Elegant Technology online

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QT All videos at this site (38) Quicktime 7 required for most--free player download

 

Creating Prosperity:
Downloadable files

Quicktime Movies
 
Video iPod ready version (51.7 megs)
Quicktime 7 version (24.9 megs)
Quicktime 6 version (25.5 megs)
 
Windows Media (.wmv )
 
Small Windows Media (15 megs)
Larger .wmv file (38.4 megs)

 


Chapter Three animated illustration

Chapter Three
Are Producers a Class?

What is the proper way to define a class?

First, prove the existence of a group with boundaries;

Second, explain what the members of the group have in common.

The features of cultural commonalty will be explained in chapter four, but first there is this little problem of showing that producers constitute a class.

Class analysis is often based on income, but because a producer-predator analysis postulates that there are rich and poor members of producers and predators, the difference is fundamental yet esoteric.


JAL speaks

The link between the
custom-fit chair and the book "Elegant Technology"

These videos decribe how a specific invention leads to a wider theoretical construct.

The lessons of the chair (6.6 mb)
Elegant Technology (7.8 mb)


Sitting Pretty

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Sitting Pretty describes an invention that enables the manufacture of a truly custom-fit chair.

A virtual MOA store (5.9 mb)
How a chair should fit (2.9 mb)
Why chairs often don't fit (2.3 mb)
The "slip-slide" (445 kb)
Not enough adjustments (2.3 mb)
The custom-fit alternative (2.0 mb)
How to fit a chair (2.8 mb)
The commercial implications (5.3 mb)


Versions

Inventing an
Elegant Technology

The version history of a custom-built chair

Version 1 (4.9 mb)
Version 2 (5.9 mb)
Version 3 (2.9 mb)


howto

Creating a virtual store

How it was done. Using digital techniques to illustrate a possible future.

Why create the illusion? (4.0 mb)
Modeling the chair (2.4 mb)
Capturing the MOA (5.9 mb)
Creating a sign (3.1 mb)
Redoing the store window (1.4 mb)
Building an interior (818 kb)
Digital repairs (1.9 mb)
Final assembly (5.1 mb)


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Here's to wind power--my favorite
Elegant Technology

 

1) My video record of the new Vestas v82 wind turbine recently erected at nearby St. Olaf College in Northfield MN.

YouTube link:
Quicktime Movie (40.2 megs)
Windows Movie (35.4 megs)

2) In an attempt to demonstrate that wind turbines are beautiful, I traveled to Buffalo Ridge in southwestern Minnesota on a spring day to capture the kenetic sculpture that is a giant wind farm. The sky cooperated--the footage is stunning

Recently, I cut together some of these shots and combined it with Edvard Grieg's incomparable Varin (Spring)

Old and new windmillsYouTube link:

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Veblen

Veblen as a member of a Norwegian pioneer settlement

MP4 movie. 31.3 megs. 12:33 running time.

A recounting of the lessons learned from the restoration as told to the Valley Grove Preservation Society Jun 2001. Valley Grove is where Thorstein's parents are buried and was a cultural center of the immigrant community. Brother Orson was the general contractor for the wooden church on the site.


Bob Vila
young TBV
JKG at farm

The story of the Veblen farmhouse restoration as told by Bob Vila on his program Restore America.

First seen on Home and Garden television. QT movie 11.5 megs--running time 6:20.

Pictures from show--top to bottom

Bob Vila, host.

A young Thorstein Veblen as a Carleton grad.

John Kenneth Galbraith at the farm for the filming of the BBCs "The Age of Uncertainty" in 1975. (JKG, dead at the age of 97, April 29, 2006)

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Science illustrations


E4E1

E4E2

Energy for Everyone

This ten-part series originally aired on WCCO Television as part of their commitment to science education.

 

Linked to this site:

Chapter One:
Introduction--from where does energy come? (5.3 mb)

 

Chapter Four:
Hydrocarbon Kids--how do we use so much fossil fuel? (5.4 mb)

Client:
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Project Description:

Controlling runoff is one of those difficult policy issues that affects millions from northern farmers to Gulf fishers. Investment is on an 80-year cycle. Changing established practices is a matter of demonstrating a better alternative to very careful people.

This animation was featured in a video discussing differing strategies. It was a perfect application for an animation--comprehension increased by 9-fold over a simple static drawing.


Client:
Cisco Training

Project Description:

This was an attempt to illustrate what an information packet would look like traveling through a fiber-optic connection. Of course, such a thing cannot be seen so this was not even speculation. These brief animations were used as scene transitions in a training film and were considered VERY cool.

So like most things cool, it is about 6% science and 94% show business.


This animation was made to better visualize the incredible NASA photograph composite of the Earth at night. Shrunk around a sphere, it provided an incredibly accurate view of the world looking at the dark side.

Of course, the rotation speeds are not to scale, but this is a very accurate representation of the earth from space in many respects. The daytime view of the earth is also based on photographs and the background starfield was generated by an astronomy program.

Because the NASA photos were so detailed, very high resolution versions of this animation were possible. This sequence is quite spectacular on a high-def plasma screen ;-)

435 frames per revolution
Camera angle: 40° North of equator


knot

Tying a bowline

Desktop video is so much more cost effective than printing. Here the point is made with a simple video that teaches how to tie a bowline knot. (3.1 mb)


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