Odd Man In  Inventor James Dyson lets his freak flag fly  As
with mousetraps, so with vacuum cleaners -- build a better one,
and the world will beat a path to your door. And if you happen
to create a new way of doing business in the process, the world
may beat a path to your door holding a book contract.  James
Dyson, the inventor, designer and engineer of the "as seen on
TV" Dyson Cyclone, has found success in both business and
product development by embracing the unconventional. In his
autobiography, Against the Odds, he writes about solving
engineering and design problems, and also human and household
ones.  When he was a child, vacuuming was Dyson's chore. "I can
remember there was this terrible smell of dust and dog hair," he
says. "And I still had to bend down and pick up paper clips and
hair that the vacuum wouldn't get." The problem repeated itself
when Dyson had his own home. "It made me angrier," he says.  In
the meantime, Dyson had built an industrial cyclone to solve a
filter problem at the factor