Where
Things Work RightWhere
Things Work Right
** New ideas added 07/15/05 starting at number 247.
247. So That's Who You Are -
Something for the genealogists
Almost every family has someone in the living part of the family tree trying
to track down who was who in the tree.
Inevitably they come across a box of photos or negatives with no names
attached and no one who can remember
who's in the picture.
This new product would be for them. It would combine the current
facial recognition programs that have already
been developed with the age progression/regression programs used by police
departments to come up with a new
program for genealogists. First you'd scan in pictures of people
you can identify. Then you'd scan in the pictures of
people no one can identify. Using facial recognition and age progression/regression
logic, the program would then
try to figure out who was who. It probably wouldn't be able to figure
out who every unidentified person was but it
would be able to figure out enough of them to make the program something
genealogists would love to buy.
248. Troll Shelters -
Another place to wait out the storm.
There's a significant lack of shelters where I live, which can become a
survival issue when hurricanes hit. Every time
I drive under a bridge (one that's on land of course) I notice that the
steel beams running the length of it are usually at
least 3-4 feet high. I wonder if we could rivet some kind of floor
onto the bottom of these beams and then add an
access door leading into the area. It would provide at least one
more safe haven (we're short enough space for well
over 100,000 people here). No matter how bad the storm none of the
bridges in this area have blown down. Not
the ones over land anyway (which are the kind I'm talking about).
The ones over the bay tend to come tumbling
down now and then. Things like water, MRE's, first aid kits, air
mattresses and some blankets could be
pre-positioned well ahead of time to make the shelters even more useful.
Note 1: Neither the homeless nor delinquents coud get into these shelters
when they weren't supposed to because the
design would include limited access via four locked hatches (two at the
top of fixed fire-escape type ladders under
each side of the bridge). Home security alarm companies would be
happy to compete for the contract to monitor
these hatches for unauthorized entry exactly the same way they monitor
unauthorized entry into the houses they're
paid to watch.
Note 2: Remember, the original purpose of these shelters was to provide
people a place to ride out an approaching
hurricane. With the at least 24 hour warning period we have available to
us now there would be no need to get into
them in a hurry (in case you're worried about the locked hatches). When
the emergency operations centers are
opened in a county due to a hurricane's approach the first responders would
also unlock the shelters and begin
monitoring their usage (pretty much the same way they do when they open
schools for shelters now).
249. Benign Possessions -
Temporary reincarnations
Pictures of brain scans taken while people are meditating show a gradual
loss of activity around the lobes that are
thought responsible for one's sense of self ('I'). The meditators
report a feeling of oneness with the universe as their
trance deepens and the activity in those areas decreases. This made
me wonder if we might have stumbled on an
alternate theory of reincarnation.
The theory as it stands now says we come back to this life after living
a previous life. Some evidence of this is
provided by children recalling events in past lives that are too detailed
to be explained away as the result of an
over-active imagination. What if the memories aren't their's though?
What if their minds are in a natural state of
oneness until they've had enough experiences to develop a sense of self?
The spirits of the departed might be able
to take advantage of that state of mind to convey their own memories through
children. In a sense, it would be a
form of channeling. This assumes a couple of things of course.
First, that our souls live on after we die, and second,
that the souls remain aware of their own identity while they exist on the
continuum of existence experienced as
'oneness'. As for why they'd bother expressing their memories through
children - they might be doing it in an effort to
prove to those they loved who are still alive that there is life after
death in an effort to comfort them. I know I'd do it
if given the chance.
A
little more backup from the science cops
250. Victim Recognition -
One more set of cameras please
While listening to the stories coming out of London in the aftermath of
the bombing about how people had to go
from one hospital to the next looking for missing friends or relatives
it reminded me how the same thing took place
during 9/11 (and the Madrid train bombings too I'd imagine). It would
be nice if the emergency room entrance in
each hospital had a camera positioned in such a way that it could take
a quick snapshot of the face of each victim as
they were brought in (maybe a wireless version attached to the visor of
the doctors doing triage). The images could
then be matched against a database of drivers licenses and have a facial
recognition program look for a match. If it
found one then the license picture would be sent to a central web site
and displayed so people could quickly browse
through them to see if whoever they're looking for has shown up at one
of the hospitals. It would save a lot of time.
It might even save a few lives if it led to people spotting a relative
and quickly calling the right hospital to provide a
critical piece of the patient's medical history.
251. Dam Efficiency -
Hot foot, hot foot, ouch ouch ouch.
The following article appeared in a copy of New Scientist a couple of weeks ago.
" HOT ANSWER TO SHAKY PROBLEM
To damp down problem vibrations in aircraft, cars, buildings and power
tools researchers working for the US
army in Virginia have designed a material that dissipates the vibrational
energy as heat (US 2005/0073222).
The plastic or concrete materials contain particles of piezoelectric ceramic
and a web of conductive wires. When
the ceramic vibrates, the particles generate electricity, which heats the
wires. The heat is absorbed by the
surrounding material and dispersed into the air. The loss of energy to
the piezoelectric material damps the vibrations
before they build and begin to resonate."
Skimming through the patent I couldn't find any suggestions that they should
use the generated heat for anything. This
is understandable since they were looking to reduce vibrations and not
generate power. It does give rise to a couple
of possible applications though.
1. Line the floors in hydroelectric plants with this material to take advantage
of the vibrations generated by the huge
turbines in there. If nothing else, there might be enough energy
to cut down on the power needs of the dam itself.
2. Line the body of aircraft with this material in such a way that if the
plane lost electrical power the system could be
quickly converted from dissipating heat to converting it into electrical
energy.
Of course, both of these ideas might already be tucked into the patent
somewhere (or left out because they were
unfeasible). I'm just adding the idea here in case the oversight was accidental.
Might
help stop cavitation damage too
252. Find Your Train of Thought -
Never lose words that are on the tip of your tongue again.
The army has its reasons for developing non-acoustic sensors but there's
another reason for them that I haven't seen
mentioned in any link yet. Have you ever been in the middle of a
conversation, thought of something you wanted to
add to it, and been sidetracked just long enough to forget what you were
going to say next? The 'Find Your Train
of Thought' speech recorder would stop that from happening. Whenever you
were about to be interrupted before
having a chance to say what was on your mind, you'd silently mouth the
words, politely letting the speaker continue
uninterrupted. Once they were through speaking you could either recall
what you wanted to say from your working
memory or press a replay button on your earpiece (each tap on it would
play back your last silent words in 20-30
second increments).
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