May 10, 2009
Posted in Ideas, Misc, Software, Strategy at 23:23 by Graham King
When I was 16, I wrote a computer game, called Micro Zooides. It was called that partly because on Windows .EXE files all start with the two characters MZ, and partly because it was about small creatures. Micro-Zooides was going to be about humanity’s progress, it was going to be Civilization, which didn’t exist yet.
The game had a splash screen of a Far Side comic, then a short video of me tromping through the woods like a Neanderthal, which my Dad filmed and which I digitized with a very early video capture card.
In Borland’s Turbo C++ 3.0 I wrote a basic graphics engine to display the tiles of the world, and an event loop so I could move the main character around the world. I drew sprites for a proto-human (the micro zooid), dirt, rocks and sticks. He could walk around the world, and pick up and put down rocks or sticks.
Then I took a break to plan. I have a proto-human, rocks, and sticks. How do I get to civilization?
March 21, 2009
Posted in Ideas, Society at 18:49 by Graham King
Congressman Mike Honda, D-San Jose, writing about opening government databases:
Instead of databases becoming available as a result of Freedom Of Information Act requests, government officials should be required to justify why any public data should not be freely available to the taxpayers who paid for its creation.
Wow, what an exciting time to be in North America.
From the O’Reilly Radar.
May 31, 2008
Posted in Ideas at 00:38 by Graham King
When you send a parcel by air, the price depends on the volume and weight of that parcel. Volume, because you are buying a certain amount of space in the plane. Weight, because the heavier the plane’s cargo, the more fuel it takes to get it off the ground. You pay for the fuel to fly your parcel.
The pricing structure for air mail / air freight is closely linked to the costs faced by the airline.
When you travel with your parcels, a disconnect appears. You buy a certain amount of space - typically a seat for yourself, a small bag and one or two big bags. A bigger seat (’business’, ‘premium’, etc) is more money. Extra bags is more money. But you’re not paying by weight - and I think that will have to change.
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May 9, 2006
Posted in Ideas, Software at 22:37 by Graham King
A web feed is, to quote Wikipedia:
… a document (often XML-based) which contains content items, often summaries of stories or weblog posts with web links to longer versions. Weblogs and news websites are common sources for web feeds, but feeds are also used to deliver structured information ranging from weather data to “top ten” lists of hit tunes. The two main web feed formats are RSS (which is older and far more widely used) and Atom (a newer format that has just completed the IETF standardization process.) Feeds are subscribed to directly by users with aggregators or feed readers, which combine the contents of multiple web feeds for display on a single screen or series of screens
Aggregators and feed readers are widely used, but mainly by tech-savvy individuals. It’s time your company rolled out a feed reader on every desktop PC it owns. Here’s why:
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October 23, 2005
Posted in Ideas at 14:24 by Graham King
In England in 1388 Richard III made a law stating that all men (or only ages 10-18, versions differ) must own bows and practice archery on Sunday’s and holidays. This law was finally repealed in 1960.
An 1888 law encouraging emigration to the colonies of unemployed adults and pauper children from the overcrowded cities of England and Wales was repealed in 2004.
The Internet abounds with weird outdated laws like these. A law is valid until it is repealed. As law makers (an elected assembly) make more laws than they repeal, we get more and more laws. Only a small section of them end up being relevant to the world we live in. There is a simple solution: Laws should expire.
I propose that every law passed should include its expiry date. 1 year for emergency legislation, 5 – 10 years for most laws, with probably a cap of 20 years. Laws forming part of a country’s constitution – i.e. the major ‘basis of society’ laws such as not permitting murder – could have 50 – 100 year renewable periods.
As the laws come up for review they can be modified and updated, for example to take into account new technology and new social patterns. In the case of emergency legislation the country will of had more time to consider the issue.
Regularly updating and revising laws would make them more directly relevant to our daily lives, easier to understand by non-legal professionals, and easier to apply and enforce. There would be less need for interpretation by a judge or jury, which would mean much smaller differences in how different people are treated for the same offense.
The maximum life-span of a law could be tied to how long it has already been in force, how long it was debated for, and how many members of the assembly participated in making it. This would prevent governments rushing laws through ‘in the middle of the night’ (The U.S.A. Patriot Act being a very good example of this).
If the law was only presented (or amended) a few hours before the vote, and only a few people voted, then you are not representing the people. You should not be able to make a long-term law.
If the law has already been in force for some years, or most of the assembly voted on it, then that is a more representative law and should live longer.
Posted in Ideas at 14:23 by Graham King
People grow vegetables or fruit in their gardens, and may keep chickens or other animals. Indoors they may have a fish tank, but it is purely ornamental. How about an indoor Shrimp Garden ?
An average sized fish tank should fit a good amount of shrimp. They are aggressive towards other fish, so you would keep them on their own. There must be a business in selling a tank with shrimp seeds and feed, exactly the way people sell tomato seeds and fertilizer – and you don’t need a garden to buy the tank !
Shrimp is a term used to describe about 2000 species of small aquatic animals related to crabs, lobsters, and crayfish. The site here might help pick a variety for growing indoors. Aquarium hobbyists keep shrimp to eat algae and detritus, but those species are not the eating kind.
They are already farmed commercially (see here) so it is possible and commercially viable – although they grow them in the sea / rivers rather than in tanks. They are even farmed organically. The genus they use is Macro-brachium. I saw a mention that they take about five months to grow up to eating size. The only question remains as to whether they can grow in a small aquarium.
Has anyone heard of this being done before ? Is there a good reason why this wouldn’t work ? What about crayfish ?
Posted in Ideas at 14:21 by Graham King
In many countries, pedestrian crossings have a button you press to signal your desire to cross. After a little while this makes the traffic lights go red for the cars and lights up a green man allowing you to cross.
Often you press the button whilst some cars go past, then realize there is no more traffic, so you cross the road. The lights don’t know you have already crossed so a bit later the traffic lights go red and the cars stop and wait whilst no-one crosses.
Wouldn’t it be much better if there was a button you could press just before you crossed saying that you don’t need the lights to change any more ?
Posted in Ideas at 14:19 by Graham King
Fact 1: Cats always land on their feet.
Fact 2: Buttered toast always lands butter side down.
Read more
OK, maybe this one won’t work :-)
Posted in Ideas at 14:19 by Graham King
Cats love affection, but particularly they love being rubbed on their cheek. I guess they have scent glands there which give them pleasure when rubbed. That would be an evolutionary mechanism to make them want to spread their scent around.
So I propose a machine made of two soft rollers, upright facing each other, with a pressure sensitive pad in the middle. The cat presses the pad and the rollers rotate, one pressing against each of the cats cheeks. Think of the two upright rollers of a very small car-wash to visualise the two rollers.
Posted in Ideas at 14:18 by Graham King
If you live in the city and work all day, you probably can’t have a dog. But when you go for a walk in the country, wouldn’t it be great to have a friendly dog walk with you and fetch sticks and leap around and do all sorts of dog things ? Enter dog rentals.
At the start of major walking trails a dog rental business could setup. In the same way you can rent horses, you could rent dogs. They would have to be a friendly easy going breed that loves company, maybe golden retrievers ? The walkers get a friend to walk with and a more enjoyable walk, the dogs gets loads of walking and affection, and you get income.
Posted in Ideas at 14:18 by Graham King
Mum’s, over the course of being Mums, develop an extraordinary ability to manage a house, put up with squealing brats, multitask, remember a range of important unconnected information, and generally get things done under duress.
If you run a high-tech company, have you ever thought that your techies were maybe a little childish ?. They need someone to feed them (at lunchtime), remember everything for them (such as renewing their passports), all the whilst putting up with their antics.
Enter the office mum. Think of an office mum as a PA on, euh, tea. Mums who’s children have left home adopt your company as their child, and manage everything whilst putting up with your techies. The Mum gets money and recognition, the techies get babysat and home cooked lunches, and you (the person-in-charge) get happy productive techies and don’t have to put up with any dramas.
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