Tuesday, October 28, 2008

9805: Music industry solution

My prediction is that someone is going to make an open-source music browser where your money goes directly to the artist.

The users will be essentially purchasing a service, they'll buy the song and it'll be stored online for them, easily downloaded with no software required. That song will be yours forever. It should be able to be downloaded super fast, a smart p2p that can detect files in your direct vicinity to get it to you faster. It should have the option to play it online if you don't want to d/l it. You should be able to browse through other people's libraries and even listen to what they're listening to at the same time.

It should be a smart, intuitive browser, and when you buy rights to a song you should get anything you want from that song, lyrics, rock band tracks, tablature, videos, etc. It'll essentially be a bundle that the artist puts together, but you can pick and choose whatever you want to d/l, and the rest sits there to either be viewed online or downloaded later at your convenience.

The reason behind all these features is so that your actually paying for something that you can't get for free.

The storage, convenience, speedy d/l and cheap price that mostly goes to the artist.

Whoever develops the application gets a small cut to keep things organized.

The key would be in the device itself. The purchases that you make should have the option to show up on your phone bill. The browser is online and it should offer services like free radio.

If you hear a song you like on the radio, you should be able to click on it, and have the option to purchase it.

By being super cheap, like a quarter a song, it'll be worth it.

Monday, October 27, 2008

9804: Flying machine


Everyone wants their very own flying machine.

Here's one for only 60k that you can build yourself in only 40 hours. It looks fairly safe, with four engines, if one breaks down, you can still have the others to make it to safety. If there's some catastrophic failure, there's a parachute for the whole thing. They're also talking about adding air bags under the seat for any hard landings.

Link to the companies website.

They're talking about having folding parts so you can store it in your minivan or suv.

Man, if only I had sixty thousand dollars.


How it works is pretty simple. To go forward, you pull the rotors down, changing their orientation and pulling you forward.

Normally, without a tail rotor, a helicopter would spin around in circles. That's where the dual rotor comes in. The rotors spin in opposite directions keeping it stabilized. To turn side to side (yaw), one of the rotors will slow down enough to turn the machine in the desired direction.

Friday, October 24, 2008

9801: video games




Wouldn't it be scary if they found a way to develop unmanned military vehicles in a very cheap way, to the point where they were built so fast it was hard to find people to pilot them.

(this is an interesting movie/video game idea)

So what if the military issued another free game like they did with America's Army but people were actually controlling vehicles when they thought they were playing a simulation.

That would be freaky.

9801: predator



Unmanned vehicles are the future of the military. I wonder how long it'll be before we see armies of these things going head to head.

Losses would be purely financial

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

9799: Escalopter

Have you heard about people trying the escalopter?

Here's the video that started this new public display of silliness:



She looks like someone that's a lot of fun.

Here's a site dedicated to the escalopter

Monday, October 20, 2008

9797: octopus

have you seen this yet? Pretty sweet, an octopus that can not only look like it's surroundings, it can change it's texture.




Life is truly amazing.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

pirate comic, lol

9795: Robots!

I got this crazy sweet game idea I want to share.

It starts off as a simplistic multiplayer shooter where your placed in an arena against one or more human opponents.

Everyone has a robot factory. These robots start off with simplified programming.

It could be extremely simple, introducing the player to the game.

For example: "Go to metal, pick up metal, bring back to base, create new robot, repeat"

And the players shoot at each other, with the new robots doing nothing but creating more robots until there is no metal.

The AI is up to the player. To keep things balanced, there should be a system where the more complicated the player makes his code, the more advanced of players he's matched against.

So, you could start off with programming that any new robot creates a gun, attaches it to his arm and follows the player.

With really simple "If, then, shoot at," commands, the player can get right in to the game, and get as creative as he wishes.

"If enemy spotted, shoot at enemy." or "if taken 50% damage, run to factory"

The idea came to me when I thought about AI and how I don't really care about single player games because I know the AI was programmed by the creators to simply shoot at me until I kill it. It's purpose is to make me feel challenged but eventually die.

In a multiplayer shooter, the other players intentions are to defeat you, plain and simple. It creates for a more intense experience. So why not a game where the programmers face off against each other. The player taking on the role of the programmer.

This opens up a very different form of gameplay. One where every game gets more and more complex.

Imagine you've played for a while. You discovered how to make your robots build a wall, and create some cannon or something to attack your opponents factory.

Your opponent took an entirely different approach, having his robots work in squads to intercept any collectors of metal.

Before finishing the cannon, due to lack of metal the opponent defeats you. So you go in, and program ways to protect the metal. Once you've advanced enough, you get to the next tier.

Balance issues may be a big problem with a lot of freedom, I think the game in itself would be an interesting experiment.

Thinking about the AI getting more and more complex reminds me of evolution. I thought to myself, maybe that's why life was put on this planet, just to see how complex it could get if it was competing against each other to survive.

I think it's a great game idea and if anyone steals it, don't forget where you got it from. There's more where that came from.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

9794: The futuristic perspective

I've been thinking about how influential science fiction is. When someone writes about the future, they speculate and imagine what we will be able to do and hopes to get a realistic interpretation.

By putting a vision on the table, it's shared and as a human race, we typically look at what we think is possible and we try to make it possible. Some people say William Shatner changed the world with Star Trek.

cell phones, touch screen monitors, other technological advancements which were first perceived by the creators of the show, and are now a reality.

It's interesting to think about. Here's a group of people trying to predict the future. With their images, they inspired inventors to make it happen.

If they didn't make the show, would these things have been invented?

Another interesting aspect about the old star trek was it's positive view on our future. (Any sci-fi about human's surviving passed the point where we can live off this planet is positive in itself). But Star Trek went beyond that. There was no racism whatsoever, it wasn't an issue.

I was thinking about this. It's a fact that any animal wants to protect and spread it's gene pool. Our family's are the closest to us. Apart from that are our friends, and from a scientific viewpoint, we pack together to protect ourselves from other dangers.

I think as a people, we've evolved from having a smaller pack to a bigger and bigger one.

United States of America has almost 10 million square kilometers of fairly dense population. That's a pretty big pack.

Racism is simply evolutionary junk, from a time where our pack consisted of nothing but our own race and anyone outside was considered a threat.

You can see how our relationship with animals has become one where instead of defending any animal that is not our species, we've evolved to one where we have a co-existence with many species. Or perhaps a better description is where one species realized the other wasn't competition anymore, they've found a co-existence.

hmmm. Now I'm thinking, the human species is the human species, the fact that we fight amongst each other when other animals of the same species seem to co-exist just fine would seem that we're progressing backwards.

Unless... A species competes among other species to get ahead, and once it's the leader of all the species, essentially, since there's no competition, the species naturally competes among each other to get ahead.

Which is a good thing I suppose, but racism in this context is still a very bad thing. It's like one member of a bigger pack begrudgingly not accepting new members to the pack.

So, what would it take for our human species to quit fighting amongst each other to get ahead?

Hypothetically, what if we could have world peace? Who would we compete against? Evolution is essentially about survival. If we don't feel threatened, we don't really need to change anything.

Competition like a space race, sports and things like that are good, but if they're not about survival, it's not in the same category.

You would think that the only way we could work together as one would be if the whole world was threatened.

Maybe climate change will start to be more obvious and we'll see countries all agree to drop military funding to avert a crisis.

It would be great to see the Americans decrease military funding in favor of revitalizing their economy.

They already have the biggest military in the world, maybe it's time to set an example and at least lower the rifles a little bit.

I've always said that if the new world wants to take terrorism seriously, it's not about how many bombs you drop and terrorists you kill, it's about changing the global image.

If the United States put more effort in to helping countries in the world, using military to help people and show it through the internet and television, people might not assume America's the great devil.

Instead of holding on to evolutionary junk, maybe the politicians shouldn't be telling people things like "we have to protect ourselves from countries that don't like us very much" and spreading fear of terrorism, and recreating that paradigm of the all-American hero.

Here's how you do it. Americans, take note, this is an awesome idea. You invest in a team of high-tech soldiers, take the best and brightest. Pick the people that you want to represent your country. Send them to places like Darfur with camera's all over the place, get it all on tape, and make a show of it.

This should all be in the name of protecting the innocent.

Say for example, the viewers watch as a uav kills a ragtag group of terrorists that refused to surrender. And then it shows an effort to help the community that was attacked, where a group of people are taught how to build schools, make greenhouses, windmills, and give them internet so they can have access to the wealth of knowledge available.

I'd watch it. And then hopefully other nations will see that America is the worlds boy scout always helping out. Perhaps the notion will spread.

I know it's hard to imagine but imagining it is just the first step.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

9793: Palin spoof



I seen the SNL skit before the debate, I couldn't believe it when I seen she was repeating her word for word.

Her being made fun of by Tina Fey is one of the biggest influences in this entire election. They say that any publicity is good publicity, not when there's a vote involved.

There's publicity that can sell a few albums and there's the kind of publicity that sways your decision on the leader of the most powerful country in the world.

This is very bad publicity. When I see a clip of Palin, I'm thinking, is that the real her or Tina Fey making fun of her, because she's talking the stupid talk again, lol.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

9792: Free will continued

I wanted to talk about the free will thing.

In Waking Life, this character talks about determinism, and how our world view is a universe where every event is the result of events before it.

The more I think about trying to argue against it, the more I come back to determinism and how it really seems like we make our decisions based on passed experiences.

Well, obviously, we do. If your at the supermarket, and you have the choice between milk that's expired and milk that's still good, passed experiences would have you choose the good milk. Those passed experiences were caused by something else, so on and so on.

Yes our lives are determined by our choices but our choices are determined by past experiences.

So did we really have the choice in the first place?


This type of philosophy has been going on for a long time, watch the movie, the author brings up some very interesting points.

It's a big conundrum for religion. If there is free will, then there is no way to predict the future. If any choice by any person can change the outcome of events, then any type of real prophecy would be impossible. If free will does not exist then it would be pretty mean for God to be sending people to hell just because they were dealt a bad card from the start.


My opinion is that we must have free will, and the choice between a universe where everything is random or works like gears in a machine is too limited.

I think what it comes down to is that the brain is using the system, firing off that electron to send off those signals to the muscles to move the arm to grab something, the brain is still acting like a brain. Making decisions, choosing options based on random memories. Yes, the physical properties that make up the brain follow specific laws, but the brain itself is an entirely different system.

Why does it have to work like the random chaos of the tiny world, or the predictable massive universe? Maybe there is some place in between. Maybe the answers will come with a good brain theory.

9792: free will

Wow, what an uninteresting election. Added to the fact that the American election is far more interesting once again, our government is:

No one. Wow, I can hardly contain my excitement.

Thinking about it, we really have to take a look at the whole system when the country can't make their minds any better then their leaders.

The other day I was thinking about how difficult it must be. When a politician passes the torch from one person to another, he's like, here ya go, there are more people then ever before, with bigger debt then ever before, too much new technology that we know how to deal with, and the broad array of responsibilities and potential is tremendous.

And then the public starts barking. I wonder how some of these guys even sleep at night. I watched Mccain being grilled on the view, and at the point where Mccain was once again stretching for the Christian vote, he said "I pray every night."

I wonder if it would go something like this:

"Dear God, please forgive me for my sins. I'm sorry for making all women look bad by picking Sarah Palin as my vp. Thank you God, that the American people are gullible enough that even after George Bush destroyed the economy, and was rediculed more then any other president, that the American people would still consider voting for me. I'm sorry God, for stooping to a new low for trying to associate Obama with terrorism, but I mean c'mon God, he is not my friend. I mean, look at his name, why on Earth would anyone in politics not legally change their name before running for president with a name like that? I'm pretty sure he's an arab in disguise, that old lady was right!"

ok, that was a lot more funny when I imagined it.

So, I stumbled on this website with 10 films guaranteed to blow my mind. Waking life sounded interesting, so I watched it last night. It's a really interesting film with deep profound intellectual conversation.

When we try to show a dream, we can never really come close. Any movie or show is usually foggy or some cheesy effect that never really grabs that dream-like perspective.

Thinking about this, when you watch someone's representation of a dream with your eyes, your relaying it through a different medium. It's like, trying to tell someone how something tastes. Because you don't dream with your eyes, it's a similar medium, but not the same.

A dream is like an open-world simulator, where it seems like it's created by your own mind with memories and information from the conscious world, but the movie brings up interesting concepts like the crossword puzzle experiment, where we're all connected. Ideas seem to spring up in bunches, like we're gathering in our dream state and discussing things.

It got me thinking about information and where it comes from. Something I've been thinking lately, about AI and how it will never be like a human because it can't come up with anything new. It only does what it's told, and we keep adding to that, but it can't get new information like we can.

Like, if we're just systems, collections of strings, where does the new programming come from? You can see animals reacting and acting accordingly, but new ideas and human ingenuity seems to be beyond that.

The movie reminded me of a time in my life where I'd wake up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep because of something so interesting and profound that I had discovered in my dreams. I don't know why, but it doesn't happen any more. I feel like I need more stimulation, something to wake up that drive for knowledge again. I suppose a movie like this is a good start.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

9788: take that!

I just woke up on my couch a little while ago. Fell asleep watching the discovery channel. I thought maybe I would have learned a thing or two subliminally but all I can think about is adding some roo to my doo.

(It's a bad overplayed commercial where a masseuse violently beats a kangaroo, and hair products fly out of the kangaroo's vah jay jay. I'm not making this up)

I have no idea when I fell asleep, and it's very early.

I was sick yesterday, threw up something nasty and felt like sharing it. I can't remember a more chunkier vomit. It literally felt like I was taking a dump through my mouth. I'm pretty sure my food was all ready to go out the back door when it got recalled at the last moment. I should of checked to see if it was brown.

That'll learn ya for reading my blog, lol.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

9785: human stupidity

If the human race was smarter we would all have dirt over our heads. Doesn't it make sense that if the planet has sustained an equilibrium, that we shouldn't tamper with it too much. When we develop a new community, we clear cut any forest, and re-sculpt the land, building homes out of wood. In Canada, we do have a good replanting system that provides more trees, but as our population grows the development of the land with more people and more farms create more co2 producers occupying what used to be a forest.

O.K., so doesn't it make sense to cut down the forest, build the buildings, then replant the vegetation on top our houses?

I seen this video on the news where this family in the suburbs turned their yard in to a farm, and the reporter kept referring to them as odd, like it was so strange. Looking around, I thought to myself, if I was an alien from another planet, I would think it's absolutely ridiculous that we're all not doing that.

We ship our food from around the globe, wasting energy in the process. What a stupid notion.

Growing up in society I've always felt that people must know better then me, that simple things like putting gardens on rooftops wouldn't be done because it's not the smart thing to do because no one is doing it.

But then I hear people calling native American's Indians, and Bison, buffalo, when this is an old mistake being repeated because no one has the balls to just quit using the wrong words. It's an ignorant mistake and it's been going on for centuries.

So I think to myself, maybe designing a shingle that is meant to repel water and sunlight should be a rooftop meant to embrace it.

Not only would organic rooftops create more Oxygen and eat up Co2, they provide excellent insulation and in situations where the city is under heavy rain fall, incidents of flash floods are less likely to occur.

It just make sense. We need leadership that's willing to put forth big changes. Climate change may be beyond our control, but even if it isn't then two things might happen;

We'll be ok, the sun will return to it's regular cycle, we all made a big ruckus over nothing.

or, we'll all die, the sun will keep getting hotter, the greenhouse effect will only emphasize this effect and the human race will be over forever.

So, the way I look at it, whether it's in our control or not, we should drastically change the way we live to sustain an equilibrium. This isn't an unachievable goal. Like when the United States was dedicated to go to the moon, we have a mission set out before us. We can know when we're there when co2 levels decline.

If we can prove that we, as a people can control the climate of this planet, then that is not only a great move for human kind to show that we can protect ourselves but also that we have planetary influence. If we can control this planet's environment, we can control others. Maybe it's something that our grandchild's grandchildren will take seriously, but it's something that our small decisions now, like putting garden's on rooftops, will affect.

And quit calling native American's Indians, you stupid moron's.

Monday, October 6, 2008

9783: intelligence, cont.

When our species developed legs, it was to insure it's survival by being able to live in a different environment. And so, it would make perfect sense that we developed intelligence to continue surviving in different environments. Our bodies in their natural state couldn't possibly survive in the cold arctic. With our tools and know-how, we can now live in places like Canada.

Where monkeys would have died, we have survived.

And so in this era of exponential technological growth, perhaps we should focus our energy and strive to push our frontier. To get another space race, to compete with each other, not to destroy the other but to insure humanity's survival.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

9782: Intelligence

Why intelligence?

We could have evolved in any way. We could have grown wings, or gone back to the sea like the dolphin, but instead we chose a different path. (we, evolution, God, w/e you believe)

But why? Life as bacteria does just fine, and some say our intelligence will ultimately be our own doom.

I prefer a more optimistic point of view. What if we evolved to have intelligence because we seen that the earth underwent massive extinctions because of meteors, floods, pole-shifts, etc., and we're currently evolving to develop the ability to get off the planet?

Think about it. Similar to animals evolving to walk on land so they could survive, it would make sense that species would want to ensure it's survival by taking the next step, outer space.

To get around it, our bodies would have either needed to develop some sort of method that can escape the Earth's gravity and survive outer space, or become intelligent enough to develop the tools to do so.

We/evolution/God chose the second option.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Friday, October 3, 2008

9780: Mushrooms and flowers

Isn't it strange that flowers can really look like vagina's and mushrooms really look like penises? I'm just saying.... (is penises even a word, firefox says so, but firefox doesn't even recognize it's own name, so wtf is up with that?)



link to pics of flowers

Thursday, October 2, 2008

9779: politics

So I just stumbled on this article, and have a few things I want to get off my chest.

First of all, what is up with the fear-mongering? People are still afraid of Al-Qaida?

The fact that these "ex-FBI" agents string off these crack-pot theories on how Al-Qaida is going to strike after the election and then spouting about how the terrorists would "prefer" Obama is bullshit.

You can see how the American government is using fear tactics to sway the vote. (isn't that in itself terrorism?)

"But Kevin R. Brock, a former FBI agent who was principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, disagrees with the theories. Although speculation about attacks timed to the election may seem logical and rational, Brock says, “Al-Qaida is neither, and so far has not followed such dependable, predictive patterns. Could it happen? Sure. But my sense is that any such prediction would be based more on luck than hard intelligence"