Digital celestial navigation

It should be possible to construct a device that uses light sensors (digital cameras), data on star (and visible planet) position and an accurate clock to give the user their latitude and longitude. The user would point the device towards the sky, and it would capture image data. This data would be pattern-matched against expected star positions for a particular latitude and longitude, at a particular time. Such a device might serve as a useful backup to GPS in the event of failure of the GPS network.

Wealth equality and minutiae

If you imagine how housing might look in an entirely equal society, you may imagine rows and rows of equally sized houses such that each family is equal. But are they equal? Would houses with South-facing gardens (Northern hemisphere) not be more sought after? What about houses that are nearer to the factory, or to the train station, or wherever it is that the government hands out rations?

The more one thinks about wealth equality, it is clear that absolute wealth equality is impossible to achieve. Further, the more equal wealth becomes, the more the minutiae (which are likely impossible to eradicate) will be emphasized and sought after.

Likewise, it is interesting to speculate what pure wealth inequality might be like. The only answer to this I can conceive of is one person owning everything. But to do so would mean that no-one else would be able to survive (they wouldn't own the food to eat, or the air to breathe). Hence pure wealth inequality is also impossible.

Given that neither pure wealth equality and pure wealth inequality cannot be achieved, all that remains is a matter of degrees. All political positions must be somewhere on a continuum of equality.

Open speeding data

Rather than only get feedback from a speed camera when the speed limit has been exceeded, why not provide a website where all speeding data is published, allowing drivers to log in and see how close they got to breaking the speed limit, and providing email warnings when drivers are close to exceed the speed limit.

Thinking with a cool head

It would be interesting to test whether people do think more clearly when they have a cool head (e.g. actively cooled down with a cool pad). And if so, develop a productivity had that maintains the head at the optimum temperature.

Periscope glasses

I would like a pair of glasses with dynamic periscopes attached that would track the TV whatever my head position. Such glasses would need to have a camera and image recognition functionality, together with actuators to rotate and swivel the mirrors in the periscope.

Semi-strong agnosticism

Whilst strong agnosticism states that "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you", and weak agnosticism states that "I don't know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day, if there is evidence, we can find something out", I propose a middle ground: semi-strong agnosticism.

Semi-strong agnosticism states "it is probably the case that I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you, but there is a possibility that my mental model of the certainty of information is flawed, and hence there is a possibility that it is possible to know for certain whether a deity exists or not".

My belief in strong agnosticism stems from my general stance on what I can know (I first thought this after spending some time thinking about Descartes' I think therefore I am):

That which I perceive exists, but I cannot know the nature of its existence.

So, I perceive myself, but I cannot know the nature of my existence, for example I cannot know whether I have free will. I perceive the world around me, but I cannot know whether it is real, a dream, an illusion or a simulation.

Hence, I may perceive a deity but given that I cannot be certain that I'm not in a dream, I cannot be certain that the deity is not merely a figment of the dream.

However, I have to accept the possibility that my general stance on what I can know might be wrong, and therefore have to accept the possibility that there could be some kind of mathematical proof of the nature of what I perceive, and hence of a deity.

App ratings and reviews

This blog post is on the app ratings and review systems on Apple iTunes, Google Play and Amazon App Store. All three of these stores provide a 5 star rating scale and a text review (title + body text).

The problems I see with the current review/rating systems are as follows:

• Single score doesn’t communicate in much depth what the reviewer is trying to say
• Single scores don’t benefit content discovery
• Review text is unstructured

To improve upon the existing rating/review system, it's worth considering:

• what the reviewers are trying to communicate
• who the reviewers are communicating to
• of that which is being communicated, which is the most important

What reviews/ratings are trying to communicate:

• Quality
• Look and feel / graphics
• Features
• Bugs
• Extent of recommendation
• Value for money
• Ideas for the app / ideas for derivative apps
• That there is / isn’t a market for future apps of this type

Who reviews/ratings are trying to communicate to:

• Other potential customers
• Developer
• Other developers
• The App Stores (typically to complain about an app)

What is most important:

• For me, the most important thing that reviewers are communicating is the extend of recommendation

Suggestions for a better system

Each review would have the following sections:

• Message to the developer (private)
• Over-all rating (5 star scale)
• Over-all review
• Set of recommendations (see below)

Three-variable recommendation system:

• Who the recommendation is for (tag-like system, when the user starts to type the name of a group, they're shown options to pick from) (e.g. fans of X)
• Why you're recommending it / What you think they’ll get out of it
• How much you're recommending it

Users would be able to follow recommendations streams to help them find new content.