Technology & Harmony

A wetsuit is a great piece of technology. It's made of neoprene and designed to act as another layer of skin and keep you warm in the water.

Put a wetsuit on for the first time and it feels strange - foreign - because it is foreign - it's not you. 

But you get used to it, and putting it on feels more natural. It becomes part of you and you stop noticing it. 

Technology that works seems to disappear from our awareness. We don't notice when things work quietly. But when they go wrong we're suddenly reminded of their presence. 

What's wrong?

A slither of cold slices at my ankle - the cold ocean stabs through a hole in the wetsuit.

What if nothing went 'wrong', if we floated forever in an amniotic fluid. I suppose we sometimes try to do that. Numb the senses - alcohol, sofas, melt into another.

hoo laa laa be doo daa daa.

The point. Not piercing the many layers so well ignored.

The dart hits the pub floor. Bob bends to pick it up, his crack at the bulls eye sends his crack to the sky.

He pulls it out the floor then takes another swig of his pint.

A pint glass is a pretty harmonious piece of technology.

Ignored, it serves Bob another gulp.

Pre-bionic era

We live in a pre-bionic era. Except a few people with really hig tech prosthetics, we are detached from the technology that we're consuming. But like food in the stomach, we're digesting and assimilating it.

Change. Such a dull buzzword. Yet the one change that seems unheard of is the one even the hippy lentil eaters recoil from. Kniuhiuuhi

Bodily change, and specifically elective bodily change. New generations will see us as old fogies in this capacity. Oh it's so dated to stay in the pre-bionic era. We'll become like pets, if we're lucky.

If you're already spending a significant amount of time interfacing with technology, it's natural to want to improve the interface, which is currently supremely clunky.

I'm typing this on an ipad...a massive step backwards from the keyboard, an already clunky interface. But it's been accepted by the new generation. Bihbkhbjk

Latest trainers, latest fingers, latest us. It won't happen overnight, but it'll happen. And the birthing pains are felt already.

Disability

Will disappear. 

Enhanced ability.

No more simulating the lost and useless body we had.

How to prioritise ideas?

With so many ideas on the table, how to choose which to work on? With zero scientific aplomb, I decided 3 is a good number of ideas to be working on at any one time. But which 3 would require a little more thought...

With a little help from a friend (thankyou Jon) I received the suggestion to create a grid as follows:

1. list the ideas
2. list the variables that would help determine successful candidates
3. score each idea for each variable
4. generate a weighted score
5. pick the best 3

Choice of important factors is perhaps personal, I have chosen 4:
1. Money - chance it'll make loadsamoney! Assuming it works.. see #3
2. Fun - will I have fun trying? This sort of includes satisfaction, interest, social etc
3. Product viability - can the product work?
4. Market viability - would anyone want it?

I then decided that two weighted scores are needed:
"survival" - the chance that the product will launch, and
"enthusiasm" - the chance that I won't get bored and give up
and that I would select one idea based on "survival" and two based on "enthusiasm"

So here's how the grid panned out:

Invention	Money	Fun	Product viability	Market viability	Weighted score 7355 "survival"	Weighted score 3722 "enthusiasm"
Kiteflyte	10	10	1	1	5.0	7.4
Napsec	7	3	3	8	5.3	4.6
Kruba	1	7	5	2	3.1	4.7
Starmorz	3	7	7	5	5.0	5.9
Chatstats	2	5	5	3	3.4	4.1
Wheg	4	8	7	5	5.4	6.6
Munchmuch	6	9	4	7	5.9	7.4
Bioalarm	3	4	9	5	5.0	4.6
SysEntrop	3	7	2	4	3.5	5.0
MiniMilk	8	6	2	6	5.3	5.9
Proffa	3	6	4	2	3.3	4.5
Compbox	6	6	9	4	6.0	6.1

So I have selected the following 3 products: Kiteflyte, Munchmuch, and Compbox.

(these names are just labels which of course may change)

These three ideas will now move to the R&D phase, whilst the rest will sit on the shelf. There will be a review every month. The overall process might look something like this:

Computer-Assisted Dry Stone Wall Construction (with optional Augmented Reality)

Making the ancient art of dry stone wall construction accessible to anyone with arms and legs

Why?

Anyone for Tetris?

Why not?

Ingredients

• Pile of rocks
• Two cameras
• A laser, computer controlled
• A computer
• Some clever software
• A bunch of hippies
• Head-up display (optional)

Recipe

1. Fix the two cameras overlooking the pile of rocks from two different perspectives, e.g. at 60 degrees to each other
2. Set the laser somewhere between the two cameras
3. The laser should pan to create a horizontal line across the pile of rocks
4. The cameras should capture an image for each horizontal line - this provides a contour line as if slicing through the pile
5. Repeat to complete a contour map of the pile of rocks, a partial 3D model
6. Computer calculates best fitting rock to place, and laser (or head-up display) points it out
7. Hippie collects it, turns it upside down, and places it onto wall, with assistance from head-up display or laser /voice guidance
8. The laser and camera are also scanning the wall as it's being built, tracking rocks as they move, and updating next optimal rock selection & placement
9. Repeat from step 3
10. Feed hippie spinach until robots take over and put us in the zoo (those of us who aren't there already)

How to turn an idea into a business

Ok here's the definitive guide based on years of study and experience, well ok 5 minutes of Googling at least....

1. Necesity is the mother of invention
Or, as I like to say, dissatisfaction is the father of capability.

There needs to be a need. And for a need, someone needs to be dissatisfied with how things are now. In short, a problem. People will flock to your product with money in hand if they think it'll solve a problem they have, or think they have, or if the product is just plain sexy.

2. Who are the needy ones?
Who needs your product? i.e. what's your market? Is it a person, or a collective mass of disillusioned people formed into a company, government, or other organisation? Maybe even it's a thing, or an alien requiring human PR services. Whatever, whoever, do they have money or something to barter with?

3. Get help
You're a nutter for even having such a nutty idea, consider therapy or else get some other nutters to back you up, or pay some normal people to humour you. A good start is to join a group of nutters like this one.

4. Reality check
So you're seriously thinking to build something and sell it? How are you going to do that and what's it going to cost? Then how much will a needy punter pay you? And are there enough of them to make a profit?

The blurb also says: "map out your mission, objective, keys to success, target market, competitive advantage, and basic strategies"

I say: see step 3.

5. Imagine you're in the Dragon's Den
Find someone with a wad of cash, decide how much you can clean them out for, and what you need to promise them in return. Apart from wetting your pants, what are the risks? And the rewards?

6. Build it shit, but not too shit
hmm not sure about this, apparently it's called MVP, or minimal viable product. I think it means you should allow for bells and whistles to be added later, don't worry too much about them at first, just get the thing out, but get it out working.

7. Realise you got it all wrong
Flog it, see what happens, ask lots of questions. Maybe you should have built something completely different? No problem, you can build something completely different. You can do it all again. You can do the funky chicken dance.

8. Have a cigarette
Maybe you don't smoke, but you deserve one. Hey, take a holiday too, why not?
Now go back to step 1.

Good luck & enjoy!


References: 
* 8 steps plagarised from here
* Free business advice available here, from the government of booming Austrarrgghlia. Seek the bushy southern triangle famous for seafood.
* I didn't read this but it looks like it might be handy
* if you need a boring picture for a business presentation, here's one
* need some ideas? Don't look here

How to build vertical storage for timber, pipe, duct, or any off-cut lengths

Keeping a building site tidy and safe, whilst reducing waste, is a challenge this post aims to help address. It describes a quick and simple construction for building a mobile store for timber lengths, pipe etc.

This mobile store has the advantage of reducing waste and increasing productivity by keeping useful offcut material ready to hand, and is particularly suitable where space is at a premium, as it has a small footprint and can be wheeled out of the way to keep the site clear for work to progress.



This example is deliberately rough & ready, such as might be done for a temporary store on a building site using whatever scrap materials are available. e.g a keen labourer could make one to help tidy up, but may need some further guidance as these instructions assume some basic skills and knowledge.

Step 1: determine what is the range of length of timber to store. The maximum is about double the minimum. For this example we'll use length range 30"-60". Adjust the figures in the other steps if making a store for other lengths.

Materials needed are:
6 lengths of 30" timber
6 lengths of 15" timber
3 castering wheels 
some board adding upto about 30" square
suitable fixing screws

Step 2: take 3 lengths of scrap timber about 30" long, and screw onto them any scrap board (thin ply shown here) to form a triangle.



Step 3: Add wheels to the three corners:



Step 4: turn the unit over and to the middle of each side of the triangle screw 3 more 30" lengths of timber vertically, slanting them slighting inwards. They will flap around looking silly for a while but this will sort itself out in the following step.



Step 5: cut 3 lengths of timber about 15" long. To each length fix 2 screws - one at the end and one in the middle. Then fix these screws through to the top ends of the timber from the previous step



Reinforce with extra screws if needed:


Step 6: cut 3 more lengths around 15", and screw these to the ends of the lengths from the previous step, setting them roughly parallel to the base triangle




Ok that's it, ready to use! The store provides 4 compartments which can be used to organise offcuts.

Feel free to comment feedback below, as this is a prototype so tweaks and improvements are expected.


 Ok it may look a bit like a 3-pronged swastika, but apparently that was a good luck symbol before it took on bad connotations.