I've always been interested in inventing. It's one of my youth dreams to become rich as an inventor. Who knows I might have become a professional inventor if I had really put a lot of effort into it. But inventing never became a prime priority of mine, even if it's still a hobby. Who knows maybe I'll become a more serious inventor some day. Or maybe not. In any case, for years I have made a point of making a note of my invention ideas, whether they're good ideas or only possibly good ideas, or just funny or interesting, or whatever. And I'm always open to my own creativity and the things around and think about how things could be improved.
Through the years my list of invention ideas has grown to a nice length. But I've never taken the trouble to make a prototype, get a patent, or market for any of these ideas. Most of them are probably not suitable for marketing anyway, but perhaps some of them are. Since I probably won't do anything with these ideas anyway I have decided today, on 26 April 2002, to make most of my ideas available as a kind of Open Source Inventions. It would be a shame to keep all my ideas to myself if I don't do anything with them anyway while someone else might be able to use one of them to make the world a very slightly better place. I'm still keeping a few of my best ideas to myself for now in case I want to market or patent them. And I'm not posting some other ideas because they're too silly or simple. You're free to use any of the following ideas yourself and develop them further. Mostly they are only ideas so that the most difficult part of inventing, actually designing them effectively and possibly marketing them to the public, has yet to be done. In return I would appreciate it if you would give me credit for the idea. If you make any money or get rich from marketing and selling any invention based on or inspired by my ideas, while you don't get a patent, I don't ask or expect any money in return. But if you choose to give me some anyway, that would be nice.
I don't know if you can or should patent any invention based on these ideas. These ideas are now public knowledge and I guess that limits the legal rights you have to patent. But that situation may change depending on how much more inventing you do to develop these ideas further. In any case, I will leave the decision to patent up to you. But remember that a patent is a monopoly which gives you a competitive advantage over others. And while if you let the invention remain Open Source I don't think you owe me any money (it would give you a competitive disadvantage in the market if you had to pay me anything significant), I think if you get a special privilege based on my idea you do. Therefore, if you patent an invention based on any of these ideas, while you got the idea of creating that invention from me, I would ask that you give me 10% of your profits while the patent lasts, unless the patent is quite different from my original idea and my idea was only an inspiration for you rather than the fundamental ingredient. This is not a legally binding contract, but I think it would be nice if you would honor my request. (And if you get a patent without paying me the 10% I would retain the right to challenge the patent, while if you do pay me the 10% I give up that right.)
Anyway, following is a subset of my full list of inventions. Or, I should say, invention ideas. For many of these ideas are just very brief suggestions for what might be invented while other ideas are more specific. Also, some of these things might already have been made, and undoubtedly other people will also have had some or all of these ideas.
- Wave powered boat - posted 28 April 2002
I know there are power plants that generate energy out of the waves in the ocean. Might there be some elegant way to directly power a boat on the ocean from wave energy? It could be a small rubber boat of some kind just for recreational purposes. Just as a sail boat is powered by the wind this would be powered by waves.
On 29 September 2002 I received the following comment from a visitor:
Hello Henry, You are correct in your assumption and I did see a prototype on
television years ago.
It was simply a large hortizonal flipper (like a whales tale) that was
mounted under a boat with a spring.
As the boat traveled over a wave it forceed the flipper up and loaded the
spring. The spring forced the flipper back... and it propelled the boat
forward.
They where a bit suprised because it is rather effective and could have been
invented thousands of years ago.
It worked quite well!
Note (29 September 2002): On http://www.rexresearch.com/boats/1boat.htm I found mention of a "Wave-Powered Boat", which is based on the same idea I had.
- Friendly telephone ring and alarm clock - posted 28 April 2002
Some telephones ring quite loudly. The advantage is that you can hear it throughout the house and when you have your stereo on loud. But the disadvantage is you can get a shock surprise when it suddenly rings while you're right next to it. A way to prevent that would be to have the phone start ringing at a low volume which then steadily increases to its full volume. The same could be done for an alarm clock.
Note (22 March 2004): I just heard from an acqaintance that he actually has such a telephone. I'm always glad to learn that other people have seen value in the same idea that I had.
- Skating rink with hills - posted 28 April 2002
Skating rinks are always flat. I suppose that is because gravity tends to make water freeze with a flat surface. But wouldn't it be nice if someone made a skating rink with slight hills in the ice, just like there are hills in a cross country skiing track?
- Automatic art painting - posted 28 April 2002
Artists sometimes make a painting based on a photograph. The painting has much more value than the photograph. Part of the reason is that it's more artistic, with colors changed, contrast enhanced, forms less accurate and a little more abstract and you can see the actual structure of paint instead of a flat photo surface. But it takes a long time to make a painting. My idea is to make a robot that would do the painting automatically. A computer is fed a digital image of a nice photograph. Then a computer program makes an artistic design for a painting of the same image. Perhaps a human could preview the computer image of the artistic painting and change some variables to make it nicer. Then the computer would drive a robot to actually paint the picture. I imagine the robot would mix paints, take a brush, make actual strokes on a canvas and, in short, paint just as an artist would. Hopefully that would make the painting look just as "natural" as one done by a human painter. Or perhaps there would be more efficient ways of getting the same effect. Perhaps some kind of paint printer could be made that prints paint in some fast way to the canvas, while it looks like it was done with actual brush strokes.
Update 5 April 2004: A reader sent me the following comment: This site contains data on a robot that does automatically paint pictures (though not based on a photograph). There are programs that do this in software -- a GIMP plugin called GIMPressionist, and a couple of Photoshop ones that escape me for the moment.
- Robot operand conditioning - posted 28 April 2002
Operand conditioning means that a trainer conditions an animal using (food) rewards, so that it gets closer and closer to performing some kind of trick. I've heard pigeons can be trained this way to play ping pong. Animals in the circus are also trained like this. I wonder whether a robot might be programmed this way as well. Perhaps one could make a robot with a neural network program or something like that. Neural networks are already used to train computer programs to recognize images, for example. My idea is that you could make a robot pigeon or whatever with a neural network or some other type of flexible computer program. Then you could teach it to play ping pong by rewarding it each time it gets closer to what you want it to do. The reward would not consist of food in this case but would consist of, say, pressing a button. The longer the button is pressed the better you feel the improvement has been. The computer would then use that information to adapt its neural network or other program variable in the direction of this behavior. My idea is that you might create a robot that can be trained by an experienced animal trainer pretty much in the same way they train lions or dogs or whatever. But while each new lion has to be trained all over again the beauty of a robot is that once you teach a robot how to clean the kitchen or fight a war or whatever, you can simply copy the program in an instant to another 1000 robots who can then do the same trick.
- Automatic curtains - posted 28 April 2002
Every day I have to open and close the curtains in my house by hand for 4 windows. That must take a lot of time throughout the years, if I add it all up. Time that might have been used for other physical activities which are more fun, such as playing tennis. Is there any system on the market that you can easily install on your existing curtains that will automatically open or close them all with a press of a button? If there's not, there should be.
Note (22 March 2004): On Dutch TV there is currently a commercial running, where a naked man stands before his window, then notices his neigbours are watching, and closes the curtains with an automatic system (the commercial was actually for a different product, I forget which one). Update (19 May 2004): A reader informed me this was a commercial was for Pickwick Tea.
Comment sent by reader (5 April 2004): Such a system is demonstrated in the movie Lost in Translation as an example of Japanese culture -- this makes me suspect that, if not common, it is at least not a rarity in Japan.
- Kidnapping protection - posted 28 April 2002
The reason that kidnappers kidnap is because not paying ransom is a public good. The more often families decide not to pay ransom the less kidnappers will be inclined to kidnap because chances they'll be paid are reduced. The problem is that it is thought to be to the advantage of an individual family to pay, because that may increase their chance of seeing their loved one alive again. Not paying is only an advantage to other families who's chances that their loved one is kidnapped are thereby slightly diminished. I've heard that in Italy one has tried to solve this problem my making it illegal to pay ransom. But the disadvantages are that the law is not respected very well and that this law is in conflict with the rights of families to decide by themselves whether or not to pay ransom. Perhaps this public good problem can be solved as follows. A company could offer rich individuals the following contract. They pay a monthly subscription fee to the company. In exchange the company promises to kill the individual if anybody pays ransom to a kidnapper in exchange for the release of the individual. This contract should be a good deterrent to a family to pay ransom if their loved one, who has such a contract, is kidnapped. For if they pay the ransom they can be sure their loved one will be killed, while they still have a chance if they don't. The company providing this service, or the individual using this service, must make this contract public beforehand. Perhaps someone could create a special website where people can publish the fact they've bought such a contract. The info can link to the website of the company they've enlisted with, whose site will confirm that that individual is a client of theirs. If it is a reputable company, this should be believable information. Kidnappers will then be able to first check the internet to make sure their potential victim doesn't have such a contract. This way, individuals determined not to have ransom money paid if they're kidnapped will reap the benefits of this decision by decreasing the chances of being kidnapped, thus solving the public good problem. Also, even if you are kidnapped despite the contract, because your kidnappers didn't bother to check for such a contract, you would still be protected. If your family explains to the kidnappers why they cannot pay ransom, the kidnappers might understand their kidnapping won't profit them and decide to release you. The best companies offering said service will take precautions to ensure that families do not pay ransom without their knowledge. Presumably competition and profit motive will drive them to perform this service better than the Italian government. They might arrange for periodic checks of the family's bank account to detect any large cash withdrawals. Or they might ask their client to call them regularly to make sure he isn't kidnapped, or whatever. And they must be adamant about actually following their contract. They must ensure that almost all their kidnapped clients whose family has paid ransom are actually tracked down and killed. Otherwise the protection of their clients against kidnapping will fail.
- Perpetuum mobile of the second kind - posted 28 April 2002
Note: (22 June 2003) The following idea probably isn't possible. I found a good explanation of that in a Scientific American article from 1987. Apperently, the idea of trapping individual molecules is called "Maxwell's demon". (If working at the individual molecule level isn't energy efficient, I still wonder about waiting until a larger quantity of molecules are by chance in one half of a room, or something like that.)
The law of conservation of energy prohibits the creation of a perpetuum mobile of the first kind i.e. a system that creates energy out of nothing. The second law of thermodynamics (entropy in a closed system cannot decrease) prohibits the creation of a perpetuum mobile of the second kind i.e. a system that creates mechanical energy solely by cooling the surroundings (a heat pump, which does use energy but creates additional heat by cooling the surroundings, is possible - air conditioning is a version of this). I don't usually doubt the laws of physics, but I do wonder whether the circumstances for which the second law of thermodynamics has been proved allow for the broad interpretation which is usually attributed to it. I've hardly studied this subject, so I don't have any good reason to have this doubt and most probably it is unwarranted. But in any case I hypothesize that it would be nice if circumstances could be created where the second law of thermodynamics can be avoided. I guess the reason I consider this option is that a very simple concept of what heat is suggests this possibility. Perhaps this proves only that this simple heat concept is invalid, but let me proceed anyway. One model is that heat is nothing but molecules moving and bouncing against each other. The faster they move the higher the temperature. But since the speed of all molecules in a gas or liquid is not the same one tends to think: all you need to do is separate the faster molecules from the slower ones and we've got a temperature discrepancy which can be used to generate mechanical energy. One would think this randomness, the fact that some molecules move faster than others, would offer a means of generating energy. Compare with brownian motion where a dust particle makes small movements because of random bounces of the gas molecules around it. Wouldn't it be possible that such a dust particle by coincidence is accelerated from speed 0 to some finite speed which is enough for some micro generator to generate a minute amount of energy? Furthermore, suppose I have a container with a small amount of gas. Doesn't physics predict that there is some finite chance that because of random molecule fluctuations the one half of the container will get a temperature which is 1 degree higher than the gas in the other half of the container, the second law of thermodynamics notwithstanding? Although the probability of this happening is essentially zero, isn't it true that in principle this probability does exist, no matter how small it is? And it seems if this event did happen then some small amount of energy could be extracted. Anyway, if it is possible to extract very small amounts of energy this way under certain rare random conditions, then that makes me wonder whether there is a way to increase this effect by some kind of special system making use of this randomness, for example, as I suggested, by somehow separating fast moving from slow moving molecules. Of course there are circumstances where this is exactly what happens. As when a liquid evaporates and cools. Or when the faster moving air molecules may tend to reach the higher regions of the atmosphere. But I don't think there is a systematic way to harness the energy in these circumstances. Could there be other ways? A thought experiment I have in mind is a container with air with a small gate in the middle. Somehow the speed of each air molecule trying to get through is measured and if a slow molecule tries to pass the gate from the hot part to the cold part, or a fast molecule tries to pass the gate from the cold part to the hot part, it is allowed through. If a slow molecule tries to pass the gate from the cold part to the hot part, or a fast molecule tries to pass the gate from the hot part to the cold part, the gate closes. This way the hot side of the container gets hotter and the cold part gets colder and mechanical energy can be generated from the temperature difference. Probably this system is not feasible and even if it were possible, probably the energy it takes to open or close the gate is higher than any energy gained. But this is just a brain storming idea to show the type of thing we are looking for. Maybe you could centrifuge a container of gas and then separate faster from slower molecules by their ability to withstand the force pushing them to the outside. Maybe in combination with some kind of labyrinth of walls or gates or whatever. I don't know. I don't have any specific idea, just some vague speculations which are meant to help inspire a specific idea.
- Human Powered Zeppelin - posted 28 April 2002
There exist human powered airplanes, which is a great achievement. But it's a lot of work to keep an airplane airborne with bicycle power. I think it might be nice to make a human powered zeppelin, because then it takes no effort to keep the thing in the air. One can just relax and when one wants to move in a certain direction one peddles which drives the propellers so that one goes forward. To decrease air resistance I would think a very long cigar form would be best. Say 30 meters long so that the frontal surface area is relatively small. And an aerodynamic shape should be at the front. I suppose this will not be enough to even stay at one place if the wind is too strong. But if there is little wind one can go in any direction and make a nice tour above a city or whatever. And if the wind is too high at least one still has some measure of control over where one goes even if one sort of has to go with the wind. In that case it's like a hot air balloon with a little more control. I don't think this will be an efficient or fast way of travel, but I think it will be a very nice recreational vehicle.
- "Sonar" for the blind - posted 28 April 2002
Even with modern technology one still sees blind people on the street depending on a stick or a dog to help them get around. There might be ways of giving them better information about their surroundings. A way to "see" even, with the help of other senses. I read something once about a blind person who had made a "vision" system which would record the image he should see with a camera and then projected that image onto his back by having an array of pulsating sticks or something stimulating his back. In that way the sensations he had over a large square on his back represented a two dimensional image. I forgot how well this man was able to learn to "see" with this system. Anyway, my intuition is that this may be a rather complicated system to create and learn to use effectively. My idea is that hearing might be a better way to receive the information and that a simple system where the pitch of a tone in combination with it's direction gives you the information you need, might be easy to learn and cheap to produce. My idea looks like sonar because it's based on receiving a sound which depends on the objects around, but it's not really sonar because it doesn't actually work by bouncing sound off objects. My idea is that a blind person would wear some kind of hat with on top of that hat a tool that measures the distance to the nearest object in a certain direction. I know there already exist relatively cheap tools to quickly measure the length of a room or something. I don't know whether this works with laser or infrared, or something else. Also, I think there are tools for parking your car that continuously measure the distance from your bumper to the bumper of the car in front of you or behind you, so you know how much room you have left. Anyway, my idea is to have such a thing on your head with the added complexity that the direction of measurement would continuously rotate 360 degrees around you. Perhaps one rotation per 4 seconds or something like that. Then during that rotation the system would give off a continuous sound to the blind person, whereby the higher the tone the closer by the object is in the direction currently being measured. Also, the sound would be sent through a head phone to both ears whereby the phase difference between the left and right ear is made so that at each moment the sound appears to come from the direction being measured at that time. So what the blind person would hear would be a sound appearing to rotate around him with a continuously varying tone pitch. The directions where the tone is low are directions where there is no object nearby. And where the tone increases in pitch there is an object nearby. The higher the tone the nearer it is. When the blind person holds his head straight the direction of measurement should be horizontal. The circle of vision is like a horizontal disc standing on the person's head. If the person moves his head the vision disc moves with it. So if he bends his head down the imaginary disc is tilted down as well and he sees more in the downward direction (and in the back he is looking up). Many variations of this system are possible. For example, it might be better for the vision direction to go back and forth from left to right instead of rotating all the way around. Presumably seeing in front of you is more important than seeing behind you. Also, the user might be able to set the speed of rotation higher or lower as he wishes. And maybe the vision for any point in the rotation field should be based on a wider angle rather than a point. That is, the user may not want to run the risk of looking over an object if he isn't looking at exactly the same height as the object. He may want to get a high pitch beep for the object regardless of whether it is low on the ground or on a higher location. Or else, if the vision field remains a flat disc, the user may want the disc to extend from floor height rather than from head height, since what's standing on the floor is most important for not bumping into anything. Or one may want the disc to be at hip height. Another possibility would be for the measurement direction not to move around or back and forth from left to right, but to move up and down. The user would then only see straight in front of him, but would see clearly all the objects on all different heights. To look around he could turn his head from left to right. I think an advantage of this type of system is that I suspect it is well suited to help blind people move around without bumping into things. And I think it should be relatively easy to learn, because the signals the blind person gets are relatively simple and are not trying to get everything at once. The system makes use of the fact that hearing is direction sensitive and couples this to the direction of sight. And the system makes use of the fact that you can turn your head to get information for different directions while not being bombarded with all the information at once which might be too much to process.
- Zero energy consumption travel - posted 28 April 2002
The following would be a fast transportation system between cities which doesn't use any energy at all. My idea is to let trains with people travel through vacuum tubes underneath the ground. And if fixed magnets keep the trains slightly above their track, then the trains will be completely free of friction and will not need any energy to keep a constant speed. So far, I've heard this idea before. However, with this setup energy would still be required to accelerate a train when it leaves each station. So what I would like to add is a system where the stations are at ground level and the rest of the track is, say, 500 meters below ground. When a train leaves a station it is pushed of a hill and the track goes into the ground and then when it reaches a depth of 500 m the track levels off and continues horizontally. At the next station the track moves up again to ground level. Gravity accelerates the train when it slides down the hill when leaving a station and gravity slows down the train again when it moves up the next hill to enter the next station. With the main track 500 m below ground level, the train would reach a speed of 100 m/s or 360 km/hour. This setup has several advantages. First, no engine is needed to power the trains. Second, travellers need not go down long escalators as in the subway to get on board. Boarding is convenient at ground location. Third, the main track is located well below ground so it can be built underneath cities and rivers. As with all my other invention ideas I am not making any claim as to whether this is an economically efficient idea. But it is an elegant idea.
- Low gravity juggling - posted 28 April 2002
When learning to juggle with balls or clubs or whatever, or learning a new trick, I have often thought it would be nice to be on the moon. With the low gravity there everything would move a lot slower so that one could get used to throwing the pattern, get a feel for what it's like and practice it under easy conditions before trying it on earth. Being on a space station would be even better because there one can generate artificial gravity of any desired level through rotation. Then one could practice a trick while slowly increasing gravity until one can do it with the earth's gravity. I think learning juggling tricks would be easier, faster and more rewarding this way (because one can almost instantly do any new trick with low gravity). The problem is that going out in space is very expensive. I can think of two ways to simulate this situation on earth. One way is to generate a high magnetic field (as with MRI - Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and put pieces of metal inside your juggling balls. The magnetic field would pull the balls up, compensating gravity to an extent. A second way would be to use virtual reality. A computer generates the images of the balls with any level of gravity, for you to see with your vision goggles. And special gloves should provide for the touch and feel of catching and throwing the balls.
- Improved human powered airplane - posted 28 April 2002
I think it was in 1977 that the first human powered airplane flew a decent distance and won a prize. The plane was very light weight, had a tremendous wing span, and had a bicycle powered propeller. I suspect that a propeller is an inefficient method of propulsion, due to turbulence and energy lost giving a backward impulse to air. My idea is that you don't need a propulsion of that kind if one simply uses the mechanism of a glider plane. It seems to me a glider plane moves smoothly through the air at a constant speed without the inefficiency of a propeller. The problem is only that a glider plane continues to lose height. So my idea is to adapt the propellerless glider plane so that human power keeps it at the same height. I would think that if a glider plane loses, say, half a meter of height per second, this suggests that if I can climb a staircase at a speed of half a meter a second, I should have enough energy in principle to remain airborne, if I neglect the weight of the airplane. This seems like something that should be doable. If a glider loses half a meter per second, then the body of the glider should remain at constant height if the wings are moving down the sides of the glider at a speed of half a meter per second. One can envision some kind of system where the wings move down the side, then when they reach the bottom the wings are quickly folded into a small package, quickly moved to the top, then folded out again and start moving down the side again at a speed of half a meter a second. This would keep the glider at constant height while human (peddling) power is used to generate the energy to continue to move down the wings. Of course this is not a really practical mechanism, but it's just to give an idea of the principle I have in mind. Perhaps the wings should just move up and down in a way similar to how a bird flaps his wings. In any case, my idea is to think up some kind of mechanism whereby the plane is not powered by a propeller but by continuously moving mass in an upward direction with respect to the wings, so that the basic movement of the vehicle is based on the efficiency of a glider plane.
- Efficient boat - posted 28 April 2002
Especially if one wants to make a human powered boat, it is important to make the water resistance as small as possible. A good and proven method is to make the body or floaters as long as possible with a good water dynamic form. There are two methods I am thinking of which might reduce resistance even more. One method is to reduce the drag resistance. Drag resistance is separate from pressure resistance and is caused by a lateral force exerted by moving water or air flowing over a surface. Just as one would not pull a cart over a road on pure friction, but would put wheels under a cart, one might similarly abolish drag friction on a boat. Suppose each side of the boat would have some kind of moving conveyor belt over its surface. The belt area would continuously move towards the back of the boat with the same speed as the speed of the water flow. This way there would no longer be a speed difference between the water and the sides of the boat, so that drag resistance would practically be eliminated. The conveyer belt would move freely due to the little drag of the water, with little resistance over internal ball-bearing. The biggest problem to solve here is to adapt this initial idea into something which is actually easy and practical to build. One of the problems is how to prevent water from leaking into the space behind the belt. Another idea I have for possibly reducing water resistance is based on the observation that both pressure and drag resistance are caused by the fact that a boat is an object moving through the water which is continuously displacing the water. My idea is that if a floater is slowly put into the water vertically and then taken out later, while the floater doesn't actually move horizontally through the water, then there is little energy loss. To get this I envision something like a tank with two conveyor belts running along both sides. All over the outside surface of the conveyor belts we attach rubber floaters which turn the tank into a boat. As the boat moves through the water the belt moves with the same speed as the boat. If there's a good angle at the front of the belts, then as the boat moves through the water each floater is slowly put into the water at the front and then remains at exactly the same position in the water while the tank rolls over it untill the floater slowly moves out of the water again at the back of the belt.
- Water skiing without a boat - posted 28 April 2002
I envision something like a glider plane but then for in the water. Just like if you don't want to fall out of the air too fast you can either use a hot air or helium balloon to become lighter than air, or you can glide through the air with glider wings, so too you can prevent sinking through the water too fast by having a floater which makes you lighter than water or by gliding through the water on wings. What I imagine is that you stand on some sort of water skis in the water, and if those skis have the right angle leaning forward, you should be able to glide through the water, moving mostly forward and a little bit down. Now if there would be some way to lift your skis up again after they have sunk a bit, then you should be able to glide another distance. And so on and so on. Or maybe you could make it so that you stand on one ski, glide a bit through the water until your ski has sunk some distance down, then you put your weight on the other on the ski and glide a bit through the water and in the mean time raise the previous ski back to the surface again. This way you can continue to glide through the water by alternating the ski you put your weight on and moving the other ski back up. I don't know whether you need some kind of special mechanism to achieve all this, or whether it could actually be done with simple skis. In any case, something like this seems to me could be an elegant and fun recreational human powered vehicle.
- Save your brain on DVD - posted 28 April 2002
Some people have their heads or complete bodies frozen after death (well, they don't call it death but call it suspension). They hope some day medical science will have advanced so far that they can be revived and continue life. It's called cryonics. It seems farfetched and there are many problems, such as that the freezing process damages all cells, but who knows. A cheaper and easier method of trying to save your person might be to do some kind of 3D scan of your brain after you're dead (or before you're dead) and then save the complete image of that on DVD. Or they might cut up your brain into many different slices and photograph each slice as a 2D image. Perhaps some day scientists will be able to wire up a new brain for you with exactly the same structure so that you are alive again continuing with the same memory and personality. Or maybe they can download your personality into a computer and you can continue living as a computer or robot. I think I've heard this idea before and I don't really have much faith that this method is any good. Even if the scan is good enough in quality so that some day your person can be simulated or recreated as it was, I still doubt that you would be the same person. Maybe the new person is just a copy who thinks he's you but really is a newly created consciousness. Anyway, apart from the true worth of this, I think it may be a marketable thing. There is a demand for the idea of life after death, as is demonstrated by the interest in religion and cryonics, so people might be willing to pay money to have their brain put on DVD. Even if it probably doesn't work, you would still be providing people a service in giving them piece of mind in the form of hope for life after death.
Note 28 April, 2003: Lately I have found many people talk about this idea, so it's not very original. In particular many transhumanists talk about the possibility of a brain scan with high enough resolution to save your personality. See for example: http://www.singinst.org/intro/upload.html, http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=7860
- Super roller skates - posted 28 April 2002
I like roller skates because they are so nice and small and you can travel with them over the road with a speed close to that of a bicycle. But I wonder whether it's possible to make something which is even easier to do and also small. Something maybe even old people could use. A thought I have is that it would be nice to have something that you power with the same kind of movement as walking or cross country skiing. With a simple straight walking movement rather than the side motion required with skates. But the problem with the cross country system is that when you go a bit faster you have to push your leg back very fast in order to get grips with the surface from which you push yourself. So I am wondering whether one could make some kind of mechanism which would function like a kind of transmission gear. That is, even if you're rolling with a speed of, say, 15 km/hour, if you want to give yourself a push forward by a walking motion of one leg, it would feel just as if you are pushing yourself away starting at zero speed. So instead of a very fast kick back of your leg with little force between your leg and the ground, you are able to give a slow kick back with a high force. I think if something like this could be made it would be even easier and more comfortable than roller skates.
- Movie backwards in time - posted 28 April 2002
Many years ago (10 years?) I had the idea it might be nice to make a movie where all the scenes are in reverse time order. With the last scene first and the first scene last. In the film Memento made in 2000 they actually did precisely that. It's nice to see that at least one of my ideas was good enough to market, even though they didn't get the idea from me because I didn't publish this idea until now (2002).
- Internet Arbitration - posted 14 September 2002
I have an idea for arbitration where internet users may be able to help give an indication about who is right, prior to actual arbitration. I got this idea from the phenomenon of the election market. This is a market where people trade in bets of who they think shall, say, become president. I've heard that the prices of the shares traded are a better prediction of actual percentages won during election than the best scientific polls. For the same reason one might expect company shares also to always be priced according to their "true value". But I have doubt whether this really works, because shares seem so psychological and often seem overpriced or underpriced. There seem to be too many people who value shares not based on the inherent value of the company or profit expectations, but based on their expectations of what other people's expectations are. This reminds me of the story of a beauty contest in a British newspaper in the 1930's. People had to pick from a number of beautiful women, not who they thought was prettiest, but who they thought most other people would indicate as the most likely winner. I digress. Back to my idea for arbitration via the internet.
OK. Suppose two people have a conflict which they want private arbitration for. A more and more common choice nowadays, especially for business conflicts, given the bad performance, lawyers costs, and lack of speed in government court systems. Now both parties post their side of the story on an open internet arbitration site. Site visitors can ask questions and there will be a forum with a completely open discussion about the conflict between the two parties and the visitors. Hopefully there will also be visitors who perform the service of writing summaries of the arguments on both sides. And anyone is free to post his opinion on who he thinks is right. After say 4 weeks the discussion is closed and nothing more can be added to the site.
Meanwhile, from the start of the open discussion a market is active on the site where everyone can trade in predictions about who will win the arbitration. The market might work as follows. Say the conflict is such that A demands 80.000 euro's from B, while B in turn believes that A owes him 20.000 euro's. Now visitor X thinks A will win the arbitration, while visitor Y thinks B will win. So X offers Y the following contract: I predict A will win and wish to bid on a probability that he will win of 70% and I'm willing to play for an amount of 5000 euro's. Y says, I'll take that bet, because I believe that B has at least 30% chance of winning. Now A pays 3500 euro's and B pays 1500 euro's to the site as down payment, because those are the maximum amounts each of them could lose (see below). Suppose later on the verdict of the arbiters, or the settlement, is such that B must pay A 80.000 euro's. So A wins his case for 100%. Now X wins 1500 euro's from B, which is 30% of the betting amount of 5000 euro's. If B had won his case for 100% then X would have had to pay Y 3500 euro's (70% of 5000 euro's). So, one is paid the inverse of the percentage given to the person one bet on, times the nominal contract value. Why? Because that way the prediction probability corresponds to a fair bet. For X and Y had agreed to bet as if there were a chance of 70% of A winning. So X's expectation value of the bet is 70% X 1500 euro's minus 30% X 3500 euro's=1050-1050=0. Similar for Y. They both have an expectation to win or lose of 0, so it's a fair bet.
Now suppose the arbitration or settlement said that B should not pay 80.000 euro's to A, but only 55.000 euro's. Since 55.000 euro's is 3/4-th on the way from B's claim (-20.000 euro's) to A's claim (+80.000 euro's), A has been designated the winner for 50%, so to speak. In that case Y pays X 50% of the1500 euro's, or 750 euro's. If the arbitration or settlement ends in the middle between A's claim and B's claim (meaning B has to pay A 30.000 euro's, which is exactly in the middle between -20.000 euro's and +80.000 euro's), then X and Y both win or lose nothing. I'm not sure this is correct, because I believe the payment curve is nonlinear, with a bend in the middle. But if one would make the payment curve linear, then payment would no longer be 0 in the center. I might have to think about this more.
Anyway, at the end of the 4 weeks X and Y are allowed to make a settlement. Suggested price of this settlement is a percentage which lies somewhere between the weighted average of all market deals and the marked end price. Now there are two possibilities. Either A and B agree to a settlement price. In that case all positions on the market are payed out based on this price, A and B pay each other on the basis of this price (indicating a percentage on the way between B's claim and A's claim), and arbitration is no longer necessary. The other possibility is that A and B do not reach settlement. Then a procedure, which was agreed to in advance by both parties, is started to appoint one or more arbiters. The arbiters study all the information and discussion on the site. Then they reach a verdict based on that, or they ask for an additional meeting with both parties, where they can ask for further verbal explanation, and then reach their verdict. All market positions are paid based on this verdict, A and B pay each other based on the verdict, and the loser pays the cost of arbitration, or it's proportionally divided according to which degree each was declared the winner.
If the case is unclear, the arbiters might take the market end price itself as the final verdict. In that case they may finish their work soon and fast and therefore their salaries might be low. If the case is clear to the arbitrators, then of course they should declare a 100%/0% verdict rather than a mixed verdict based on the market price. The market price is a prediction of what good arbiters will decide. When arbiters learn though experience that the market often predicts their verdict well, at a certain point they might trust the market and often tend to confirm the market prediction itself. This can either mean that if the market gives one person 90%, then the arbiters will make that person 100% winner. Or they may make him 90% winner, if they feel the case is not entirely clear and that therefore the other is 10% right as well.
Advantages of this system over normal arbitration:
- It's relatively fast. 4 weeks plus about 1 for the final arbitration or settlement.
- It's fun and it's a nice way to bet and also learn about conflicts and justice at the same time.
- The market provides a relatively objective indication price for settlement. This increases the chance of settlement, so that true arbitration is no longer needed. The site visitors give their comments for free, because they enjoy participating, while the work of arbiters must be paid.
- Even if there is no settlement, arbitration is still cheaper, for a great deal of the work has already been done by the site participants. The arbiters only have to read all the material and possibly ask for some verbal explanation on a single hearing, and then they're done. Also, they may take the market price into account for their verdict, for presumably the market price contains information about the case itself. (However, they must never blindly trust the market, because it may be wrong or corrupt.)
Possible problem:
- Traders might give false opinions about the conflict in order to influence the price of their own contract. But other people might be clever enough to see through this and visitors can give each other ratings as to how good they think other people are in commenting. And of course A and B will also be biased in their opinions, so that's always something to take into account.
- Improved speech by the deaf - posted 26 April 2003
Deaf people can be taught to speak, but their speech is often not very clear. The reason for this is that they cannot hear themselves speak, so feedback is missing. My idea is for them to learn to speak more clearly by giving them this feedback. When a deaf person speaks they could speak into a microphone connected to a portable voice recognition computer. But the purpose of the program is not to convert the speech into text, as is normally the purpose of such a system. All the program does is see how well it can understand each word. As the deaf person speaks, he will continuously see on a display how clear his words are. This is indicated by a series of LEDs just like those often used to display the recording level of a tape recorder. The line can go anywhere from 1 to 10. The clearer the words are to the computer, the more the line moves toward 10 and vice versa. This provides the deaf person with the feedback he needs. He can now practice saying different words, or sentences, with the aim to make the indicator go as high as possible. The system might also be set first for practice of single letters or syllables. When the deaf person has been trained enough he may decide either to discontinue use of the system, or he may decide to continue wearing the system in real life whenever he talks to other people. Continuous real-time feedback might be required to keep his speech clear at any time. I have found something that looks a bit like this idea, but it isn't really the same as it isn't based on voice recognition: http://www-3.ibm.com/able/snsspv3.html
- GPS paper map overlay - posted 27 July 2003
GPS is very handy for navigation. But a problem is that if you're navigating using a paper map, then every time you want to know your new position on the map, you have to chart the postion by hand. You read off the coordinates from your GPS, then find those coordinates on the map. Then you have to remember your location. Or draw a cross on you map, with the disadvantage that you'll have a map full of crosses after frequent use. Most maps don't even have decent coordinate scales. There are transparent overlays you can buy that will give you a coordinate grid on top of the map, but this doesn't solve the problem that each time you want to know your new position you have to plot it by hand. There are also electronic maps where your position is automatically plotted on a display. In addition you can scan a paper map and link the GPS to a monitor to automatically and constantly show your position. Those tools are very nice, but I think it would still be handy in many circumstances if you could see your position instantly on your paper map at every time, without the need to carry a monitor. Also, current monitors are much smaller in size than most paper maps, so on a monitor you can see only a small part of the area, giving you limited overview. So my idea is to have a system to automatically indicate on any paper map your position. Perhaps by projecting a dot somehow with a laser. Or by putting a transparent foldable LCD monitor over the paper map, showing your position as a red dot. There are reports on developments of large paper-like screens, on which a new daily newspaper can be displayed every day. This is something that might be used. Also, it would be nice if the system is linked to an electronic compass as well. Which you can set to give the direction your car or boat or whatever is traveling in. In that case a little arrow could constantly be projected onto your map, giving your location and direction. Perhaps the lenght of the arrow could give the distance you're traveling per minute with your current speed.
- Drive-through roller coaster - posted 31 August 2003
Make a drive-through roller coaster. That is, instead of being seated in a special cart going over rails, you stay in your own car and just drive over a road which makes all sorts of amazing bents and loops or whatever. The road has a normal road surface (e.g. asphalt or concrete) and there are no special features tying you to the road. You just do your own driving. A simple but quite spectacular form of this would be the looping. You are given instructions to drive a steady specific speed (say 100 km/hour) and then the whole road makes a complete loop. You must be sure to keep your speed, otherwise you would fall down. I think this would be much more exciting than a regular roller coaster. You're on your own, driving in your own car, on a normal road, except there's a loop in the road. Taking you 180 degrees upside down. Sounds pretty neat to me. There is some risk, but I don't think the risk is necessarily high. You do have to keep the suggested speed and follow the road, otherwise you'll crash. But the same goes pretty much for a regular highway, so I think a good driver could handle it. I've done some calculations. Suppose the diameter of the loop is h. That is also the height of the center point above the ground. If the car has speed v, then the car looses speed toward the top of the loop, at which point it has decreased to SQR(v^2-20h). (SQR means square root, and ^ means to the power.) This formula can be derived from the assumption of energy conservation. If we don't want the car to fall down in the top, then gravity must match the centrifugal force at that point. We can derive the following formula for that: v=SQR(5h). Substituting the decreased v that we earlier calculated we get: v=5.SQR(h). So, for example, with a loop diameter of 10 meters, you need to drive a at least 15.9 m/s or 57 km/hour. Of course we might want to make the loop radius lower at the bottom than at the top, so as to minimize the G forces felt at the bottom (we don't want our car to break its axis by its own weight). Another nice attraction would be the cylinder. You may remember the rotating cylinder in attraction parks, where you stick to the outside wall because of the centrifugal force. Unfortunately you don't see that much anymore, as it has been replaced by more modern and grand scale rides. But it would be nice to make a road like that for a car. The road could be made in the form of a huge bucket with round floor. The bottom would be like a race bicycle track, with an angle tilting ever more toward the outside. Going further to the outside the road would tilt more and more until it reaches 90 degrees. At that point you're in a cylinder. You could just driving in slowly from an entrance in the bottom. Then slowly start driving circles, going faster and faster at an ever increasing radius. Until your car is completely sideways. I'm sure that's fun. So go ahead and let some visionary entrepreneur build the first of these, make a lot of money, and make all adult children very happy
Note 17 September, 2003: I was told by somebody that he though he heard that there used to be cylinders on fairs in Holland, where you could drive around on the inside wall on your own motorcycle. That is similar to my idea of a car driving around on the inside of a cylinder.
Note 21 June, 2004: It's not the same, but it's nice to see someone else also got the idea of making a "drive through" amusement park attraction. The Dutch newspager "De Volkskrant" today reports a temporary ferris wheel in Toronto, in which 5 cars can ride. It was created by the Dutch architect/artist John Körmeling.
- Looping for skis - posted 31 August 2003
Same as invention above, but then for a person on skis.
- User defined font - posted 28 September 2003
I saw a documentary yesterday on TV about the beauty of the Trinity and Lexicon fonts. It was claimed they are much nicer than the standard Times (New) Roman font. I wondered whether it might be a good idea to make a user defined font. That is, develop a computer program where you can start out with a number of standard fonts. But you can easily indicate with your mouse certain changes to the letters according to personal taste. This would be a system for the layperson, who can then within minutes design his how font variations. Such as making some lines of letters a bit wider, changing some of the curves of certain letters, etc. Everybody could make his own personal font, without having to be an expert font designer.
Comment sent by reader (5 April 2004): Adobe (creator of Postscript) and Apple (creator of TrueType) both have systems to do this. Apple's QuickDraw GX system only existed on the Mac, and essentially failed in the market. It allowed for user to modify the settings of parametric fonts. I am less familiar with Adobe's Multiple Master approach, which apparently does something similar and recieved a bit more use, though was less capable than QuickDraw GX. Two parametric font links: here and here.
