Kenny's Cafe Corner

makezine.com: More from Dean Kamen

An interview with inventor extraordinaire Dean Kamen. He who invented the Segway, water filtration straw and many other genius inventions.

Here is a meaningful quote:

As I walk through shopping malls, it never fails to amaze me that there is store after store filled with packages of stuff. I think about the time and energy spent designing all that. Making the graphics. Putting on that plastic wrap. Distributing it to this place. And here it is, in this expensive real estate. I look at it and think, what is the total number of man-hours spent on design, development, manufacturing, and marketing just to put that inane piece of junk in a store window. And then I think if all of the people who put all of their energy putting that stuff in there were working on making water drinkable, or making power available, or curing diseases, or making the air breathable--it just astounds me how much junk is out there! If somebody were to ask me if I worked on some of the things I see in stores, I would be embarrassed to say that I traded any of my precious time on this planet to produce many of those things. There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid any real substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am working on things that matter.

Now if all those arrogant egocentric self-important pompous people realize that what they do is NOT important, maybe the world will be a better place!