July 13, 2020
Awesome Elbit!
Love this Israeli defense company, Elbit Systems!
They are Israel's largest defense company with brilliant defense, homeland security, and national security solutions.
Proven on the battlefield on land, sea, air, and space.
From the advanced F-35 Joint Strike Fighter helmet mounted display to the Iron Fist active protection system to drones, lasers, C4ISR, cyber, electronic warfare, electro-optics, countermeasures, combat vehicle systems, and artillery, mortar, munitions and more.
Elbit offer high-tech solutions that uniquely combine brain with brawn!
Defending the Holy Land and other countries around the globe.
In the fight of good over evil, I'm proud that Elbit is one of the good guys! ;-)
November 9, 2019
Making The Impossible, Possible
Even though the Jewish people are a tiny minority in the world, through our faith, determination, and the help of G-d, we are able to survive against all odds, contribute to the world far beyond our mere numbers, and succeed in truly incredible ways. From Einstein, Freud, and Marx to Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison, we are a people that punches way above our weight.
I believe the lessons of faith and determination is one that we can all take away from the tests of our forefathers in the Bible to the flourishing modern State of Israel and to how we live our own lives today. G-d tests all of us, and if we go forward and answer His calling with a full heart and perseverance, G-d will help us to succeed above our wildest of dreams and even beyond the very laws of nature.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Making The Impossible, Possible
February 22, 2018
Not Every Problem Requires A High-Tech Solution
Yes, it's a "Smart" car.
But more important is this guy parked his car in a very smart way.
The spot was too small even for this micro urban car.
So he just parked it sideways--and poof it fits.
Also, look how easy it is for him to drive out of the spot when he's ready.
Now, I'm not one to say whether this is legal or not (his rear wheels are on the sidewalk, of course).
Still there is something refreshing about this solution.
Nothing high-tech about it -- he didn't need to move the cars further apart or shrink his own vehicle, rather just think out of the box.
Frankly, it works, and I think this guy deserves the parking spot--so right on dude! ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Not Every Problem Requires A High-Tech Solution
January 8, 2016
We Just Keep Giving It All Away
We lost a high-tech Hellfire air-to- ground missile, accidentally sending it to Cuba, likely compromising critical sensor and GPS targeting technology to China, Russia, and/or North Korea.
But it's not all that different from how many other examples, such as:
- Chinese cyber espionage snared critical design secrets to the 5th generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
- Iran captured and purportedly decoded an RQ-170 Sentinel high-altitude reconnaissance drone.
- Russian spies stole U.S. nuclear secrets helping them to build their first atomic bomb.
We are the innovator for high-tech bar none, which is beautiful and a huge competitive advantage.
But what good is it when we can't protect our intellectual property and national security secrets.
The U.S. feeds the world not only with our agricultural, but with our knowledge.
Knowledge Management should be a mindful exercise that rewards our allies and friends and protects us from our enemies--and not a free-for-all where we we can't responsibly control our information. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to James Emery)
We Just Keep Giving It All Away
October 29, 2015
A Blooper With Our Blimps
The multi-billion dollar Raytheon-built military JLENS surveillance blimps are pictured above.
They are supposed to sense and alert us to a possible devastating surprise cruise missile attack on the U.S. eastern seaboard.
However, one of them lost its tethering and went sailing into the skies and had to itself be tracked by NORAD and two scrambled F-16 fighter jets.
What was designed to surveil instead needed surveillance.
The JLENS crashed landed in Amish country, Pennsylvania and took out the power to 20,000 people.
We need a strong, capable, and ready military!
If we are trying to improve our posturing with the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians--this is not the way to put our best blimp forward. ;-)
(Source photo: here with attribution to Bill Dickinson)
A Blooper With Our Blimps
August 3, 2015
Print Me Some Clothing
How cool is this?
You print you own clothes on a home 3-D Printer.
This is not science fiction, but reality.
Israeli fashion designer, Danit Peleg, is creating some beautiful clothing by printing them!
The printed clothes is intricate, fashionable, and sexy.
Choose your outfit.
Pick your design.
Download it.
And start printing--day or evening wear.
See how it looks on the runway models.
And just imagine that you can be printing and wearing it too. ;-)
Print Me Some Clothing
December 29, 2013
Fremont Street Light Show Las Vegas By Andy Blumenthal
Fremont Street has a cool free outdoor light show.
It is in the "downtown," which is actually at the north end of the Strip (go figure).
The high-tech light show of 2.1 million bulbs is on a canopy covering 5 street blocks.
The show lasts about 5 minutes and is beautiful.
I tried to combine the overhead show with some of the faces of the people walking down the street.
Enjoyed the experience - like an IMAX and very creative.
Interesting...on the way over, took a cab and talking with the driver, he told me how one of his colleagues found a box of chocolates in his cab this week.
When he opened the box, there was $300,000 inside!
Like Forrest Gump's mother told him, "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you are going to get" - in Vegas and beyond. ;-)
(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)
Fremont Street Light Show Las Vegas By Andy Blumenthal
July 15, 2013
Those Are Some Prosthetics
Wow, prosthetics have come a long way--these are tough!
This video from Biodapt shows their high-performance Moto Knee being used in a variety of action sports including snowmobiling, motor biking, mountain biking, horseback riding, water skiing, snow boarding, and jet skiing.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek (11 July 2013) explains how the Moto Knee has hydraulic components that provide "tension and range of motion for intense physical activity."
They cost around $6,000 and don't replace the regular walking version, but Mike Schultz, the developer understands the need for these advanced prosthetics having lost a leg himself in a 2008 competitive snowmobiling accident.
I think it's wonderful that these high-tech devices are being made available for disabled people to be able to do a wide range of exciting activities.
My hope is that as the technology continues to advance that we can have--like a person's legs--one prosthetic device that is adaptive for use in every day use as well as more intense activities and sports.
It is hard to imagine people voluntarily trading their body parts for mechanical implants--but one day, in the not too distant future, these mechanical limbs will not only be a substitute for repair of real body parts, but will actually provide some superior capabilities--they will be used for body augmentation--and thus even be desirable by those who haven't lost limbs.
What gives a leg up to prosthetics, as Hugh Herr in the Wall Street Journal (12 July 2013) put it is "that the designed parts of the body can improve in time, whereas the normal body, the biological body, degrades in time."
With regenerative medicine and replacement parts by design, more than ever our physical bodies will be just the transient vessel that houses our heart, mind and soul--that which really makes us, us. ;-)
Those Are Some Prosthetics
April 7, 2013
The Great Big Apple Donut
In all seriousness though, the planned Apple HQs is so cool--I love it!
Bloomberg BusinessWeek (4 April 2013) has a terrific article about this awesome design project.
Some of the facts about this planned facility:
- Houses 12,000 employees
- Has 4 concentric rings.
- 2.8 million square feet (2/3 the size of the Pentagon)
- 176 acres of trees, including the vast courtyard in the center which will have apricot, olive, and apple orchards.
- 40-foot high walls of concave glass
- 700,000 square feet of solar panels (enough to power 4,000 homes)
- Climate-responsive technology such as window treatments that automatically open and close
- Costs about $5 billion (1.1 billion more than the new World Trade Center)
- Move in expected 2016
- Just 2 entry roads
- 4-story underground garage
- 2 R&D labs
- Fitness center
While some think that this building is vanity, I think it is a work of art, and perfectly suits the innovativeness nature of the company.
Apple's HQS is a reflection of itself, not just another building. The beautiful, sleek, and high-tech building melds with the company's design philosophy and vision for great consumer products.
Just like Apple's unique positioning in being able to integrate hardware and software solutions for their customers, their new HQS is a unification of their physical work environment with their internal vision for themselves as a company and the amazing products they put out.
Unlike some organizations which are foolishly tearing down all their walls and working as if they in sitting in Starbucks, Apple understands how to marry the need for a social and collaborative work environment with a proper and respectful functional space.
Apple's building will be beautiful and functional just like their computing devices...and they remain true to themselves and us. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with Attribution to Cupertino Government)
The Great Big Apple Donut
January 21, 2013
Hiding Yourself In Plain Sight
Hiding Yourself In Plain Sight
December 16, 2012
Amazon Will Bury Walmart
So I cannot tell you my utter disappointment the first time I went to Walmart--shabby storefronts, elderly door greeters handing out store circulars and stickers, messy aisles and shelves, with low price tags on a swirling everything, and sort of the image of crummy leftover merchanidse throughout, and top that off with pushing crowds trying to save a couple of bucks on the junk.
Let's just say, I'm not running back to Walmart, especially when we have online shopping experiences like Amazon--now that is much closer to nirvana.
No drive, no crowds, no wait, no up and down the aisles looking for what you want, no shlepping, and no in your face "everyday low prices" image and we won't let you forget it--instead easy to find, interesting, varied, and quality merchandise of all types, at reasonable prices, with an easy checkout process, home delivery, free shipping, and easy returns.
And as opposed to Walmart which is stuck in costly and inconvenient large brick and mortar stores, Amazon is investing in infrastructure of the future with convenient warehouse and delivery centers throughout the country, and more recently with their purchase of Kiva Systems in March 2012 for implementing robotics in their fulfillment centers.
On top of it, Walmart (with nearly 2.2 million employees worldwide) in its endeavor to keep prices low, have spun up their workforce with jobs--that are often part time and unpredictable, low wage, lacking proper benefits, unsafe working conditions, and with questionable advancement opportunties (especially for women). Throw on top of that bribery allegations for which they've hired a new complaince officer. Yet, Walmart has also somehow managed to keep their workforce from unionizing to improve things.
So how should we say this: how about straight out--Amazon gets it and Walmart does not!
And while Walmart has their own .com site--which coincidentally looks very much like Amazon's--Amazon is eating Walmart's lunch online, with according to NBC News a 41% revenue increase for Amazon's online sales versus just 3.4% for Walmart's. Moreover, Bloomberg BusinessWeek (29 March 2012) reports that Walmart's 2011 online sales amounted to less than 2% of their U.S. sales--they just can't seem to make the digital transformation!
So While overall Amazon sales at $48 billion are still only about 1/9 of Walmart colossal $419 billion, Amazon with it's high-tech approach (including their successful Kindle eReaders, cloud computing, and more) is anticipated to reach $100 billion in online sales by 2015.
Like the other big box retailers of yore, Kmart, Sears, JC Penny, Circuit City, Best Buy, and more, Walmart will decline--it will just take a little longer and with a little more thrashing, because of the size of their checkbooks.
Perhaps, as the New York Times implied years ago (17 July 2005) only stores like Costco (and throw in Nordstroms as well) with their tall aisles stocked neatly with quality goods, at low prices, and with better human capital ethos, will survive the big box retailer Armageddon.
My prediction is that within a generation Amazon will bury Walmart, if not literally so they are out of business, then figuratively with the best and most lucrative online shopping experience around--and as for the matchup betweent them, it won't even be close. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Fuschia Foot)
Amazon Will Bury Walmart
November 23, 2012
Here, There, Made Where?
The store is 6,000 square feet and has sales of about a million dollars a year.
And as their name says, they only sell goods that are completely made in the U.S. of A.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find lots of items there.
Forget literally anything electronic or that runs on a battery. It doesn’t exist.
Fashion clothes, also - go somewhere else.
Even if you are looking for a simple electric can opener, this won’t be the place.
How about some tea bags - Made In America has found that while there is still some tea made here, the bags aren’t. So it’s no longer stocked there.
However, if you are looking for simple things like socks, candy and greeting cards - this store may be the place for you.
Reflecting on this, I remember hearing Joel Osteen speak about how with pride, every country labels their goods, “Made In...” (wherever).
Osteen compared it to us human beings, the children of G-d, and how he imagined that even we have a label, or mark, on each of us, that we are made by our Great Creator.
Osteen said that it doesn’t matter how we look on the outside, that our Creator takes great pride in each of us - in what’s inside.
On one hand, it is deeply troubling that there are less and less “things” that we can label “Made in America.” However, perhaps we can still take pride, as G-d does, that what’s on the inside of us as a nation is what is truly valuable and inspiring to the rest of the world.
While high tech and hot fashion is no longer necessarily made here, the dream of human rights, democracy, freedom and creativity for all is still very much our own.
We still have that label - those values are “Made in America” and we’re lucky to have them.
That said, let’s get our American manufacturing engines working again, so we can compete effectively in the global marketplace, not just on ideas, but on hard products as well. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Hollywood PR)
Here, There, Made Where?
February 19, 2012
The Soul of A Shoe
I was surprised that this was all there was to it.
So what costs $140???
A little cowhide on the outside, a little cushion on the inside, and a some rubber sole on the bottom.
Add some eyelets and laces, and some stitching to hold it all together.
While there are certainly lots of styles, colors, and sizes out there, most are sort of commoditized, boring, and non high-tech.
Where are those jet-powered rocket shoes they promised when I was a kid.
Come on Nike--"just do it."
The Soul of A Shoe
December 11, 2011
What is The Secret of Laserman
This is a terrific performance by Laserman.
He seems to break all the laws of physics and manipulates laser light beams as if it is both a vapor and a solid.
He stops and redirects it, yet at the same time he pushes and twirls it--huh?
While I am not a fan of the movie Tron--I think I actually fell asleep in the theater (and more than once), this performance more than makes up for it.
My favorite piece is at 1:39 when Laserman picks the laser light up out of the stage--people start yelling as no one can believe it!--and he starts twirling it around like a baton now.
Then at 1:48, he breaks the light beam in two and starts twirling both and sticking them back in the stage only to start bending the light again.
To me, this performance is really cool and inspiring--it makes me think of a bright future for all of us--one that is agile, high-tech, heart-pounding, and where natural laws are almost made to be broken.
Someone please tell me how he does this...I promise, I won't tell ;-)
What is The Secret of Laserman
September 18, 2011
Bringing The Marriage Back Into Our Jobs
Federal Times (11 Sept 2011) reported on a human capital study done by the Partnership for Public Service (PPS) and Deloitte that found that "after the three-year [employment] mark, employee' satisfaction scores plummets" from 77.2 the first year to 66.2 after the third year.
Tim McManus, the VP for PPS underscored the significance of employee dissatisfaction on productivity and retention, when he stated that "it's more than just the end of the honeymoon period; your marriage is on the rocks."
For sometime now, we have been hearing about the high frequency of job changing for Gen Xers and Yers; this week, I actually heard of someone who had changed jobs literally 50 times before the age of 30!
Certainly, I would imagine that living in a high-tech, fast-paced culture that we do now, contributes to the number and rate of job changes, where people are looking for lots of responsibility and recognition in short order or they simply move on. There is a notion that life is too short to waste it in an unproductive or unfulfilling job.
Further, the poor economy, where layoffs have become commonplace has likewise contributed to an employment culture where employers and employees no longer feel beholden to each other, and each is looking out for their own best interests rather than their mutual success.
Unfortunately, what is getting lost in this employment picture is the notion of career. To employers, a person has become a human capital asset--kept on-board only as long as they remain more of an asset than a liability. And correspondingly, to many employees a "job is just a job" now-a-days--it is a temporary phenomena for X hours a weeks for "as long as it lasts," rather than a long-term place for personal and professional growth.
In a class this week, I had the privilege of hearing a terrific career development officer discuss the lifecycle of a job, as follows:
1) Steep Learning Curve -- We all go through it...can anyway say, "how do you use the copy machine?"
2) Strong Expertise -- This is the point where we are really excelling...we have become subject matter experts and are valued for that expertise.
3) Losing Your Edge -- At a certain point, people start to lose interest, performance, or get out of sync with their boss or the organization.
4) Hitting Rock Bottom -- If there is no course correction, employees who have "lost their edge" go on to become restless and dissatisfied and risk a precipitous decline.
Picture step 4 as a potential big SPLAT.
Most people start off their careers "bright eyes and bushy tailed," but at some point, if they are not well-managed, they become discouraged, disillusioned, demoralized and so on.
Obviously, this hurts the organization and the employee--both suffer when the two are out of sync. However, employees may change jobs at any stage in the lifecycle of a job, but the later stages become more painful for boss and employee.
So as leaders, are there things we can do to keep job satisfaction scores high or does the very notion of a lifecycle of a job mean that eventually "all good things must come to an end"?
I think we certainly can do things to make for a longer and more fulfilling job life cycle--training and career opportunities, ethical management, good communication, recognition and rewards, mentoring and coaching, work-life balance, treating people fairly, and more.
At the same time, even in ideal situations, people, organizations, and markets change, and we must change with them. It is important to recognize, when things have changed inside ourselves and our organizations, and when it's time to make a change outside in the job market. This is healthy when it's done for the right reasons and when it results in new opportunities to learn, grow, and contribute.
Every situation brings new challenges and opportunities and we need to meet those head-on striving for job satisfaction, working through times of dissatisfaction, and recognizing life cycles are normal and natural--we are all human.
Good luck!
(Source Photo: here)
Bringing The Marriage Back Into Our Jobs
August 28, 2011
Best High-Tech Looking Couch
Best High-Tech Looking Couch
April 15, 2011
A Combat Vehicle That Rocks and Rolls
A Combat Vehicle That Rocks and Rolls
Fit For A King
Fit For A King