Ice Age to mainly the 15th Century, not to say there isn't more modern material but most of the action for him occurred before then, the rest is just consequences of geography, botany, animal husbandry and politics that happened thousands of years ago.

History of Invention infopic

This is a really good summary of the 23 major inventions you need to build a modern civilization. Notice how most of them are in just that last few centuries. Inventing something is hard, really hard, because no one has ever done it before. You often need to completely change you way of thinking to pull it off. Why is it that it took until the 18th Century to invent the steam engine when all the principles have been around since before the first century AD. Hero of Alexandria had all of the parts to a steam engine sitting in his lab, he was using pistons, even a simple form of binary logic to build an entertainment device. He had the aeolipile, a very simple steam engine but he never hooked the two together even if he did hook and organ up to a windmill.

Ah, well. We'll do better next time, that is the point of this.

from Nesta c/o Herd

io9 - A History of Uranium, the Rock That Nuked the World - Uranium

io9 - A History of Uranium, the Rock That Nuked the World - Uranium: "Uranium was considered a useless material until very recently in human history, when it quite literally exploded into the public consciousness. Tom Zoellner's engaging new book Uranium reveals how this once-humble element transformed human civilization."

This might be useful to read a bit later. Nuclear power is very Green. If it were legal to reprocess the waste there would be a lot less of it.

NPR: Power Hungry: Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid

NPR: Power Hungry: Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid: "The U.S. electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. Aging infrastructure, combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption, has forced experts to critically examine the status and health of the nation's electrical systems."

The proposal is really a mostly good idea, the only question is how well it handles an outage. I remember a few years ago a couple of major blackouts that took down whole regions of the country. In one case we had power because our town was not hooked up to the rest of the grid. It better have more resilience then that.

Via lifehacker

NPR: Power Hungry: Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid

NPR: Power Hungry: Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid: "The U.S. electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. Aging infrastructure, combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption, has forced experts to critically examine the status and health of the nation's electrical systems."

The proposal is really a mostly good idea, the only question is how well it handles an outage. I remember a few years ago a couple of major blackouts that took down whole regions of the country. In one case we had power because our town was not hooked up to the rest of the grid. It better have more resilience then that.

Via lifehacker

SANS Technology Institute: Pandemic Watch April 2009

SANS Technology Institute: Pandemic Watch April 2009: "How can I avoid getting sick?
The most effective way to lower the risk of transmission is for people with symptoms to stay home. Take pandemic preparation sites with a grain of salt this one seems reasonable. The virus spreads easily from person to person through direct contact and possibly through the air, if it can spread through the air we have a very serious situation. It can cause serious illness and death.Please cover your mouth when you cough and take the additional precautions:

Wash your hands often with soap and water. Antibacterial soaps may not be more effective than pure soap to prevent virus infections. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are more effective go for 60% alcohol. [CDC Hands Together video]
Try to avoid close contact with sick people.
If you get sick, stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to avoid infecting them.
If you have ever laughed at people using a paper towel to open the door of a public bathroom after washing their hands, quit laughing and join them, the virus can remain active for several hours especially if moist and not exposed to direct sunlight.
Try not to rub your eyes or touch your hands to your mouth
Try to get enough sleep, avoid stress ( not always easy in a pandemic) and treat your body right"

Good advice. Some really good ideas for your business as well.