Where
Things Work RightWhere
Things Work Right
** New ideas added 10/15/04 starting at number 77.
77. Voyager 3 -
The interstellar part of the Voyager missions included a disk with various
information about our world on it in case
an intelligent species happens to run across it. That way they could
come say hi if we were still around, and at least
know we once existed if we'd destroyed ourselves by then. A quick summary
of their progress -
"Voyager 1 will drift within 1.6 light years (9.3 trillion miles) of AC+79
3888, a star in the constellation of
Camelopardalis. In some 296,000 years, Voyager 2 will pass 4.3 light years
(25 trillion miles) from Sirius, the
brightest star in the sky."
If we're willing to wait a couple of hundred thousand years for someone
to open the time capsule the least we can do
is make sure the information in it is current. The way to do this
would be to create a Voyager 3 and park it in one of
the two stable Lagrange points (L4 or L5). If it was solar-powered
it could hang around for quite awhile. We could
also send it updates as our civilization progressed.
Another thought - it could start beaming back information to us if it hadn't
heard from us after a couple of thousand
years. That way if we bombed ourselves back into the stone age we'd
start receiving a steady stream of
technological information to get us back on up on our feet faster once
we'd got back to the point where it looked like
civilization was starting again. In order to help us along Voyager
3 would have to be able to do two things:
1. It would have to be able to spot a pre-industrial culture while it was
sitting at one of the LaGrange points. It
could do this by looking for evidence of artificial structures on the surface
- straight lines, clustered buildings,
pyramids, statues carved into mountains, etc...
2. It would then have to be able to communicate ideas to this culture without
relying on radio (since that wouldn't
have been invented yet) so it could steer them towards development.
The easiest way to do this would be by
sending a lander near one of the settlements and then projecting images
of the lessons it wanted to teach. The
lessons could either be shown automatically on a screen that came with
the lander or, if we reach the point
where we could project free-standing holographs, we could have a holograph
disguised as one of them show
the lesson. Done correctly, it would look like a vision to whoever
saw it.
Once they reached the point where they had radio again our computer would
have to either learn their language or
teach them ours to communicate more advanced concepts. Medical, mathematical
and technically sophisticated
information along the critical paths of invention/discovery could then
be sent. Some of the less critical solutions
could be left out leaving the revived generation to discover then on their
own (giving them the chance to arrive
at different solutions to similar problems in areas we could afford to
risk).
There are two other questions this idea has sparked:
1. Should Voyager 3 apply a litmus test to new intelligence species as
they arise, i.e. homo sapiens get help and
neanderthals don't?
2. The LaGrange points have been investigated over the years, but has anyone
specifically looked for a small
artificial object that might be sitting in one of them in quiet mode?
78. Complaining containers -
Now that we've developed odor sensors that are small enough to stick on
a mobile phone there's no reason they
couldn't be stuck on plastic containers and given as gifts to people who
are likely to leave food in their fridge long
past its usable date. The sensor would be light sensitive so when
the refrigerator door was opened it would take a
quick sample off whatever was in the container and shout out an alert if
the food was spoiled. It might even be able
to tell when food was in danger of going bad and issue a warning, something
like - "Hey, eat me or throw me away."
A whole chorus of alarms would tell the user that it was time to clean
out the fridge.
They could also put one of these sensors on the handle of a toothbrush
to test for bad breath. It would keep saying
'brush harder' until the job was done. (You might have to stop and use
some mouthwash if your arm gets tired.)
Another thought - a kid's version of the toothbrush with an age-appropriate
cartoon character telling them to brush
harder might sell well.
79. Underwater glasses -
Children belonging to the Moken tribe in Southeast Asia are trained from
a very young age to narrow their pupils
when swimming underwater. This lets them see underwater as clearly as we
do when we're out of the water. It
shouldn't be too hard to create a wraparound facemask that would mimic
the effect of narrowed pupils, something
along the lines of focusing the incoming light so it would match what was
seen when our pupils are shrunk. That
way we could all see clearly underwater.
If we can't get the optics in the glasses to do the trick then maybe we
could find something like cryptochrome that
would work on our eyes (this substance forces the pupils in chicken eyes
to contract). It could be applied like
Visine right before we went diving.
This link tells more about the Moken tribe's abilities: Underwater
sight
80. Rural lighting -
A lot of highways in rural areas lack street lighting because it's too
expensive to keep them on all the time when only
a few cars go by in the middle of the night. We should take advantage
of the technology we already have and create
motion-sensitive street lights. The way they'd work would be pretty
simple. At each mile marker a streetlight would
be equipped with a motion sensor. If it detected a car going by it
would alert another streetlight a mile away that a
car was coming and that light would turn on all of the lights in the next
mile-long stretch. The lights would stay on for
a couple of minutes after a car passed so they wouldn't keep flickering
on and off.
If there were no exits between the lights they could also make sure any
car that entered the zone also left the zone in
a reasonable time. When one didn't then the lights would stay on
and a call would be sent to the nearest police car to
go find out what happened (automatic roadside assistance). The drawback
to the second part of this idea is that the
police could also use the elapsed time between lights to calculate speed
and catch speeders. A design block would
have to be engineered into the system to prevent the lights from being
used this way (privacy rights could be used as
an argument to build in the block). Of course a cellphone would make
the automatic assistance unnecessary but
there are a lot of people, myself included, who don't have one. There's
also the chance that in a lot of these rural
areas people who do have them would find themselves in an area without
coverage.
81. Removed
82. Silent phones -
Now that someone's invented a silence machine that can generate sound waves
in an opposite phase to cancel out
irritating noises we should take that one step further and create a modified
version of a mechanical voice box that
would generate sound waves in the opposite phase when you speak.
A companion piece would be clipped onto
the mouthpiece of a phone to convert your words back into the audible range
(either by just receiving one phase or
receiving a transmission of the words from the mechanical voice box on
your neck). It might make your office look
like bunch of psychotic people were mumbling under their breath but at
least it would be a very very quiet office. It
would be even better if we could take this one step further and do the
same with cellphones. That way we wouldn't
have to be annoyed by people talking to invisible partners.
A tangent - some of the monks belonging to Tibetan choirs are able to simultaneously
hold three notes to form a
chord. Knowing that, I wonder if there are species out there who
communicate the same way, holding two notes in
opposing phases. If their ears had evolved to hear only one phase it would
be an excellent way to communicate
warnings to others in your species without giving away your own position
and getting eaten in the process.
83. Black Box backup -
There have been several ideas about how to improve the survivability of
information after a plane crash. Here's one
that incorporates several of them into a better system.
First, the current black box (which is really orange) should continue to function the way it does now.
Second, a backup black box should automatically be ejected from the plane
when any of several critical conditions
are met - a sudden drop in air pressure, loss of engine power, the pilot
or an engineer uttering the most common set
of words during a crash (oh shit), etc...
Third, the first black box should continually transmit new data to the backup black box to keep it current.
Fourth, the backup black box should have video and audio recording capabilities
so it can track the plane from a
distance. If this backup had been mounted to a remote drone it could
actually follow the plane and land near the
crash site. If mounting it on a drone proves too expensive then it
would use parachutes to come to a soft landing. (In
either case the backup should have an inflatable raft attached to it that
would be triggered by an impact with water -
that way we wouldn't have to go a mile down to find the recorder for ocean
crashes.)
Fifth, if the pilots somehow managed to save the plane at the last moment
the only loss would be the cost of the
backup box.
84. Bus Quest -
Not long ago I was trying to figure out which bus routes I'd need to take
to get from my house to the office if I
decided to give public transportation a try. In my case the office is about
20 miles away and in the next county over.
It would have been nice if the transit site had had a tool similar to MapQuest.
Using it I could have keyed in my
home address, work address and the time I needed to be at work. Then the
program could have easily shown
which route or routes would get me there on time.
Addendum: After posting this idea someone sent me a link to the Take Transit
TripPlanner at www.511.org and it
turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. I'm leaving the
link here so anyone who works in the IT department
for a bus company can use it for a template if they don't already have
the program on their web site.
85. Wood Chipper Bar-B-Que (Tree Plows) -
Every year severe hurricanes hit either Texas, Florida or Louisiana. Afterwards
you can see truck after truck
carrying downed trees to dump sites for burning. A much more efficient
way to get rid of the debris would be to
hook a wood-chipper up to an expanded portable bar-b-que. That way you
could burn the branches as you made
your way down the street and cut out all of those trips to the dump. Having
the smoke come out of the bar-b-que
wouldn't be a greater source of pollution than having it come out of the
dumps, and paying for natural gas to do the
burning wouldn't cost any more than paying for regular gas to drive trucks
back and forth between the dumps. In
fact, the economic feasibility of building these types of machines has
already been proven. Snowmelters like the
Trecan 40-PD have shown that expensive machines can be worth their cost
even if they're needed for only a couple
of storms a year.
86. Ice free wires -
Based on the ability of ice to hold a charge it might be possible to run
a small pair of wires along the top of existing
phone/power lines that could pop the ice off of the lines when needed.
During a storm a weak positive charge would
be sent down one wire in the pair making the ice negatively charged and
attracted to it. Simultaneously shutting off
that charge and sending a stronger negative charge down the second wire
in the pair could pop the ice off (if the ice
couldn't change polarity fast enough).
The following link has some info showing where the seed for this idea was
planted: Ski
brakes
87. Diabetic toothbrush -
I know I know, this is a goofy idea. It struck me as kind of funny
in a weird sort of way though so I'm including it
here. For people who are unlucky enough to have both diabetes and
gum disease, and who are tired of sticking
themselves to get an insulin reading, this toothbrush would save them a
prick or two. It would have a special bristle
mixed in among the regular bristles that could sample the blood and show
the glucose level on a display built into its
handle. That way they get some benefit out of their bleeding gums.
(Of course it would still be advisable to take
care of that gingivitis problem at some point.)
88. Reality - the Ride
This idea is based on the ride-along programs that many police departments
arelady have in the US. These
programs have already established the fact that you can sign a legally-binding
waiver absolving the departments
from any liabilities due to the consequences of your participation.
With that in mind we should expand the
programs and use the income this will generate to improve our public services.
The way to do this is be fairly simple. All we have to do is sell
seating in police cars, ambulances and fire engines.
Tickets could be purchased in half day and full day segments. Judging
by how long the lines get when people slow
down to check out a bad accident there's a strong market for something
like this. The market would be even
stronger if you added in people like myself who would buy tickets on the
ambulances for their high-school age kids
so they can see how much fun drinking looks like after a bad accident.
(Ambulances would have to be slightly
modified to put a jumpseat right behind the passenger side front seat so
the rider was out of the way. Or, the rider
could switch to the front seat when the paramedic went to the back to take
care of the patient. Either way, the rider
would be out of the way.)
A quick calculation shows that if you had 20 vehicles available and sold
one 8 hour shift on them each day then the
city adopting this program would bring in over half a million extra dollars.
That money could be used to increase the
pay of the people involved and get them better equipment, both of which
would improve service to the public.
One of the objections that has been raised to this idea is that the Riders
might get in the way and impair the
performance of our first responders. There's a couple of reasons
why I don't think that will happen.
First, it's not happening in the programs we're already running.
Second, the Riders will know they are subject to same laws against interfering
with an officer that any bystander
who deliberately gets in the way is subject to. They would also be risking
a lawsuit by the victim. Bottom line -
they'd know it was in their best interest to stay in their seats like they
said they would.
And third, first responders are taught to always go to the first call they
receive, even if it means going right past
someone else who's having an emergency. Case example: Paramedics
are called to a home where someone is
having a heart attack. On the way there they come across a multi-car
accident where several lives could be saved
if they stopped to help. One life or several? The young or
the old? Legally they are required to ignore the accident
and continue on to the heart attack victim. It would be the same
thing with the Reality Riders. If they were hurt at
the scene, regardless of whose fault it was, the duty of the first responders
would continue to be to help the people
they were sent to help. It sounds kind of cold, but that's part of reality
too.
Even if a diminished level of service was sometimes received by a few people
due to the riders being present that
might easily be offset by the improved level of service received by other
people due to the extra dollars/pounds/yen
the program contributed to the emergency services. Luck, as usual,
would determine which end of the stick you got.
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