What A Great Idea #15

Okay, so I know there are some tech-y types who read this blog, so please don't rip into me too hard when I lay this one out. I'm relatively certain it won't work based solely on the amount of knowledge I'm missing regarding it, but here goes.

So I use this software associated with Adobe Acrobat to recognize text in .pdf's and convert it to something I can manipulate. For those of you not familiar with .pdf's, they are essentially images of documents that can be sent around without a fear of them being altered too much or messed with. (if I got that wrong feel free to correct me)

So this OCR software is nice and all, but there are a bunch of situations where it doesn't work. If there's a picture in the pdf, or if there is renderable text, etc etc. But when I look at the screen, it's very obviously an "a" right there looking at me. At some point in the pdf-monitor process something in there recognized that certain pixels needed to be lit up so that my eye would recognize the shape of an "a".

So my great idea is more of a question. Would it be possible to access whatever part of the OS is determining what I see on the monitor and scan that data for certain arrangements of pixels? If they are sending out these couple hundred pixels, laid out just so, couldn't there be program that saw that as a letter and processed it as such for me?

I understand that there may need to be some kind of filtering system, or a determination of font color, or there's the high likelihood of getting every single letter of text on the entire screen, but is it possible? If so it would make my and a lot of other people's jobs a lot easier. I can't tell you the number of times I've had type page after page of stuff into a new word doc just because the OCR couldn't recognize it and when I tried to convert it it went all wonky (that's a technical term) and was essentially gibberish.

What A Great Idea #14

Alright, so I don't really have all the technology worked out on this one. It's more like I have a problem that I have a vague solution to. The problem is cold drinks. I'm a fan of cold drinks, specifically Gatorade. I like one of those big 32 oz bottles of Gatorade after a hard day out in the sun. The problem is they take up a lot of floor space in the refrigerator, so I don't like putting more than one or two in there at a time. This means if I forget to put a drink in there to get cold, then I have to stick it in the freezer and keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burst.

So my solution is kind of the anti-microwave. I think I'll call it the Coolwave. Of course that's kind of like cool whip, so it might not work. Anywho, the idea is to have a small chamber with a door, much like a microwave, but instead of a microwave emitter heating up your food I want to have a bottle of liquid nitrogen or something. Once the vessel was sealed, the valve on the liquid nitrogen would be opened minutely, just enough to rapidly lower the temperature in the vessel to whatever you wanted. Then once the temperature was low enough, a fan would start at the other end to suck all the nitrogen out and a pump of some kind could be employed to re-pressurize and perhaps condense the nitrogen back into liquid form.

Of course there would be some loss, combined with the fact that it would be contaminated with whatever air was already in the chamber. Maybe another exhaust system could be used prior to the cooling process to draw a vacuum on the chamber. The power consumption on something like this would probably be pretty high too.

But the uses are pretty far reaching. Not enough ice for the party? Coolwave a few trays. Want to make popsicles for all the kids in the neighborhood who showed up in your back yard? It will only take a moment. Jellos set in record time, mixes and baking recipes that call for something to cool overnight will now only have to cool for a few seconds. You could chill glasses for that frosty mug of root beer, or bowls so your ice cream will stay colder longer (Brandon). The possibilities go on and on.

Like I said, the technology is a bit beyond me. Storing liquid nitrogen is a probably dangerous, and ensuring it was all out of the chamber before you opened it would be important. But the same could be said for a microwave emitter, a very dangerous tool if used improperly. The real problem is the feasibility of returning the nitrogen to a liquid state. I don't know how that is done normally, but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a pretty hefty cooling tower or something. But hey, they used to say a computer would never fit inside a home, and now one fits in my pocket, so who knows.

Coming Up On Level 3

Does anybody else get the feeling that raising a child is like playing an MMORPG? Not exactly like it, but you gotta admit there are some striking similarities. It seems like to level up at one of these role-playing games, first you have to get the gem from this place, but to get the gem first you have to get the map from this other place, but to get the map you have to go defeat the ogre in this other place. And on and on and on.

I feel like I'm just trying to level up my children until I reach the ultimate goal of producing a functioning member of society. But to get there I have to go through grueling hours of all the little details that have to be accomplished to get to a particular goal, like learning to walk, or speak, or use the bathroom. Of course to walk they first have to roll over. Then they have to start crawling. Then pulling up on furniture. And on and on and on.

I find that in the games I've played, I didn't necessarily want to beat the game, or be the best, or have the highest rating. I would set myself a slightly lower goal and try really hard to accomplish that, like getting in the top 10,000 on the leaderboard or something. The same is true of raising a child. Don't get me wrong, if I can manage to produce the first female president then woohoo, but at the moment I'm just interested in having a conversation with my toddler that actually makes sense.

Misty Water-Colored Memories

I wouldn't classify this as a Great Idea, but it is a bit of a quandary that's been bouncing around my skull for a while now. We make assumptions about how everyone in the world perceives the world. Specifically we assume that everyone views color the same way we do. In other words the way I see the color we call red is the same way you see the color we call red.

There really is no basis for that belief. We already know that there are people in this world that have different interpretations of light waves than the norm. We label these people "colorblind". What if there was another subsection of people who could perceive all the colors, but for some reason their brain didn't process them the same?

They could potentially see the color red, but their brain perceives it as what I would call the color blue, were I to look through their eyes. They of course would be raised from infancy to identify that color by the title "red", thereby integrating them into society and no one being the wiser to the difference in their brain.

Now what if there was some truth to the belief that colors play an unconscious role in our moods, like red causing anger, yellow happiness, blue depression, etc. So if this person who is being shown red is actually seeing what the rest of us would call blue, would they get depressed by the color "red"? Would they get angry when shown yellow?

The point is if it's possible for the brain to be wired in such a way as to misinterpret colors, then isn't also possible that those misinterpretations can lead to unnatural aggression, if every time the sky is clear they are angry? Or perhaps someone could be depressed by sunshine. They may be imperceptible and only play a minor role in our overall makeup.

Technologeeeeee!!!!

So after 3 years of being tied to my desk, my company is finally getting me a laptop. Can you say working from home? I knew you could.

The argument has been made among friends that by having this available at my home I'll be expected to work in my free time, but what they don't realize is I barely do any work in my work time, so the odds of that are slim.

It will be nice to have a second laptop when I go back to school. It happened a couple of times that I needed the computer and my wife was editing or doing something equally time consuming and there was a small scuffle over it. Hopefully such confrontations will be eliminated. Of course I could have just shelled out the $200 for a notebook, but I'm nothing if not stingy. that's not really true, I think it's just that I rarely find justification for spending money on myself.

Of course it will probably have the same if not more restrictions on it, so I still won't have Angry Birds available while I work.

What a Great Idea #13

I had an idea for how to get to other heavenly bodies (moon, Mars) faster. The biggest problem we have is getting all the stuff necessary to sustain life to the place we want to sustain life, along with the life we want to sustain. So why not send the stuff first? Just get a big block of ice (like a couple of tons worth) and put a big honkin' rocket under it, and hit launch?

I mean, you don't really even have to put retro rockets or stabilizers on it. So what if it crashes? as long as you send it somewhere that the sun won't hit, it will stay ice. Same with the frozen TV dinners the astronauts eat. Although you would probably want them to land nicely. I don't know about you, but I would hate for the peas to get mixed in with the cherry crumble.

I'm definitely one of those people who prefers that the different types of food on my plate don't touch each other. I mean, the point of having mashed potatoes with gravy is to taste mashed potatoes and gravy. But that doesn't mean I want to see what gravy and fruit salad tastes like. You gotta keep 'em separated.

Back on point, once you got the food and water on planet, start sending buildings. Modules of pre-fab housing and what not. As it is everything is automated now a days, so they could probably come up with something that assembled itself. By the time humans got back to the moon there would already be a little city waiting for them.

Heck, for that matter why don't we send a robot to the moon that can build a runway? Then we could take the shuttle to the moon, land it, and take off again. It can't be that hard to build a robot that can level dirt. All you really need is a flat stretch of ground to land a plane. Obviously the shuttle would need to be modified since it was only built for Earth-orbit, but all I'm saying is it can't be that hard.

Only Fools Rush In

So some dear friends of ours invited us to their super awesome community swimming pool (which is much nicer than ours) for the fourth and we happily accepted. I was excited to take my oldest daughter because it had been quite a while since she had been in a swimming pool. She had enjoyed the ocean after a little convincing, but wasn't a fan of the lake we visited. Essentially I was still on the fence as to whether or not she is afraid of the water. I am no longer on the fence.

She was terrified. It was ridiculous. Their pool complex has a great kiddie pool with turtles and frogs and whatnot, and the entrance to the pool is a sloping tile path made up to look like the beach, so you don't even have to go down steps to get into the water. No sooner did the water start to lap at my daughter's feet did she let out an ear-piercing scream. I was a little surprised by that, since she had been in deeper water in the bathtub and seemed to enjoy bath time immensely.

And she couldn't have been safer. I got her the water wings for her arms and the little pink inner tube to go around her. Now you may say that's a bit of overkill, but it turned out to be just right, since I found out through experimentation that she couldn't use the wings properly to support her weight and keep her face out of the water, and taking off the wings and just using the ring would have resulted in her slipping right through it. I didn't test that particular theory, but I felt confident in it.

As a result of her overwhelming trepidation she spent the entire time clinging desperately to me, all the while loudly proclaiming that she wanted her mommy and she needed to get out. Now you may think I'm a bad dad for forcing my 2 1/2 yr old to face her fears, but you don't know about the times she was distracted from that fact that she was surrounded by tens of thousands of gallons of water.

For instance when the pool operators came around with free little rubber duckies (cuz that pool is awesome) that you could fill with water and they would shoot it out their mouths. She took great delight in spraying me with water or getting sprayed herself, all while perched on my knee. And when I would move quickly through the water, or spin around while holding her, her face would light up and she would even occasionally smile.

Some of my fondest memories are of playing in the swimming pool as a child, and I want nothing more than for her to have that same joy at swimming, but I know if I push her too much she'll just end up hating it. Does anybody know how to convince you child that swimming is fun without scarring them for life? Any help would be appreciated.

What A Great Idea #12

So I was thinking to myself, people like to tan, but one of the many drawbacks is it takes a while. Another is that it's hard to maintain the privacy necessary to get a good, all-over tan (if you know what I mean). Well here's the solution. It's called Sun-Up.

Sun-up is a panel or group of panels measuring 6 feet by 3 feet that you place around the area you want to do your tanning. The biggest benefit is that they catch the rays that you miss, and redirect them back to you, which cuts your tan time in half. They come on legs that can be adjusted to perfectly catch the sun and direct it back to you. They are tall enough to block out nosy neighbors or, if you're in a hotel, can be set up on the balcony to provide a privacy screen that really cooks.

Now you may be asking yourself, why would I want to lug around 6ftx3ft panels on my vacation? The answer is you don't have to, because Sun-Up is completely collapsible. The 6ft tubes that make up the sides of each panel can be separated from the top and bottom and folded in half, and the top and bottom are used to roll up the reflective Mylar sheet in the center to prevent creases or crumpling. All in all each panel ends up being only 3ft long and only a few inches wide.

By using hollow tubing and Mylar, the overall weight of each panel is kept relatively low, while the feet have a variety of hooks, pegs, and holes that can be used to strap or pin them down to prevent them from falling over or blowing away. Of course with such a thin material the Mylar will be reinforced at the ends where it connects to the frame, and elastic will be used to allow for movement and prevent tearing.

Random

I wish I knew how to beat-box.

If I'm going to start talking about my kids on here, I'm going to have to come up with an alliterative male equivalent of a Mormon Mommy Blogger. Divine Daddy Blogger seems too pretentious.

I have no idea how to raise girls. I think I'm just going to teach them football, fishing, and shooting guns and see how they do in the world.

I need to get a bigger car. I currently have a Saturn that my family fits in, but just barely. When we go to visit people, anything we take with us has to go on my wife's lap. I think I want something with a third row, but beyond that I'm open to anything. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I think I want to start a garden. I used to help my grandmother with her flower garden and giggle when she would talk about planting pansies. That was always fun. I'll have grow something more manly of course. And not tell any more stories about me giggling.

Should I get an iPhone? I enjoy playing games on my wife's, and always having the internet available is convenient, but it seems like wherever I go there's internet available (work, home, school, etc.). Is it really that much more convenient?

Telephonic Invasion

So I was working late yesterday when I got a phone call. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was my wife, so I answered it. After getting no response, I gave a more forceful "Hello?", to which I heard my daughter's voice pipe up with a cheerful "Hi Daddy!" Now this is not an uncommon occurrence. On a regular basis my daughter will want to talk to daddy and asks my wife to contact me for her. The missus dials me up and then puts the baby on, listening to what I say and prompting the appropriate responses.

So I played along, as I usually do. There were 2 things odd about it this time, however. First, her answers were coming much more rapidly than normal. The pause of listening to her mother's prodding was all but eliminated. Second, the conversation was lasting a lot longer than it usually does. We talked about her day, how the new baby was doing, and the general well being of the household.

Finally I asked her to put her mommy on the phone. After an extended pause I heard my wife's surprised exclamation asking why my little girl had mommy's phone. It turns out my 2 year old had unlocked the iPhone, called my number, and had a rather lengthy conversation all on her own. Apparently she had made her usual request to call daddy, but my wife had been busy right then and told her to wait. Which she didn't.

I'm not sure if I should be proud of her mastery of technology or terrified of the implications this has for her future telephone usage.

Something Something Airplane Food

I'm a dad again! Another beautiful little girl. Everyone says she's beautiful (and I agree), but in the same breath they say she looks just like me. So which is it? Cuz you can't have both. I've told that joke so many times it's lost all its funny. It had some, honest.

I've agreed to go for child number 3, but if that one is a girl too then I'm done. I'm not willing to risk having 4 daughters. I don't think I could handle it. I'm fairly certain I'll struggle with 2. The fact of the matter is if they turn out looking at all like their mother, I won't have adequate ammunition to fend off the suitors of 4 young women.

What's funny about all this is that I was told that having daughters was God's way of punishing you for any inappropriate things you did during your dating years. I used to believe it too because I knew some real scoundrels in the military who fully deserved the gaggle of girls they were blessed with. The only problem is how it applies to my situation. I barely dated. I didn't even have the opportunity for inappropriateness. So I'm no longer sure how accurate that is.

We are lucky in one regard. We went to the doctor on Valentine's day to find out the missus was at a 2-3, and his offer to induce was quickly accepted. Fortunately he couldn't do it until the next day, when my daughter was ultimately born. This is lucky because in 25 years when she does have a boyfriend, he won't be able to give her one gift and claim it for both Valentine's day and her birthday.

This is the stand-up routine my sleep deprived mind came up with over the last week. Beside all that, I'm back in school. I finished up the ol' Associate's Degree (is there an apostrophe there? Associates Degree doesn't seem right.) and have moved on to the big time university. I decided to go with the night classes because ultimately I want a Master MBA and every MBA program in the area said they didn't care where I got my undergrad stuff done as long as I had the GPA. So I took the easy way.

And now the bad news: The diet got away from me. I blame meals brought to my house. Thanks to the kindness of ward members, I have almost gained as much as my wife lost giving birth. Not quite the accomplishment I was going for. Well, I guess I will have to get back on it. Just as soon as we finish all the leftovers.