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 20 Nov 2005 @ 05:01, by raypows. Inventions
BitLight LightHitParade: Old CDs Put to Good Use
November 18, 2005 01:20 PM - Collin Dunn, Durham, North Carolina
Recycling CDs is not as easy as it should be, and they are definitely not landfill or incinerator-friendly, with their persistent plastic and ugly chemical characteristics. Artist Serghej Petrov has figured out a way to recycle them into art, without turning them into a disco ball or hanging collage over baby's crib. Check out his BitLight LightHitParade lamp; it has about 800 used CDs and creates a very cool ambient light source. He uses both an LED light source, which consumes only eight watts of power, and a cold cathode lamp, which is a little closer to 30 watts, but neither emit enough heat to be dangerous to the lamps artistic shell. This version stands 100 cm (a trifle over three feet), and he also has a suspended smaller version. More >
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 9 Aug 2005 @ 03:01, by rcarratu. Inventions
I am a SF writer, and I've written and finished six books. The picture is from one of the books: The Journal of John. (I'm also a graphics designer.)
These books are 'packages' for getting out some of the wisdom I have learned over my decades on this planet. Like children often take their medicine better if it is mixed with honey, these are hopefully enjoyable stories with a kernal of concepts which might spark some new ways of thinking in those who read them. To save the planet, what is termed 'common sense', or the data we all tend to take for granted which define our actions, must change, and only when we are exposed to new concepts that might work better do we make our 'common sense' conscious and change it.
My books are all about 'thinking saner'.
I am giving them away to anyone who wants to read them.
SO, I will give a free copy to everyone who wants one. I WILL NOT GIVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES TO ANYONE NOR SPAM YOU MYSELF. I retain copyright, but it is within copyright to give copies away. If I post the books on the Internet, I lose copyright because by defination, the Internet is public domain.
I will email you the book in one of three formats as you choose, Windows, (.doc), Rich Text Format (.rtf), or Adobe (.PDF) as an email attachment as quickly as possible.
Check out my Sample Chapters:
The Journal of John (Rated R) Sociological SF
The Rebirth of Sindaku (Rated PG-13) Adventure SF
Kathlane of Whirlwind Station(Rated PG-13) Adventure SF
Magic Universe -The Story of Tempar (Rated PG-13) Magic & Fantisy
Five Facets of the Sun (Rated PG-13) Sociological SF
Frozen in Time(Rated PG-13) Sociological/Romance SF
If you want a copy of any of these, just email me at Roan Carratu.
These books are fully copyrighted and putting out the ebooks for profit or changing them in any way is forbidden. However, you may copy any of my books as much as you want and give them to anyone you want. I have taken my book out of the Kindle ebook system because of problems getting the money, (my problems with paypal, not theirs) and will distribute them myself through email. My book are free, although they are definitely not popular. lol. Que sera, sera.
Peace and Good Health,
-Roan Worldmind@yahoo.com More >
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 17 Mar 2004 @ 05:55, by ming. Inventions
When I was a kid I was very interested in the future. One thing that was pretty obvious, other than flying cars and space stations, would be that by now we'd really not have to work, per se. It was sort of self-evident, even when I was ten. Of course, if we keep being able to do things better and better, more and more efficiently, more and more bang for the buck, more and more automation - then there would be less and less of an actual need for work. It is a simple calculation. The stuff we need could be produced by a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. Which would allow us to spend our time being creative and having a good time.
The reason that didn't happen might be in the same category as why a brand new 3GHz PC isn't any faster than a 4.77MHz IBM PC from 20 years ago. In principle it should be a thousand times faster, and it is, technically speaking. But it doesn't do anything more. It takes longer to start up Word on it than to start WordStar on that ancient relic. And there are many more things that can go wrong, and more one needs to learn in order to use it.
Maybe the reason is in the same category as why my household budget looks about the same, no matter how much or how little I make. There's not quite enough for what I need, and I tend to pay things late. If somebody came along and gave me $10,000 extra per month, I would at first feel rich, and pay all my bills, and put some aside. But gradually I would come to think I needed a bigger version of everything, and I'd invest in some things I wouldn't otherwise have. And pretty soon I would have used it up, and have more regular expenses, and I'd again be a little behind. While still living essentially the same way. You know, in a house, eating food, driving vehicles, wearing clothes, breathing air.
You can probably draw a nice systems diagram of how there are several self-reinforcing loops involved in these scenarios. If there's capacity to make more stuff or do more things, they will be done, and they will create new needs and new ideas about new things that need to be done. The PC of today would indeed run WordStar like lightning, but I'd be missing the graphics, and would quickly look around for other things it ought to do. Voids will be filled. And there's the influence from all the other folks who have some new gadget or feature. If my neighbor has 3D displays on his walls, I'll feel a little left out, even if I was doing great with a monochrome screen at some other point in time.
So, what would it take for progress to actually add up to progress, rather than to staying in the same spot with some slightly different gear?
I think the main limiting factor is not the envy of my neighbor's stuff, but the economics of production. It doesn't have to be that way, but with the way business is currently structured economically, it is quite natural. Economic rewards flow to those who keep the wheels churning, rather than necessarily to those who solve the biggest problems in the most efficient way. There's no economic incentive to constructing the machinery that would give everybody in the world food to eat every day, without them having to work. Even though it would be fairly easy and comparatively cheap to do. But it wouldn't turn a profit. People who aren't working don't make money to buy stuff, so they aren't good consumers. People who aren't working is a problem in the current scheme of things. Something that requires the financing of unemployement payments, which requires that the wheels are churning faster somewhere else, creating profits that can be diverted for that purpose. It is all pretty insane of course.
If you can formulate an economic scheme that clearly measures the actual costs of various approaches, and the value people perceive in them, and which which allows easy financing of the permanent solving of big problems, and gives little value to wasteful and unnecessary work - then it can all change rather quickly. No, I'm not talking about communism. Rather about a free market with a good enough flow of high quality of information, using a different kind of currency. A currency that is built on quality of life, and which doesn't have a built-in accelerating corrosion that encourages fake productivity for its own sake. Rather, a system the encourages the optimization and maximization of free time and creativity.
It is not too late. The future is yet to come. More >
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 14 Dec 2002 @ 23:47, by ming. Inventions
It is hard to introduce new ideas when you're dependent on only verbal persuasion and education to change people's minds. Things often don't change that way before the people with the old ideas die out.
But give people a technological device that happens to do something they like, and the world might be changed comparatively instantly.
Devices don't discriminate. Devices are generic. A telephone doesn't care what race, religion, height, weight or gender you are. It is equally present for anybody who wants to use it. It has no feelings about it.
But devices organize people. Or, rather, their presence allow people to self-organize in new ways. And that will typically be ways that are less dependent on emotions or separateness or classification of people.
Devices make you unite with others, not based on some way you in particular are different from others, but based on how you're all connected. The connectedness of technological devices brings things together that previously wouldn't be together. People are connected and united through technology who wouldn't have dreamt of connecting with each other without it. The same phone system, the same Internet, the same water pipes, the same TV standards, the same cars, the same nuts and bolts are used by very different people. And it unites them, without them having to consciously make a decision for or against it.
The spontaneous and voluntary adoption of new technological devices is a force that changes the world faster than anything else. A revolution takes place, meeting next to no resistance.
It rests on the shoulders of technological designers to think up devices that not only are useful and compelling for their prospective users, but that facilitate social behavior that is inherently beneficial for everybody involved, and for their families and communities, and for the planet. Individuals might adopt a new piece of technology because they selfishly like what it does, but it is the social and environmental re-organization that is the most important result. More >
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24 Nov 2001 @ 17:50, by ming. Inventions
"Ideas, Inventions and New Products" in Nurembert is one of the biggest trade fairs for inventors. Article at Yahoo. How about a robot golf caddy? Anyway, I think we need to come another paradigm for inventors than to try to patent what they come up with. I think the patent system is destructive to human creativity, and it has to go.
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18 Oct 2001 @ 09:36, by sindy. Inventions
A transparent, flexible magnetic material made from an exotic form of carbon could turn out to be the dream computer memory. The substance, which was discovered accidentally by a Russian physicist hunting for high-temperature superconductors, is the first non-metallic magnet to work at room temperature More >
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