Out-of-the-box solutions?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Out-of-the-box solutions?

Zhuge did something extra clever. He decided to invade a riverside enemy fort with boats full of straw soldiers on a foggy day.

The long and short of the story is that enemies soldiers mistaking straw men as real shot all their arrows onto them. Upon sailing home, Zhuge had people pick out all the arrows from the straw soldiers and, you know what, he had even more arrows than he asked for.

All right?

Alright, here are present-day examples of people who think or need to think outside the box:

1. Fulfilling a campaign pledge to tap Silicon Valley innovation to combat global warming, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced Monday at Google’s headquarters the first federal grants for high-risk, high-reward clean-tech ventures – including revolutionary technologies like using bacteria to create gasoline.

“We are trying to hit home runs, not base hits,” Chu said. “These are out-of-the-box approaches.”

The administration’s initiative drew cheers from the valley’s clean-technology community, which sees federal funding playing a critical role in getting basic research off the ground, paving the way for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to take those ideas and turn them into multibillion-dollar companies.

“This is going toward more fundamental, early-stage research — something venture capitalists may not be interested in,” said Herman Lopez, director of materials development at Hayward-based Envia Systems, which garnered a $4 million grant for its work to create high-density lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles, electric cars and electronic gadgets.