Chapter Twenty-Eight: Dreamscape (or: More Like Nightmarescape)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

This one was tricky, since I don't usually remember my dreams, and here I am asked to keep a dream diary from which I will somehow divine the solution to whatever problem I am pondering. Bearing my sporadic recall of dreams even moments after awakening for the day, I figured I should pick something simple to dwell upon, such as "What is the secret to life, the universe, and everything?"

No, I kid, I kid. In reality I chose to reflect upon "What is the best way to convince myself to wake up at a more reasonable hour?" Which was directly related to dreaming from the onset.

So, I did as the exercise recommended, and set my alarm to half an hour earlier than usual so as to attempt to catch myself in a "dreaming period." This did absolutely nothing.

I kept it up for a few days; once I woke up briefly during the night due to some horrifying dream, but I rolled over and went back to sleep before I could remember to reach for the bit of paper on the ledge next to my bed to record it.

I actually only remembered one dream in any sort of detail, and even then I hadn't actually recorded it in the dream journal-- I was talking to a friend and he said something that randomly sparked a recall, so I described my dream to him and affirmed it in my memory.

I was being chased throughout some sort of park, but I wasn't the only one, as it was some sort of terrible sporting competition. I survived long enough to be brought to some room with seven others, four of us placed on the top level and four on the bottom (I was on the top). Some menacing fellows told us that only half could proceed, and one of them starting charging up some sort of lightning. I siddled slowly over until I was behind him, which for some reason he didn't notice, and he fried the other three people on the top level, looked confused, then fried an extra person on the bottom level.

... and then they took us to watch a 3D movie in an improbably gigantic movie theater, and I woke up before the commercials finished.

What that has to do with my query I'm not entirely certain. I suppose I could hire an assassin to hunt me for sport if I don't start waking up earlier and going to bed at a more reasonable hour? Man, my psyche is messed up.

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

Dreams can be horrifying and there's probably a reason why I don't usually remember them.

A short note about my creative environment:

I decided to spend some time outside of my room, so I wrote this with my laptop perched on my lap, sitting on one of the comfortable couches in my house's living room. There's lots of natural sunlight filtering in through myriad windows, and my mom's watching some overdramatic soap opera on the television which was mildly distracting.

BrainBank: Clap On! Clap Off! Edition

It lets you turn things off from anywhere in the room! Witchcraft, I know. Nevermind that we now have motion-sensing lights and electronics that have a soft switch to turn on and off-- such as modern televisions-- and are thus completely incompatible with the Clapper. That jingle is just so catchy!

Seriously though, it's an excellent example of the importance of marketing your technology. The Clapper didn't work especially well, but Joseph Pedott marketed it with a catchy jingle and the rest was history. He didn't even invent the device, just marketed it-- kind of like the modest sensation that was the Chia Pet, another project of his the decade prior.

Compare this to something like Google Wave, which is actually shutting down now because people still don't know what the heck it does or why they should want it, and we see that proper marketing is very important indeed.

Though, to be fair, it's a lot easier to understand the Clapper.

BrainBank: Microscopes Provide Endless Horror Edition

Look at this harmless butterfly, sitting there prettily atop those flowers just chilling out. Surely this isn't actually a font of visceral horror.

Well, it might not be, but it definitely came from one. Scientists used a microscope to take super-magnified pictures of a variety of insect eggs, then colored the in post-processing. The butterfly egg is one of the most disturbing to view, though it's kind of fascinating in an alien way.

Apparently SpongeBob SquarePants had it right, butterflies are clearly monsters bent on the destruction of us all.

Chapter: Future Fruit (or: Past Vegetables)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

I don't actually have a business just yet, though I suppose you could consider me in the business of learning stuff about things. Or, in layman's terms, college.

One problem to investigate in my particular field is: "How can the college stay on the cutting edge of technology?"

The main decision regarding this is the school's budget.

The budget is influenced, so far as I know, mostly by the school's intake from students (the money Drexel makes is, as far as I know, funneled back into improving the school in some way); and the percentage of the budget allocated to my program is probably based on the recognition it achieves.

So, five scenarios based on these forces are:

1. Nothing changes. We get new computers every few years as they filter down from the graduate labs.

2. Drexel sees a sharp rise in the amount of new students and has a massive budget increase.

3. Computer technologies become so cheap that upgrades can happen much more frequently.

4. Moore's law fails and computer hardware stops improving by leaps and bounds, making upgrading less needful.

5. Drexel goes bankrupt

Obviously, the best opportunity lies in computer technologies becoming much cheaper; if only because theoretically this decrease would apply to the consumer market as well, and students such as myself could afford to augment their personal technologies and not be beholden to the school's.

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

This one was a little difficult to adapt, since it is clearly meant for an employee or owner of some actual business, but I think I found a pretty good analogue to apply it to.

A short note about my creative environment:

I actually went home for the weekend, so I wrote this at my desk at home, sitting in my nice well-lit room at my comfortable wooden desk next to my bed. It's a little over-warm in my room, but I have a glass of milk and a cookie and am thus content.

BrainBank: Na'vi Gation Edition

Using the power of science, a fly has been able to experience the unique thrill of its very own Avatar.

Essentially, a tiny fly was by some ingenious fashion hooked up to a machine that stimulated its senses and tricked it into thinking what it sees through that tube is its real surroundings-- and then furthermore tracks all of the motions it makes and transmits that to a robot with a little camera on top, which mimics the fly's movement.

Check out the video of the flyborg moving through a little obstacle course, it's pretty mind-boggling:

BrainBank: The Original 3D Edition

Before the gimmicky 3D movies of today, or the gimmicky 3D movies and theme park "rides" I vaguely remember from the 90's, there was the View-Master.

I had one of these when I was a little kid, a Lion King-themed one with a few little circular slide reels full of stills from the movie magically transformed into 3D images to boggle my brain for as long as my attention span allowed.

I never appreciated how long these have been around, though. Gizmodo's having a "Celebration of Invention" week, and one of the articles was a brief history on this children's toy. It was invented by a man named William Gruber in 1939, and the basic technology behind its stereoscopic imaging has not changed to the present day.

Also, you can apparently make your own little reels for these things, which is pretty awesome. I'm tempted to pick up a nice one off of eBay and play around with it.

BrainBank: Stay Puft Edition

Remember the horrifying Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from the Ghostbuster movies? Of course you do. I bet every time you saw him you thought 'man, I'd really like to rip chunks off of him and use them in my S'Mores.' ... no? Just me? Well good news, anyway: now you can!

ThinkGeek, glorious purveyors of nerdy, hilarious, and hilariously nerdy goods have gotten license to ship Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows, "gourmet" marshmallows that, get this, are filled with caffeine for some reason.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go make S'Mores with Stay Puft marshmallows and then spend my all-night caffeine high watching Ghostbusters on repeat.

BrainBank: The Oatmeal Works From Home Edition

The Oatmeal, for those who don't know, is a hilarious webcomic about random things that often takes a PSA-like bent. Recently, The Oatmeal released a comic describing the many wonders and horrors of working from home, which speaks to my heart.

Apparently side effects include the complete degradation of any sort of social skills, but I for one am prepared to make the sacrifice of de-evolution in exchange for the ability to sleep in.

Enjoy: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home

BrainBank: Sockification Edition

Watch that video. If you're not an incredibly mature individual, you're probably sniggering by now. Yes, that was intended to be a completely serious scientific demonstration of a sock-putting-on robot.

Ah, technology.

Pick a Name, Any Name

If I could change my name, I wouldn't. I like my name; well, to be specific, I like my nickname. I've been going by something other than my given name all of my life, technically, and I identify with it.

... yes, I know, boring. Deal widdit.

I Heart My Job

Here are ten things I love about Digital Media, in no particular order of importance:

1. I love showing a finished animation
2. I love having that 'eureka' moment with a difficult piece of code
3. I love just going crazy in Photoshop/Illustrator
4. I love working on a team with people I trust
5. I love making things move
6. I love making stories come to life
7. I love explaining what I do
8. I love sleeping in late every semester
9. I love when a professor cares about my success
10. I love when I start to feel comfortable with some new program

Superman Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Here are ten alternative uses for phone booths:

1. Low-income housing
2. Bathroom
3. Time-traveling device
4. Wardrobes
5. Video-conferencing booth
6. A recording soundbooth
7. A coffee shop
8. Crane game
9. Advertising
10. Sugar receptacle

Taking a Thought Walk

I took a walk to nowhere in particular recently, just wandering on and around Drexel's campus and eventually gravitating over to the greener pastures of the University of Pennsylvania.

As I walked, I thought about random things in my life, occasionally casting my gaze around the landscape. A few items of interest momentarily broke my reverie:

- a hefty gentlemen jogging past
My first thought is always 'well, that is a hefty gentlemen', but then after that I realize 'that is a hefty gentlemen getting far more exercise than I've gotten today', and then I feel bad.

- a discarded, half-full Coca-Cola bottle
Why would someone waste half of a Coca-cola bottle? I mean, I could understand wasting some sort of nasty energy drink or vitamin water, but that's just not cool. Ack, I nearly tripped while looking at the stupid bottle.

- a squirrel
It was just standing there on its hind legs, standing up as straight as humanly possible, staring very intently off into space. Normally squirrels are at least looking at something, like a tree or a blade of grass or what have you, but this one was just smack-daub in the middle of the walkway outside of Nesbitt staring up into space.

- a butterfly
I saw a flutter out of the corner of my eye, and then two elderly ladies walking past commented "Hey, a butterfly." And lo, it was so. I didn't get a very good luck at it before it fluttered away, but there are so few butterflies in Philly, from what I've seen, that it still merits a mention.

- a sports car
It was a really cool car, and I had nothing better to do but stare at cars as I was waiting for the light to turn. The driver was going way too fast.

That's about everything of interest that I noted down. There's something intrinsically beautiful about a butterfly, despite it basically just being a more brightly-colored version of a moth (which gets no love), so I could definitely catch my in-story character's attention with a butterfly.

Which could be a trap! Dun-dun-duuuun.

BrainBank Analysis

Looking back through all of my BrainBank entries, I can discern myriad categories into which the focus of my internet could lay. There are three recurring themes, however, that dog all of my submissions.

Visual Palette

Emotional Tone

Technology as Art

From these three themes, I can further narrow things down to several specific components that pop up repeatedly.

Visual Palette
Cartoonish hues
Neon colors
Minimalism

Emotional Tone
Cute/silly
Disturbing
Epic

Technology as Art
Photographs
Robotics
Re-purposing technologies

As I listed these off, none of them really rang true in regard to my writing project-- until the very last entry. I'm always enamored of the creative uses people find for technologies; even if I'm writing a fantasy story, there are still plenty of instances where this creativity could apply. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," or something such as that-- so I should endeavor to find some creative uses for any magic or technology that has crept into my setting.

Hmm...

Chapter Twelve: Idea Grid (or: Oh Man, We're Thinking Inside The Grid Now)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

An idea grid is a simple table that allows one to very broadly profile where the major players in a certain industry fall in regard to price and the method in which they appeal to consumers.

For my idea grid, I took a look at where the offerings from six major console manufacturers past and present fall. I discovered that their gaming products mostly fall into the category of high-cost devices that appeal to the hardcore gamer; Nintendo has the position of low-cost devices that appeal to casual gamers locked up.

However, the only company that produced a low-cost gaming machine that appealed to the hardcore gamer was Sega-- and that product, the Dreamcast, has long since fallen out of the public eye, after an unsuccessful run that bankrupted Sega's console division.

Based on the current market state, the only product that has a chance of catching any attention is a console that falls into that category. If I were to attempt to break into the console market, I would follow many of the same strategies as Sega used for the Dreamcast, including the use of off-the-shelf components to cut down on costs and increase the ease with which developers could create for the platform.

The major issue with this approach is that a device similar to a personal computer in its architecture would suffer the same piracy rates as the Dreamcast and the modern PC. Thus, my main focus would be to craft a similar level of protection to Sony's current PlayStation 3 without obfuscating the hardware.

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

This is a much more technical exercise than most of the Thinkertoys, but I think it's a pretty well-designed one. It's left open enough to still allow for some level of creativity in interpreting the results, while the use of a grid focuses and streamlines comparisons to existing companies' products.

A short note about my creative environment:

I wrote this in my dorm's common room, sitting in a pretty comfortable chair across from a large television showing SpongeBob. There was some light in the room, but even though the common room has gigantic windows lining one side of it there wasn't much sunlight due to the overcast day. It is the common room, so occasionally people wandered out, but for the most part I was alone.

BrainBank: Alas, Poor Pinball! I Knew Him Edition

An article on Gizmodo just caught my eye. It's not really a commentary on anything in particular; basically, the author just enthuses about his passion for a pinball iPhone app. Well, he does get into the interesting Japanese concept of "michi," which is the belief that everyone should have at least one thing that they're constantly striving at.

It caught my eye just because I love regular old pinball machines, and it makes me sad that they've almost completely disappeared from the American landscape. Granted, we have a pinball machine at my home and I haven't played it in some time; but I do like the concept of an all-mechanical form of entertainment.

Video pinball, really, is as far removed from real pinball as it's possible to be. All-digital, completely portable, and with absolutely no tactile feedback (you can't even control how hard the flippers strike the ball on most digital conversions), I could never really get into videogame pinbal. Still, it was an interesting article, and at least I know that pinball machines and the rest of the arcade genre are still quite alive in Japan.

BrainBank: Alas, Poor Tchaikowsky! I Knew Him Edition

Here's your dose of random trivia for the day. Apparently a pianist named Andre Tchaikosky donated his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company some few decades ago, desiring to appear as skull of Yorick in Hamlet.

The actors actually practiced with Tchaikosky's skull, although the actors were as a whole too uneasy to use it in any actual production.

The actor playing the gravedigger was all for it, though, which was pretty cool.

BrainBank: Lookit Its Widdle Feet Edition

The internet seems determined to heap adorable robots on me this week. This one is actually designed for exactly that purpose, but its done pretty darn cleverly.

You're looking at a projector/video camera unit. One "eye" is the camera lens, and the other is the actual projector; the cheerful little smile is the microphone's sound intake port, and the little stabilizing feet also serve as covers for the external connections.

Like everything else good in the world this is just a concept, but it's on my list of things that need to make it to market. I want these things in my college classrooms, forget the ugly Dell boxes.

BrainBank: This Insectobot Is Actually Kind of Cute Edition

Phasma is a tiny robot built for the express purpose of running around. Specifically, its design allows to run in the same fashion as an insect, always having at least three of its legs on the ground in order to keep stable, and obviously employing an insectoid gait.

While it might walk like a cockroach, though, I think they actually managed to make the little Kinex-looking guy look cute. Certainly a far-cry from his robotic descendants that will burrow into peoples' brains and take them over during the inevitable robot uprising.

BrainBank: Sloooowwwww-Mooooottiiiooon Edition

Slow motion makes everything better, it's official. This is an extremely beautiful video shot with a Photron SA 1.1, featuring a wide range of objects facing destruction, as well as some more innocuous activities like skateboarding, liquid spilling, and in hilarious case a man having paint shot at his face.

The video uses some creative speed tricks; beyond just the simple go slow-mo then go fast-mo trick that most modern action movies seem to be employing. Check it out! It's mesmerizing.