This week’s Economist nicely presents the current status of global nuclear power development.

The Generation IV International Forum (GIF, a consortium of 10+ countries) has drawn up plans for six new reactor designs.  From these six, they will whittle down to the design that becomes the standard for the fourth generation of nuclear power plants.  These six designs range from merely updated designs to entirely new types of fuels and coolants.

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Let’s face it — engineers see a lot of numbers in their everyday jobs.  While generally comfortable with math and numbers, I doubt many of us take the time to actually visualize what those numbers actually mean.

The speed of light is a great example.  Every engineer knows that it’s 299,792,486 m/s^2.  In more common (for us Americans) terms, it’s about 186,000 miles per second.  But how fast is that, exactly?

Well, the moon is a good example.  While really close to Earth in astronomical units, it would be a pretty long walk to reach there, if such a journey were possible.  But humans have been to the moon and around the far side.  It’s as far as we’ve ever managed to travel in one journey.  So how far is it, in relation to the speed of light?

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NASA Spirit Mars Rover Wheel

NASA reported today, December 2, that the Mars rover “Spirit”has made significant discoveries while stuck in a section of the Martian terrain named after the ancient city of Troy.

Several of the wheels on the rover have been unable to gain traction, and have spun in place for the past six months as NASA operators attempt to unstick the device.  As the wheels churned up the soil, scientists were pleased to discover the presence of water-indicating sulfates, which form during steam events.

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This is the latest Apple keynote, stripped of nearly everything except the adjectives.

Notice there’s a lot of subtle hypnosis going on here. Scott Adams (Dilbert) is actually a trained hypnotist, and he talks about this kind of influence.  It’s basically the neuro-linguistic programming that Niel Strauss discusses in his bestselling book, “The Game“.  This is a great example of Apple doing it about as well as anybody else ever has.

You would never see the words “amazing” and “incredible” printed 15 times in a brochure, but speech is a very different medium.  Your audience picks up on subtle emotional cues (and sometimes not so subtle) that are missing in print.

Keep this in mind when you are selling your products, presenting to customers, and speaking at events.  There’s nothing wrong with being enthusiastic about your company and it’s offerings.  Tell them how incredible your company really is.

(found via CNN’s Brainstorm Tech Blog)

What presentation tips do you use, or have you noticed?

As you may know, there is currently a summit called “Government 2.0“, designed to provide a forum to discuss the role of government in technology, and technology in government.  Their agenda is mostly concerned with improving government efficiencies through open standards and applications of technology.  I have written this letter in order to try and get those in government to think a little bit differently about startups than they do about traditional businesses.

Think Small

The entrepreneur’s mindset is necessarily one of smallness.  Small budgets, small sales, and small teams.

Government, on the other hand, thinks big.  Big bailouts, big social programs, big health care reform.

That focus on the big companies handicaps our nation’s future.  To Washington, you have to be big or be invisible.

This is a huge mistake.

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