Passing Through Walls

I realize that this is a fantastical idea, but I would love to hear other peoples thoughts and knowledge in pursuit of expanding this idea. Don't be afraid to throw out wild ideas. Shooting for the stars will allow you to hit the moon.

In order for one object to pass through another, all the negative space between the particles of each solid must be aligned.

Unfortunately, the chance of all the particles that make up a solid object aligning their negative space exactly with the negative space between the particles of another solid object is infinitely unlikely.

Now, this is just my imagination running wild, but what if you could create a mechanism or system that could predict the positions of particles and their negative space in a solid object and then simultaneously reposition the particles of the second solid object to match the negative space of the first object? This would allow solid objects to pass through other solid objects.

Below is a little 2D sketch of how this works. Very simply... The key would be to match negative space.



It would be like fitting puzzle pieces together. Think of how gasses can pass through other gasses. This happens because there is a massive amount of space between the molecules of the opposing gasses. This does not work so readily with solids because the particles of a solid are so densely packed.



Think about how water passes through a strainer....



Even more exciting could be the possibilities of transportation. What if you could perfectly align and position the molecules of solid objects to match that of the negative space of other solid objects at will? At what speed would this happen, and if you had access to that kind of speed and molecular malleability, would this be a sort of quantum engine?

Wed, Mar 4, 2009  Permanent link
Categories: readingforideas

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Energy and the Google Power Meter

Accroding to the NY Times science section Google is working on a Power Meter that will help us measure and manage our energy consumption to create a "Smart Grid," which has become a sort of buzz phrase within the electric business that references a manifold of ideas about optimizing the efficiency of the energy that we have instead of building more power plants and expanding our consumption.

Google's Power Meter seeks to empower consumers with access to their personal energy information allowing people to save as much as 15% on their monthly energy bill. They also say that for every six houses that save 10% on electricity, it will reduce carbon emissions as much as taking one conventional car off the road.

This may be a solution to IDEO's Big Conversations & Small Talk question, "What is one thing that would persuade you to start saving energy?"



Update: Just found some new resources for this post thanks to @lshen

Simple Explaination of the Google Power Meter


Great video on Google's Smart Grid

Wed, Feb 11, 2009  Permanent link
Categories: energy, google, readingforideas, nytimes

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Exploring!

I've been finding a lot of news articles about space and exploration lately, which really gives me hope. Maybe I've just been in the dark, but the last decade or two hasn't exactly been teeming with discoveries in space.

chris_mackintosh's post about the glowing aurora over Saturn is just one of many examples on this site and all over the web.

Here's another interesting discovery from Wired News about the Spitzer Space Telescope's discovery of how supersonic shock waves could be contributing to the creation of new planets.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/planet-ingredie.html

Thu, Nov 13, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: space, science,

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More Mozilla Process

In process towards my end presentation for my Progress & Innovation class I've been sketching some more ideas about Mozilla.

This first one is all about the current browser war and their progress towards the imminent "Web 3.0" like the world of Aurora and other next-gen internet internet ideas.

Internet Exploder is a bit behind and is due for some catch-up work. I doubt they'll be the next one to step up the bar. Safari is right up there and current, but browsers like Firefox, Flock, and Cruz have stepped it up in terms add-ons, features, and specialization. Chrome seems to have the best grip on the future with it's application integration and movement away from the static OS desktop. In addition, Apple has started to move into the new world of mobile phone applications with its App Store, which has opened up a lot of new opportunities for social and online marketing, but Google is not far behind with Android. Hopefully someone will open up a new paradigm of interconnected PC and mobile browsing and communication.



Here I've got some ideas about how pieces of this project will be fitting into my final presentation and how I can incorporate visual and physical elements.

This is what I'm thinking so far:

First will be a visual explanation of Mozilla's history and some basics on their innovation structure including the visualization that I posted a few weeks ago.

Second will be an activity where I present a mock project or idea under an Open Source Creative Commons License. It will be pretty bare bones, like a spaceship with no gadgets or a monster that has no eyes, tentacles, or scary features. Next, I will create a scenario for the monster or space ship. Some sort of adventure that will include some sort of obstacle that will require the monster or spaceship to have additional features to completely. Then, I will ask the class to make a quick drawing of some things that they would add to the monster or spaceship to improve it's performance in it's task. Finally, the additions that the class draws up will be added to the monster or spaceship and we can talk about how everyone contributed to the development of the monster or spaceship just like a Mozilla development community would contribute to Firefox or other Mozilla Labs projects.

In the last segment of my presentation, I will segue from the development of Mozilla Labs projects, into my ideas on any new innovations that Mozilla may introduce in the future. I have more to think on this, but I would like to come up with some sort of prototype or demo of my idea.



To summarize for class. So far I've included all of these element that we have studied in previous weeks:

Ideation
Sketching
Mapping
Storytelling
Group Activity
Play
Prototyping

So there you have it! More to come this week!

Mon, Nov 10, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: technology, web, mozilla

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