Whimstar Inventions Journal

How to get more people to donate blood

2011-11-29T14:18:00.000-08:00

Here's an idea. How to get more people to donate blood? Give them something in return!
Like what? How about complimentary STD testing?
Last time I called around, it was difficult to find free STD testing. Even Planned Parenthood wasn't free unless you were showing active symptoms. After lots of effort, I found one place that was inexpensive ($20 I think it was,) but it was inconvenient, requiring an appointment, and it was in an inconvenient part of town. Therefore, I never did it, choosing to rely on my tried-and-true "fingers crossed method."
So think about it: What if there were convenient, all-over-the-city, no-appointment-required centers for STD testing that doubled as blood banks? You'd be motivated to give blood way more frequently because you'd be getting something out of the deal. The converse is true too; you'd be motivated to be tested more because you'd be giving back —— this would motivate the people who would otherwise not get tested because "I'm pretty sure I don't have anything." You know, for that latter group (which includes myself), it's annoying to waste my time and someone else's time, when you're darn sure you don't need to be there to begin with. However, if your time and effort actually was helping out, you'd be way more likely to do it.
Of course, the convenience factor is the most important, so you can pop in whenever you have a moment without an appointment.
What great idea. But how would it be possible to implement this? We're dealing with monolithic bureaucracies, like our healthcare system, which are only deteriorating over time. I can only imagine something as simple and effective as this existing in a free market system.
Thoughts?

Thug Life Santa

2011-09-05T11:27:00.001-07:00

Smart Spam

2011-07-01T21:44:00.001-07:00

So here's another one of my ideas that I DON'T WANT to exist. But I can't help thinkin' up shit.
(And, hey, it probably already DOES exist, and I just don't know about it yet.)
The idea is Smart Spam. Imagine you're on your FB page or something, and a window pops up that kinda LOOKS like an IM window. Actually, even more insidiously, maybe it's even disguised as one of your friends. You can have an instant message conversation with this thing that actually resembles a real conversation. The "person" is responding to what you're saying (or at least seems like they are, albeit somewhat distracted or maybe drunk.) At a certain point in the conversation, the person "sells" you on some product, or encourages you to check out some website. Thinking it's your friend, you do. Just got suckered!

The whole time, behind the scenes, it's not a real person at all. It's a piece of software that's programmed to interact with and respond to what you type. A talk bot. Really simple technology that's pretty easy to program. (I even programmed one myself when I was a teenager: http://www.whimnova.com/VI.html)

Okay, there it is. Please don't blame me for it when it starts actually happening.
(Shirks in shame.)

Douché

2011-05-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm now officially using this website to claim neologisms before they enter the mainstream.

(See my article on "Take a chillaxtive!")

Kinda like the urban legend of a "Poor Man's Patent": that you can mail yourself an idea and don't open the envelope so the post date is on there, so later in court you can "prove" that you came up with it first.

...Kinda like that, I'm using my website to "prove" that I came up with certain neologisms FIRST.

The following is not my invention, but is entirely the brainchild of my best friend Josh. (And I will swear on a stack of Bibles that it was indeed him who came up with it.)

Ready for it?

So, pretend you're at a party and a really lame dude says something witty and contrarian. This is the type of situation where a person would say "Touché", right? (Which, incidentally, I read somewhere is a French term taken from fencing. It just means "touch." It's kinda like saying "nice move, you win," right?)

So here's the side-splitting new twist on that idea: Instead of saying "touché," you say "douché!"

AH HA HA HA! "Douché!"

(Drawing by Katie)

Awesomize old shoes

2011-05-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post more of my crafty DIY-type projects up here. (Shoot, I've been meaning to post more up here at ALL. I've been so busy with my rain barrel company, I haven't had time to invent useless crap.)

But anyway, here's something I did a while back that I've been meaning to put up here.

I had an old pair of shoes that were kinda ugly on the outside.

[Shown are a different pair, but you get the idea]

And I wanted to awesomize them. So I got a pelt from an old green carebear doll, cut it up and I used Gorilla Glue to stick the pieces on the outside. I didn't really have a pattern for cutting out the pelt, so I just started sticking pieces on and cutting off the excess. If you try it, it's way easier than you think. (But not super easy either, I mean, it's probably an intermediate-level craft project. If crafting were a ski slope, it would be a blue square.)

When I wear them out, most people think they are slippers, and they wonder how I'm able to do such awesome dance moves in them. ("Wouldn't that require more friction?")Then I show them my soles, and they are amazed and they want to be me.

I would have never expected to fall in love with...

2011-02-19T18:13:00.000-08:00

Ever since I started listening to music, I've gravitated towards "harder" and "harder" rock. I like fast. I like constant rhythmic variation. I like enthusiasm (not so much aggression, as enthusiasm). Screaming makes me happy.

So, as the years went on, my music path went from "mild to spicy":
1995 Weezer
1996 Smashing Pumpkins
1997 Rage Against the Machine
2000 At the Drive-In, Tool
Around 2004, Emperor took the throne for a couple of years. This is the loudest, meanest, fastest shit I've ever heard!
So, of course, when THAT got boring, I thought I'd hit rock-bottom of "hardness." I was bummed. I had no interest in music for like three years. (During this time, I started doing karaoke every night. THAT put the final nail in the coffin which read 'I hate music'.)

Then... THEN.. last year Josh laid "August Burns Red" on me.

I got REALLY high, and I fell in love with music again. This shit is SO FUCKING GOOD I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT.
I'm listening to it right now as I write this, and I'm so bouncy inside, I can barely type.
Go to YouTube and see what I mean.

I've listened to Messengers and/or Constellations everyday for the last year, and I'm not bored of it.
It has everything I love about metal (speed, melody, screaming, virtuoso musicianship, abrupt rhythmic shifts and unusual meters), and none of what I DON'T like: extended dissonance, repetition, nihilism, leather.

Then, one day, I said "Hey, Josh, August Burns Red gives me a boner."
And he was like (wait for it....) "Yeah, August Burns Red is Christian metal from back when I was evangelical."
After throwing up in the bushes, I realized I would just have to live with the fact that my favorite band is Christian Metal. CHRISTIAN METAL!

Of all the twists and turns my life has taken, this is the one I expected least.

But, you know, I used to listen to Satanic metal, and I didn't identify as a Satanist. Why can't I just like the music for music without having ideology rear its ugly head?
Does this say anything about ME? Does it MEAN something that I like this? Probably not. It just means I like having my brain tickled from all angles by machine-gun fast polyphony. The machine gun of Christ.

Take a chillaxitive!

2011-01-18T13:20:00.001-08:00

When the word "Chillaxitive" enters common parlance (as in "Take a chillaxitive!"), let the record show that I invented it.

No Delete Week

2010-11-17T22:02:00.000-08:00

I read something on the Greenpeace website about this thing called the Trash Vortex which is (This is from the Greenpeace website:) an area the size of Texas in the North Pacific in which an estimated six kilos of plastic for every kilo of natural plankton, along with other slow degrading garbage, swirls slowly around like a clock, choked with dead fish, marine mammals, and birds who get snared. Some plastics in the gyre will not break down in the lifetimes of the grandchildren of the people who threw them away.

Today I got some mail. It was a big package. Inside the big box was a smaller box, wrapped in bubble wrap, and inside that box was more bubble wrap, and inside that was another box.

As I unwrapped the layers, my roommates and I all laughed about how much packaging it took to deliver the thing. We started saying "Think about how much packaging stuff comes in! It's impossible to go to the store and buy something without it coming with TRASH ATTACHED TO IT! I mean, really, think about it. Everything you buy, from a bag of rice, to a can of beans, to a piece of electronics: it all comes with packaging that essentially becomes trash the second you open it. I mean, there's NOTHING you can buy that doesn't have trash with it. Even, like, a BANANA, comes with stickers on it."

I opened the last box, and there was a brand-new mac keyboard in it.

I had forgotten that I'd ordered this a few days ago. I had been typing on my old keyboard and thinking that my fingers were going to cramp up if I kept this up. Meanwhile, Josh over heard me typing, and said "That's a really rickety old keyboard." He was right. Some of the keys would stick when you tried to push them. I needed a new keyboard. With the amount of typing I do, I needed one of those new fangled ones with the shallow, wide, springy keys. The ones that take very little effort per keystroke.

So, today, my new keyboard came in the mail.
All my roommates were impressed. I said "I'd forgotten that I sent this to myself. Sometimes I go online and order stuff, and then I forget about it. It's like an un-birthday present from past-me to present-me. Like 'I know you'll forget you ordered this. SO.. Surprise!'"

For some reason, my roommate said "What if it didn't have a backspace key?" I don't know what made him think of that, but I found it really funny. "Yeah!" I said "What if there were no backspace key, or no delete key? Life would be so different, wouldn't it? What if, just for giggles, you challenged yourself to go a WEEK without using your delete key or your backspace key? Or your undo command? Like, how would that change you?"

"I guess you'd start to be more careful," someone said. "And you'd probably have to be creative.. like if you started to spell a word wrong, you could be creative and turn it into some other word. Maybe you'd end up saying something totally different than what you were going to say in the first place, or you might end up saying the thing you were trying to say, but in a totally round-about-way.

And what if... (To connect the two frayed ends of this idea,) what if you went a week, no, a MONTH, and you weren't allowed to throw anything in the trash can? You had to take all your wrappers and packaging and everything and keep it in your room? Wow! Think about that! Your room would fill up to the brim! What would you do at that point? Probably the same thing as with the keyboard example: You'd be careful about the choices you make in the first place. And then you'd be forced to be more creative with the artifacts of those choices.

Right?

God, I'm brilliant.

3-D Object Communication Game

2010-10-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

No human language has the proper language for 3-D shapes. Like, it's really hard to describe abstract shapes JUST using words without using the phrase "It looks like a...."

Wouldn't that be a cool game? You are given a card with a drawing of an object on it (it could actually be a 3-D object, which is much better because it's harder)
And you'd have to describe this object in words. Like, "it's a cylinder, with a triangle-shaped notch cut out..." I dunno.

Then the person you're describing to has to draw the thing you're describing.. Or in the more challenging version, they'd have to shape it out of clay. Of course, this could be intensely challenging, or really easy depending on the complexity of the shape.
You could make it competitive, of course. Like which pair is better at describing the thing so their partner will be able to render it more perfectly without seeing it.

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AHEM, OK.
I have a 3-D object in my mind. I'm going to describe it in terms of shapes and geometry. You try to form a mental image of this thing. (If you're up for the CHALLENGE, WEAKLING!!!!)

For this game, you'll need to imagine a 3-D field. Imagine the X,Y and Z axis. Look as if you're standing at Z 10 or something (let's say that means 10 meters away), so that you see Z running under your feet, like rail road tracks into the distance.
Now, coming from left to right (crossing the Z line in the middle of your field of vision) is the X axis.
From the sky to the floor (crossing the Z line in the middle of your field of vision) is the y axis.

Now I'll describe the object to you. Listen up.

Imagine a solid cylinder that's wide and short, sitting on the floor, with the circle parts of the cylinder facing towards the ceiling and towards the ground. From the floor to the top, it's about as tall as half the diameter. So it's wider than it is tall.
Let's say it's one meter wide and half a meter tall.

Now, imagine making another object. This new object will become an appendage to the first object.
Let's use the workspace IN FRONT OF the object (that 10-meter area closer to you, along the z axis) to construct the new object
Start with a rectangular prism that's as tall as the cylinder.
It's about as wide as 1/4 of the cylinder and it's about as long as the cylinder's diameter.
In terms of meters, this rectangular prism is half a meter tall, 1 meter long (z-axis) and 1/4 meter wide (x-axis).

Now let's move this prism so that it touches the cylinder. Push it directly away from you (along the z axis), toward the original object, until the far wall of the appendage touches the curved wall of the cylinder. Now, along the x axis, push the appendage to the right until the right wall of the appendage is in line with the farthest right point in the circle of the cylinder. Now push it AGAIN directly away from you in the z plane, so that it touches the cylinder again. The far left corner of the appendage object should be making contact with the cylinder.

Now, pretend that it's all made of clay.
See how only the far left corner of the appendage is touching the cylinder? And just to the right of that point of contact is empty space? Fill in that empty space by extending the far right wall of the appendage away from you in the z plane until it touches the cylinder. Extend the top and bottom walls of the appendage away from you in the z plane until they touch the cylinder. Now, you have these two objects joined.

Since it's made of clay, blend walls together, to make these two objects into one. Smooth the walls out.
Therefore, the right side of the new whole object you've created should be totally flat and straight.
Looking to the left side of the appendage, where it touches the curved wall of the cylinder, blend the walls of the appendage (in the z plane) so that it forms a nice curve into the wall of the cylinder.

Now make the whole thing hollow. Hollow it out. Do it. Make the walls thin, only about 10 centimeters thick.
Since it's hollow, you can cut into it easily, like cutting into clay. Cut an opening from floor-to-ceiling of the closest-to-you wall of the appendage.
Start the incision 10 centimeters up from the floor, 10 centimeters in from the left wall. Run the incision upward in the y-plane, so it runs parallel to the wall of the object. Stop it about 10 centimeters down from the top of the object. Withdraw your knife and get ready to make another incision.

From the point you left off, move right on the x axis, until you're 10-cm from the RIGHT wall of this object. Make another such incision top-to-bottom here, parallel to the first incision.

Now you should have two incisions that run up and down and are parallel to each other.
Now, just make two more incisions that connect the ends of these two incisions. So you just cut out a thin rectangle. Throw this away, so there's a thin slit in the wall. If you look into this slit, you'll see the hollow interior of the object.

You know the part where the "appendage" touched the main cylinder? Delete these interior walls, so when you look into the slit, you can see all the way into the hollow body of the main cynlinder.

Put your knife safely away. Now run your hand along the right wall of the appendage in the z axis. Stop when you get to around the point where the appendage met the wall of the cylinder (even though you can't see the seam, because you blended it all out a minute ago, remember?)
Cut a slit here that runs the height of the object (in the y axis). The incision should start about 10 centimeters up from the floor, and stop about 10 centimeters down from the top of the object.
Now keeping moving on the z axis, until you're about even with the center of the circle. Make another such top-to-bottom incision here.
Now you should have two incisions that run up and down and are parallel to each other.
Now, just make two more incisions that connect the ends of these two incisions. So you just cut out another rectangle. Throw away the two rectangles you just cut out.

Go back to your original vantage point. You have just created an object that's hollow and has two long rectangular slits as openings. One of the slits is on the appendage, going up and down, on the wall that faces you. And the 2nd slit is along the right side of the object, also running up and down..

Now take the entire object and rotate it 90 degrees counter-clockwise around the z axis. The appendage should now be facing you still, but its long wall, which used to be the height, is now the width. The slit in this wall is still facing you, and it's now oriented horizontally. The second rectangular slit you cut is now facing up at the sky. Got it?

Now, take your viewing position from +10 on the z axis, and move to -10, and shift your view 180 degrees in the z plane. In other words, just view the object from behind.

From this vantage point, you're basically just going to add a small object to the butt-side of this thing. It's the shape of a torus (that's the geometric name for "donut") with the hole oriented in the x plane.

Now, the size of the torus:
The torus is about as tall as one third of the circle of the original cylinder. (So, like one third of a meter) It's thin; about the width of 1/5 of a meter.
Stick the edge of this torus to the direct back of the object, directly in the middle. Solder it on firmly.

Now go back to your original viewing position.

Make a sphere with a diameter about one fourth of the height of the object.
Put this sphere directly inside the hollow cavity in the center of the object.

Now shrink the whole thing down so it's about two inches long.
Turn all of it into steel.

Now you should know what it is!
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whimstar.blogspot.com
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That was a crazy game, huh? If the players got used to the terms, it would be a lot more concise. And you probably could get to the point where you don't need any "like a...[actual object]" phrases. Because the whole point is to NOT say "it looks like a ....". The whole point is to construct the thing in someone's head without any reference to real-life objects. (I guess geometrical objects are still a reference to SOMETHING, but...)

In this exercise, obviously the object was a real object in the real world, but like I said in the introduction, it would be interesting (and more challenging) if the object was abstract.

I guess the point of the whole thing is more of a commentary on language. I wonder if aliens have a way of communicating where they could tell the other person more concisely exactly what some complicated object looks like. Like, they'd be able to "beam" the whole in-out-over-and-under schematic to the other guy, and he'd be able to imagine it instantly.

Assuming you limit the vocabulary to all geometric shapes, it's basically the same thing is 3-D modeling on the computer. Only it's probably even more annoying.

iPad table

2010-09-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

Imagine an office where everyone is sitting in cubicles, isolated from one another.

Now imagine a large room where 5 - 10 employees are communing around a table.

Which scenario do you think is more productive for the company?
The second one, obviously, because more heads are coming together, communicating and sharing ideas. Working with, or even just AROUND other people, is so much more synergistic. And good for morale.

Even if you're working on your own thing, it's sometimes nice to have other people around the table working on their own thing. You can reach out for help at any moment.

What's the downside to the around-the-table arrangement? Well, for one thing, how is each person going to have access to their computer?

So here's the idea: It's an iPad the size of a table. Imagine it. A half dozen people sitting around a gigantic iPad. Files can be grabbed and moved around. "Here! Look at this file!" you can say, and then you can actually physically pass it to the person next to you. Because of it's large amount of RAM, each person can be working on their own project at the same time; their own section of large screen.

Privacy is artistically liberating

2010-09-16T01:04:00.000-07:00

While I'm more musically inspired than ever before in my life, my good friend Scott — a "real" musician — is not doing music because he doesn't have privacy. He says he doesn't feel comfortable really getting into it when he knows he's in earshot of his upstairs neighbors.

I know exactly what he was talking about: I really need my privacy to make art, too. Because every time you go to put down a brush stroke, or sing a note, you are taking a risk. It might work. It might not. It's part of the creative process. You can't have people listening in or looking over your shoulder.

That's why this month has been such a blessing, because I've been living in a practically empty house. If I want to play the guitar and sing stupid lyrics at the top of my lungs, I can.

When I look back on my childhood, I'm really glad that I had this luxury. Besides the fact that my parents were really encouraging of my creativity, my isolated circumstances really made a fine breeding ground for talent. With nobody around most of the time, I could really explore my creative side in total privacy.
My house was completely separated from all the neighbors, so — as weird as this sounds — no one could hear you scream. I remember how fun it was to play electric guitar as loud as I could stand it. To sing and shout and holler. To compose songs on the keyboard. Playing into the empty air, where nobody can feel judged.

On another topic:

Earlier tonight, we got talking about the artistic relevance of pop music. It was a pretty stale debate, but there were some interesting points made. I pointed out that in the early 20th century, music wasn't the sole domain of musical renaissance men, which is how it became in the 50s, 60s and definitely the 70s, where full-package musicians became prominent: wonderkids who could sing, write songs AND play their instruments like virtuosos. AND looked pretty on camera. Way back when, there was a song writer behind the scenes and a performer on stage. Nowadays, that's still the case, but even more so: there's a whole team of professionals that bring any given CD to market: marketers, advertising a producer, a song-writer, hired-gun studio musicians and singers. The person on the cover of the album isn't even a musician, really. They are just a pretty face. However, there's still the MYTH lingering from the 70's that a musician is all those things at once. It's like we want to believe in these god-like icons who have more talent in one finger than we ever could. AND they're young and cute to boot. Therefore we can worship them and make them into a commodity at the same time. All the while, —- insidiously -- we can absolve ourselves of any responsibility to explore our own talents because we know we can never be the full package: writer, producer, performer all at once.

In my case, I know damn well what my strengths and weaknesses are. And I'm not going to let my lack of ability in one area stop me from exploring my talents.
I know that I suck at playing instruments. I don't have chops. My fingers just aren't dexterous enough. And I don't have the patience to practice. (But, incidentally, there are many people who have this skill. And these people can be hired or contracted.) I'm not a great singer. I'm an OK singer, but I don't have a voice you'd go out of your way to listen to.
On the plus side, I can write. I have a sense of humor, a talent for poetry, rhyme, rhythm and melody. Not so much harmony, but melody. That's what I offer. And I'm satisfied with the idea that I don't have to be everything at once. I can write song shells and then have real musicians come and enhance my ideas. Collaboration is way more fun anyway.

I'm proud of the two songs I recorded today! (The first and last songs are the new ones.)

Extemporaneous Album

2010-09-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

I accidentally had some ganja cookies last Monday. I was so high I couldn't do anything but sit in my car and talk to myself. Fortunately, I had a small digital recorder with me. I started talking. And then I started singing. It was so much fun I didn't want to stop. I was there for hours.
The next day, I listened to what I had come up with. Most of it was quaintly weird and random, like a dream, or like my sub-conscious wringing itself dry. A lot of it was laugh-out-loud funny! I spent the next few days winnowing out the boring parts. But I left the final product in tact, with minimal edits, and only a few over dubs.

Click here to hear
Ready to Explode

This album really inspires me because I'm enthralled when I can make something of "quality" with little effort. One take. Totally off-the-cuff. It's an abundant feeling, because it means you can make gold at any time out of nothing.

There are some really good ideas — gold nuggets — buried in the horse shit. I am excited to extract the juice and use it to fuel an ever grander vision, but I actually think it is release-worthy as it is. I mean, it's totally crappy. But it's a good kinda of crappy, like the kind of thing that would become an internet phenomenon. Like the kid who posts the video that's just weird enough to make people go... "Hmm...? What can I do with this?" And the next thing you know, there are 100 remixes on YouTube, complete with crappy animation.

Pure, bare expression of the inner freak is a thing that people can grab onto. They are happy that someone else can really let it out — the way they wish they could.

Just naked voice in a vacuum, like raw materials, can be used to build something even bigger. For that reason, I didn't alter these tracks much. I want to see what will happen when I put my bare art out in the "free box" for anonymous people to scavenge.

Tattoo stencil

2010-08-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is so obvious, I don't know why I've never thought of it before.

Here it is: Get a piece of sticker paper and cut a stencil into it. Put it on your arm and use sharpie. It looks really crisp. People will wonder how you did it.

Simply Simplement

2010-05-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

I just thought of a cheesy thing. When you want to "implement" an idea and "simplify" at the same time, why not "simplement"? Eh?

What can Yudu do? How about STEAL MY IDEA?

2010-05-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

I'm actually kind of flattered. Someone out there stole one of my ideas!

Remember my post, Hobbyist Silkscreen Printer? Well, it looks like some company called
Yudu has done it!

Now will someone please steal my other ideas, too? I do so want an electronic drum kit in my car.

Fractal Reality Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

2010-03-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about those Choose Your Own Adventure books that we loved as a child. You know, the ones that are told in the 2nd person...

"You're standing in front of an abandoned house. The windows are broken, and you think you see shadows moving around inside. The wild howls. A shiver goes up your spine. It's all scary and enticing.

Go in through the window (turn to page 7)
Go in through the door (turn to page 11)
Go get help (turn to page 15).

I remember as a kid not being much impressed with the actual story. What fascinated me most, of course, was the format. The way it put you in the driver's seat. Before video games, this was one of the first forms of art I could interact with.

Anyway, I've been throwing ideas around in my head, and I think it would be sweet to write a choose-your-own-adventure. But do something a little different with it. Update the genre. Do something that adults would find interesting. Something socially-relevant would be a bonus.

Here are some of the ideas that came to mind.

Tongue-in-cheek social commentary style So many things today are simulated forms of something else, i.e. Nintendo Wii sports, Rock Band, internet chat. Anyway, I think it would be an interesting joke's-on-you style ironic art piece to make a choose-your-own-adventure book where the only adventure that takes place is actually inside of another artificial game. For example, a choose-your-own-adventure that's actually a game of Dungeons and Dragons. And within the D&D world, you can watch a movie, or play Wii or Rock Band. Like nesting Russian Dolls, each choice you make brings you deeper and deeper into some artificial reality. Of course, this idea is smarmy and annoying. It would be tedious to write. Only good as a concept. However, with that said, I sometimes wonder about people who read books like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, or any of that stuff. In a way, isn't this just the analog version of a game of D&D or World of Warcraft? (Obviously, this question is stupid, because it's really the other way around.)
Open-source collab style This iteration is based on the idea that each "chapter" of the adventure could be written by a different author. For this, I was partially inspired by Douglas Rushkoff's Exit Strategy in which he had strangers on the internet write the footnotes of his already-conceptually-dense novel. But my version is different in that every chapter would actually be written by a different person. You could do this "pyramid style": One person writes the first chapter, which branches into three options. So, the first author has to find three friends to write the next three chapters. Each of those people has to find a couple more friends to continue the story, and so on. (Of course, there would have to be guidelines set ahead of time, like broad limitations on word count and content; but those are just details.) Alternatively, this could be done totally open-source-style, like a wiki, where total strangers can go in and write or edit. At a certain point, though, there would have to be a head author who has final say.
Fractal reality style In this iteration, the novel is written by multiple people like in the previous iteration, but the main difference is that instead of the novel following one character, you actually jump from character to character as the story progresses. The reader can choose what character to jump to at any given point in the story. The challenge would be to actually succeed in telling a cohesive story while jumping around from character to character. (It wouldn't be necessary, but there could be a sci-fi explanation of how these jumps are occurring; for example, "you" are actually a mind-virus that can jump hosts. When you're in one host, you see the world through their eyes, but when they sneeze, you actually jump to a new host.) The sweet thing about this approach is that you'd be able to "live" as many different characters: he who seemed reprehensible from one character's perspective, might turn out to be understandable when you see the world through his eyes.
And even sweeter turn on this same idea: have each new character written by an author who is similar to them. For example, the policeman character could be written by an actual policeman. The teacher, by an actual teacher. The child, by an actual child. The authors would be essentially writing about themselves; what they would do if they were part of this story.

Kafucha!

2010-02-23T22:50:00.000-08:00

Why doesn't this product exist yet?

Wicking Ear Plugs

2010-02-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

I wear ear plugs all night. Every morning when I wake up, there's a small amount of itchy, icky, ear-waxy moisture in my ear canal.

Every morning I dream of this invention: What if there were ear plugs that — instead of trapping moisture in the ear — would actually draw it out?

It would like an an ordinary ear plug, only there would be some sort of material which would act to wick the fluid out of the ear canal (blue part in the illustration.)

These ear plugs would essentially clean your ear as you wore them.

Sun Painting Table Top

2010-02-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

I found this circular wood table top in the dumpster, and I couldn't stand to leave it there.
With some help of my awesome friends, I painted a big happy sun face on it.

After adding some spray-painted celestial bodies in the background, we are going to shalack the face (with the non-toxic resin-based stuff.)
Then we're going to make a stand out of recycled wood so it will be functional as a table in our greenhouse.

Then we'll be able to sit in our home-made greenhouse around our home-made table playing home-made chess.

Chess Set Made of Trash

2010-01-31T12:29:00.000-08:00

For some reason, our household had a chess board but no chess pieces. This was the case for many months because I do not buy anything from the store that I don't need or can't make myself.

Out of the blue, I had this idea: Make chess pieces.

Pawn: Bottlecap
Rook: Cork
Knight: Half cork with can top
Bishop: Half cork with eye screw
Queen: Cork with bottlecap "crown"
King: Squatty cork with bottlecap "crown"

I love the new chess set. The pieces are appealing to touch and look at. Their simplicity is really inspirational to me.

Of course, the board itself could be made of trash as well. A checkered table cloth? A flannel shirt?

What other things can be made of trash?

Card Pen

2009-12-28T19:46:00.000-08:00

How thin do you think they could make a pen? I want one that's the size of a business card, so I could keep it in my wallet.

User-Activated Cell Phone Ring

2009-12-20T20:04:00.001-08:00

Ever have this happen to you? You find yourself talking to an obnoxious person. Words are coming out of their mouth like a machine gun. As you fake a smile, you look around; there's no way to escape. No excuse to say, "I hate to interrupt this stimulating conversation. Let's continue it later shall we?"

Wouldn't it be so much easier if your cell phone rang super loudly right at that moment?

So here's the invention: A little ringer that you attach to your cell phone. Secretively, you put your hand in your pocket and activate the ringer. It's super loud. Loud enough to stop a blabbermouth dead in his tracks.

"I'm so sorry," you say, "but I have to take this call. It's from my mom."

Nex Bottles - Creative packaging for beverage bottles

2009-11-16T15:23:00.000-08:00

I was brainstorming about ways for packaging to not just be trash. Could there be a reason for users to actually collect the used packaging? Think about a beverage: The bottle costs way more than the actual water and sugar inside. And then it's thrown away. What if the empty bottle was useful?

Here's the idea:

The bottle has snap-in or screw-in insets on the very bottom and along the sides. Thus, if you have two or more bottles, you can connect them together.

This adds functionality to the bottle after the beverage has been consumed. Aggregating more and more beverage bottles will enable the user to build creative sculptures, functional structures; an infinite set of designs can be created, limited only by the number of bottles used and the user's imagination.

The exact dimensions, shape and size of the bottle are arbitrary. The key features of this novel bottle design are as follows:

The cap of the bottle and its corresponding nozzle will be threaded so that they screw together (just in like an ordinary screw-on bottle cap.) Alternatively, there could be snap-ins instead of screw-ins.

The bottle will be manufactured so that it comprises some number of threaded "contacts" (other than that of the cap itself). These contacts will be inset all along the sides of the bottle. There will be one threaded contact on very bottom of the bottle as well. These contacts will be the same as the female screw-in part of the bottle cap, except they will actually be manufactured on the sides and bottom of the bottle itself. Therefore, once the cap is removed, the bottle can be screwed-in (or snapped-into) another like bottle.

For example, the user will be able to take one empty bottle, remove the cap and screw it (or snap it) right into the bottom of another bottle. Then, those bottles can be connected to any of the contact points of a third bottle. Any number of bottles can be attached this way.

The usefulness of the invention is easy to see:
Empty bottles do not have to be recycled; they can be re-purposed immediately by the user.
The user will invest time in the product and share his designs with friends, which will generate word-of-mouth advertising.
Designs will be shared on the internet, generating considerable "buzz" around the product.

Tentatively, I am naming this idea "Nex", kinda like "Connects." I think it sounds catchy.

Personally, I think a beverage sold in a bottle like this would generate a lot of buzz. It's outrageousness is part of its appeal. First of all, it would instantly attract creative people, tinkerers and inventors. Furthermore, it would encourage re-use of trash; even better than recycling! Therefore, it would make headlines as a bizarre new "green" product.

As it catches on, possibility for expansion is endless: different flavors of drink could be sold in bottles of a different configuration. Add-ons. Instructional books. Contests. Word-of-mouth advertising.

Downsides: I've shopped around, and it seems like nobody wants to manufacture a bottle like this. Its multiple pieces and undercuts would require special molds. Very difficult to manufacture, and therefore more expensive.

Scoring scissors

2009-11-05T11:17:00.000-08:00

If you go to the craft store, there are scissors of all kinds: ones that make wavy lines, zig-zig lines, stuff like that.

Something I think would be useful:
Scissors that make a row of really-close-together tiny holes. Like perforations. This would enable you to make something that could later be torn really easily.

My use for this would be for my sticker-making hobby. Let's say I wanted to display a roll of small stickers on the backing. If I had these scissors, I could score a line between each sticker. Then the user could just rip off one.

These could also be used when you're making flyers: You know the part at the bottom where people rip off your phone number?

There probably would be 1000 other creative uses for arts & crafts.

Raw Vegan Nasturtium Tacos

2009-09-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

The nasturtium is a really good-looking plant, with broad green leaves that look like water lilies, and bright red, orange or yellow flower.
I learned yesterday that all parts of this plant are edible.

The flowers have a lightly spicy or peppery flavor.

So today, while making lunch, I had one of my brainstorms: nasturtium tacos!

The filling is the classic raw vegan paté (the amounts aren't specified, because it doesn't really matter. It will taste awesome no matter what):

raw sunflower seeds that have been soaked over night
raw almonds, also soaked
optional: jalapeño
dash of turmeric
nasturtium flowers
optional: a small amount of salt (preferably sea salt)

Blend ingredients in food processor.

Throw the paté on top of some nasturtium leaves from your garden. Add chopped bell pepper (or onions or cilantro). Add extra nasturtium flowers for color.

Eat while lying in a hammock in your garden.

No-board iron

2009-08-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

Ironing is a chore.

We don't even have an ironing board in the house.

Besides, I never need to iron a whole shirt. The only part that gets wrinkly are the two sides on the front where the buttons and button holes are. Those get all folded over and look bad.

So, what I need is just a little iron in the form of a clip. About the size of a mini stapler. Just to go over the sides, because those are the only parts that need to look good, anyway.

This invention could be small, portable, and even battery-powered. It could fit on your keychain!

Online music collaborative

2009-08-12T23:12:00.001-07:00

Jesse and I came up with this idea. It's pretty complicated, but I'll try my best to explain it.

Imagine a website set up for musicians to collaborate over long distances. You could record musical ideas, upload them and share them with everyone in some public web space. Complete strangers will take your idea, add to it and put it back on the public space. In this way, musicians can collaborate very rapidly. Songs can be written in no time.

Imagine writing a guitar riff. Upload it. Instantly, everyone out there starts to add to it: drums, bass, melody. As the originator of the song, you can chose which pieces you want to keep or reject. With everyone collaborating, the song takes shape rapidly. Even the outtakes are saved somewhere and can be spun-off into new songs.

This website would look sort of like the love child of a music sequencer and a social networking site (like MySpace). Your personal profile would function to give you ownership over your creations, as well as put you in contact with like-minded musicians, and enhance your status.

Iterations on this theme

Leader-Contributor Style: This is like what I described first. There's more of a band leader who accepts/rejects ideas and orchestrates them. All contributors get credited on their profiles.
Band Style: Actual bands will form among far-away people who may never meet in real life. They might not even speak the same language.
Scavenger Style: Since everyone's contributions will be floating freely in the open forum, you will be able to scavenge for material. You'll be able to assemble a song without writing a note yourself.
Sound Art Stream Style: This is the weirdest iteration, and probably the one I'm most excited about. You are given a section, say 8 measures, and instructed to provide the bass or drums or melody. You hear the lead-in to your section so you have a starting place. There will probably be a click track. You can work at it as long as you want until you hit "submit." No contribution is rejected. The result will be a totally stream-of-consciousness music album written by hundreds of collaborators who don't know each other.
MIDI type-in keyboard: For any of the above-mentioned styles, there will be various ways to actually create the music. Obviously, there will be people with home recording equipment. Those people will use guitars, microphones etc. But for everyone else, I'm really excited about this option: I want the user to be able to actually type in using their computer keyboard like a MIDI controller. Just like in MIDI, you can assign any instrument to your typed-in jam.
- Any user will be able to contribute, not just those with special equipment
- MIDI will tighten things up
  - Contributions could be automatically quantized (made to snap to the rhythm)
  - All pieces could be meta-adjusted easily (i.e., tempo could be sped up)
- This would be a perfect compliment to the "Sound Art Stream Style" because
  - It would ensure all pieces would fit together rhythmically.
  - It would force users to choose an instrument sound appropriate for their piece (i.e. if they are assigned to bass, for example, they are only given bass options to choose from)

Why this invention is relevant now

The idea of forming a band is so last century. It's not worth the effort to get musicians physically together to write songs and rehearse. Furthermore —— I'm not the expert on this, but —— it's not easy to be a successful band. Nor is it artistically rewarding. Record labels, promoters, blah blah blah. It's all business, not art. And that's because it's controlled from the suits at the top and not the artists at the bottom. What needs to happen is for the bottom to come up.
There are plenty of vocalists who just need a track to sing over. Similarly, there are plenty of beat-makers who just need someone to rap over their beat. A program like this would pair them up instantly. Furthermore, since the people don't know each other in person, there would be no hurt feelings if someone's contribution is rejected.
If you haven't noticed, the music industry is totally irrelevant already. So is the entertainment industry almost. What's replacing it? Bottom-up media like YouTube.
Everyone is a wannabe musician. Probably more people spend money on music equipment and home studio equipment than they do buying music.
In general, things are becoming more open-source. Collaboration is in. Sharing is in. Not in? Centralized currency, monopolies, corporations.
With that said, it's not like we couldn't make money off this idea. Think of how much YouTube or MySpace makes off ads alone. Jesse mentioned that since this music is being made on "our" site, the site could be set up so that we retain the rights to the content. Then we could go through and cull the most popular songs and try to make a buck off them. However, I don't really think that's necessary. We can make plenty of bank without taking contributors' actual work. In fact, to generate allegiance to this site, users need to know that their work belongs to them.

The Matrix, Revision

2009-07-31T11:36:00.000-07:00

Why do so many movies feel like rough drafts?

Anyone who has taken a creative writing class knows that you can't pass off a mediocre piece of writing even in a room full of amateurs. We nit-pick the hell out of literature. Why is our bar so low for movies?

Here are some questions the writers of the Matrix would have heard if they had taken a class on creative writing at their local city college:

This protagonist, Neo, who is he, really? Why is he special enough to be "The One"? We don't see that he possesses any special personality traits whatsoever. He's not even very smart.
IN FACT, the damn little kids who hang out in the Oracle's living room are way more awesome than Neo is. Why aren't any one of them "the one"? HuH?
This so-called "love" between Trinity and Neo: Where does this come from? They hardly have one conversation at all. Throughout the movie, they act like cold fishes around each other. Then all of a sudden, she loves him with such passion to rise him from the dead.
Now, let's get into the nitty-gritty of this "Matrix" premise. It's a really intriguing set-up. Terminator-esque rise of the machines. Man vs robot war. The robots must be solar-powered or something because the humans "scorch the skies" as a tactic to defeat them. What kind of plan is that? So, the skies are blackened. How do humans grow food?
[This could lead to a million other trivial-but-important-to-consider questions like: What fuel does Morpheus's ship run on? And what about the crew? How does the crew look so healthy if they just eat gruel?]
But all that is just the beginning. Let's look closely at this Matrix premise: Neo "wakes up." He's in his embryo-like pod, and there are hoses going in and out of his body.
He has been there, presumably, since he was a zygote. Morpheus brings him into the real world and says tells him "Your muscles are atrophied. You've never used them." SO, what's up with the sweet muscle tone, then? Furthermore, why would Neo be bald? Wouldn't he be all hairy? More importantly, he wouldn't even have developed muscles at all. He bones and organs would be completely non-functioning.
More important than even that, though: Why would Real-Life Neo necessarily bear any resemblance to Matrix Neo? Matrix Neo is just a mental construct, so it would make sense that Matrix Neo would look like Keanu. But Real-Life Neo would probably look more like Gollum.
Jeez, you barely subject this movie to even the slightest scrutiny and it quickly crumbles like a gingerbread house. But I have hardly begun.
Let's talk about these Agents. So they are three software programs written by the Matrix, right? Their purpose is to wipe out the Hackers. To talk nerdy for a minute, they are the "meta-police" of the Matrix. So, question: Why would there be any limits to their power at all? Couldn't the Matrix make them as powerful as need be? For example, why handguns, and not some more powerful weapon? Why are there only three of them to begin with? Why not hundreds?
Speaking of the Agents, why is their aim so imprecise? They can't shoot straight at all. You would think they would have surgically-precise machine-like-aim. But no! They fire all over the place, missing even the easiest targets.
But it's a movie, you say; we can over look a few creative liberties if they are small enough. Okay, then, let's look into some of the more glaring inconsistencies:
Remember the subway fight scene? At one point, the agent has Neo against the wall and he's super-punching Neo's chest. Back in real world, Neo is dying. Why didn't the agent continue to pummel Neo right then? He could have killed him if he had.
Okay, now remember how the fight ends? The agent gets hit by the subway (which presumably kills him.) Then the subway comes to a stop, the doors open, and to Neo's surprise, the agent walks out of the subway, revived and fresh as a daisy (but not quick enough, apparently, to fire his gun. Lame.) There were other people on that subway. Why didn't all three agents come out?
I could go on and on about the Agents. In general, it annoys me when you make any character(s) too powerful. As a writer, you have to make up for the character's lack of weaknesses by getting slop-sloppy with the details. (Details like the aforementioned: 1. Bad aim 2. Failure to kill the enemy when really have the chance 3. Failure to make full use of powers). Furthermore, not only are these characters too strong, but their powers are not clearly delineated (What really are their strengths and weaknesses?) This makes the writing even more sloppy.
Let's stop picking on the Agents for a minute and talk about this idea of "hacking into the Matrix." What exactly is the goal of this anyway? Most likely, the goal is to destroy the machines, right? And win the damn war? So, why are they beating around the bush? The easiest way to win the war would be to destroy the machines' source of power: The human "batteries." This wouldn't be hard to accomplish. Remember that white "Loading Program" between reality and the Matrix with all the gun racks? Presumably any type of object can be acquired here and brought into the Matrix with you. Why not generate a few thousand atom bombs? Bring those into the Matrix on a suicide mission to destroy the Matrix. It would take a few minutes, and the war would be won. (Of course, meanwhile, back on earth, you'd still have to live on a desert planet with black skies...But no one is talking about that)
Oh, one more thing: Remember how Cypher made the deal with the Agents about getting plugged back into the Matrix?
Back on earth, who plugged in Cypher so he could have that secret meeting? A person can't plug in himself. So, somebody must have connected him. And watched what he was up to.

I could go on and on all day about this movie, but those are some of the most really annoying things about it.

To conclude, I just want to reiterate: Why is the bar so low for movies? Especially sci-fi movies. Screenwriters insult our intelligence so hard. Every time I'm at one of these movies I feel like I'm being made fun of. They show you a little flash and dash. Bang, boom! Your head spins around, and you go all stupid and mushy. Screenplays are written in one afternoon by a committee, and nobody proofreads them. We, as viewers, need to become more critical and discerning. Eventually maybe Hollywood will treat us like grownups. But probably not.

Isotonic Swimming Pool

2009-06-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

If water comes contact with your eyes or nasal passages, it should be slightly salty. That's way contact lens solution and nasal spray are salty. Just saltly enough, but not too much. This is called "isotonic," apparently.

If water is hypertonic (too salty) it can make cells swell up and burst. If it's hypotonic (not salty enough), cells shrivel up (like your finger tips when you stay in the bath tub too long.)

I just went swimming in my parents' swimming pool. I went for a dive, and forgot to exhale, so water went up my nose. Ever have that happen to you? Kinda hurts.

If you've ever tried to wear contact lenses in the pool, you'll know an even greater pain: The contact lens shrinks, squeezes your eyeball, and maybe even pops out. (The contact lens pops out, I mean. Not your actual eyeball. That would be ... well, kinda cool actually.)

All this got me thinking: Why not add some salt to the pool? Add just the right amount so the pool water is isotonic. Instead of it irritating your nose and eyes, it might even feel kinda nice.

Of course, there's the issue of chlorine. Chlorine in pools has never really bothered me, but it probably isn't too healthy either. I wonder, have we thought about any alternatives to chlorine?

Fun Computer Viruses

2009-05-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

Why do computer viruses have to be all gloom and doom? There should be fun viruses!

Like how about digital "drugs"? You download a little app. Like taking a pill of your drug of choice.

It infects your operating system for 4 - 5 hours. During that time, everything looks psychedelic: icons "trail" when you drag them. Rainbow colors and mirages appear. When you type, it comes out different than you expected, but much more hilarious.

Would be great as a prank, too.

Special thanks to Kassy for helping brainstorm this one.

Computers for the Blind

2009-05-20T00:07:00.001-07:00

While I'm on a roll talking about computers, what is there available out there for the blind? I did a quick google search and the best that I could find were various types of "screen readers."

Why not build entirely blind-friendly computers?

They would use much less power since they wouldn't need a screen at all. Therefore, they could probably be made quite portable.

Navigation could be tacile and/or auditory (some combination of noises and vibrations).

Typing accomplished by voice recognition software or keyboards with Braille labels.

"Reading" of text would be accomplished by a robo-voice screen reader, or, even better, phonemic speech software. Or...!

How about a

Dynamic Braille-reading pad

Imagine a plate about the size of a book. Braille dots actually raise out of the plate (like whack-a-moles). You run your fingers along the Braille plate. When you get to the end of the plate, you push the "page down" button.

Somebody get me a patent application.

Text Only Computer Book

2009-05-19T22:17:00.000-07:00

There's lots of stuff to read online. It just sucks to read off a screen! Staring at a lightbulb is hard on my eyes. You know what else sucks? Wasting paper by printing it out.

All you computer designers out there: I need you to make a new type of laptop computer. One that is portable, small and uses very little energy. A reading computer.

A new type of laptop computer that is:

About the size of an open paper-back book
About the weight of a paper-back book
Is easy on the eyes

I heard they are working on e-book technology that is like a refined version of a Magna-Doodle.
Instead of being lit up, the image shows up mechanically: the electronic signal calls little flecks of metal to the surface of the screen, and they stay there because of static electricity or something.

It uses less power because once the image is displayed, no electricity is required to keep it displayed.

This is a reading book. The screen will be black and white. Probably low resolution. But that doesn't matter. The purpose is so you can lie in bed and read stuff off the internet. Or download stuff to read later. This will be way more affordable than a real laptop because less RAM and less storage space is needed.

Let's review how awesome this idea is:

Less power use
Less paper use
Hand-held
Portable
Affordable
Encourages literacy

That last bullet point is important. Think of how these reading laptops could be used in an academic setting. Each student could have one with all of their textbooks loaded on it. They could even use it in the classroom, and you wouldn't have to worry that they will be swapping photos on facebook or looking at videos on youtube because the resolution of the little B&W screen isn't even good enough for photos or video! Text only.

Update: It looks like this is another of "my inventions that someone has already invented." But I'm not too surprised because I knew they were working on such devices anyway.
"In January 2007, the Dutch specialist in e-Paper edupaper.nl started a pilot project in a secondary school in Maastricht, using e-Paper as digital schoolbooks to reduce costs and students' daily burden of books."

From: Wikipedia's article on electronic paper.

There are a few different eBooks available out there. Some of them even include a robot-voice reader! But in general I'm a little disappointed with the options. None of them are very low cost. They all seem to work kinda like iTunes: you download the books you want for a couple dollars. Pretty useful, though. I'll wait a few generations before purchasing one.

As far as I can tell, all the options are just for eBooks. What I want is the whole internet available on this thing.

Online White Noise Generator

2009-05-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

I'm in the computer lab at school, and there's a trio of people talking loudly (right under the sign that says "Quiet Please.")

Even my earplugs can't cut them out. And then I think: "Someone should put a white noise generator on the internet!"

I googled it, and there it was SimplyNoise.com

(Another of "my" invetions that's already been invented)

Doodles

2009-05-18T13:35:00.001-07:00

Sometimes class is so boring, the only way I can tolerate it is to get lost in my abstract pen-and-ink universe.

What are they supposed to be?

My goal with these drawings is not to depict anything. In fact, I make an effort not to represent anything at all.

I want to eventually compile these into a book or zine entitled "100 Drawings Depicting Nothing."

Computerized Phonemic Speech

2009-05-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

You know computerized speech? Where you type in something and it "speaks" it for you. Sounds all stupid. You hear it all the time in janky electronic music.

Why haven't we improved that technology in over a decade?

Here's my proposal:
PHONEMIC SPEECH

Instead of typing in "Hello, I'm a cheap computer" orthographically, use the IPA system: "hɛloʊ aɪm ʌ tʃip kəmpjutɚ".

THEN, oo, this will be good: you can DRAW the suprasegmentals right over the letters:
volume, pitch, even rate. Drawn on. Kinda like in a MIDI sequencer or something.

The letters could shrink or increase in size as you adjust the volume up or down. They could lengthen or contract as you adjust the speed faster or slower. Pitch could be the customary line riding above the letters.

Sure, it will be more complicated from the user's end. But also way more fun. And you'll get a much more human-sounding result.

Let's pretend that this technology were widely available, and some nerdy-yet-sizable percentage of the general public got more-or-less used to typing this way.

Internet content typed this way would be immediately available as audio. (Imagine Wikipedia pages that you could listen to on your mp3 player!)

A program could be written that would automate the process; it would turn orthographic text into phonemic text. Ideally, the results would be edited by a human to check for things like homographs ("read" past tense, "read" present tense). But actually, maybe not so much if the program had a built-in grammar checker to choose the proper homograph based on context. Potentially, the human editor could also add the prosity, dramatic pauses and length. But all that are the nerdy details, which wouldn't really matter in the face of the big picture: Any text that has been digitized can be made instantly available in audio format. Actual listenable audio format. Not janky robot format.

Even Bigger Picture:
If this technology catches on, future layman will know the IPA alphabet and use it widely throughout the internet. Even keyboards would be updated.

People studying foreign languages could do so with much more attention to pronunciation.
The blind would have access to all digitized text
People with apraxia of speech or other communication deficits (i.e. Stephen Hawking) could communicate in a much more normal-sounding way.

Boo YA!

Self Doubt

2009-05-14T17:27:00.001-07:00

Does this blog suck? Is it cool? Does anyone care? Even my friends?

Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we:

Where do these ideas come from? Are they funny? Ironic? Satire?
Why do I have celebrities on my blog?! It makes me feel dirty.

Am I a culture-maker? Am I just standing on the sidelines of taking a whiz?

What about my more "serious" blogs?

Why did I start this blog in the first place? Did I want attention? Why do I continue to do it?

Listen, grasshopper. This blog is a journal. A journal of ideas. It is for yourself. So, it doesn't really matter if anyone reads it. What's the point of this blog in the first place? To get the ideas out of your head, and put them down somewhere. It's like a sketchbook. But a little less private than that, which is important because it forces you to think things through a little more before publishing them.

Everyone is quick to hate on other peoples' self-expression. But very few people have the balls to put anything out there themselves.

Government-sponsored apprenticeship

2009-05-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

This isn't a political blog, so somebody help me out with these details.

We're in an economic downswing; everyone's out of a job, so they're all going to college. Obama's talking about allocating resources toward education. Government-sponsored education. Like FAFSA.

Sending people to college is great. But my feeling is that college is not the way to go for everyone. There are some careers that are best learned on the job. Like skilled trades, stuff like that. Even medical professions require practicum. I'd argue that 99% of the real learning occurs when you're actually doing the work.

Yeah, you learn stuff in the classroom, too, but it's more effective as a supplement to on-the-job training.

That's why I'm proposing that government should allocate a portion of their college-sponsorship funds to approved business for the purpose of on-the-job apprenticeship. Paid apprenticeship. So the student can be earning money while learning a skill.

Here's the part that makes this idea different: the programs should be set up with small businesses. Especially those which require skilled workers or employees with specialized knowledge. Examples could be acupunturists, sustainable agriculture, green building, drafting, producing, media, sales . . . the list goes on.

Obviously, there would have to be a system in place so that these business don't abuse the free money and cheap labor. They would have to really pull their weight with regard to education. In other words, they'd have to hire teachers/trainers and/or pay existing employees to act as trainers part of the time.

There should be one-on-one mentorship opportunities. Like, you could be paired up with a successful entrepreneur or investor.

Unlike college, this program would shift focus away from "hard facts that you memorize" to the "soft skills" involved in making sales, connecting with clients and actually getting the job done. Sure, there would be stuff to learn too, but instead of being learned in a vaccuum, it would be concurrent with the hands-on job.

Analog Pinball

2009-05-03T18:21:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking: You know what I don't really like about pinball? Pretty much everything.

It's all flashy and fast and confusing. To me it seems totally random. All I know is Don't let the ball get past the flippers!

Then it goes straight between the flippers, and I think How the hell could that have been avoided? Is there any strategy to this whatsoever? Do people actually think two moves ahead or something?

At some point the ball goes up into the top of the machine: Flash, flash, bang. It's bouncing all over the place. There's music, and it's talking to me, but I can't really hear it because the arcade is so noisy. I am just waiting for the ball to return, waiting. Wondering. Why did I spent two quarters on this? Who is the target demographic for this anyway? What do the "themes" have to do with the game? Who drafted the licensing agreement for Golden Girls Pinball?

But most of all, wondering how fun it would be if you just unplugged the machine? I don't need all that flash and dash. Then it occurred to me: ANALOG PINBALL! Why not? No bells and whistles. All physics. Machinery. We're almost there. In fact, isn't that why people like pinball in the first place (supposedly), because it's tactile and "real"? We are saturated with animated video games now. Everything is on a screen. People crave real experiences more than ever.

When I was a kid I made an analog pinball game: I set a board on top of a trashcan and built a miniature obstacle course on top of it with cardboard. The idea was you'd actually tip the whole board around, maneouvering the ball between and around the obstacles. It wasn't really pinball, now that I think of it; more like one of those tippy-board games with a marble. It wasn't much fun.

Anyway, in preparation for this blog, I Googled "Analog Pinball," and came across THIS!

From material-exchange.org

It looks a lot like I had in mind. And the added bonus is that multiple people can play it at once! How many analog games are there where two players work together? Way better than real pinball. Way better.

If anyone out there with a woodshop wants to get together and make one of these, I'm so down.

Track Ball Computer Chair

2009-05-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

Why does sitting in front of the computer have to be so uncomfortable?

This is an illustration I did. It's an idea by Peter Mucha of Steal My Ideas Please.com. (Love that guy.)

They say that it's better for your posture or something if you sit on one of those exercise balls. Well, why not have the whole ball be a track ball? You lean slightly one way or the other, and the mouse moves across the screen.

It could be shaped more like a chair, even. A big bouncy inflatable chair. With arm rests, and the keyboard built into the arm rests. Yeah! And just imagine the game applications: Airplane, car... something involving bouncing or balance.

Electronics are going to start getting more smooth around the edges. In the past, things had to be all x - y axis. Now technology can be more squishy-bendy.

MRI Horoscope

2009-04-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

People love hearing about themselves. That's why they read horoscopes and go to fortune tellers, palm readers or psychologists. Everyone knows those things are hoaxes, but we convince ourselves otherwise. Why? Because we LOVE to hear about ourselves. We love it when people can "look inside us" and reveal to us our inner mysteries.¹

But this is 2009! Why are we still resorting to mysticism and magic to explain "Why We Are the Way We Are"? We may not know everything about brain science, but we do know a whole hell of a lot. We can stick someone in an fMRI and actually watch different parts of their brain light up in response to different stimuli.

To give a layman example, you can put someone in an MRI, show them a picture of their loved-one. You'll watch certain areas of the prefrontal cortex spring to life, indicating that the person is experiencing the emotion of "affection". But maybe areas of the limbic system light up, too, like the amygdala, indicating a response of aggression.

That's the general idea. Someone with more knowledge of neuroscience than me could draft a more accurate reading of the MRI results.

So this is the service: For a nice chunk of change, we'll throw you in an MRI and look at your brain. While you're in there, we'll present visual and aural stimuli. When you come out, we'll give you a detailed report about your own brain.

The technicians who run this thing don't have to be doctors: they're just trained to evaluate the readings and do the consultation with the patient. You go home with a better understanding of your own brain, and even a video of the session. What could be more satisfying to the ego than knowing about your own brain?

Awesome business.

Furthermore, the results could probably be useful to science. A large collection of data would be acquired by running these experiments day after day. This information would be compiled, and it would provide valuable statistical data for certain types of brain research.

¹The median expected salary for a typical psychologist in the United States is $77,973.
Can't afford it? Find a friend who's patient enough to listen to you talk about yourself. It'll do you the same amount of good, and it's free!

Bathroom Art

2009-03-01T02:02:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen something scribbled on a bathroom wall that made you stop and go "Hmmm"?

Usually, it's something so sick and depraved that you can't get it out of your head for weeks. Other times it can be poetic in a haunting way. And sometimes it's just downright clever.

It's art. It's poetry. And in a weird way, more honest and sincere than something you'd find in an art gallery. It's anonymous, so people can really let their ego come out. Bathroom art is the human psyche at its most raw.

I'm going to start collecting photos of bathroom graffiti. I think it would make an intriguing coffee-table book. We need some sort of open-source network, like a wiki, so anyone and everyone can post their own pictures.

Gin and Juice Box

2009-02-13T19:36:00.001-08:00

As a kid, how fun was it drinking out of a juice box? So fun.

As grown ups, we need to rekindle that love.

I'm not a drinker, but this would be a popular product, I'm sure.

Testosterone Soda

2009-02-09T19:11:00.001-08:00

I really don't want this product to exist. But I'm an idea guy; I can't help it.

I don't even know if testosterone is bio-available in liquid form. I know there are shots, creams and patches out there. So, hell, you could probably drink it too.

Of course, this soda would have to include a massive dose of YELLOW 5 food coloring to cancel out the long-term effects.

(By the way, I highly recommend this episode of This American Life called "Testosterone".

More proof, by the way, that this blog should be titled "My great inventions that someone else has already invented". My original design for "Testosterone Soda" was the following:
. "Balls" just seemed like the right name for a soda with testosterone. But "Bawls" already exists (and they did a better job with the packaging than I would have: Look, it's even ribbed for your pleasure.

Someone just showed me this video. Totally what I had in mind!

Artists: Nuzzle your nozzle.

2009-02-05T23:35:00.000-08:00

The paintbrush. Think about it. Why the paintbrush? WHY?

Now! The bottle. AH! The squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze bottle! It's so much better!

Want to get a child to paint? Try giving him a brush and see what happens. Frustration, that's what.

But: The squeeeeeeeze bottle! Yes! It makes so much sense.

It's instinctive. It's childish. It's FUN. The way making art should be.

See, plenty of paint is sold in squeeze bottles. But they're ALL missing the most important thing: A DAMN NOZZLE! Yeah, there are some out there with nozzles, but they'll all really tiny bottles of puffy paint or fabric paint or glitter paint. Dah!

Paintbrushes are good for blending. That's all they are good for.

Want a clean line? Try a paintbrush: You have to keep re-dipping the whole time. It turns out all ragged around the edges. Yuck! Who wants that? How about a squeeze bottle with a thin nozzle?

This is my invention: It's so simple. And so genius at the same time. It's just a damn plastic bottle. Removable top. With a nozzle. (With a collection of nozzles! Different shapes.) And it's sold in art stores. Right there with the paint. You fill it with your own mix of color.

Even better would be paint that is actually sold in a bottle with a nozzle on it. It's so obvious. Why doesn't this exist already? It's getting me all worked up.

Drumming your fingers and tapping your feet

2009-02-04T00:26:00.000-08:00

Percussion gloves.

Another stroke of brilliance coming atcha.

Each finger has it's own sensor, and the whole thing is wirelessly hooked into the P.A. So the performer can drum his fingers on any old thing, i.e. the mic stand, his own body —— even while singing/rapping/vocalizing/chanting/screaming.

You customize the drum kit before each performance so each finger can be any sound you choose.

The set up on stage would be much quicker. Instead of moving in a whole drum kit, you just slip on some gloves.

This would be impressive as a one-man show. Especially when combined with...

Percussion shoes.

Remember those hi-tops from the 1980's that would light up when you took a step? These will be the percussive version of that.

The shoes could have two different markets entirely.

The simple version for on-the-street or impressing your friends at school: the sound-maker is built into the shoes. The basic version wouldn't be as loud as the...
Stage version, which would be like the gloves in that it would connect to the PA system for mega-volume. The performance shoes could have a separate sensor on the toe and the heel, kinda like tap shoes.

A skilled performer could really rock the house with this ensemble. It wouldn't have to be that expensive, either, compared to say, a real electronic drum kit. Probably a couple hundred dollars for a set of gloves.

Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock

2009-01-27T23:47:00.000-08:00

As I was going for my nap this afternoon, I had a vision of an invention that somebody needs to invent for me:

Instead of an alarm clock that wakes you up at a particular time, this alarm clock would wake you up at a particular stage in your sleep cycle —— whatever stage that is that's easiest to wake up at (which, after some research, turns out is the dream stage, REM.)

But, lo and behold, more proof that this blog should be titled "My great inventions that someone has already invented":
Someone already came up with a similar product, called Zeo (sounds like a character in Power Rangers , huh?) Their website looks right-on. Zeo is exactly what I had already invented in my brain: It's a headband that you wear during the night which monitors your sleep patterns. It wakes you up after a certain number of cycles. Not only does Zeo wake you up at the "right" time, but it also monitors your night's sleep, so you can see what your brainwaves were doing all night.

Apparently, Zeo isn't for sale yet, but they are choosing a select group of people to be their beta-testers. My middle name is Guinea Pig, so I signed up for their waiting list.

I did some more googling, and there's a similar product already out there, Sleeptracker. Instead of a headband, it's a wristwatch. I'm still unclear about how this could monitor your brainwaves. Maybe it doesn't; it finds out what it needs to know based on your pulse.

Just based on their website, I don't trust Sleeptracker as much as the guys who make Zeo. Too info-mercial, too daytime-television.

Anyone have experience with this type of stuff? Once I did a professional sleep study at a hospital. The intent was to analyze my brainwaves throughout the night to see when and how long I was going into the various cycles of sleep: beta, delta, REM. It was way more complicated than wearing a headband, let alone a wristwatch. They covered my scalp with so many clips and suction cups that it was uncomfortable.

I'm doubtful that a headband could be as accurate as all those sensors of the professional lab. But maybe it's not important to be all that accurate when a crude reading will suffice for the given purposes.

Further testing will be required. Who wants to get me a Sleeptracker for my birthday?

Robo Music Teacher

2009-01-25T22:43:00.001-08:00

Before I present this idea, I'd like to state that I have taken music lessons all my life. First it was piano, then guitar, then drums. My parents paid for the lessons, and I'm glad that they did because a music education is really valuable. Moreover, it's important to have a face-to-face with a human teacher. You get a lot more out of a real-life person than a book or a video cassette.

However, I remember that when I took lessons, I'd be all jazzed-up during the lesson, but as soon as I got home, all lonely in my room, I'd lose the motivation to practice.

With that said, I want to present my robo-teacher idea. I don't view this as a replacement to a real teacher, but rather a supplement.

It's just a piece of software that interfaces with either your electronic drum kit or your Rock Band drum kit. I'm not a fan of Rock Band, but the potential of that hardware is untapped: What you have there is a drum kit interfaced with and audio-visual setup (your TV).

Robo Teacher would work like this: you wear the headphones and/or watch the TV screen. It gives you some segment to practice. You play it on your electronic drum kit, and the software recognizes the accuracy of your playing. It advances you to higher levels of complexity as you master each fundamental.

The software would be fun since it would immediately respond to your progress. Just like a video game, you'll advance to higher levels as your skills improve. Only here, the skill is applicable to real life! That, by the way, is one of the primary things that bugs me about Rock Band. It takes lots of practice to get good at something that essentially is an imitation of real life, but not actually applicable to real life. (Reminds me a lot of my blog about Nintendo Wii.)

The robo-music teacher will be a lucrative franchise because with each advancing level of mastery, there will be a new piece of software to buy. "Level 2 Intermediate," "Level 3 ..." And different styles of music to fit all tastes, "Master Samba Rhythm in 3 Weeks," "Rock Essentials," "Metal..."

And not to reiterate the obvious, but this would be better than a video game because you'd walk away with real-life skills. Imagine that! You could learn "Merengue Essentials" from a digital tutor, and the next week be on stage playing with a real band.

Back to the idea of a real teacher versus a digital one: In my opinion they are not in competition. A human teacher is better at some things than a digital teacher: A human can explain the concepts, inspire the student and focus the student's skills and abilities. But they can't sit there for hours while you drill some 4 measures over and over again. Eventually you, the student, just have to do the tedious work alone.

I'm a Spanish tutor now. I can go to the kid's house and explain the concepts to them, have conversations in Spanish and help them focus on what to practice. But there comes a time when you have to say, "Just memorize these 55 verbs and their conjugations." I remember when I was struggling to learn to type, my mom got me Mario Teaches Typing. Suddenly something "tedious" became fun. Same thing here, kinda.

Recycled plastic tube chair

2009-01-25T22:18:00.001-08:00

I haven't blogged for a few weeks because I've been making real-life art, such as this thing:

It's a chair made of reclaimed plastic tubes. They're throw-aways from the assembly line where my friend works. It took about two weeks to build. I designed that hexagon pattern on the computer. We decided the hexagons would be better than flat rows in order to leave gaps and therefore make it lighter. It was really exciting to see it go from design to real life.

We drilled holes in each tube and tied them together with about 100 zip ties (why are zip ties so expensive, by the way? About $6 for a pack of 100).

We chose zip ties in the first place because our drilled holes weren't exact, so the alignment between one tube and the next wasn't perfect. Therefore, the zip ties were necessary to cover up for our imprecise drilling. However, I would have preferred bolts because they would have been much stronger. I also shyed away from glue because it's expensive and an eye-skin irritant. Furthermore, I avoided glue because I wanted it to be mechanically connected. Glue seemed like a cop-out.

The zip ties made the whole thing "flexy." So when you sat in it, it would bend and give to your weight.

It wasn't very comfortable nor practical because of it's size, especially in the original incarnation:

As you can see, the original model was much longer, which obviously gave more back support, but its weight and size were annoying. We chopped off the back.

When you sat in it, it would bend and crackle, but hold up fine. For us skinny vegans, that is. Then one of our real-life-size friends came and sat in it. He leaned back, "ahhh..." and... Pop! The whole back fell off. After we all had a good laugh about it, I just put the whole thing — in two pieces — out on the curb. It was taking up too much room in the common area, and I was done with it. A day later, someone took it! I hope they had something creative in mind for it.

Hobbyist silkscreen stencil printer

2009-01-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

If you've ever tried doing your own silkscreening (more accurately, "screen printing"), you'll know what a hassle it is to do the first part of the process: Mixing the photo emulsion, applying it and exposing it. It's fraught with challenges like getting the proper consistency of the emulsion, the proper light and exposure time. Before you can even print one shirt, you mess up a lot of screens just figuring out how to make the stencil.

I started thinking about these cutting-edge printers that I've heard about. 3-D plastic printers (scroll down a couple of articles). A guy in Make magazine made a chocolate printer for decorating cakes, and presumably for making 3-D objects out of chocolate.

This wouldn't even be that complicated. It would just be a printer that is set up to make silkscreen stencils. No photo emulsion. It just prints some sort of (inexpensive) quick-drying liquid on the custom-sized screens. When it drys, you have a screen ready for printing.

Of course, it plugs right into your computer, so the step to go from design to application is instantaneous.

This would probably be an expensive product, but not super-expensive. Probably for the high-roller amateur or small-biz professionals.

Personal Mobile Percussion Station

2009-01-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

Like every other drummer, I love to play drums on the wheel of my car. At stop lights, heavy traffic, or parked waiting for a friend, I'm tapping away on my steering wheel.

The potential product here so obvious, so simple, and so in-demand it's begging to be invented.

It's just a cover that goes around the wheel of the car. Inside the cover is some kind of trigger, like the kind used on electronic drum kits. The triggers are wired to some sort of sound machine, and that's wired straight into the car's sound system.

So, as you can sit there and drum, you hear the beats come right through your speakers. You can even play along with your favorite songs on the radio.

Every drummer I've ever talked to LOVES this idea.

The add-ons are endless: Imagine a "karaoke" track where instead of the vocals taken out, it's the drum section that's missing. So, you can play with your favorite music. Or, how about a "Learn Drums in Your Car" CD? As an advanced feature, it could even have accuracy-recognition software, kinda like Rock Band does.

I had the opportunity to pitch this idea to the president of BOSS. He just laughed it off like a joke.

But it makes perfect sense, really, a corporate electronic music manufacturer isn't going to create a nutty niche product like this. Especially because of legal issues: the potential for mis-use is so high (people playing while actually driving.)

That's why it's up to us basement inventors to come up with this thing and sell it underground. Here's an opportunity for us to come up!

Vibrating Pond

2008-12-25T23:55:00.000-08:00

If you get a tray, fill it with water and then vibrate the tray, the surface of the water ripples in a really hypnotic way.

How about a large public water feature, like a fountain, but not a fountain, more like a gigantic vibrating pond?

The surface of the water would look so cool. And kids could jump in and feel the vibration on the bottoms of their feet. If you threw in coins, they would jiggle around everywhere.

What if instead of a vibrator, it was giant bass speakers installed under the fountain?

Ad-supported everything

2008-12-25T23:30:00.001-08:00

I'm amazed at sites that run merely on banner-ad support.

One of my favorites: FreeRice.com. It's a vocab game. For each word you get right it donates 20 grains of rice to a starving child. And it's supposedly all ad-supported.

It made me start to think about all the things that are ad-supported. Is it possible to use ad-support for good, not evil?

Some ideas:

Ad-supported Greyhound buses. You get to ride the bus for free, but there are ads playing on a small TV on the back of the chair in front of you. (No audio, of course.)
Ad-supported housing projects: "This tenement sponsored by Vegenaise."
Ad-supported schools. Many schools give free(?) advertising anyway: vending machines, professional sports teams, milk (dear LORD!) some schools even have fast food chains on campus.

Seriously, it makes me sick that milk gets so much free publicity, as if it's a public-service. "Does a body good." Milk is a business!

This is a bad idea. Scrap it.

Snow Chains Snap-On

2008-12-25T23:19:00.001-08:00

Know what I dislike about snow? Putting chains on your tires.

And... (this may prove what a coddled nancy-boy I am) I can't get my snow chains on. Is it just that my skeleton fingers freeze-up in the cold? Or is it that these chains are a 100-yr-old design that needs some serious updating?

So, here's my idea: Remember snap bracelets?

The WhimStar Snow Tire will look like a giant plate. You just line two of them up in front of your wheels and then drive forward. They automatically roll right onto your tires.
I'm going to get my engineers to start work on this right away.

That reminds me of another idea I had last year: It looks like someone already beat me to my snap-bracelet watch idea,

but how about a snap-bracelet cell phone? Eh? Can anyone say wrist cancer?

Beepless Microwave

2008-12-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

Why does everything have to beep? Beep-beep-beep-beep! Your food is warm! Beep-beep: There's a utility vehicle somewhere in a 50-yard radius that's backing up. Beep-beep-beep-beep: You're trying to open the side door to your Honda Odyssey when it's in gear (by the way, worst design ever, that car.)

Beep-beep-beep-beep: You're in a hospital, construction zone, school campus, city street. Pretty much anywhere, you're surrounding by a ubiquitous high-pitched chirp. It's supposed to alert you to something, but it's so ever-present that you've learned to tune it out, just to keep your sanity.

Furthermore, is it just me, but I have a hard time locating high-pitched sine waves especially if they are really short...?

So, here's my invention. It's simple really: A no-beep microwave!

Yes, that's it. Million dollar invention, right there.

1. You'll know when the microwave stops humming.
2. You'll smell it.
3. You put it in there 3 minutes ago. How short is your attention span?

Or how about this idea (at the risk of making microwaves even more complicated than they already are): Have a setting for how loud you want it to beep, or if you want it to beep at all. It could even be turned up really loud, like a foghorn, so you can let the whole apartment know that you're having nachos.

I got 99 ideas, but I aint sold one

2008-12-14T17:55:00.000-08:00

We were in da club last night when 50 Cent came in talking about

"We gonna party like it's yo birfday
We gonna sip Bacardi like it's yo birfday."

I was thinking today about the popularity of that song. And how Bacardi sales probably rocketed after the release. Maybe Bacardi cut him a deal ahead of time. Or maybe Bacardi helped push the popularity of the song after it had been released. Or maybe none of the above: Bacardi just leaned back and sailed on the profits of free advertising.

The music business does a lot of product placement. If they're doing it for free, they need to wise up. Movies do it all the time. Need a few extra grand? Throw a can of Pepsi into Brad Pitt's hand. But whereas the Pepsi can is there for only two seconds, the "Bacardi" line stays on people's lips for years.

So, I've decided, the next Ultricon Convoy release is going to include product placements galore. (But they'll be products I support, of course.)

Here's a sampling of the track listings:
1. Tempeh Powerballs
2. 8-Bit Soyrizo Burrito Princess
3. Vegenaise Blastoff
4. Tofu Warpzone
5. Level Golden Tofurkey
6. Guayakiller YerbaMate Miniboss
7. Coconut Bliss Bazooka Nuts

Henna Tat Pen

2008-12-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

While we're on the subject of tattoos.

We have a solid tradition of drawing all over each other with sharpies at parties. (Is that toxic, by the way?)

Problem is, they only last a couple of days.

So, why not something a little more permanent, like henna?

The benefit is that would last a lot longer, like for weeks.

And while you're at it, make it more user-friendly than a paintbrush. You could have it available as a simple pen.

Oh, look, somebody already invented it.

This blog should be entitled "My awesome inventions that someone has already invented."

Magic Eye Tattoo

2008-12-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

I was just thinking that everyone with a tattoo automatically has something to talk about at the party.

(Which made me have this other idea about a character who has a tattoo of everything in the whole world on his body. That way he could try to fit in: "You have an anchor tattoo? Me too!" "You like rocket ships? My favorite! Check out my left ankle!" "Mobius strips! Hell yeah! Look under my right buttcheek!")

But anyway, if were ever to get a tattoo, I'd want one that's totally fresh and totally me. Something that hasn't been done before.

So, remember those Magic Eye puzzles from the 90's? Where you stare at them, and a 3-D image appears? I need a tattoo of that.

Best Tattoo Ever

Maybe after you've stared at it long enough, the words "Think fast!" appear.
Then just at that moment I smack you in the face.

Related: That reminds me of Peter Mucha's idea (I love that guy)Skin will become the ultimate hi-def screen. How about a tattoo that's always changing, showing constantly morphing images like a hologram. Or even better: A screen tattoo on your belly like the Telletubbies that shows whatever you want. "Check out this youtube video on my belly." You could even have a nanocam inside your body, so your tattoo shows everyone what's going on inside you. Close up. (Damn, that would be awesome! Like those "Womb with a view" t-shirts, only better.)

What is it supposed to be?

2008-11-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

"The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes." -- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

I was just thinking about the most annoying thing that an artist can hear: "What is it?" Or even worse, "What is it supposed to be?"

Of course, this applies to abstract art. But for realistic art, the converse is true "It's a flower," (moves on) is probably equally annoying.

Presented with art, the ego feels the knee-jerk reaction label, evaluate or describe, and therefore package into manageable chunks. So, something essentially ethereal becomes a thought-form. Now it can be "agreed with" or "disagreed with", "liked" or "disliked." Thusly, this thing becomes invested with the sense of "I," momentarily satisfying to the ego.

The ego might even feel the inclination to verbalize its labeling to everyone around. If people react to you — whether they agree or disagree — enhances the ego just a little bit.

Exercise: Next piece of artwork you come across (especially one that you don't "get" right away), don't label ANYTHING about it. Just be with it.

Painting by Neo Rauch

At first, what happens to me is that my conditioned mind starts looking for a backdoor out of this activity. It thinks, "Once I decide what this is, I can move on."

The trick is just to notice that's happening.

Getting good at this exercise has amazing benefits. I've started to loosen up and actually enjoy myself, not just with art, but life in general. My mind has become decongested. Ordinary things become funny, inspiring, sexy and magical. This is probably what "living in the moment" is all about.

It's all about stopping the sub-conscious "What is it supposed to be?"