adreama

Opening restaurants for breakfast

2012-01-30T21:56:00.000Z

For many restaurants, the fixed assets (building, interior, kitchen equipment, etc) and the rent thereon make up a significant proportion of the cost base. Given that these costs are fixed, it would make sense to maximise the benefit from them, so why don't many restaurants open for breakfast?

Breakfast could be run by a separate shift of staff, and all that is necessary is for those staff to cover their staff costs, plus ingredients, plus energy, and anything more is profit on the existing setup. Synergies could be achieved if a good breakfast inspires customers to return for lunch or dinner. (Obviously the breakfast shift would need to leave the restaurant in a suitable condition for the lunch shift!)

There is no reason why breakfast needs to be that close to the normal restaurant in terms of genre of food, but obviously a complete clash could be detrimental.

To take this thought further, why not run the kitchen 24h, with the time while the restaurant is not open used to prepare foods to be boughts in an associated shop, e.g. fresh bread. Or alternatively, the kitchen used as the base for a takeout service.

Business combinations: driving school; vehicle hire; taxi firm; delivery service

2012-01-30T21:30:00.000Z

Commonalities:

fleet of vehicles
staff of drivers (and driving instructors)
vehicle scheduling and communication staff and systems
yard for storing vehicles
contract for vehicle maintenance

Efficiencies:

taxis/driving instructors do deliveries when they have downtime (as driving instructors would demand a premium as they are better qualified, they would only be used to handle peak demand, which would be more efficient than having overcapacity of delivery drivers and vehicles)
run vehicles 24x7, e.g. a car that is used for driving school during the day is used for a taxi service at night (vehicle choice is important as taxis tend to be larger than driving school vehicles, with the former selected for legroom and luggage capacity and the latter selected for parkability and fuel economy)
bulk vehicle servicing contract, or own a mechanics shop for cheaper maintenance costs
schedule deliveries with the pickup and drop-off locations of driving instructors and taxis

Soap-in-a-bag (commercial responses to consumers' thrifty ideas)

2012-01-29T14:58:00.000Z

Consumers come up with no end of clever ways to make the most of products that companies sell them, and the extent of this is set to increase with the rise of the maker subculture and associated trends.

One of those ideas that appealled to me was the use of old pantyhose to use up old soap. There's an article on Lifehacker, and many more if you do a search.

What's interesting about this idea, is that the consumers' modification is actually a significant improvement, not only does the method use up the old pieces of soap, but generates a better lather (due to a higher surface area to volume ratio) and has a built-in loofah.

So why haven't the soap companies cottoned on to this? At worst, it's a gimmick that could increase sales. At best, it's a differentiator: more lather; better for the environment (as no wasted ends) (demonstrating the companies' environmental credentials); works with cheap soap; less likely to slip out of your hands; does not slip off or fall through soap holder; exfoliates (the loofah element); and due to the better lathering, it uses the soap faster (which means more sales).

Another possibility would be to sell small soap beads specifically for a bag. The beads could be of different colour and odor, allowing to the customer to mix-and-match to get the smell they wanted.

The lesson of this? Companies need to pay attention not just to who's buying their products, how much they're buying, when they're buying, etc. But also, how the customers/consumers are using their products.

An online tool for image quizzes

2012-01-29T14:38:00.000Z

I think there is an opportunity for an online tool/website for image quizzes that allows users to create their own image quizzes using images that can upload or find on the internet (subject to copyright considerations), and have these hosted on the site. There would also be a login, so learners could track their progress.

There would be two key types of quiz: ones in which the learner can be asked to click on an area of the image that corresponds to a particular definition (e.g. click on the USA on a map of the world; click on Arizona on a map of the USA); and ones in which the learner can be shown an image with a label, and can select from mulitple choice the correct answer for that label (e.g. the label points at the hard disk on an image of the inside of a computer, and the learner can pick from "hard disk", "CPU", "RAM", "PSU", etc).

Additionally, instead of just one image with components, sets of images could be used (e.g. Presidents of the USA).

The flexibility in allowing users to upload images an create their own quizzes would make this a valuable tool for educators everywhere. There are also a couple of spin-offs: having images with machine-readable labels (which would be created as part of the quizzes) would in itself be a valuable tool as this data could be searched; similarly, the data input by users could be used to teach computers image recognition, and improve image search engines.

Another possible way of using this concept would be to use image interpretation as an alternative to recaptcha. Like recaptcha, two images are presented, one that the computer knows the correct interpretation of, the other which it doesn't. The captcha bit works on the image the computer knows, and the other image and associated response, is used to teach computers image recognition.

Other thoughts/features:

Public/private quizzes
Link to social media sites (with scores)
Embed in your own webpage
Produce stand-alone files to be emailed or used offline
‘Email quiz to a friend’ emails link or file
False answers
Categorisation – tags
Edit/Modify/Extend other people’s imagequizzes

Quizzes as a learning method

2012-01-29T13:35:00.001Z

Quizzes (tests, exams, etc) are an effective learning method as they are more participative, and force the learner to use what they are learning, rather than just absorbing it. If a quiz keeps firing questions at you (non-stop), you tend to think "just one more question" like the computer games' "just one more level", which encourages more learning activity. And the message is reinforced by the repetition (like drilling in the military).

The optimum quizzing environment is one where a teacher can supervise the learner and explain where they are going wrong. It is difficult to get a computer to recreate this, as computers do not understand the subject. There is a significant challenge in getting computers to conjugate and mark quiz questions.

Computer quizzing is effective for mulitple choice, which is particularly good at teaching the lexicon of a subject area; touchtyping is taught well by computer programs (as long as the user does not cheat with what finger they are using on what keys).

Maths problems can work, but if the learner get's the wrong answer, it's would be difficult for the computer to give the learner marks for their workings. One possible solution to this, would be to force the learner to build their workings using a set of tools in the program. This way the computer could analyse at which step in the solution the learner went wrong.

For teaching musical instruments, a computer could ask for a note at random, and measure pitch of the response to ensure the correct note was played. The quicker the user plays the correct note, the better the score. For learning a stringed instrument, the computer to set both the string, hand position and finger to be used (the computer would be able to determine the string used via the timbre of the sound).

Images are an effective learning tool that can be used in a couple of ways: the learner can be asked to click on an area of the image that corresponds to a particular definition (e.g. click on the USA on a map of the world; click on Arizona on a map of the USA). The learner can be shown an image with a label, and can select from mulitple choice the correct answer for that label (e.g. the label points at the hard disk on an image of the inside of a computer, and the learner can pick from "hard disk", "CPU", "RAM", "PSU", etc).

Are all possible quiz types built and out there? Or is there still opportunity?

Automatically adjusting bed

2012-01-29T13:18:00.000Z

One of the problems of crafted beds and pillows is that they only work if the sleeper sleeps in the same position. A possible solution to this would be beds that automatically adjusted themselves to move the sleeper into an optimal position (e.g. for spine alignment). The sleeper's position would be detected from pressure sensors, and perhaps 3D scanners (e.g. Kinect). Under the mattress (which would need to be a flexible foam mattress) would be a bed of hydraulic cylinders (or equivalent) that could raise an lower a particular area of the bed (a greater number of smaller cylinders gives finer control over the areas of the bed that can be raised and lowered). Obviously, the cylinders would need to move slowly and quietly so as not to wake the sleeper.

Micro learning soundbites

2012-01-29T13:10:00.000Z

There are some activities that fully occupy visual capabilities, but are not particularly mentally taxing. These include walking, driving and manual labour. To harness the time spent doing these activities as an opportunity for learning requires learning material optimised purely for audio. Often recordings of lectures will not fulfil this need, as they rely on visual material (e.g. slide shows, drawing on blackboard, etc).

Additionally, the audio needs to be optimised to suit the available time, e.g. 1 minute, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, etc, self-contained micro-learning soundbites.

Equality of suffering

2012-01-29T12:52:00.000Z

From each according to their means, to each according to their needs.

Each at the optimum level of suffering to maximise output and ensure the continued survival of the species. Except during times of crisis when above optimum would be expected in order to achieve shortterm goals (i.e. aversion of crisis).

Doesn't sound much fun though.

Segregation of work and personal life, work and personal systems

2012-01-29T12:49:00.000Z

The to do list is a perfect example of the challenge of segregating work and personal life, and work and personal systems. Sometimes it's necessary to have personal items on your work to do list, for example to remind you to pop to the bank in your lunch break (why don't banks do convenient opening hours!). Likewise, it is fairly common to have work items on your personal to do list (for example if you've brought work home to do on the weekend).

Ideally, you want one list that covers both. And you want it tightly integrated with your email (both personal and work), calendar (both personal and work), social media, etc. But that means your work information begins leaking into the personal area, which presents data protection and commercial confidentiality issues.

A concrete example: say you are a manager who has an employee who is underperforming and subject to performance review. That performance review is going to appear as a to do item, and if that to do list appears in your personal sphere, that puts confidentiality at risk.

How can we bring everything together, but keep it apart?

Public domain output

2012-01-14T17:19:00.000Z

Is public domain output becoming a more important part of recruitment? i.e. potential employees being able to point to something in the public domain that they achieved / worked on / contributed to.

The applicability of wildlife corridors as a model for the success of retail locations

2012-01-14T17:18:00.000Z

Wildlife corridors are small areas of habitat that act as connectors between two (or more) large areas of habitat that enable the wildlife of the larger areas to mix. The underlying observation is that wildlife will often not venture into non-habitat areas, but will migrate along potentially narrow habitat areas.

I suspect this concept can be applied to shopping locations. Shoppers are like the wildlife in that they will not stray too far beyond retail areas looking for more shops, but will continue window shopping shop-to-shop.

The implication of this is that two shopping areas will not benefit from the wandering shoppers from each other unless there is a connection between them of shops (or that the shoppers are conscious of both locations); only a shop with a strong following (i.e. people conscious of it, and deciding to consciously visit it) can survive a poor location (i.e. not connected by a retail corridor), as it will not be stumbled upon by shoppers wandering outside their shopping habitat.

More on nihilism

2012-01-14T17:03:00.003Z

Nihilism is right, but not particularly useful.

(similarly, there is no absolute morale right and wrong, but is doesn't stop them being useful concepts; there is no such thing as laziness (just different motivations), but the concept can be a helpful shorthand)

Peer reviewed journal for school children

2012-01-14T17:02:00.002Z

School children should be doing experiments and research that add to the wealth of human knowledge, not just repeating experiments of bygone scientists. They should be experiencing the full scientific process (albeit a lightweight version), including peer review and publication.

This would involve students doing the research, students doing the peer review, students doing the editing, and students doing the publication (online of course - after all paper is dead).

There is also a need to capture areas of research that students can usefully do within their resources (time, skill, lab equipment, knowledge), perhaps an online repository to capture ideas.

Kettle level guage

2012-01-14T17:01:00.000Z

A kettle's fill-level is often shown by a transparent layer directly showing the water, often supplemented by a float to make it easier to see. The problem with this approach is that the fill level indicator is affected by limescale deposition, reducing aesthetical value. A possible solution to this would be to have the fill-level indicator in a separate compartment (with no water in). The indicating object would be magnet, and held in place by a magnetic float on the water side. This would work similarly to a magnetic window cleaner.

Using neutrinos to communicate through solid matter?

2012-01-11T22:26:00.000Z

Would it be possible to communicate through the Earth using neutrinos? Neutrinos are able to pass through other matter as they are weakly interacting. The also travel at the speed of light (or faster according to some...).

Why would communicating through the Earth be beneficial? Such a communication medium would benefit from lower latency due to a lower distance travelled. This could be beneficial to algo-trading, particularly where it is reliant on information from the other side of the world (e.g. a different stock market).

Strobe alarm clock

2012-01-11T22:21:00.000Z

Strobe lighting (or in fact any flashing or moving light) is good at keeping us awake (which is why TVs, with their flashing moving lights, are not good for the body clock). It should be possible to harness this effect to make an alarm clock that quickly wakes us up. It may not need to be a bright flashing light (which could be abrasive) in order to achieve the effect; a subtle flashing light may work to slowing bring people to a pleasant state of wakefulness.

Contrasting self-directed learning with being taught

2012-01-11T22:17:00.000Z

One of the key advantages of being taught is that the teacher holds back the overwhelming weight of information, allowing through a only trickle that the student can usefully digest.

A problem with students learning how to learn in a taught environment, is that the learning methods that they learn are oriented towards being taught, and hence they are ill-prepared for self-directed learning, with its inevitable interaction with overwhelming volume.

The problem of volume can also be thought of a question hydra (of greek myth and legend). As a hydra sprouts two new heads for each cut off, a question sprouts two (or often more) question with every answer. Teachers act like Iolaus and his torch, closing down these questions with statements like "that's a good question, but we'll cover that next week" or "that's a good question, but you don't really need to understand that in order to understand this, so let's not get distracted".

Another way of thinking about this problem is dependencies. Teachers help us start in a place with the fewest dependencies, and to build these up in a logical order.

Universal stuff carrier

2012-01-02T19:33:00.000Z

Sometimes bags aren't big enough for a particular item you need to carry, not necessarily in terms of the volume of the bag, but in terms of one (or perhaps two) dimensions. What would be useful in such a circumstance would be a "bag" that despenses with the holding mechanism, relying purely on a strap to hold the object. No doubt such things have been used in the past and currently exist, but they do not seem to be sold in retail stores, despite their usefulness. Illustrations below.

A website for hosting Inducement Prize Contests

2012-01-02T18:37:00.000Z

I propose a website to allow any organisation or individual to easily create and host Inducement Prize Contests. The website would follow similar lines are Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, but in reverse: rather than requesting funding, the individual would be offering it in the form of a contest.

There would be no de minimus limit, so any prize or prize-set could be offered. The ICP creator would need to stump up the cash up-front (which would then be help in trust by the website organistation, with interest accruing to the prize). A variety of rule types would need to be managed, e.g. fixed time limit vs open time limit, best entry wins vs winning only with a defined set of criteria.

If successful, the website in itself would provide significant free marketing to the contest, increasing the number of participants. It would also reduce barriers to entry, resulting in more contests in total.

Using Inducement Prize Contests to get disparate groups to work together

2012-01-02T18:26:00.000Z

Inducement Prize Contests have a long history, and significant recent interest, largely driven by the X Prize and the DARPA Grand Challenge. The focus of most Inducement Prize Contests that I have read about is in pushing a particular area of technology beyond its current limits. It seems to me that another interesting way in which they could be used would be in pushing two disparate fields to work together.

Say for example subject matter Y people tend not to engage with subject matter Z people, but you hypothesise that subject matter Y's technology could solve subject matter Z's problems, then you pose an Inducement Prize Contest that will be won by the best use of subject matter Y's technology to solbe subject matter Z's problems. Obviously in order to win, subject matter Y people will need to engage with subject matter Z people in order to understand their problems, thus forcing the two groups together, which is likely to generate benefits that outlive the competition.

Qualification-only institutions

2012-01-02T18:12:00.000Z

The internet and world wide web have made available significant amounts of academic material (in written, pictoral, audio and video formats) at no cost; forums, mailing lists and answer websites provide support, again at no cost; and dedicated educational websites provide the means to test your own knowledge via quizzes (often combined with the former two elements required for education).

The last piece of the above puzzle that is missing is an institution, with reputation, that will open up its assessment mechanisms and allow anyone to gain a qualification. It may be necessary for such an institution to charge in order to recover the administration and assessment costs (e.g. markers). But such a charge would typically be a small fraction of the current cost of education.

Such a shift could be revolutionary, as more people would be able to access qualifications that are currently the reserve of the rich, or those willing to brave significant debt. In widening the pool of candidates, the institutions could afford to make the assessment more taxing.

Backrub, peer review and impact factor, popular culture - a suggestion for a kudos engine

2011-12-23T19:42:00.000Z

How do we give kudos on the internet? We can Like. We can put a link to something on our blog or website. We can send an email about to a friend (how old-school!). But this is not enough for me.

It matters to me not just how many Likes something has, but also who did the Liking. This concept is similar to Google's backrub algorithm - it matters the importance of the website that backlinks to the website in question. It's also similar to peer review and impact factors, where it matters who has reviewed, and where something is published.

I can solve this to some extent by following a set of people who have good taste, and tend to do good Liking. But this is a little contrived; not sufficiently organic.

So I propose a kudos engine. This would be an online social network. Any user of the social network would be able to create a unique kind of kudos, and at creation send this to unique online individuals (in the network already, identifiable by email address or another social network identifier) (all would need to be dispersed upon creation - no holding any back). The recipients could then "spend" (i.e. send on) that kudos (although the record of their original receipt would be kept). And so on. And so on.

All sending of kudos would be to an individual in respect of something. The "something" could just be a message from the sender or could point to a particular output of the recipient (an article, a song, a work of art, a project, a product, etc). A keyword cloud for that unique kind of kudos is created around the words associated with the "in respect of"s. So if the kudos was in respect of a song, the keyword cloud would include the name of the song, the name of the band, the genre of the music, etc. These keywords allow other users to find kudos-types of interest to them, which leads them to people, articles, music, art, projects, etc of interest.

The intial creator could set the total number of kudos units of that type at the start (e.g. 100), and could choose to create an inflationary factor (for each recipient, for every x kudos you receive, an additional y is also recieved). This is similar in concept to bitcoin's mining.

It is likely that some kudos-types would sink, and some would swim. If you receive some of a kudos-type that is circulating widely and circulating to people you respect, you know you're doing well!

Digitising everything

2011-11-27T20:38:00.000Z

I would like to see digitised as much as possible of human output. There are many ongoing efforts to digitise books, paintings, museum artifacts and buildings. But in addition to this, I would like to see digitisation made available to the people: your local digitisation centre, that has the tools and experience necessary to digitise your objects.

I believe that there are enough unique objects out there and owned by the people that such a digitisation outreach is necessary for us to truely capture the wealth of human output.

Art and low hanging fruit

2011-11-27T20:28:00.000Z

Are the possibilities for orginal self-expression finite or infinite? If finite, what will it look like as we approach complete exploration of the possibility space? How will we know when we get there?

Perfect-pouring teapot

2011-11-27T20:23:00.000Z

I am yet to encounter a teapot that pours without dripping (at some level of fullness of the teapot and hence angle). I suspect the reasons these are an engineering challenge have something to do with fluid dynamics, surface tension and potentially the water molecules bonding to the surface.

I watched recently an amazing video from Ross Nanotechnology of the NeverWet superhydrophobic spray-on coating (I would recommend watching the video), and it seems to me that this coating in the spout of the teapot has the potential to prevent dripping problems. As the water would be repelled by the surface, it wouldn't hang around to create a drip.

I hope their spray is suitable for food-preparation uses!

Serrated surface to reduce friction in one direction

2011-11-27T20:03:00.000Z

I observed the other day that a wet serrated surface significantly reduced friction in one direction. It appears that the serration grooves act as a reservoir for the fluid, ensuring the points of contact between the two surfaces are always separated by the fluid, reducing friction.

The diagram below illustrated (with exaggerated serrations).

Could this observation be put to any use?

Symbol keyboard

2011-11-27T19:38:00.000Z

I think there is a niche for a touchscreen keyboard that acts as an auxilary to the existing keyboard and displays symbols and characters that are not on the standard keyboard. Being a touchscreen, the symbol keyboard could easily be reprogrammed with different sets of characters that the user needs at their fingertips - a set of shortcut buttons would allow the user to switch between sets of symbols (either predefinied e.g. "maths" or user-defined).

Further thoughts on "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger"

2011-11-27T19:30:00.000Z

I've written previously on the quote "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger", and I have given some further thought to role of suffering in shaping one's personality.

I previously concluded that the quote is misleading, as some suffering will weaken you. But I am also convinced that suffering is an important part of learning and development. In the physical domain, we improve our physical strength and stamina via repeated exposure to painful training, and we improve our skill through practise that can be both physically and mentally draining. Similarly, our mental faculties improve through practise, which is often taxing.

That suffering is essential, and that too much is detrimental, suggests there is an optimum. And hence a question of fundamental importance: what is the optimal level of suffering? I strongly suspect that the optimum will vary significantly from person to person, and throughout each person's lifetime. So we should ask ourselves the question: are we at the optimum level of suffering for growth without detriment?

There are some complications: answering that question is difficult - as both measuring the level of suffering, and measuring the potential for detriment, are inexact; and because in an unforgiving society we cannot push ourselves to the limits as we cannot afford to fall over. We have to keep a safety margin between ourselves and the optimum. Alone we cannot push ourselves to our true limit, because there is no-one there to catch us when we fall over.

Which brings us back to the importance of a teacher, one that both imparts information, and pushes the student to deliver. When I try to imagine an environment of a teacher that really pushes students, I am reminded of some of the stereotyped images of military training, where the drill instructor pushes recruits to the limits, whilst trying not to push them to far (a la "Pyle" in Full Metal Jacket). I am also reminded of the scene from V for Vendetta where V imprisons Evey until she is free of fear.

It's all about... measurement

2011-10-30T18:24:00.000Z

Measurement (and the difficulty in doing so).

Rulers and weights work, but for measuring human output, the yardstick has too many variables for us to comprehend.

Improving corporate directories

2011-10-30T18:22:00.000Z

One of the biggest challenges in a modern organisation is getting the information you need. And often that information relies on talking to the right person.

Most of the time, the people you already know can point you to the person who knows what you need to know, but this isn't always the case. And so corporate directories are an essential tool in a modern organisation.

And yet those I've seen are often missing a trick.

No corporate directory I've seen includes database history (i.e. previous appointments/structure, with dates). This is particularly important in the fast changing world, when you want to find out who was working on a particular task last year.

Typically there is insufficient information on what people do (sometimes even their job title is omitted), their responsibilities and how their team relates to the other teams within the organisation.

And a good quality organogram generator wouldn't go amiss...

Self-perpetuating change

2011-10-30T18:15:00.002Z

I was in a meeting with senior management the other day. People were airing problems and discussing solutions; the most senior manager was handing out action points like candy.

All of the problems discussed were genuine, and all of the solutions and actions proposed were rational responses. But all of the solutions and actions were those likely to fade with time. They would be successful whilst on the priority list, but would no doubt succumb to other initiatives in the future.

It strikes me that what management (and in particular senior management) should be looking for is to make change that is self-perpetuating. That will continue to change the business without their sponsorship.

What does self-perpetuating change look like? Wikipedia is probably the best current example. Wikipedia will continue to improve itself, to change the world, and to inspire other transformational projects without the sponsorship of Jimmy Wales.

What are the characteristics of self-perpetuating change? I think that at least part of it is to create something that benefits a significant number of people, creating a demand that will no go away.

Extracting the stylistic elements from anything

2011-10-30T18:12:00.000Z

I just posted about the identification of repeating elements from documents, particularly maps, to be able to apply the stylistic quality of that document to other documents. I mentioned some other types of document that this could be applicable to, but the more I think of it, the more it seems to me that this concept can be applied much more widely. As long as we have a way to structure the information we are getting.

I would be as bold as to say we can capture the stylistic quality of any human output, and be able to use that style for future output. And what is most interesting is that information technology gives us the power to extract, store and apply that stylistic data. And thereby give any untalented individual the ability to produce something in the style of an existing human output.

Let's take some examples:

Visual art - extract the style of how people, food, a room and a table look from Michelangelo's The Last Supper, and allow people to produce works of art in that style

The written word - extract the writing style of Shakespeare from across his plays (his vocabulary, sentence order, etc), and provide translation software from modern English into "how Shakespeare would have written it"

A voice - extract the accent of JFK's voice from his speeches, and apply to any written text with voice synthesis. A further possibility (and complication) would be to combine that with generated video of JFK. This method will allow deceased actors to continue to act after they are dead.

Another interesting aspect of being able to extract that stylistic information is the possibility of hybridising (multiple) styles, mutating styles, and applying iterative artificial selection to styles.

Identification of repeating elements from documents

2011-10-30T17:39:00.000Z

I was looking at some old maps today. Old maps are so beautiful. Have modern map makers no taste? No pictures of mythical sea monsters, no ornate compass roses, no helpful comments such as "here be dragons".

So this got me thinking: wouldn't it be great to extract from old maps the fonts, and styles, etc (the repeating elements), and apply these styles to the data underlying modern maps (imagine Google Maps in medieval style!). It would be useful to have some software to help automate this, but I suspect it would need significant human supervision.

This concept is expandable to other diagrams that have repeating elements. The most obvious of this is generating fonts from the writing of old books - and not necessarily just the printed ones - e.g. a font based on the handwriting of 15th century monks. There are other old documents/images with repeating elements e.g. building/engineering plans.

An interesting artistic use of this would be randomly generated maps, using the old styles, as image content for digital wallpaper.

Leaves as a substrate for 3D printing?

2011-10-23T21:15:00.000+01:00

Around this time of year (in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere), one thing we have in surplus is leaves. They are everywhere.

Could we make better use of them? Could they be used as a substrate for 3D printing (once ground down, and combined with some kind of gluing agent)?

Automated kitchen

2011-10-23T21:11:00.000+01:00

I tend to keep half of a half-open eye on what's going on in the world of robotics, and despite some pretty amazing robots, it seems unlikely that I'm going to have, any time soon, an affordable kitchen robot that'll make me dinner.

Given that the kitchen robot is a way off, why hasn't more simply forms of kitchen automation taken off?

For example, consider an integrated freezer and microwave/oven. Pre-prepared meals in standardised containers are inserted by the users into slots in the freezer. Based on a timer or input via the internet (e.g. from a smartphone), the meal is removed from the freezer and into the oven.

This is fully do-able with existing technology. Is it commercially viable? Such a device would cost more than a separate microwave/oven and freezer, partly due to the need to connect to the internet (e.g. via wifi) and have a controller. However, it could be sold at a loss, as the set size of the containers would lock-in customers wishing to buy pre-prepared meals.

It should

Bird feeder style wardrobe/drawers

2011-10-07T20:28:00.000+01:00

Have you ever found yourself using the same clothes over and over because their wash/use cycle results in them being at the top of the drawer?

Would it be possible to design a wardrobe/drawers systems based on a bird feeder such that clean clothes are input at the top, and the wearer takes the next item from the bottom?

This would also help with those "what to wear?" descisions (but probably wouldn't work so well with clothes prone to creasing).

Urine and stool analysis

2011-10-07T20:24:00.000+01:00

We are heading for a future of biosensor, everywhere. Measuring heart rate, blood pressure, blood solute (e.g. glucose, hormone) concentrations, temperature, brain activity, etc.

In addition to those sensors that are on or in the body, it would make sense to build measurement of urine and faeces into toilets and urinals.

The obstacles that would need to be overcome include:

Cost of installation (and consumables)
Cross-contamination of one sample to the next
Dilution of urine samples in the toilet bowl
Transmitting the data securely to the correct person

Loss of empathy

2011-10-07T20:19:00.003+01:00

Is there a demonstrable link between suffering and loss of empathy?

AI inner monologue

2011-10-07T20:18:00.000+01:00

In many a science fiction future there's an intelligent computer that dialogues with the human characters, providing them advice and challenge. Would it be possible to have this input as an inner monologue? You inner monologue would become a dialogue between you and your AI assistant. How would such a thing work? I haven't a clue, we'd need an incredibly good understanding of the brain to start inputting to the inner monologue.

But the impact would be enormous. The AI assistant could help with memory ("your car keys are under the sofa cushion"), moral decisions, finding out information, highlighting where you have fallen for logical fallacies, etc.

Disappointed

2011-10-07T20:11:00.000+01:00

"Disappointed" is a powerful word in the English language. It provides direct and powerful critique whilst expressing little arrogance. It communicates that the speaker is experiencing sadness, unlike other forms of criticism that communicate that the speaker is experiencing anger.

The only problem is, there aren't many good synonyms. Here's the best I could come up with:

perplexed
baffled
peturbed
dismayed
distressed

Organising the world's problems

2011-09-11T15:44:00.000+01:00

Necessity is the mother of all inventions.

I suspect there is a lot of truth in that phrase. And that in many cases problems sit at the back of inventive minds, waiting for eureka moments.

It is important for inventive minds (which I believe all minds have the capability to be) to be aware of the worlds problems. Of which there are many.

How can we ensure the awareness of those problems? The biggest challenges are often discussed in the media, for example reliance on fossil fuels and anthropogenic climate change. But not all problems are promulgated in this fashion.

I propose an online project for listing, describing, categorising (hierarchical tagging), prioritising and structuring the world's problems. If such a project could harness the community spirit of wikipedia and crowdsourcing techniques, and I believe it would be a valuable resource for inventive minds.

I believe that one of the greatest challenges of the current era is in maximising the capability of the human mind. Through education, through tools that compensate for the mind's deficiencies, and eventually through medical and biotechnological techniques.

An afterthought: if invention is driven by necessity, perhaps art can be described as inventiveness that is not driven by necessity.

Seasonal affective disorder double peak

2011-09-10T15:17:00.000+01:00

Could seasonal affective disorder be caused not just by length of day (and hence the amount of light received), but also rate of change in length of day. This would generate a double peak in the systems on an annual graph, one at the winter solstice, one at the autumn equinox. If this was the case, the extent to which these two causal variables stimulate the effect would no doubt vary from person to person. And understanding this would be helpful in treatment.

The rate of change in length of day stimulus would be a logical one to have evolved, as it would stimulate earlier preparations for winter than a short day stimulus.

Clip-on air-flow base for laptops

2011-08-31T22:49:00.000+01:00

According to a fair number of articles on the internet, using a laptop on your lap (as the name suggests) may impact male fertility, due to the heat given out by the laptop. The advice suggested is to use a cooler pad, which sits between the laptop and the lap. But if you've ever tried using one of these, you will quickly notice the inconvenience - when you want to lift the laptop off, you need to lift both the laptop and the cooler pad.

I suggest a clip-on air flow base as an optional extra to laptops. It allows the laptop to be further away from the lap helping to reduce potential fertility issues, and due to it clipping on to the laptop, does not create any inconvenience associated with having multiple things balanced on your lap.

Musical instruments that don't forget what you've played

2011-08-31T22:41:00.000+01:00

If you're a musician, you'll probably have experienced a situation where you've played a tune (perhaps without thinking about it) and then think "that was cool". And then, moments later, you can't remember it. The moment of creativity is lost to time.

But this problem can be solved. We need musical instruments that remember every note. Consisting of a movement sensor to activate recording, a microphone (and potentially other sensors), an interface (USB/Wifi/Bluetooth) and perhaps music recognition capability to turn the recording into midi, sheet music or tablature. All powered by a long life battery (or perhaps piezoelectrics? or solar panels? or a kinetic energy collecting?).

As to those other sensors? Perhaps pressure sensors in the keys or fingerboards?

In addition to helping you to remember that cool little tune you just played, having a recording of everything you've every played would be useful in tracking how much you're practising, what you're practising, and how you're improving.

Everything in mandays

2011-08-22T21:34:00.000+01:00

The cost of goods reflects supply and demand as much as the underlying resource consumption, and hence can be a misleading way of thinking about value. Would it be possible to measure everything in mandays?

One day's work of an untrained person with no tools represents one unit. For trained people, the number of days training need to be factored in (apportioned over the working life). For people working with tools, the cost of the tool (again in mandays) would need to be factored in (again apportioned over the working life of the tool).

Using such an approach to measure value would be horrendously complicated for all but the most simple of economies, but it is an interesting line of thinking.

Perhaps one weakness is to know how far back to count the mandays. For example, for trained workers should the mandays of the teacher be counted? And if so, how about the teacher's teacher? And the teacher's teacher's teacher? Etc.

Life audit

2011-08-22T21:24:00.000+01:00

Is there a market for a service that audits your life, including your health, your diet, your hobbies, your relationships, your habits, your possessions, your plans, your dreams, etc, and provides you with an opinion on what's good, and what you should change? A holistic self-help (with the self).

How to remind yourself of things

2011-08-22T21:14:00.000+01:00

Say you set yourself a resolution, perhaps to lose weight or to remember to smile. Half of the challenge is remembering to do so. How can you remind yourself? You could put up a sign. But we get desensitised to signs fairly quickly. You could set up a reminder email. But you probably get desensitised to that fairly quickly too.

What is needed is a system that has access to as many of your communication channels as possible, and uses those channels, at random, to remind you of the message.

Channels:

email
text message
notice board
Twitter/Facebook (perhaps just add an entry into your feed)
alarm clock sound (with recorded message)
billboards (customised billboards are probably coming anyway)
ads on web pages you visit
post
phone call (with recorded message)
RSS reader
car dash board (not whilst driving)

Judging people's actions based on response from victim

2011-08-22T21:11:00.000+01:00

It seems to me that we subjectively judge to seriousness of a person's actions (e.g. criminal, bullying, etc) by the response from the victim. If the victim exhibits a stoical response, we judge the actions less harshly; if the victim exhibits a strong emotional response, we judge the actions more harshly (unless excessive, when we begin to question victim).

It would be interesting to conduct a psycological experiment to prove this point (if it hasn't already been done - too lazy to search). The results would perhaps cast some light on the reliability of our judicial system.

The importance of backlinks

2011-08-21T19:12:00.000+01:00

Backlinks aren't just important for Google in working out how important a web page is, they are also helpful for taking us from the generic to the specific. For example, strategy is a generic topic, Sun Tzu is a specific topic. If we're talking about strategy we might touch on Sun Tzu, but if we're talking about Sun Tzu, we're much more likely to talk about strategy.

Why's it important to be able to get from generics to specifics? Many reasons: it's often a good way to explore a subject in more detail; it gives us examples to use; and it allows us to identify ways of hinting at something. We can hint at strategy by mentioning Sun Tzu.

This hinting is an important tool in rhetoric, as it forces the recipient of the communication to do some work (to think what the connection is), which engages them in it, making it more persuasive.

Post-materialistic, still focused on status

2011-08-21T19:11:00.000+01:00

Is early 21st Century Western society materialistic? Do people still conspicuously consume to acquire status? I would suggest that status is less driven by assets than it used to be, and is more driven by achievements and anecdotes. Status is conferred on people who can say "I was there", "I've done that", "I've met X", etc.

Innovation destroys value

2011-08-21T18:46:00.002+01:00

Innovation destroys value by making existing assets obsolete.

Augmented reality computer games

2011-08-07T20:14:00.000+01:00

Some thoughts on augmented reality computer games, by type:

First person shooter

Perhaps the easiest to envisage, you want down a real street, but see virtual enemies that you can shoot with a virtual weapon (although you might actually hold a controller or dummy weapon in your hand). You might be able to shoot real people too (even if they're not playing the game).

Real time strategy

You are in the thick of a war. You see all the units you command around you, and the enemies in the distance. You order where your units go, and what they should attack. Ideally the computer would recognise verbal instructions, but the game might be augmented by head-up display that shows you a map of the area and where you units are deployed, allowing you to move them about as needs be.

As the physical presence of the person in not necessarily part of the game, it would be possible to have the game on different scales, for example a game with toy-soldier sized units on the living room floor.

Economy

The real-world economy becomes your virtual playground. You can virtually own businesses that exist in real life.

Role playing

As with the first person shooter, but with more depth. Wielding a sword (even if plastic) whilst walking down the street may get some unwarranted interest, however. And there is the issue that you cannot "level-up" your physical self as easily (although the power of your weapons and spells would be in the virtual world and therefore able to increase in power).

Platform

Turn any surface into a platform game using edge detection. The player control an avatar running, jumping and fighting along that surface.

A layered approach to city design

2011-08-07T19:33:00.000+01:00

Cities, particularly those that have evolved over centuries (and millenia in some cases) tend not to make very efficient use of space. A significant proportion of the land area is taken up with streets, but these are only used at one or two levels (transport and utilities). Meanwhile the buildings next to them make much better use of space, rising the three dimensions.

Another problem is that the streets (despite taking up so much space) aren't actually sufficient for the needs, and are resultingly clogged with traffic. Many utilities (water, gas, electric, communications, sewage) can only be accessed/maintained by digging up roads, which further impacts on traffic issues.

So how would you go about designing a city from scratch? A layered approach, with three main layers:

Utilities layer
Transportation layer
Habitation/work/recreation layer

The utilities layer would need to be fully accessible/maintainable without disruption to the other layers. The transportation layer interfaces to the other two layers (allowing access to the utilities layer) and allowing the transport of people and goods between particular point on the habitation/work/recreation layer.

The habitation/work/recreation layer is where people would spend most of their time.

The layers can consist of several levels. This facilitates water being separated from electricitiy in the utilities layer (generally a wise choice). The habitation/work/recreation layer has multiple levels just like our current high-rise buildings.

A key element of the layer principle is that only the habitation/work/recreation layer requires access to sunlight. The entire transportation layer should be underground. This makes much more efficient use of space. However, it does not mean that buildings can be packed that much more tightly, as this would mean that sunlight does not penetrate to their lower floors. Instead, the spaces between buildings are maintained by using the spaces between them for recreational space: parks; football pitches; golf courses; tennis courts; etc.

A similar approach should be taken within the buildings themselves, which the less natural-light-dependent functions, or those used infrequently, taking up the space furthest from the windows.

Everything in one place

2011-08-02T22:44:00.000+01:00

I was searching my Gmail today for message I'd received and couldn't find it. It turned out the message had been received as a text message to my phone, so I was looking in the wrong place. This highlights the need for further integration of information and communications technologies. I need everything in one place. Everything. Absolutely everything. The personal digital life aggregator.

And I need to be able to search it.

This includes:

documents (the kind we typically have stored on our hard drives, but soon to be stored in the cloud) (text, image, sound, video, etc)
emails
calendar
voicemails (with transcription)
text messages
blog posts
forum posts
data from apps on my phone (e.g. my to do list)
rss feeds
articles I've read
web favorites/bookmarks
bank statements, bills, pension, investments, etc

The key barriers to the everything in one place dream are:

company security policies will prevent your content from work being in your personal "one place"
closed online systems that don't allow a metasystem to pull it all together
content that's not owned by one person (e.g. a photo taken by one person, but tagged by another; or a collaboratively produced presentation)

Productivity

2011-08-02T22:30:00.000+01:00

What do we measure people on? Productivity.

Productivity = volume x quality

Quality includes workmanship, skill involved, originality and usefulness. For some professions quality, in particular originality, is much more important that volume (for example being an artist, an inventor, an entrepreneur). For others, the scope for quality variation is lower, the focus on volume is higher (for example being a factory worker).

The most celebrated people are those whose productivity is derived from quality not volume. However, most people's productivity stems from volume.

Touchcard doors - being locked out

2011-08-02T22:22:00.000+01:00

One factor that has concerned me about the potential switch away from keys to touchcards for residential properties is the possibility of being locked out if the power goes down. The obvious solution to this is a backup battery, which should definitely be a feature. And of course if you have a backup battery, you need to check it on a routine basis to ensure it's holding charge.

But what if your backup battery does fail? I think it would be useful to have an external "power in" socket to allow you to get your touchcard door working again without having to break down the door to sort out the power problems.

Technologies' long tail to death

2011-07-23T14:23:00.000+01:00

I was reading a futurology article today and I was surprised by the predictions of the last this and the last that. The futurists seemed to think that technologies die out very quickly when an alternative becomes available. The evidence suggests a long tail: Western Union sent its last telegram in 2006 dispite being superseded by phones; payphones are still in use despite being superseded by cell phones.

In many cases, technologies that are superceded gain cultural status by being niche and retro. The impact is that the future will look like today+ rather than a complete ground-up recreation.

Incidentally, it would be very interesting to see a graph of telegram usage over time.

Failure

2011-07-21T22:50:00.000+01:00

If we don't have a society that can tolerate failure, citizens cannot push themselves to their limits, as pushing yourself to your limits will result in occasional failure.

We need "sandboxes" in our society where people can push themselves (or allow themselves to be pushed), without fear of punishment for failure.

Beyond 3D printing

2011-07-21T22:49:00.002+01:00

3D printing is all well and good, but it is unlikely to be able to make anything. So really it is just one tool of the future fully automated manufacturing process that is truely capable of creating anything we can design, a system where we input a design and raw materials, and the finished product pops out of the other end. The key advantage of 3D printing as a tool of the fully automated manufacturing process is that it allows components to be made without the need for moulds, which reduces the waste in the manufacture of one-off designs (the waste of a mould is minimal where a mould is used many times).

Tablets etc

2011-07-14T22:10:00.000+01:00

Having previously suggested the possibility of docking your smartphone into a tablet, I now am unsure about this as an idea. To take calls quickly, the ability to answer on the smartphone and hold the smartphone to your ear is too important.

So instead of convergence, what do we actually need? This depends very much on the situation. A few key situations:

Permanent desk
Hot desk
Improvised desk (i.e. just a table)
Meeting room
Train/Plane

Permanent/hot desk

For a permanent desk, you need:

A large screen (or two, three, etc)
A wireless mouse
A wireless keyboard
A tablet (for handwriting entry)
A wireless headset (with cradle)

For example, a call comes in on the computer – you answer by pressing the answer button on the headset. Midway through the call you can transfer it across to your smartphone so that you can continue talking as you walk to your next meeting.

Improvised desk

The mobile worker having a teleconference at an improvised desk needs:

A wireless headset (mic + headphones)
A wireless mouse
A tablet (for handwriting notes)
A screen (to see a presentation or for the video element of a video call)
Perhaps a keyboard (for text entry)

So they need two tablets (that can dock into each other), a keyboard that can dock to the tablets (or be used wirelessly), a headset (wireless, with wired backup option), a smartphone, a stand for the screen (or a built in screen), a projector (for dealing with meeting rooms without screens)

It would be idea to have the tablets able to dock on both horizontal and vertical axis. You might use the docking on the short axis when the device (it's not a laptop after all!) is perched on your knee.

It would be useful to have a telescopic screen-to-base link. This would allow the screen to be at an optimum height when taking that impromptu teleconference.

Planes/trains

The seats in planes could have hooks so that the screen could be held up, whilst the keyboard remains on the tray table or lap.

Meeting rooms

A very large screen on the wall
A wireless mouse
A mic on the desk (for conference calls)

Better belt buckle

2011-07-14T21:44:00.000+01:00

Web belts have one fixing for the belt on each side of the belt. The disadvantage of this design is that the fixing for the belt on the side nearest the body presses into the skin and can be uncomfortable. It's fairly simple to have a design where both fixing are on the far side, and the side of the buckle against the skin is smooth. The diagram below illustrates:

Information retention, virtualisation and software as a service

2011-07-14T21:18:00.000+01:00

I was reading recently about the challenges of information retention for digital records, where the software and hardware necessary to access the records needs to be retained in addition to the digital records, or the digital records be converted to a more current format.

I suspect this problem may be addressed by virtualisation. It should be possible to virtualise every computer system, and every piece of software. This would eliminate the need to retain the necessary hardware and software, or to convert the records.

I would like to see a future where every piece of software ever written can be virtualised and accessed by any person over the internet.

Management terminology

2011-07-05T22:34:00.000+01:00

Management terminology (jargon) gets a hard time, perhaps deservedly so. There seem to be plenty of websites explaining the terminology and criticising it, but few that provide a well-reasoned critique on a term-by-term basis including: what the term means (definition); where it came from (etymology); what it can be substituted with (synonyms); the advantages and disadvantages of its existence and use. I'd quite like such a site to be similar to Urban Dictionary in style, allowing submission and rating of the content by the users.

My favorite management term of the day: the art of the possible. Context: "It's all about the art of the possible".

Coolness of numbers and letters

2011-07-05T22:24:00.000+01:00

I've written previously on the coolness of words, but it seems to me that a social pecking order exists for letters and numbers as well. K is definitely cooler than L. X, Y and Z hanging out at the back of the class rule the roost. And for numbers? I'm fairly confident that 13 has one up on 14.

Where's the objective data?

Split screen video camera

2011-07-03T17:15:00.000+01:00

Wouldn't it be good to have split screen home videos showing footage of a particular event from more than one angle? Wouldn't it be good to have split screen home videos without having to do all the video editing to align the multiple recordings? Would it be possible to have a video camera that saves aligned video from more than one camera simultaneously, where the cameras are connected by wires or wireless connection? Wouldn't it be good when viewing back to be able to dynamically choose how the different images are displayed (e.g. one main with two subsidiary, four equal sized elements, etc), for example being able to click on a video and make it the main one?

In-building triangulation

2011-07-03T16:54:00.000+01:00

I was just thinking about in-building triangulation in respect of tracking inventory in second hand shops, but come to think of it, where is in-building triangulation? Outside I can easily obtain my position through GPS, but I want to be able to do this in a building, to a resolution of 0.1m and including the floor of the building I am on. Would it be possible to triangulate using wifi routers?

Second hand shops

2011-07-03T16:51:00.000+01:00

Second hand shops are more challenging to run than normal shops in terms of pricing and inventory management due to the large range of unique items. They have an important place in the waste hierarchy (reduce, reuse, recycle) so it is important that their operation is optimised. How can technology help?

Tagging items allows them to be tracked, so it is possible to see how long they've been in inventory
RFID tags, together with a set of sensors would allow triangulation of the object in the shop. The triangulation (or perhaps gyroscopic sensors in the tag) would allow gauging of shopper interest (has the object been tried on?). This will help determine whether the lack of sale is due to lack of shopper interest or incorrect pricing.
Tagging also aids security, as sensors at the door detect stolen items.
It might also be possible to introduce eye tracking, and motion/location tracking of shoppers, again providing more data on shoppers to help promote sales
Object recognition (initially through barcodes, but increasingly through machine vision) will enable quick entry of items into the inventory, and simultaneous automated advertising online

Don't walk on the grass

2011-07-03T16:41:00.000+01:00

It seems that people don't pay attention to "Don't walk on the grass" signs. Public spaces seem perpetually eroded by people too lazy and inconsiderate to walk on the provided paths. Public money is wasted returfing on a regular basis. And it seems to me that insufficient is done to prevent the erosion in the first place (other than the ignored "Don't walk on the grass" signs of course).

There must be a few available solutions, perhaps a breed of grass that is more resistant to trampling?

I also think it would be sensible to protect the edges of the grass (next to paths) as this is where erosion is most likely to occur. A 10cm high board along the edges of the path would adequately protect the immediate edge. Where people step over the edge protection, the erosion will be less significant as the grass can regrow from both sides.

I also wonder how effective it is to put down a rubber mesh where erosion is likely to occur. This allows the grass to grow through the holes, but prevents the damage from footfalls.

Listening in

2011-07-03T16:22:00.000+01:00

I would be interested in having a computer that listens in to my conversation, and pulls up relevant information. I think this is possible (at least a simple version) with existing technology. For example, the voice recognition software returns a string data set, which is analysed for key words and phrases. These could for example be used to return wikipedia articles. This could probably be built into the browser.

The advantage of this technology is that the conversation is not interrupted by having to search for the information being discussed, as the computer has already brought to the fore the relevant pages.

Say for example you are having a conversation about the relative population sizes of China and India, and whether India's population will exceed China's in time. The browser could load several tabs, one on China, one on India, one of population, one on population growth, etc.

3D printing using electroplating

2011-06-26T10:43:00.000+01:00

Would it be possible to 3D print using electroplating by using a mobile electrode that was insulated other than at its tip, such that the tip is the print head of the 3D printer?

Polytunnel in the desert

2011-06-26T10:16:00.000+01:00

If you were to cover an area of desert with polytunnels, would the reduced water loss be enough to de-desertify the desert, and if so, how long would it take?

I would hope that the area would undergoe ecological succession, beginning with cacti, but progressing to more economically useful species, whilst developing a richer soil.

Additive manufacturing using household waste

2011-06-26T10:11:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about how consumers could make use of their household waste in additive manufacturing. I've posted previously on 3D printing using waste paper, but I'm also interested in other materials. Those I've been thinking about include aluminium cans, tin cans (which are tin-plated steel) and thermoplastics. My first thought was that the challenge would be getting the necessary temperature, but Markus Kayser's SolarSinter project, suggests that this is not really a problem (at least in sunny places). The remaining challenge is granularizing the waste material to be used for the sintering. This is less of a problem with the thermoplastics - they would probably succumb to a househouse paper shredder (although that wouldn't be sufficiently granular).

Traffic lights: how many are there; and how lucky have I been?

2011-06-25T15:26:00.000+01:00

Often when driving, particularly when driving a route I do often, I wonder how many traffic lights there are on the route, and how lucky I have been (how many of them I have had to wait at, and how long I have had to wait at traffic lights in total). Obviously the latter is indicated by journey time, but I want more data than that.

Obviously, I could manually note down each traffic light on the route, and the length of time I've had to wait at it, but where would be the fun in that. I want an automated solution. The combination of GPS, clock and map data.

When planning the route on Google Maps before the journey, I'd like data on how many traffic lights there are for that journey.

When I finish a journey, I'd like a message on my dashboard saying "There were X traffic lights on that journey, at which you had to wait at Y, for Z minutes in total".

GuilTea pleasures

2011-06-25T15:14:00.000+01:00

I was thinking today about a brand for snacks: GuilTea pleasures. Perhaps with the taglines: treat yourself; treats for tea; biscuits for tea; teatime treats; treats to have with tea.

Cool times

2011-06-25T15:12:00.000+01:00

I have a 24h digital clock with a 4 digit 7 segment display. I can't help but notice that some of the times on this clock are "cooler" than others. I seemed to come across these numbers more often than I expected (given that there are 1440 hour minute combinations each day) (probably an example of confimration bias). Some examples:

Symmetry around the colon
00:00
01:10
02:20
03:30
04:40
05:50
10:01
11:11
12:21
13:31
14:41
15:51
20:02
21:12
22:22
23:32

Symmetry around the colon (taking into account that 2s are the mirror image of 5s)
02:50
05:20
12:51
15:21
20:05
21:15
22:25
22:52
22:55
23:35

Sequential up (each digit)
01:23
12:34
23:45

Sequential up (hours, then minutes)
00:01
01:02
02:03
03:04
04:05
05:06
06:07
07:08
08:09
09:10
10:11
11:12
12:13
13:14
14:15
15:16
16:17
17:18
18:19
19:20
20:21
21:22
22:23
23:24

Sequential down (hours, then minutes)
01:00
02:01
03:02
04:03
05:04
06:05
07:06
08:07
09:08
10:09
11:10
12:11
13:12
14:13
15:14
16:15
17:16
18:17
19:18
20:19
21:20
22:21
23:22

Hours = minutes
00:00
01:01
02:02
03:03
04:04
05:05
06:06
07:07
08:08
09:09
10:10
11:11
12:12
13:13
14:14
15:15
16:16
17:17
18:18
19:19
20:20
21:21
22:22
23:23

Minutes = Hours x 2
01:02
02:04
03:06
04:08
05:10
06:12
07:14
08:16
09:18
10:20
11:22
12:24
13:26
14:28
15:30
16:32
17:34
18:36
19:38
20:40
21:42
22:44
23:46

Hours = Minutes x 2
02:01
04:02
06:03
08:04
10:05
12:06
14:07
16:08
18:09
20:10
22:11

There are also a few specials:

00:12    Weak sequential
00:42    Answer to life the universe and everything
03:14    Pi
09:50    Ten to ten
10:10    Ten past ten
16:18    Golden ratio
21:50    Ten to ten
22:10    Ten past ten

In conclusion, I think the reason for my observation reflects when I typically go to bed:
23:22
23:23
23:24

An idea coming from this: a 24h digital clock with a 4 digit 7 segment display that displays the "cool" numbers in a different colour.

(N.B. 121 cool numbers identified using the above rules)

It's all about...

2011-06-19T11:44:00.002+01:00

Judgement, and having the right framework for judging against.

Alternating stripes

2011-06-19T11:43:00.000+01:00

It's not often that I venture into fashion design with me thinking, but here goes. I understand that vertical stripes decrease the perception of width, whilst horizontal stripes increase it. There is a fashionable optimum for the shape of a woman's body (the coke bottle shape), which emphasises the hips and breasts. I wonder whether it would be possible to emphasize this with stripe: vertical around shoulders, horizontal around the breasts, vertical around the waist, horizontal around the hips and bottom. Similarly, the fashionable optimum for men is broad shoulders, but a narrow waist. Would it be possible to emphasize this with horizontal stripes for the shoulder and chest, vertical stripes for the waist.

Tax debt shield

2011-06-11T22:12:00.000+01:00

Why do companies use debt as a form of financing? Partly because it's tax-efficient: interest is tax deductable. The tax rules encourage companies to use debt. But debt is bad for companies as it can be called in forcing the company into liquidation. By making interest not tax deductable we can make companies, and hence our economy, more stable, as they will be incentivised to use less debt. This will also reduce the value of cash, encouraging more individuals to invest in shares.

Sentry guns on aircraft

2011-06-11T22:04:00.000+01:00

Why don't military aircraft have sentry guns (autonomous sensor-guided guns) to fire at incoming missiles and attacking aircraft? Applying such weapons to aircraft (as opposed to ground vehicles) would be fairly low risk of friendly fire as they would only be turned on when the aircraft was operating independently. It would be possible to add several sentry guns to an aircraft to cover all angles. One might imagine that this would be particularly useful for UAVs, which may not be able to replicate human dogfighting abilities for some time. The technology certainly exists.

Unions

2011-06-05T17:13:00.003+01:00

When an entity has the word "united" in its title, this implies to me that it is less united than entities without the word. The United States of America, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United Nations. All of these are less united than entities that do not have the word, for example, China. The concept of a union acknowledges and perpetuates differences, whereas adopting a name without such a word will encourage identification with that name, and thereby overcome differences.

An interview question for competency-based HR people

2011-06-05T17:13:00.000+01:00

Tell me about a time when you realised that competency-based interviews were an ineffective form of assessment.

What was the impact of that realisation?

Random generation

2011-06-05T17:05:00.000+01:00

Why isn't it everywhere? I've talked about biomorphs before, but even without the complicating factor of artificial selection, random generation is very useful. Take, for example, computer games. There are very few computer games, typically the storyline intensive ones, where random generation of levels would not be an added extra for players. Particularly where there's the ability to save and share a randomly generated one that you've tried with other players. Adding random generating extends the playability, making a great game into a classic.

Running away

2011-06-05T17:01:00.000+01:00

You live to run away another day.

It's all about...

2011-06-05T17:00:00.000+01:00

Giving up. And then getting going again.

(with the exception of relationships, where you have to respect a person's right to not want to engage with you)

Everything happens for a reason

2011-06-05T15:40:00.000+01:00

I've heard this said. Often when the proverbial has hit the fan. But such a short, flippant statement has significant implications: destiny or some kind creator/overseer; lack of free will. So I don't buy it.

What is a useful alternative? Slightly more verbose, but how about:

You cannot know the counterfactual of any outcome, therefore it is impossible to form a firm judgement of whether the outcome is good or bad.

Autoblog

2011-06-05T15:36:00.000+01:00

Say you're developing a website with information on a particular subject. The website is expanded and updated bit by bit. For the user tracking the website, seeing all of the changes and new material would require going through every page, unless changes/additions are highlighted on a blog. The problem is that such a blog requires more effort from the creator. So would it be possible to autoblog the changes? Changing typos and formatting probably important enough to capture, but new pages, or significant additons/removals to a page should automatically be blogged (with a link to the page).

Website (or IT) to facilitate asset sharing

2011-05-31T00:51:00.000+01:00

Airbnb for spare rooms. RelayRides and Getaround for cars. What other assets to we own that we'd be happy to rent out? What other assets do we own that are so expensive that other people would rent rather than buy? What other assets do we own that someone else doesn't have the space to store? What other assets do we own that someone else doesn't have with them because they're travelling?

Garden/Home improvement tools - lawnmower; chainsaw; hedge trimmer
Camping equipment
Yachts, boats, canoes
Trailers
Bikes
Motorbikes
Computers
Any hobby-related kit
Workshop space (and tools)
Garages

The role of IT/website/smartphones: connecting people. People list what they have for rent; other people search to find what they want to rent.

Robot to automatically wind clocks

2011-05-31T00:28:00.000+01:00

Wind up clocks need to be regularly wound to keep the mechanism in good order. If you own a fair number of such clocks, I imagine winding them up could become a chore.

I would guess that winding would be an easy job for a robot, particularly if permanently connected (perhaps via a rubber grip) in an asthetically neutral manner. The robot may need a few sensors: to prevent overwinding (measuring torque); and to rewind at the right time (perhaps measuring the vibrations of each tick and determining when the mechanism is loosing power - or more simply, just rewinding after a set period of time).

It may be best to house both the clock and the robot in an asthetically neutral glass case.

The coolness of words

2011-05-31T00:18:00.000+01:00

Life isn't fair for words: some are just cooler than others. It occurs to me that it would be useful in marketing to have some solid data on what words are cooler than others.

Google isn't a lot of help. Here are some hit returns from Google (I'll leave it up to you to decide which is the cooler):

Accountant 55.9m
Astronaut 22.7m

Tax 735m
Cash 639m

Sword 124m
Lightsaber 5.6m

How to get this data? Perhap look at the frequency of the word's use on sites focused on entertainment rather than those focused on business (and other serious endeavours)? Or perhaps look at the word's frequency on Twitter (likely to be more "cool" than business)?

Also, it would be useful to assess phrases or word combinations, e.g. "mission accomplished".

...and on the pirate vs ninja debate:

Pirate 112m
Ninja 253m....

How search engines prioritise results

2011-05-21T10:36:00.000+01:00

I've been doing something thinking, and some research, on how search engines prioritise results. Some known data sources:

PageRank - the number of links to a particular page (and the authority of each of those links)
The searcher's previous search history
What previous searchers have clicked on in response to the same or similar search
Trend info (perhaps from Twitter)
The searcher's location (as indicated by the IP address)
Other data on the searcher

A couple of areas that I don't know if search engines use (but would be interested to find out) are:

time of year (for example, when searching for "tree" around Christmas, are you more likely to be shown results for Christmas trees, and if so, is it the time of year that is taken into account or just the trending information mentioned above)
time of day
what previous searchers of the same location have clicked on in response to the same or similar search

Hare and tortoise evolutionary mechanism

2011-05-21T10:03:00.000+01:00

Is there an evolved hare and tortoise mechanism, whereby winners relax once winning and lose their competitive advantage? This could perhaps be some form of group selection, whereby the group is favored by a winner not continuing to assert dominance over the group.

Column and row hiding and unhiding

2011-05-21T09:34:00.000+01:00

Spreadsheet and other software tools' functionality for hiding and unhiding columns and rows of tables is lacking. In particular, where several columns are hidden together and you need to unhide one of them - you have to unhide the lot, and then re-hide the ones you want hidden. What is needed is a list of columns (with the top row as the name) allowing you to tick which to see and which not to.

Further thoughts on DIY/hardware stores

2011-05-15T16:06:00.000+01:00

As previously discussed, I believe there is potential for DIY/hardware stores to extend their support for the DIY community ourside the core arena of home improvement (particularly in the area of providing workshop space, but also in their product offering).

The other possible area of extension is to extend their coverage of the home improvement market by offering greater home improvement services. This could range from maintenance (e.g. plumbing), through small home improvement (e.g. painting/decorating, odd jobs), to building extensions.

The advantage for the DIY/hardware store is increased (and diversified) revenue, and promotion of their brand outside the DIY community. Additionally, as the DIY/hardware store already buys materials and tools in bulk, the cost discounts are already in place. The benefit to the consumer is a one-stop-shop for home improvement, and the reliability/quality-control that would necessarily come from a high-brand-value DIY/hardware store.

The role for DIY stores in the next industrial revolution

2011-05-15T12:55:00.000+01:00

As the maker culture goes mainstream there is an opportunity for DIY/hardware and tool rental stores to expand their offering. In particular, by housing workshops that give consumers access to manufacturing equipment that they could not afford to buy, and would not have the home workshop space to house.

Obviously, due to the danger involved in operating equipment, access would need to be controlled (by membership) and training given. The hardware store would need to employ staff to supervise (and support customers). Some level of charging would probably have to apply in order to make it economic.

The kind of equipment that the workshop would house would range from standard workshop kit such as band saws, sanding machines, vacuum forming machines, welding kit, drill presses, lathes, etc to more exotic tools such as CNC routers and 3D printers.

The obvious benefit from the hardware store is that when their customers come in to use the workshop, they will likely buy materials and smaller equipment from the store.

DIY/hardware and tool rental stores also need to expand beyond their current offering, focused on home improvement and gardening, to being part of all home (and community, cottage industry and small business) hardware projects. Perhaps longterm there is even room for them in the software arena, as they support their customers with software for their hardware projects.

Note: whilst some commentators have suggested a future with 3D printers in every home, I doubt this model as the level of use will not justify the cost. Having 3D printers in every shop, however, might well happen.

Chalk printer

2011-05-15T12:11:00.001+01:00

Restaurants, pubs and bars are still making good use of that old fashioned technology: blackboards and chalk. I was thinking about how it might be possible to "print" onto a blackboard using chalk.

The setup would probably be a flatbed printer, with a printing mechanism like the felt tip printer. Obviously a large flatbed would be ideal to account for different sizes of chalk boards.

Colour could either be delivered using different coloured chalks, or perhaps through combinations of primary colours (or would it be CMY?).

The advantages of this is are: the reusability - a display that can be wiped clean and reused; the end product is cheap enought to be left outside (unlike LCDs or eInk displays); the display doesn't require power; easier to produce high impact designs over hand drawing (for those without such a skills set).

Quietening trains

2011-05-15T12:11:00.000+01:00

Trains are pretty noisy. Is noone doing anything about this? How about rubber plates on the face of the wheels? Or some dampening (again perhaps rubber) on the rails?

I'm sure that this would not need to be on the contact point, but just attached to the metal to absorb some of the vibration.

Underground wind turbines

2011-05-11T22:17:00.000+01:00

One of the disadvantages of wind turbines is noise. Would it be possible to put the turbine underground so that it is acoustically insulated, and have wind funnelled down to it?

Another potential benefit is that the working parts are more accessive for servicing.

The input and output funnels could for example be put at the top of a tall building. It should be possible to use fins to angle the funnels to catch the wind.

Feature for email programs

2011-05-11T21:56:00.000+01:00

I'd quite like a feature for email programs to provide a list of all the email addresses (or contacts) included in the emails (to, from and/or cc'd) of a particular folder.

I did try to do this with Outlook VBA, but no luck so far...

Training salary sacrifice scheme

2011-05-11T21:44:00.000+01:00

It seems to me that too few employers are willing to sponsor their employees through qualifications (particularly in these difficult economic times). Perhaps there is an opportunity for a temporary salary sacrifice system to pay for qualifications (perhaps with employers matching employees contributions). The advantage to the employee is that they pay for their qualification with their pre-tax income (i.e. saving tax on the study); the advantage for the employer is that their workforce becomes better qualified (potentially at lower cost); and the advantage to the government/state is that their population becomes better qualified (albeit at the cost of lower income tax take).

Making fridges smart

2011-05-07T15:11:00.000+01:00

Makes appliances smart is not about bolting a computer onto the appliance – putting a computer in the door of the fridge – it has to be about integrating the computer and the appliance. The key to achieving this, and to begin opening up the possible benefits of smart appliances, is sensors (data input).

Some potential sensors for fridges:

Internal thermometer
External thermometer
Door open/closed sensor
Power usage meter
Cameras (perhaps per shelf) covering the inside of the fridge
Electronic noses (perhaps detecting off-milk?)
Pressure sensors (in shelves)

Note, the cameras should facilitate: measuring how full the fridge is; object recognition; barcode scanning; etc.

The second, and perhaps more complicated stage, is linking this data with the functions (activities) of the appliance, and perhaps extending the functions. The functions of a fridge:

refridgeration
air circulation within the fridge
light
ice maker

The potential extensions are:

An automatic door