You know what's annoying? Shaving. It's tedious and irritating to my skin. But for now at least, it is a part of life, so i live with it.
But you know what's inconsolably irritating? Buying razors, or more specifically, razor blades.
If you use an electric razor you know how expensive it can be to replace the blades. Prices from $30-$50 are not uncommon. And you're expected to buy them about once a year! And if you don't buy them you're forced to shave with an unsharp razor which will be even more painful and even more tedious than normal.
How hard can it be to make blades which will not dull so easily! They use some sort of stainless steel. I wouldn't be surprised if the blades are purposefully engineered to dull out quickly. I'm certainly not an expert, but what's wrong with tungsten carbide, ceramic or high carbon steel? I would seriously consider buying blades with industrial diamonds if it meant I didn't have to get a new one so often.
Also, a comment to Norelco: I DO NOT NEED TO REPLACE THE ENTIRE HEAD OF THE RAZOR! There are three little ninja-star blades that get dull. They're about the size of a nickel each. I would be happy to insert them into the razor head myself and obviate the need to replace the environmentally and economically costly COMPLETE razor head.
PS - I would love to buy an aftermarket razor head (hint, hint interwebs).
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
half baked ideas
Adapt an inject printer to print tattoos directly onto skin. (btw Inject technology is already used to print half strands of DNA).
Have the inside of a tube of toothpaste cling to itself so that it is easy to expel all of the paste.
Create a 'nap' watch which can determine the stage of sleep you are in so you are never woken during stage 3 or 4 deep sleep.
Create a 'void balloon'. That is, a sturdy shell (probably from some nanostructure) which is strong and light enough to create a void inside. This 'void' will have more lifting capacity than Helium or Hydrogen in atmosphere. Additionally, this is 'green' in that no gases need to be mined/synthesized.
-- with enough technology a 'morphing' balloon could transition from round->airplane shape->supersonic airplane shape etc, for optimal performance depending on velocity, function and altitude.
Create a flying craft, the skin of which creates corona wind via high voltage potentials for propulsion and maneuvering.
(update: it seems they've already done a similar idea for ship propulsion. See "Magnetohydrodynamic drive".)
Have the inside of a tube of toothpaste cling to itself so that it is easy to expel all of the paste.
Create a 'nap' watch which can determine the stage of sleep you are in so you are never woken during stage 3 or 4 deep sleep.
Create a 'void balloon'. That is, a sturdy shell (probably from some nanostructure) which is strong and light enough to create a void inside. This 'void' will have more lifting capacity than Helium or Hydrogen in atmosphere. Additionally, this is 'green' in that no gases need to be mined/synthesized.
-- with enough technology a 'morphing' balloon could transition from round->airplane shape->supersonic airplane shape etc, for optimal performance depending on velocity, function and altitude.
Create a flying craft, the skin of which creates corona wind via high voltage potentials for propulsion and maneuvering.
(update: it seems they've already done a similar idea for ship propulsion. See "Magnetohydrodynamic drive".)
Monday, May 10, 2010
Once I sat upon a promontory
THE INVERSE-TURING TEST
The Turing test measures a machines ability to be 'intelligent'. The test involves a person having a 'blind' text conversation with either man or machine. If the person is consistently unable to determine to whom they are talking, the machine is said to have passed.
To my knowledge, no machine has ever passed this test. In that sense this test can determine whether a 'being' is human. This is because the machine lacks sufficient 'human' intelligence.
Now consider the opposite question. Is it possible to form a test which can prove machinery? IE, humans will consistently fail this test. If we put a few restrictions on the human, I believe this to be so.
That test already exists, it is called the 'Diehard Test Suite'. It sounds like a simple test--can you generate independent and identically distributed random variables? At its simplest, could you generate a completely random series of 0's and 1's? The restriction: you can't image some sort of complicated algorithm in your head and you can't use information from your surroundings. That's it. And my hypothesis is that humans cannot do this because of the fundamental nature of how we think.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream
AYN RAND and the GOP
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
For those of you out there who consider yourselves politically savvy, I have a question to ask. Have you read Ayn Rand?
She's an author whose most notable works are from the 1940's and 1950's. She brought "Objectivism" to the lime-light of american politics and culture. I consider her "Atlas Shrugged" to be analogous to the Communist Manifesto--except for capitalists, not socialists. If you are confused at all about the current Republican philosophy, seemingly chaotic in purpose and execution, I'd claim that many of the their objectives indirectly revolve around Ayn Rand's work. The GOP may not know this, and in fact they have strayed quite a bit from their fundamental message, but let me explain why I believe this to be so.
I was introduced to Ayn Rand in ninth grade. A friend lent me, "The Fountainhead." I later read, "Atlas Shrugged." Rand introduced to me a revolutionary way of thinking. What if, instead of relying upon man for acceptance, welfare and enjoyment, we relied upon ourselves? What if the highest moral priority was for man to be happy? Not in a, "look at me, I'm a pig wallowing in mud, and I just ate some delicious garbage," but a deeper happiness as defined by a continual sense of purpose, accomplishment and beauty.
Objectivism may initially sound selfish and potential harmful, but let's look a little deeper. First, this will not result in anarchy. Deep happiness is not achieved by doing immoral acts. This would be contradictory to the premise of happiness. In fact the self-sufficiency demanded by the philosophy entails a deep sense of responsibility for ones actions and achievement. For these things are integral to ones being. Ones 'worth' as a human and 'worth' as a productive member of society become nearly identical (the only difference being that 'productivity' has intrinsic metrics, not all seen by society). A watered down version of Objectivism would not result in the collapse of society.
The arguments and fictional 'case studies' in Rand's novels illustrate these principles much better than I could. For a deeper treatment of the issue, I would strongly advise you to read Rand. Her novels affected my life philosophy in many ways. Even if you are a liberal till death, her work will give you insight into your 'foe' while giving you reason to pause and reflect on convincing and logically sound counter arguments to your ideology.
This all said, I think it would be a huge mistake to fully adopt her philosophies into society. She fails to realize that some people are largely incapable of self-productivity. She presents a cold, sharp knife to those who will not follow their prerogative. She trumpets reason over humanity and ignores the effect of environment on achievement.
And so we have a wrestling match between Socialism and Objectivism which colors our political climate. Welfare vs. self-reliance seems to be the greatest point of tension. But that's as it should be. Both philosophies present useful opportunities and ideas. And both have their downfalls. Only a naive person would fully claim one over the other. One would hope that our politicians could come together and synthesize the best system from both philosophies. The democratic party seems to be doing its' job, but the Republicans seem to have gotten lost on side issues. They're not doing their job properly and largely abstaining from meaningful debate and reason.
I would be happy to see objectivist ideas integrated into our society--to an extent. They have their place and could ultimately make America happier, more economically stable and independent. That's the sort of arguments I would hope to see clearly presented by the GOP. I'm waiting to have the call for self-sufficiency and reason answered by politicians in office--but until that time comes I remain distant from political affiliation.
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
For those of you out there who consider yourselves politically savvy, I have a question to ask. Have you read Ayn Rand?
She's an author whose most notable works are from the 1940's and 1950's. She brought "Objectivism" to the lime-light of american politics and culture. I consider her "Atlas Shrugged" to be analogous to the Communist Manifesto--except for capitalists, not socialists. If you are confused at all about the current Republican philosophy, seemingly chaotic in purpose and execution, I'd claim that many of the their objectives indirectly revolve around Ayn Rand's work. The GOP may not know this, and in fact they have strayed quite a bit from their fundamental message, but let me explain why I believe this to be so.
I was introduced to Ayn Rand in ninth grade. A friend lent me, "The Fountainhead." I later read, "Atlas Shrugged." Rand introduced to me a revolutionary way of thinking. What if, instead of relying upon man for acceptance, welfare and enjoyment, we relied upon ourselves? What if the highest moral priority was for man to be happy? Not in a, "look at me, I'm a pig wallowing in mud, and I just ate some delicious garbage," but a deeper happiness as defined by a continual sense of purpose, accomplishment and beauty.
Objectivism may initially sound selfish and potential harmful, but let's look a little deeper. First, this will not result in anarchy. Deep happiness is not achieved by doing immoral acts. This would be contradictory to the premise of happiness. In fact the self-sufficiency demanded by the philosophy entails a deep sense of responsibility for ones actions and achievement. For these things are integral to ones being. Ones 'worth' as a human and 'worth' as a productive member of society become nearly identical (the only difference being that 'productivity' has intrinsic metrics, not all seen by society). A watered down version of Objectivism would not result in the collapse of society.
The arguments and fictional 'case studies' in Rand's novels illustrate these principles much better than I could. For a deeper treatment of the issue, I would strongly advise you to read Rand. Her novels affected my life philosophy in many ways. Even if you are a liberal till death, her work will give you insight into your 'foe' while giving you reason to pause and reflect on convincing and logically sound counter arguments to your ideology.
This all said, I think it would be a huge mistake to fully adopt her philosophies into society. She fails to realize that some people are largely incapable of self-productivity. She presents a cold, sharp knife to those who will not follow their prerogative. She trumpets reason over humanity and ignores the effect of environment on achievement.
And so we have a wrestling match between Socialism and Objectivism which colors our political climate. Welfare vs. self-reliance seems to be the greatest point of tension. But that's as it should be. Both philosophies present useful opportunities and ideas. And both have their downfalls. Only a naive person would fully claim one over the other. One would hope that our politicians could come together and synthesize the best system from both philosophies. The democratic party seems to be doing its' job, but the Republicans seem to have gotten lost on side issues. They're not doing their job properly and largely abstaining from meaningful debate and reason.
I would be happy to see objectivist ideas integrated into our society--to an extent. They have their place and could ultimately make America happier, more economically stable and independent. That's the sort of arguments I would hope to see clearly presented by the GOP. I'm waiting to have the call for self-sufficiency and reason answered by politicians in office--but until that time comes I remain distant from political affiliation.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
How easy is a bush supposed a bear
BABIES
I fear holding newborn babies. They're fragile. Their necks are very thin, and it looks like the head may just twist off. You pick up the baby, forget to hold its' head properly and "POP CRACK," dead baby.
And there are others, guys mainly, who are afraid of holding young babies. It is a common phobia. So common that I would call it a phenomena.
Strangely, I do not feel like this phenomena applies to other fragile, valuable objects. Want me to coddle the Mona Lisa? Sure, I'd do that. Here is the remote for an armed atom bomb, hold it? Sure, I'll hold that too. I'd even try to burp it given sufficient incentive. But babies, I will not hold.
Perhaps it is genetic -- there has been sufficient selective pressure to make men predisposed to being afraid of babies. I can imagine a lot of shamed faces and devastated grunting after our ancestors picked up a newborn, went to cuddle it with love and accidently crushed it to death instead. Assuming men were more likely to hold babies related to them, a likely prospect, all the requirements for natural selection are present: a life/death scenario, a genetic link and the natural genetic variation found in all creatures.
That's it, and I am convinced men are genetically predisposed to be afraid of babies. I don't have to be ashamed of my fear anymore. In my most guttural roar of science, I have defended my manhood.
I fear holding newborn babies. They're fragile. Their necks are very thin, and it looks like the head may just twist off. You pick up the baby, forget to hold its' head properly and "POP CRACK," dead baby.
And there are others, guys mainly, who are afraid of holding young babies. It is a common phobia. So common that I would call it a phenomena.
Strangely, I do not feel like this phenomena applies to other fragile, valuable objects. Want me to coddle the Mona Lisa? Sure, I'd do that. Here is the remote for an armed atom bomb, hold it? Sure, I'll hold that too. I'd even try to burp it given sufficient incentive. But babies, I will not hold.
Perhaps it is genetic -- there has been sufficient selective pressure to make men predisposed to being afraid of babies. I can imagine a lot of shamed faces and devastated grunting after our ancestors picked up a newborn, went to cuddle it with love and accidently crushed it to death instead. Assuming men were more likely to hold babies related to them, a likely prospect, all the requirements for natural selection are present: a life/death scenario, a genetic link and the natural genetic variation found in all creatures.
That's it, and I am convinced men are genetically predisposed to be afraid of babies. I don't have to be ashamed of my fear anymore. In my most guttural roar of science, I have defended my manhood.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
BECOMING A PERSON OF INTEREST
Part of the US government's job is to keep track of domestic affairs. Since 9/11 this has seemingly evolved from hobby to obsession. Wiretapping with minimal legal recourse by 'secret agencies' is a controversial practice that is commonly assumed to occur. I speculate that deeper, more dubious intelligence gathering methods are being employed.
Except for ideological reasons, these practices are meant to be seen as irrelevant to the non-terrorizing population. Think again Mr. Brown. I have reason to believe that two seemingly innocuous actions on my part have put me on some sort of watch list.
How/if this will impact my future is unknown. In the least, I actually feel a little paranoid about writing this entry. I'm purposefully staying away from acronyms like N S A, or posting certain IP addresses. I would suggest that my freedom of speech has been compromised.
On a previous version of my .EDU webpage (now deleted) I described my research interests. I am sufficiently religious (Christian, as is 76% of the US population) that I mentioned God in my introduction--basically saying that he has given us a lot of natural tools to do some useful things.
I happen to keep some basic statistics about who visits my webpage. There were multiple hits from the pent a gon and a few others from Virginia while this page was up. I will not go into details other than saying it sort of creeped me out. My page is not frequented that often, so I am pretty sure these were associated with the gov ernment. When I removed the references to God, the hits ceased.
A second instance of me stumbling towards possible infamy occurred back in my undergraduate days post nine-eleven. I was vacationing in Eastern Washington: hiking, exploring, etc. I thought it would be fun to visit the Han ford nu clear re search facility. My map (circa 1995) indicated there was a visitors center.
As I drove to where I thought the center would be, I was stopped by a roadblock with a humV. A sol dier, complete with mach ine gun and green ades came out and asked me questions for a while. He took my ID information and lic plate number.
I can not say whether the information was retained for years. Although I imagine a little black book with my name on it with a page for each of these 'incidents'. Once my book gets say, 9 pages, it gets bumped up to a higher level of surveillance.
As with any passive surveillance system, it is nearly impossible to determine what information is collected about you. And this is the problem. The checks and balances of our democracy break down in the area of national security. In a sense, we have to 'trust' that the government is behaving decently.
The founding fathers knew that power leads to corruption. If information is power, then the secret agencies have more power than any other segment of the population. Will the moral control poorly demonstrated by wiretapping and illegal interrogation techniques snowball into greater decay? What will the limit of their 'power' be as information about citizens becomes more available? To what end?
Part of the US government's job is to keep track of domestic affairs. Since 9/11 this has seemingly evolved from hobby to obsession. Wiretapping with minimal legal recourse by 'secret agencies' is a controversial practice that is commonly assumed to occur. I speculate that deeper, more dubious intelligence gathering methods are being employed.
Except for ideological reasons, these practices are meant to be seen as irrelevant to the non-terrorizing population. Think again Mr. Brown. I have reason to believe that two seemingly innocuous actions on my part have put me on some sort of watch list.
How/if this will impact my future is unknown. In the least, I actually feel a little paranoid about writing this entry. I'm purposefully staying away from acronyms like N S A, or posting certain IP addresses. I would suggest that my freedom of speech has been compromised.
On a previous version of my .EDU webpage (now deleted) I described my research interests. I am sufficiently religious (Christian, as is 76% of the US population) that I mentioned God in my introduction--basically saying that he has given us a lot of natural tools to do some useful things.
I happen to keep some basic statistics about who visits my webpage. There were multiple hits from the pent a gon and a few others from Virginia while this page was up. I will not go into details other than saying it sort of creeped me out. My page is not frequented that often, so I am pretty sure these were associated with the gov ernment. When I removed the references to God, the hits ceased.
A second instance of me stumbling towards possible infamy occurred back in my undergraduate days post nine-eleven. I was vacationing in Eastern Washington: hiking, exploring, etc. I thought it would be fun to visit the Han ford nu clear re search facility. My map (circa 1995) indicated there was a visitors center.
As I drove to where I thought the center would be, I was stopped by a roadblock with a humV. A sol dier, complete with mach ine gun and green ades came out and asked me questions for a while. He took my ID information and lic plate number.
I can not say whether the information was retained for years. Although I imagine a little black book with my name on it with a page for each of these 'incidents'. Once my book gets say, 9 pages, it gets bumped up to a higher level of surveillance.
As with any passive surveillance system, it is nearly impossible to determine what information is collected about you. And this is the problem. The checks and balances of our democracy break down in the area of national security. In a sense, we have to 'trust' that the government is behaving decently.
The founding fathers knew that power leads to corruption. If information is power, then the secret agencies have more power than any other segment of the population. Will the moral control poorly demonstrated by wiretapping and illegal interrogation techniques snowball into greater decay? What will the limit of their 'power' be as information about citizens becomes more available? To what end?
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Star Trek
Star Trek is an energetic, not too geeky, sci-fi film that will give you a few shots of adrenaline along with a warm hearted sigh every now and then.
Despite its heavily weighted fiction over science, and lack of significant romance, this film has a universal appeal to thinkers and feelers alike -- due to good ideas and character development.
bottom line:
This film is like a beautified and engrossing Starship Troopers. It lacks the deeper metaphors of Star Wars -- but it's spring, the sun is out and who wants to think anyway.
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