August 2009
5 posts
1 tag
OpenIdea: Improving The Lottery
The Callifornia “MegaMillions” lottery seemed to get some attention recently for its huge jackpot. Whenever this happens, I always hear people saying “try to pick numbers that no one else will pick, so that you don’t have to share the winnings (if you do, in fact, win).” So why doesn’t the Lottery sell unique sets of numbers for more? The odds of winning are...
5 tags
Where can I find a Desktop As A Service provider?
I stumbled across Desktone, and I think it’s a brilliant service. I’d really like to try out a Desktop As A Service to see what it’s like… and how laggy it might be. This service would basically make being the “go-to IT guy for parents” a thing of the past. I could set my Dad up with a DAAS computer.. and rest easy knowing that he can’t...
1 tag
OpenIdea: Hybrid Engines
One of the drawbacks of hybrid cars is that there’s the extra weight of having both an internal combustion engine AND an electric motor. Why not try to combine the two devices so that they share more parts and save weight? I imagine there could be an engine where half (quarter?) of the cylinders are replaced by an “electric” cylinder — so when the car doesn’t need...
1 tag
P2PU Is the Future of Education
California has started to encourage the development of electronic textbooks, and it seems like educational materials are becoming more widely available in digital formats since the costs of distribution are declining as the internet is more accessible. I saw an ad for online K-3 homeschooling lessons on Facebook, and I figured there must be more open organizations who are developing lesson plans...
1 tag
Dissolvable Tobacco.. AKA: Cancer In A Strip
I sorta like the dissolvable breath mints, and I know that the technology behind those strips have been used for other things — like tasting samples. But Camel tabacco as a dissolvable strip — it’s ingenious, but also… so gross.