M&M sorting machine

[glatt]

Could be the foot in the door at a manufacturing tooling company. Somebody has to build all the automated equipment at factories.

[Lamplighter]

Unfortunate for this inventor, it's been there and done that and patented already.

The re-cycling of glass bottles and jars by breaking them into small bits,
and separating the bits by color using a stream of air as they are in free-fall.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Unfortunate for this inventor, it's been there and done that and patented already.

The re-cycling of glass bottles and jars by breaking them into small bits,
and separating the bits by color using a stream of air as they are in free-fall.

I saw that cranberry sorting is done the same way, essentially.

[Gravdigr]

That M&M machine is all kinds of fucked up.

It's not sorting out the W's.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

That M&M machine is all kinds of fucked up.

It's not sorting out the W's.

Some people are never satisfied.

If he had wanted to sort out the W's too,
he would have named it a M&W machine

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

Could be the foot in the door at a manufacturing tooling company.

Many who have no idea how innovation happens have identified themselves here. Why would anyone spend massively on scientists to make a computer chess game? Especially when a phone company does not play chess or do anything related to chess? Especially when the company's products and equipment did nothing with computers?

What resulted was UNIX (also called SCO, Ultrix, POSIX, Xenix, BSD, Linux, AIX, Windows, OSX) and C Programming language (and its many variants). Because what is done in fundamental research has zero potential value until application research then takes that discovery into a product.

Why would anyone spend so much money on research application of minerals? Because what resulted is the so many tapes and glues that we use today (3M). Why would anyone spend so much time developing a virus that can enter and compromise human cells? Because that now is suddenly how stem cell and peptide research may be curing diseases.

Why would anyone buy the rights to a useless video recorder that costs $20,000 to make. Because what resulted was the $multi-million VCR and DVD market. Ampex management had no idea what they were giving away for peanuts. They were business school graduates who could not see potential in ridiculous and money wasting ventures.

Is pattern recognition is easy? Just because one feels it is easy means any computer programmer can replicate it? Of course not. Pattern recognition is a hot field of study because it is so hard. Doing it on a pathetic computer inside a phone with such speed is a challenge.

Intel had no idea that a microprocessor could become a computer. Computer was not even listed in the hundreds of potential uProcessor applications. So why are all computers now based in uProcessors? It took 20 years to discover a uProcessor's most important task was computing. Was that obvious back then? Of course not.

That is what innovation is about. Discovering a problem to solve by first creating a solution ... that has no apparent purpose.

Appalling is how many did not even see what should be obvious. Characteristic of a business school graduate is one who does not know how innovation happens. Who cannot see what appears rediculous may be the innovator's dilemma. And does not realize it takes maybe 1000 such projects to create the one massive breakthrough. These who do not recognized how innovation happens is a primary reason for so many job losses.