Surfing Waves

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018 ... s-off-taps

I wonder how long it will take for this same story play out in Phoenix, Arizona or Las Vegas, Nevada.

A weakness of the free market economy is its failure to take "the long view." Shortages that can be postponed for a better return in the current cycle will be. When the scarcity become urgent and there's money to be made with a solution, science and innovation are finally applied to find one. When whale oil became scarce, kerosene and eventually the electric light bulb were invented.

I am happy to pay taxes for government funded research and development so that problems like Cape Town can be solved before a crisis. Here's a possible solution for coastal areas...

https://inhabitat.com/solar-powered-desalination-could-solve-californias-water-supply-problem/

When I was still in high school I had a friend who was a genius. His brother was an Olympic skier who learned to surf which I most likely mentioned here. Anyway the last time I saw him which was ages ago he had invented and was selling vacuum stills of various sizes Including ones that could be used in a home or on a boat which could desalinate seawater or transform even the most polluted water into clean drinking water. Those would likely sell well now. Not sure what happened to my friend but he was a dismal businessman and it's likely his company tanked or he sold it for much less than it was worth like his patent for the jet ink printer which he sold for something like $300,000 which became a multi billion dollar business. I think his vacuum still process wasn't too amenable to large scale desalination but from his description it would have been easy for individuals to manage in a home setting.

BoMan wrote:I am happy to pay taxes for government funded research and development so that problems like Cape Town can be solved before a crisis. Here's a possible solution for coastal areas...

I hear that. Hopefully, Cape Town will be the last wake up call people will need to take steps to do something, but I suspect it probably won't. So it goes.

oldmansurfer wrote:When I was still in high school I had a friend who was a genius. His brother was an Olympic skier who learned to surf which I most likely mentioned here. Anyway the last time I saw him which was ages ago he had invented and was selling vacuum stills of various sizes Including ones that could be used in a home or on a boat which could desalinate seawater or transform even the most polluted water into clean drinking water. Those would likely sell well now. Not sure what happened to my friend but he was a dismal businessman and it's likely his company tanked or he sold it for much less than it was worth like his patent for the jet ink printer which he sold for something like $300,000 which became a multi billion dollar business. I think his vacuum still process wasn't too amenable to large scale desalination but from his description it would have been easy for individuals to manage in a home setting.

One of the problems with desalinization is that it produces a tremendous amount of salt. From what I've read, they just send the salt back into the ocean after they separate the fresh water from the sea water. Nobody knows what the long term effects of sending all that salt back into the ocean will do. I suspect it probably isn't a good thing. Maybe your friend can figure out a solution to that problem.

I have no idea if he is even alive these days which is sad because he had a great mind for science. He was a grad student who helped to perfect the laser. He probably had the first patent for a flat TV unfortunately he couldn't market it and instead the companies he tried to market it too came out with their own versions. Hey but salt is a necessity for life so I am sure they can figure out something to do with it besides with all the ice melting and going into the ocean it will need some salt . I was younger than him but he liked me because I liked to party in a similar manner to him I guess in some ways I was older than my years

oldmansurfer wrote:I have no idea if he is even alive these days which is sad because he had a great mind for science. He was a grad student who helped to perfect the laser. He probably had the first patent for a flat TV unfortunately he couldn't market it and instead the companies he tried to market it too came out with their own versions. Hey but salt is a necessity for life so I am sure they can figure out something to do with it besides with all the ice melting and going into the ocean it will need some salt . I was younger than him but he liked me because I liked to party in a similar manner to him I guess in some ways I was older than my years

Unfortunately, patents are only profitable if you have enough money to defend them. Most inventors don't. There have been companies that sued to defend their right to their patent and won their case 5 years after they brought it, but by that time they were already filing for bankruptcy. I think that happened to Palm Pilot or Blackberry (remember those ) or some such a ways back.

The jet ink printer patent was in court for years and when they finally won they sold it to pay off lawyer fees and get a little capital to do something with. The patent was theirs because the other patent used a frequency that didn't work well. By the way he used to call it an impactless teletype. He figured it would be used over the phone lines like a color fax when he first got the patent but the advent of PCs made it an item that was almost as popular as TV. I have owned several of them over the years more than TVs I have owned. His partner went on to be hired by huge corporations because of his history of inventing such a useful item. He chose to go it alone having been screwed over by corporations and as far as I know drifted off the face of the earth. The last time I found a mention of him it was from his former partner wishing him well where ever he was since he couldn't find him either