Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Dust To Be Able To Shave

The Economist showed me a rather frightening dystopia:
  • In 1901, the American inventor King Camp Gillette invented a safety razor with one disposable blade. Gillette realized that a profit could be made by selling a safety razor at a reduced price and then making a nice profit margin on the (in)expensive disposable blades. As we all know, this model has been adopted by the printer industry.
  • In 1971 Gillette introduced Trac II, the double-blade razor.
  • In 1998 Gillette added a third blade and called it Mach 3.
  • In 2003 Schick tried to catch up with its quadruple-blade Quattro.
  • This year we face Gillette's Fusion with a quintuple-blade.
We all know Moore's law which predicts the growth of computer chips' power. There seems to be a similar pattern with razors. It is difficult to predict a curve with only five known points. If it follows a power law then we will have to shave with 14 blades in 2100 (which does not concern me at all). But if it follows a hyperbola we reach the 14 blader in a few years. It seems advisable to dust the dumbbell and train the shaving arm now.

1 comment:

Toño said...

I can't live with out my Gillette Trac II... I know I am old fashioned, but with me it works perfectly:)