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Heat-Conducting Carbon Foam [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
Man, I love high tech materials. This foam acts as a better heat conductor than most materials we know of nowadays [3.5x as efficient as my beloved aluminium] allowing for a reduction in the size of radiators used to cool fluids. Likewise, you could have much smaller radiators in homes in order to heat them. Additionally, it works as an excellent sound deadening material, which is a previously unknown phenomenon, given that insulators usually work best as either a heat or a sound blocker, rarely both.
Now, the bad news: You'll need temperatures of around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheight in order to make it. Plus, the raw material (carbon pitch[pdf]) is not cheap. Still, if there is a market, someone will figure out a cheaper way of making it.
7:26:21 PM 
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I was spending some time with friends last night, and they were wondering why I spend so much time on this site. I explained that all I was really doing here was reading the things I do every day, and putting down my comments and ideas that would otherwise be lost to the ether.
They then asked if there was any way for me to make money off of it. I mentioned Andrew Sullivan and his book club, the option of linking to items on Amazon with a referrer code so that I could get a portion of the sale back, Paypal donations, as well as Amazon's system a a revenue stream. None of which, for the moment, I'm doing. While I would love for someone to pay me to do this, I like having the flexibility to post, or not post, as is my want.
My goal is to be paid to write, to be sure. I enjoy reading, researching, and pontificating. Radio gives me the oppportunity to do that, much like the heavy hitters you'll find in my links at the left. Ideally, someone will come along, see this site, and think that they should pay me to make some of the concepts I come up with a reality. Really though, I'm just trying get in the habit of writing daily, soing some preliminary research on the topics that interest me, and keeping track of said work in an easy manner. Radio lets me do that, Between the seamelss feeds every hour from the sources that interest me, to the eas of getting ideas out of my head and onto the web, to the categories, stories, and host of features I haven't even tapped into yet, this is what I've been looking for for well over a year and a half now.
Good stuff.
2:47:53 PM
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Valve Announces "Steam" Content Delivery System [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters] [Detailed interview withe Valve here]
Wow. WOW. Valve has set up agreements and infrastructure to allow for direct downloading of their games and updates. Users have the option of either subscribing for $10.00 a month, or paying for games at a a flat rate. There is an IM client that lets players know when their friends are on line and what server they are on so that they can play together easily. The system is designed to accomodate both broad and narrowband users, and is similar to a P2P network in many respects. they can now sell games to their huge userbase without any middleman, and with massively reduced risk of loss/theft.
Brilliant.
Additionally they are licensing the tech to other developers so that they can use it for their games as well. So a starting developer could bootstrap their way into being a fully fledged development house by making a mod for an existing game, then rolling the revenue from that into developing their own games. Poof, Instant incubator, little to no need for a large corp to promote your games. part time developers could also get a leg up in this manner as well.
I wonder if any bands/labels will try to use this as a means of marketing their products, be it music, movies, videos, whatever it is they are trying to promote/sell. On demand pay per views as well as networked movie collections for personalized programing. How much would you pay for such an offer, commercial free movies and shows, no station DOGS in the corner, just straight up content when you wanted it?
11:38:10 AM
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Captain Cyborg Lives!. Robots 1: Humans 0 [The Register]
Professor Kevin Warwick, of the University of Reading, is working on a means of capturing the motions of one human and replaying them in another. This was one of the tech concepts in the book Hardwired. It was referred to as "wired reflexes", and was one of the many technologies that lived in that world. One of the issues they had was that the creator's biometrics didn't always match that of the end user, so the moves of a 5'5" 150 lb martial arts expert didn't always translate well into the body of a 6' tall steroid popping 250 lb person. Interesting to see technology finally catching up with a book that came out in 1989.
Possible (ab)uses:
- Lockdown in prisons. Get a prisoner to go fetal for a period of time when you need to transport them or during riots.
- Teaching muscle memory based skills to large groups of people quickly. By gently guiding them through the moves (who says the impulse has to be set to full strength?) you can get a large group to quickly master basic skills or learn new, more advanced moves.
- To directly stimulate the pleasure center, much like the Wire described in Niven's Ringworld series of books.
- To remotely control a device that in form matches a human. Researchers have already managed to get monkeys to control cursors with the use of brain implants, why not have people contolling robots, for the ultimate in telepresence.
UPDATE: New Scientist article with counterpoint.
11:14:24 AM
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Senate Votes to Require Increase in Use of Wind and Solar Power. The Senate gave environmentalists a modest victory on wind and solar power, but put off conclusive votes on broader energy policy until next month. By David E. Rosenbaum. [New York Times: Science]
While I would love to see less dependence on oil in general, the research to improve renewable energy sources simply has not kept pace with other branches of technology. We need better, safer storage of electricity than banks of car batteries to start with. At the same time, we need to encourage the use and construction of more energy efficient homes, either in lowered property taxes, or in sales taxes on the equipment that is used to gernerate and store the energy.
Next up, architects need to start designing homes that have the look and feel of what people are familiar with, but adding the touches that will allow for lower heating and cooling costs. I've long been a proponent of poured concrete homes, as the solid walls make for great noise and heat insulation, as well as standing the test of time.
10:36:22 AM
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Is iPod angling to be device du jour?. Apple Computer's digital music player could begin to mature into a handheld and maybe more, say analysts and Mac enthusiasts. But Apple itself is saying don't get carried away. [CNET News.com: Personal Technology]
Given that Jobs has come out in the past and publicly blasted people for using Palm devices, I highly doubt that we'll be seeing iPods as fully blown PDAs any time soon. However I do see a time in the near future, when color high res LCD or OLED price points get low enough, that we will see an iPod that has a color screen and the ability to playback video that is either stored on the device or streamed from a bluetooth connection. Ideally I'd like to see an iPod as a mini video editor/photo viewer, with an optional keyboard connection or Newton-like handwriting interface that allows you to mark up/tag your data in the field, speeding editing once you get back to your desktop/laptop.
10:03:11 AM
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Distributed Computing and Gaming
Buzzword De Jour: Distributed Computing (hereafter Dist Comp). A series of computers, connected via a network that all work together to solve problem or set of probems.
Sony is talking about using this in their next generation of PlayStation devices, IBM is turning the Department of Energy on to it, and it has been used for a few years to find a cure for cancer, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, and for folding the proteins of the Human Genome.
While I don't mind the idea of harvesting unused cycles of computing time for use in things to better mankind, but gaming? That's a bit much to ask. Questions regarding the Playstation 3 and Dist Comp:
- How is this going to work? Will my PS3 be "always on", hogging up both power and bandwidth? If so, that's a pretty powerful incentive not to get one, no matter how good the games look.
- If I try to play off a network, how will that effect gameplay? Will AI be "dumber" since it can't use networked resources to out think me? Will the cology of the world I'm playing in suffer since, again, it cannot use the Dist Comp resources that would optimally be available to it?
- Alternately, how will lots of players effect a MMORGP [Massive/Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game]? Will each players machine be responsible for "thinking" for a certain amount of the game world surroiunding the character, allowing for more cycles to be dedicated to rendering or AI as people clump up and/or team together? That could make for interesting dynamics as people group, since their AI opponents will get smarter at a rate that is proportional to the size of the player... Yet breaking off and running into the wilderness to escape will facilitate the enemies losing tactical ability as they will get "dumber."
This would allow for rich NPC AI in cities, as users would tend to congregate there, and for parties to fight tactically savvy opponent hordes that would get more panicy and reckless as their numbers get whittled down... Limiting the weighted options that the horde has based on the number of players in the area (which helps determine the size of said horde) coud allow for interseting dynamics. Artillery comes into play only if there is group of 8 or more players in a formation, yet a lone player could sneak into a castle. Interesting.
9:53:24 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Ryan Greene.
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