Vertical air flow for events to reduce aerosol transmission

I was thinking about how to reduce the transmission of aerosol-transmitted diseases at events. It seems the thing to do is to get contaminated air out of horizontal space that is head height. As such, vertical airflow is required. Small holes in the floor to suck air downwards, or push in clean air. And likewise in the ceiling. Perhaps the air flow direction would depend on whether the air is being heated or cooled.

Sensing sleep and pausing content

Wearable devices such as heart rate monitors, and more advanced technologies such as electroencephalograms (EEGs), are able to pinpoint the moment that a person goes to sleep. By combining this technology with smartphones and other devices that display or emit content (e.g. audiobooks, TV shows, etc), it should be possible to pause the content at the point the viewer/listener goes to sleep.

Such a technology would have two key advantages:

1. By pausing the content, it is less likely that the person's sleep will be disturbed (this is more likely to happen when there his a high dynamic range in the audio content - the person goes to sleep during a quiet period and is then woken up during a noisy period)
2. The person is able to resume their viewing/listening at a future time without having to rewind

Pascal's wager extended

Pascal's wager is a tool that helps us decided whether or not to believe in God. It runs as follows (lifted from Wikipedia):

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).

It seems to me that this concept could be extended to work out which god to believe in. By comparing all the world's religions, past and present, and listing and weighting their promises for heaven and hell (and, although it's likely to be of lesser importance, the finite costs extracted whilst living), it should be possible to work out which is the best god to believe in. By believing in that god you maximize your utility.

I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Lacsap, the one true God. Lacsap stays abreast of all world religions and guarantees that the true heaven shall contain all good things ever conceived by man as being in heaven, such that utility is maximized, and that the true hell shall contain all the bad things ever conceived by man as being in heaven, such that utility is minimized. All you need to do to get into true heaven is to renounce all other (false) gods and proclaim your believe in Lacsap prior to your death. If you do not do this, you will go to the true hell.

Adreama is the one true prophet of Lacsap.

Infra-red reflecting camp fire surround

Have you ever had a cold back sitting round a camp fire? It should be possible to reflect the radiated heat back in using a material that reflect IR radiation (such as foil). A windbreak coated with IR-reflecting material would serve this purpose whilst also serving as a windbreak. This device would allow a smaller campfire to keep the same number of people warm, reducing the environmental impact.

AR and the ideal home-working set up

I would like AR glasses with high resolution and a wide field of view. I can imagine a home-working setup where I can sit in an armchair (or perhaps in bed) with a keyboard/mouse on my lap and the equivalent screen real-estate of two (or more) 4k monitors in front of my eyes.

(I am doubting whether gesture recognition will be more efficient for data input than keyboard/mouse, which to me seems the most efficient user control interface yet devised.)

A question for Steven Pinker's optimism

I would love to be able to believe the message of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature and other works that expound a worldview of progress. But it seems to me that at present those parts of the world experiencing the strongest population and GDP growth are those with characteristics I am not in favor of. The questions I would ask would be:

• What are the GDP and population growth rates of democracies versus non-democracies?
• What are the GDP and population growth rates of secular societies versus those dominated by religious fundamentalism?

And given that a classification between democracy and non-democracy, and between secular and fundamental, is somewhat arbitrary given these factors are a spectrum:

• Are countries becoming more or less democratic?
• Are countries becoming more of less secular?

Giving up your humanity

As we creep towards a post-human/trans-human future I am beginning to wonder not just what we will add to ourselves, but also what we choose to take away. Beyond the obvious elimination of disease, what else will we remove from our current selves? In a sense disease is a good place to start. We normally distinguish between physical health and mental health, but in reality there is a spectrum between the two. And it seems to be that there is a spectrum between mental health, personality, motivators/desires and intelligence.

So, would I give up or alter my personality? Or what motivates me? I am inclined to eliminate bias from my thinking in the first instance. I suspect this will have a profound change on my personality in itself. But I also inclined to meddle with my motivators. Perhaps reduce the desire I have for sugary food (perhaps it could be argued that the battle against this desire is advantageous for its willpower side effects - suggest this needs research). Perhaps increase the satisfaction I get from learning something new, or from doing exercise. These modifications seem without significant downsides. But what of changing your own sexual desire? There is no doubt that extremes of sexual desire have led people to acts of stupidity and evil. But sexual desire also seems to be something that is "human". What of changing ones own mechanism of attraction to emphasize the physical less relative to other characteristics.

If we do make such changes would we regret making them? Or would we be so different a person as not to be able to relate to our former selves? Is such a process reversible?