Reality Askew

I love playing video games and I’m not embarrassed to say it, but the unfortunate side effect of sitting around killing zombies or flying my virtual Cessna 172 is that I don’t get much exercise.  Now I do “mostly” eat right so that seems to offset my slow motion life but while I was talking about this with my friend last night it occurred to me that wouldn’t it be great if there were some sort of custom exercise machine (think treadmill) that you had to walk/run on to make you character move on the screen.  With the new advent of virtual reality type gadgets, wouldn’t it be a natural evolution of gaming and exercise?

On that note, I read recently that Google is introducing glasses that have a built in screen and that there were already games coming out that combined the glasses with a smartphone app to allow people to play a virtual type game out in the “real” world.

I’ve had these ideas running through my heads for decades now on what would be my dream house and I had an overwhelming desire to put them down on paper.

These are in no particular order and some may be little more than running thoughts.

Construction / Location

Underground – It must be either partially or completely underground.   The idea scenario would be to purchase some property with a couple of nice rolling hills and build into the side of one.  Being a survival nut at heart I would also love to have it built where a natural cave system exists and  incorporate this into the home design.

The immediate advantages I see to this are:

1. Heating and Air Conditioning:  The cost to heat and/or cool this house would be almost nil   And the house would be perfect, anywhere because of the natural temperature normalization gained by being underground.  Of course the more “underground” it is the better.
2. Construction Cost:  The cost to build and maintain this home would be reduced.  Underground homes don’t need outside painting, shingles, stucco  or any other cosmetic touches.  The only exception to this would be the giant glass windows I would have projecting out from the side of the hill.  These would likely be the main living area and if done in a “loft” style, would also serve to illuminate the upstairs rooms as well.  There is only one drawback I see to this and that’s the impact of any major incident where I would want to isolate the house/compound from outsiders.  Glass windows would offer a very tempting target and would be the weak link in the house design.  This would have to be compensated with some sort of cover or metal grates that could be moved into place. (from the inside would be best to reflect any flying glass, etc.)

This home would be almost completely made out of concrete and steel.  I would want to refrain from using wood as much as possible due to its short lifespan.   I know you think that will look Spartan but trust me, there will be tons of real plants in the home to offset this.

Home Automation

By this I don’t just mean  electric can openers and toasters, I mean TRUE automation.  This section will be length and very far-fetched but I am not proposing anything that I don’t think can be done with off the shelf technology.  Quite simply I want my house to be, well alive.  What I mean by that is I want to be able to talk and have my commands responded to, even acted upon.  But how does one do that?  It’s not all that difficult.  Speach recognition has come a long way these days.  Here is what I want it to do and I will expand on the “how” later:

1. Lighting:  Light areas of the house as I move through them
2. Heating and Cooling:  Automatically adjust heating and cooling
3. Control Electricity:  Turn off unnecessary electric items when not in use.  For instance, I go to the rest room and leave the fan on, I would like the computer (SAL, from 2010 a Space Odyssey.  I would have picked HAL from 2001, but he was evil) to turn off the fan after a preset time.  The amount of time would not be simply programmed but “learned”.  More on this later.
4. Play Music:  I want to be able to tell SAL something like “SAL music please” and if I don’t specify she would ask for me to expand on the request by maybe giving me options or making a suggestion.  Heck would be even better if she could ask my mood and pick something based on my answer.   What would be cutting edge, is if I told her happy and she accessed a study done by a major think tank on music and its effects and selected something to compliment or help my mood.  Once accessed, SAL would add the information to her catalog for future reference, but set a reminder to search / verify it’s information at night during our sleep time (SAL’s research time).
5. Security:  Unlock doors based on my physical characteristics and voice print analysis.
6. Cameras:  Control a network of cameras to do the following:
   a)  Monitor the house and property for unauthorized personnel
   b)  Recognize and catalog our friends data and be able to announce their arrival before they actually get to the door.
   c)  Archive video for future playback and to make home movies.  Literally
7. News:  Monitor news reports for major events or any subject directed to watch and announce them to us.   This would also be a learned thing.  For instance, SAL announces that a certain actress fell off her bike and asks me afterwards if I would like future reports for this actress.  SAL would also be able to use AI to determine the difference between falling off a bike and death for instance, in which case her logic would override my “no” from before and announce this.
8. Weather/Travel/Car:

• On a basic level, if I go to leave I would ask SAL to plot a course for my destination and then send it to the GPS in the car.  Better yet, all I should have to say is “SAL I’m going to go to the store” and she would automatically do certain steps to prepare for the journey.
• If it’s to the store it wouldn’t require a lot of preparation, but a trip across country would be different.  I would seriously want SAL to have the ability to book my flights, rental car and hotel all based on a combination of my personal preferences and reviews she finds online at night (again, her research time)
• Preparation even for a simple trip would include checking the status of the cars systems and the car would be most certainly be automated as well (electric) and tie into the house system for diagnosing, electrical status, reminders for maintenance, etc.  On that note, if the car were due maintenance, I would want SAL to be able to actually schedule the appointment and if the event of an error noted during diagnostics, to be able to research the cause and possible solution.
• If I don’t ask for this then she should inquire as to my destination as I go to leave and then warn me of any impending weather issues that I might face.  You realize this scenario works for just going to the store or flying across country.  If you haven’t figured this out by now, SAL is the cornerstone of my idea home.
• It goes without saying, and yet I am, that SAL should know in advance if the car doesn’t have a sufficient charge or needs gas to reach the final destination and these things should be sent to the cars on-board systems.
• Speaking of on-board systems, I should be able to access SAL from the car via a cell phone link (Bluetooth?) and on board Wi-Fi.

1. TV:  Like the dumb DVR of today, SAL would be able to automatically record shows I specify and even shows she thinks I will like based on past experience.  Yes this system will LEARN and then react.
2. Groceries/Supplies:   SAL will monitor all food (bar code scanner) and supplies that come into and out of the house.  And produce a detailed grocery list at any given time.  Of course SAL would also have already scanned the prices / specials at local stores and have an estimated cost and direct you to stores with the best price.  (again, more night time research)

Electric:  The home would get its electricity from various sources, like solar, wind, water (nearby stream/river?) etc.  It goes without saying that I would use fluorescent or maybe LED lighting, but I thought I would say it anyway.

Recycling:  This home will have almost ZERO (0) waste that is not used or recycled.  Of course aluminum, paper, plastic are all givens, but I mean almost 100% including water used.  Let me expand:

Water:  Water that is used in sinks, laundry, baths would be recaptured (grey water) and reused for watering the lawn, flushing the toilets, etc.

Food:  Items not eaten would be used for mulch and compost for use in our underground greenhouse (more on this later)

Electric?  Ok this idea just came to me and it’s a bit crazy, but isn’t lighting wasted electricity?  Couldn’t one theoretically place solar cells in the house to “recapture” this wasted electricity?  I’m thinking this is very cost prohibitive but maybe when the price of solar cells comes down it will be reasonable to do?  I feel like I’m missing something on this idea or heck, maybe it’s some strange super idea like the hula-hoop.

Paper:  Paper would be recycled but I’m not entirely sure if it would be for our own personal use or sent off in the recycle can?  I mean when I grew up, people would take paper and roll it into these compact logs for burning.  I’m just not sure how effective or environmentally sound this is.

Green House:  Yes you heard correct, I want the house to have an underground greenhouse.  Of course we both know it can’t be completely underground, but imagine a green house where the only thing that shows on the surface is the a-frame glass top.  If you think about it, it’s a great idea because the underground greenhouse would benefit from the same temperature stabilization that the rest of the house would.  It would also be nearly 100% free of bugs and insect infestations.  Now for the survivalist nuts out there, you might also consider the fact that it would act as an air cleaner / oxygen maker for the entire home as well.   Not to mention the benefits of having fruits and vegetables fresh the whole year round.

Plants:   The greenhouse section was a perfect segue into my next section which is plants.  I don’t just want to have plants in planters around the house, but instead have them be part of the house.  For instance the main living room with the big glass windows could have plants growing out of specially designed floor planters that are recessed in the floor.  This would give the illusion that they are actually planted in the ground and would limit their growth due to root constriction.  Also a really beautiful vine type plant that would grow up and around the room would be incredible.  My luck I would pick poison oak. J

Fire Suppression/Water Storage:  This isn’t very high tech, but I do want my house to have a sprinkler system in case of fire.  This would be fed from storage tanks that are also used for drinking water, watering the green house, etc.  These water tanks would be constantly being recycled due to use, but in the event of an emergency the thousands of gallons they would hold would be useful for survival.  Of course SAL would monitor them for cleanliness and maintain water levels.   There could also be two systems, one for grey water and one for clean water, but the grey water one would require constant monitoring to prevent any sort of bacteria forming.  Maybe bleach or ozone injections?

Accelerated Healing

The other day I got a cut on my finger and looking at it I wondered why don’t we have a way of accelerating the healing process?  What exactly happens when the body heals itself?  Once we know that, then isn’t it possible that we might be able to speed that process up?  Imagine a device that you have in your medicine cabinet that would allow you to wave it over a small wound and have it heal almost instantaneously.

Cancer

Cancer scares the hell out of a lot of people and for good reason, but currently our most effective way to combat it is to literally inject poison (chemo) into the host body.  Wouldn’t it be great if a person could go have some blood drawn and a compound be produced that would target the specific cancer cells but not damage the good cells?

Fountain of Youth

Of course the holy grail of medicine is the fountain of youth.  People hate the idea of death and go to great length to stave off the impending doom.  To me the solution is similar to the above healing of wounds.  First we have to identify what exactly happens that causes the body to degenerate then develop a way to slow that process down.  I don’ t think immortality is anywhere in the foreseeable future but if we could learn to slow down the effects of aging then I could see us living to be several hundred years old.  Say for instances if aging is due to cell degradation?  Then what if we could surround the cell with some sort of protective membrane?  This would come in the form of an injected substance that would cause the body to form a barrier around the cell like a shield.  Just a thought.

Interestingly enough, this would have a huge effect on the planet as overpopulation would be a negative consequence of this.  Could we produce enough food to feed everyone for hundreds of years.  Prisoners might elect to be put to death rather than waste away in a cell for centuries.

Of course the offshoot of this extended lifespan would be great for interstellar space travel and might help us develop some sort of suspended animation type sleep chambers.

I guess I was on a painting kick when I came up with this and the previous idea, so bear with me.  Imagine having paint that would act like a solar panel and actually convert light to power.  You could literally capture ambient light in a house and pump the power back into the household grid.  Sure there would be a significant loss, but just capturing a little would have a serious impact.

Take this a step further and paint the outside of your house with the same paint and imagine every surface of your house generating electricity.

I expect that one day a company will develop paint that has pixels that can be switched from white to black and visa verse.  The matrix or grid of the wall would automatically spread out equally across the space.  The really cool thing about this will be the ability to transfer an image from a computer to the wall and have it flip the pixels so that the wall would now reflect the image.  The wall would retain the image with no power requirement, other than time of change.

This would start off as black and white (similar to monitors) and then move up to full color.

Imagine changing the color of your children’s room with the push of a button?  How fantastic will it be for those same kids to change their room to more accurately reflect their personal preferences as they grow up.

This is my news aggregate site that I setup to check on the tech and science news from my favorite outlets.

Why haven’t car manufacturers made cars with a built-in HTML page yet?  I mean how cool would it be for your car to have a simple webpage where you could check it’s battery level (think Prius), turn on the AC, check system status for any errors, etc.  Heck a simple integration of a smartphone would work for this now.  These systems could even be connected to their respective manufacturers so they could “push” updates to the cars computer for improved gas mileage or to alert you to possible issues (recalls) of a vehicle.  Go a step further and they could send you the occasional coupon for a reduced service.

Imagine buying a soda and then selecting diet or regular by the push of a button on the top before opening it.  Manufacturers would save million by only having to produce one type of can instead of two.  Plus the first to come out with this would make a fortune just on the novelty of it.

I would love to see someone create co-op games for smartphones.  Imagine sitting around and playing as one of the door gunners on a B17 type game together with friends.  Heck each of the positions on the bomber (gunner, bomber, pilot) could be either a human or computer and folks could join or leave at random.  How about a space simulator where each person performed a key role, like weapons, propulsion, engineering, etc?  That would be a very fun experience indeed.

This would probably only be possible on a lan given the latency issues with wan networks, especially cellular.

Quite simply round is the secret of the universe. Everything is round at one level or another, molecules, planets, universes, etc.  The circle of life is a prime example.  Even our concepts of social behavior are based on round; do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Everything has a beginning and an end, but they are actually one and the same.

Once you embrace this concept then anything you endeavor can benefit by applying it.

Maybe a billion years from now astronomers will realize that space is just a giant ball of space and time combined.