Ray Woodcock’s Current Thoughts

We have mountains of trash. Inside those mountains are all sorts of things that could be better used. Some are recyclable. Some are compostable. Some are still potentially useful. Some are even brand new.

A trashpile-cleaning robot could have a camera and could be connected to the Internet. It could be connected to an electrical outlet, in which case it could work around the clock and could have quite a bit of power to move things.

The robot would look at some trash. As its online database became more refined, it would become better at identifying discrete objects and determining where they belong. Recyclable cans and bottles would be relatively easy; unopened cans of soup might require a combination of a visual inspection, a UPC code scan, and a weighing. Some items (e.g., a sofa) might require a sniff test and human judgment to determine whether it seemed potentially salvageable.

Each of the robot’s judgments would appear on a website. A fully trained robot (i.e., making judgments based upon an online database that seems highly familiar with the local kinds of soda cans and tree branches) might have graduated to automated mode, in which its website would merely record a continuous history of how it has handled each decision. A novice robot might pause at each item, showing on the webpage its determination of what the item is, and awaiting confirmation from one or more supervising humans online.

The robot would not necessarily need to move each identified item very far. It could be accompanied by dumpsters (e.g., one dumpster for aluminum cans) fed by conveyor belts that would turn on and advance just a few inches each time a new item was placed on them. Composting could be done on the spot. The robot could employ a winch to move heavier items out of the way, or could be accompanied by a heavy-duty service robot capable of digging, tugging, etc.

Items preliminarily deemed resellable could be set aside and listed for auction on the website, complete with the robot’s pictures of them and data obtained from the robot’s UPC scanner. Packing and shipping of such items might be partially automated as well.

There should be a wish list webpage. On this page, people would list their wishes in different categories, according to what kind of thing the person wants. Some people want money; some people want prayers or positive thoughts; some want feedback on the websites they have developed or the creative things they have written; and so forth.

You would list your wishes in each category and indicate how reasonable or important you think each one is. For example, you might wish you had $10 to buy a gift for your mother; and you might also wish you had a million dollars to live a comfortable life.  You might recognize that the $10 request is more reasonable.  Other people would also vote on the reasonableness or importance of your wishes. The webpage would rank your wishes by some formula that would take into account your own ranking and the rating that others gave to each of your wishes.

Of all of your wishes, the world would be able to respond to (and perhaps able to rate) only the one that you considered most important or reasonable. Once you were satisfied on that one (e.g., when you had the money you needed, or when your mother’s birthday was past, or when you gave up on the original wish), you could retire it (or, if you specified an expiration date, it would retire automatically), and then visitors to the webpage would be able to consider the next most reasonable or important wish on your list.

The world’s most reasonable or important wishes would appear closest to the top of the list, within each category (money, positive thoughts, etc.). People who wanted to be able to do something good for someone else could review the categories that matched their own abilities. For example, people interested in making a financial gift to someone else could review the list of financial wishes, vote on how important or reasonable they considered those wishes, and respond (by e.g., PayPal) to the ones they wished to satisfy. People interested in devoting their prayers or positive thoughts to someone could see what was being requested and, optionally, could post notes about it (e.g., “We’re praying for you!”). Wishes could be automatically retired when they met other criteria imposed by the system or by the user (e.g., “I need $100”; “I need the positive thoughts of 20 people”). These criteria could also be taken into account when wishes were being rated (e.g., a request for prayers from a million people might seem unreasonable).

Genesis 2:16-17:  “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Genesis 5:5:  “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.”

From the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.

It would be very interesting and informative to have access to a version of Google Earth that would show what the planet would be like with fewer people. This could occur in past and/or future versions. The historical version would show how big Boston was in a certain year, for example, and where its businesses and houses were located. Of course, roads were a very different concept back then. So the future version would show what roads would likely be retained if, say, Boston in 2100 returned to its 1900 population levels.

The future version could also be tweaked to show what happens if people make a mass switch from, say, suburban living to small-town or livable city-center living. Ideally, over time, it would also be tweaked to allow for variables in e.g., water supplies and changes in modes of transportation.

Eventually, botanists might be able to contribute to the future and/or historical versions by indicating what plants would be likely to be found at a given location at a given point in the future. The number of variables would be enormous, and perhaps the project would be capped at a maximum projection date 100 years in the future.  In this sense, the project might best be conceived as a sort of visual wiki.

We have homeless people. We also have lots of people who have apartments or other dwellings that are dirty, dangerous, or otherwise undesirable, or from which those people are prone to be evicted due to upheaval or lack of reliable income.

At the same time, we have clean, solid office buildings and retail and warehouse spaces that are sitting empty part- or full-time.  Of course, those spaces were not designed to be used for anything resembling residential purposes. But that might change.

It would seem that architects, designers, and engineers could design buildings for multiple uses, and that doing so could yield important benefits on both sides.

The typical office building is a heartless place from which people flee at day’s end. It is not a very human space. That is often reflected in the behavior of the people who work there, in numerous unfortunate ways.

Instead, an office building could be considered someone’ s home, for at least some purposes of home. It might offer, for example, a private, locked drawer in which a child could keep things of value to him/her, for years on end, without seeing those things lost in the turmoil that many challenged families endure.  Some office spaces may also be available for general residential use between, say, 6 PM and 8 AM, depending on e.g., optimal janitorial scheduling.  As spaces that needed to accommodate people, some office environments might no longer be located in sterile office parks, but might instead emphasize locations in walkable communities.

Office furniture could be designed for multiple uses as well. A couch, for instance, might feature an easily-cleaned utilitarian surface on one side of its cushions, and a more homey fabric on the other.  A desk might be designed to convert to a table.  Sensitive equipment might be equipped with easily used locking covers, or might slide into locking wall panels.

Multipurpose facilities might be categorized according to their degree of function integration.  As families and businesses demonstrate increasing ability to respect the time, possessions, and needs of one another, they might gradually become qualified to relocate to more desirable spaces, or to have more desirable co-tenants share their space, as people move and as various business come into and go out of existence.

Governmental reimbursement for lodging expenses might be spent, not upon rent paid to slumlords who maintain people in circumstances of disrespectful disrepair, but rather to business owners who have opted into multiuse facilities.  Struggling families might receive residential options, not on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis, but rather for a starting period of five years, or ten years, or until a certain named child has graduated from a local school.  Buildings foreclosed for tax purposes might be especially appropriate starting points for a pilot of test of such a program.

I was wondering why moths fly toward lightbulbs.  I was thinking it might be because they think that light-avoiding nocturnal predators won’t bother them there.  But I got this other answer from HowStuffWorks.com:

Moths use the moon to navigate. The moon doesn’t move out of position if the moth flies in a straight line. But street lamps are confusing. If the moth flies in a straight line, it thinks the lamp’s position has changed. As the moth continues, the lamp “moves” again. The moth flies in circles, moving closer and closer until it is trapped.

Which makes sense.  But now I have another question.  If light bulbs confuse every moth, why aren’t the populated world’s moths wiped out within the first few nights?  Or, by now, having had more than a century of electric light, why haven’t moths evolved to the point where only the smart ones are left, the ones who have figured out the difference between the moon and a lightbulb?

I’m wondering if they can change air so that it becomes brighter.  I guess it would contain some kind of molecule that would hold or reflect light.

One application:  making the atmosphere brighter, so as (perhaps) to reflect sunlight and reduce global warming.  Another application, especially for a biodegradable, light-sensitive, or timed product:  pump it out in the city so as to reduce the need for streetlights.  Especially if you could make it heavy, so that it would tend to settle in the bottom 10-20 feet of the atmosphere, and not outside of people’s high-rise apartment windows.

It could also be handy in the home, at night, in place of energy-consuming nightlights.  Or maybe they could make light-producing streets and highways, such that natural dust or humidity would pick up the light and, again, reduce the need for streetlights and headlights.  Safer for nighttime bicyclists, too.

I just read part of a debate on intelligent design vs. evolution.  People made good points on both sides.  But I still am not sure why there are two genders.

Someone said there are actually three, but they were counting hermaphrodites.  There is not a distinct third gender which is as different from male and female as those two are from each other.

One participant said that two genders gives you genetic diversity, but with more than two you start to run into costs that make it evolutionarily unprofitable.  In other words, nature designs for efficiency, and superfluous genders would be unnecessary and therefore inefficient.  That seems sensible enough.  But wouldn’t we see some species, somewhere, that are (or were) in the process of working through that?  Some kind of bird that has three or four genders, for instance.

It also seems like you could get even more genetic diversity, and could increase the likelihood of survival of the species, if people were able to reproduce regardless of gender.  Like in the situation where the men of a tribe got wiped out by warfare, or where women just get tired of men, or vice versa — why didn’t the ability evolve to reproduce by sharing earwax or otherwise cross-pollinating?  I guess one answer would be that evolution just hasn’t gotten around to that yet.  And that may be.  But I’d think that the force of life, just busting out all over, would have developed that sort of ability quickly, as a top priority.  Am I correct in thinking that cell self-division is the starting point?

Also, if genetic diversity is the goal, why just one mate?  Why not permit or require three- or four-way cross-pollination?

These sorts of question don’t prove anything, which is fine with me.  I’m not trying to prove anything.  I would just like to understand.

Instead of lotteries that award pure cash to winners (who sometimes blow the money and wind up back where they were), there should be at least the option for a kind of lottery that would put the winner into a certain lifetsyle, guaranteed, for the rest of his/her life.  Or, in case that lifestyle proved tiring, perhaps s/he could have a few options to switch into something else.

So, for example, a winner in the Celebrity Lifestyle Lottery would be given a lovely place to live in a celebrity location (e.g., Malibu, Central Park West, Maui), a celebrity-style chauffeur, annual admission to the Academy Awards, etc., along with a nice weekly allowance.  A winner in the Political Lifestyle Lottery would be introduced to the President and the First Lady, among others, and would be admitted to legislative and judicial hearings and conferences, political TV shows, and so forth.

This sort of thing could probably be provided for relatively low cost.  It would probably be more glamorous, and might also be more humane, in at least some cases, than the present form of lottery.

I have a copy of a book.  I would rather have it in PDF format so I can search it for specific terms and store it electronically.  So I rip it apart and I scan it.  Later, I’m done with it.  I sell or donate it to the Internet Library Circulation Department (ILCD) by sending it by e-mail or on CD.

At this point, my rights in the book cease, just as if I had sold or donated a physical book.  The ILCD could be set up to verify that my copy of the PDF had indeed been equipped with a neutering tag, rendering it unopenable.

The copy at the ILCD would be available to other borrowers, just like a real book.  While it was in use by one borrower, it would not be available to others.  The electronic versino becomes the complete replacement for the physical version.