We saw how market studies can be done early in the supply chain. The simulation is about anticipation, imagining the future. We can envision that biology models of the environment, or the preservation of languages and cultures, will be much easier to understand with 3D modelization than with 2D graphics and projections only. The cartoons were impressive to free the imagination the 3D is freeing abstract models of design, architecture, mathematics, and so on. Circulating in 3D spaces make sense for everyone, while projecting 2D plans in 3D was arduous and abstract for most of us. The museum of architecture announced the power of visualization and interaction. Of course, we later hired away a lead aerodynamicist from the software company, but the point is, in some context, we have the same resources as NASA. There! We had the same CFD software as NASA. We later discovered the software they were using and simply bought it. It's truly remarkable.Ĭonsider this, in the early days of Aptera, we first hired a particular NASA facility to do some CFD analysis for us. What took 100 engineers to do in the 1940's can be done by several engineers, or maybe even one lone engineer, depending on the task. The proliferation of these tools is a great equalizer with the bigger companies. A small company, armed with these tools, but without a bureaucracy, can turn around key engineering decisions in days or hours, not months or years. However, what's remarkable now is that small companies like Aptera can afford the same tools that these giants have. It's unlikely we could have afforded anything other than a small 1/4 scale tunnel, and at $10,000 per day, which is a typical rate, we wouldn't have got very far.īut, NASA and Boeing and other big giants have these tools, too. Fifteen years ago, even ten years ago, our only alternative would have been to use a wind tunnel, an expensive and lengthy affair. Every single part of our vehicle that touches the air has been through countless revisions to lower the drag. Properly used, and I stress "properly," computers are not just abstract boxes on desktops for email and surfing the net, they are powerful "force multipliers."įor example, at our company we're heavily leveraged in CFD, computational fluid dynamics. It's increased the technical/scientific/engineering capability of single engineers by orders of magnitudes. Besides being connected and allowing people to exchange messages, data and to use the Internet, it's done something else. Well, I would have to say the ever-increasing ubiquity of powerful computers. Email is a revolution in and of itself and it is just one of the many emerging uses of the PC as a communications device for digital "society." I now spend the majority of my working life "doing email." When I started my business career, there was no email. This email will be sent to you and then turned into the content of an article or a blog post that gets distributed over the network to potentially millions of people. I am responding with my PC to an email that you sent me, David, right now. To me, the implications of PC moving from a productivity and entertainment device to being a communication and distribution platform were unexpected or perhaps un-appreciated. Then this device took a radical turn when it became connected to networks of others and it became the most important communication device in millions, now billions, of lives. It radically enhanced people's productivity and creativity, and changed the way they were entertained. It put unfathomable computing power in the hands of the little guy. John Bowe is a speech trainer, award-winning journalist, and author of "I Have Something to Say: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking in an Age of Disconnection." He has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, McSweeney's, This American Life, and many others. Was it profound? Did you cure cancer? No. But every relationship you value began somewhere - with an initial conversation. It's easy to dismiss small talk as an insincere, unwanted and unimportant social nicety. Be present and give them your full attention. Don't stare at the floor or look over their shoulder at another person. If you're talking to someone, talk to them.
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