There was, for instance, the time he conducted a crew of new S.A.R.H. (Society for the Aesthetic Rearrangement of History -BJ) recruits – all from late twentieth-century Terra – on a training study of Carter’s World, a newly established agricultural colony attempting to support itself by the export of edible nuts. Barely into their second generation, and having yet to show a profit, the colonists were technologically backward. Nevertheless, they showed a surprising ingenuity in the use of their few advantages. It was this resourcefulness that Feghoot was demonstrating to his rookies.
“Look at the perfection with which these streets are graded”, exclaimed one student. “Earth-moving machinery on this scale is strictly high technology stuff. How can they do it?”
“A new alleyway is being constructed, nearby”, said Feghoot. “Let us walk that way while I explain.” As they strolled, he told his students that countless centuries before, the Carter’s World system had been inhabited by a now-vanished race of giants. This very planet had served them for a nursery, and among the many artifacts they had left were thousands of childrens blocks, immense and precision-cut. You simply jack one up onto logs, bring it where you want it, put collapsible jacks underneath, snake out the logs, spread soil more or less evenly beneath, and collapse the jacks.
“I see”, said the student. “It’s not graded road at all; its a simple hammered-earth base.”
“That’s right,” Feghoot went on smoothly. “You just hit the road jack and don’t come back no mo.”
His students registered dismay and anguish.
“Isn’t that right, old-timer?,” Feghoot demanded of an ancient Carterian standing by the mouth of the newly completed alley they had just reached.
“Ahm afraid not, suh”, said the senior citizen, and the students giggled at Feghoots discomfiture. “Oh, we used to do it that way, but it was far too much trouble. It’s the soil heah. You see, the very same soil which produced our famous cashews is so high in clay content that a child could roll out a road of it. Then, we simply use a system of lenses to bake it into hardness. Ahve just completed this alley mahself, and ahm just a retired professor of Sports History, much too old and feeble to handle hydraulic jacks.
“So you see,” he finished, eyes twinkling, “Mah hammered alley is really cashews clay.”
Howls of agony rose from the students, but Feghoot never hesitated. “And he”, he said, turning to his students, “is clearly the gradi
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A young man comes up with a great idea for a new shipping method. He designs everything himself, hires people to create models, and deduces that he can use old fashioned boating technology to increase shipping speeds by up to 350%. This is obviously a great innovation, so he calls up a former Business professor from college and gets into contact with a manufacturer. The manufacturer makes the man come in and present his design to the board of directors, so they schedule a meeting in two weeks.
At the meeting, the board is blown away. The man’s charisma, design, and equations all point to a massive innovation in shipping. The company is poised to make a huge profit. Construction starts immediately.
On his flight back, the man happens to sits next to his old buddy from high school, Jimmy. Jimmy tells the man that he has just blown the farming world wide open. His new GMO potato produces five times as much energy and has been the talk of the world. Jimmy says that all the news outlets have been reporting potatoes to be the next big superfood, and his design is poised to make him millions, if not billions of dollars. Jimmy pitches the man for the entire plane ride, and convinced him. They hop on the next flight back to visit the board of directors once again. The board is shocked. Both ideas stand to make billions of dollars for the company, but there is one slight problem.
The CEO says to the man, “we know you have these two ideas. However, we can only allocate enough resources to make one of them profitable. I recommend you take some time off and really decide which of these ideas you want our company to produce. We can schedule a meeting in a few weeks if that works for you.”
The man says right back to the CEO, “I’m going to take a walk and clear my head. This is a big decision” and walks right out of the room.
Not even five seconds later the man comes back into the room and says “I’ve made my decision. Let’s go with the shipping method.” This shocks the CEO, who says “are you sure?? This is a billion dollar decision and you only took five seconds to think about it.”
The man looks back at him and says “well, in this business time is money— so I decided to make my decision schooner rather than tater”
