Dan "Not" Nice

See Saw that can power a classroom for hour with 10 min of play

2008-04-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

Daniel Sheridan, a student in consumer product design, won three separate awards amounting to GBP 5,500 earlier this year for his see-saw design, which can create enough electricity to power a classroom by capturing the energy generated when children play on it. It would take just five to 10 minutes of play on the see-saw to light a classroom for a few hours, BBC News reported, though the energy gets transferred to an electrical storage unit via underground cable, so it would be up to the school to decide how the power is used. Sheridan was inspired by a volunteer project he worked on in Kenya last summer that included building a school. "The current need for electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa is staggering," he explains. "Without power, development is extremely difficult. The potential market for this product is huge and the design could be of benefit to numerous communities in Africa and beyond."

Sheridan's plan includes recruiting the local community to build part of the device and also install it, thereby creating involvement and reducing logistical costs. Late last month he reportedly left for a village near Jinja, Uganda, to test and finalize the prototype using locally derived parts. Alternative energy entrepreneurs: what are you waiting for? This one's for you! ;-) (Related: Playing for water and Hippo water roller.)

Website: www.coventry.ac.uk/cu/d/199/a/6110
Contact: danielsheridan@yahoo.co.uk

http://www.springwise.com/nonprofit_social_cause/seesaw_power_for_schools/

Mennonite Meet-up

2008-04-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

So my family is mennonite, a conservative sect of Christianity. We came to the states around the beginning of the 1700's. There are only a few areas in the country where you see them in their traditional form - Pensylvania, Indiana, New York, and Missouri. My family is not "traditional" but they are all very conservative by today's standards.

Last night at a work dinner, I met another mennonite. Very rare and odd. We were talking and somehow it was brought up that I come from a conservative christian background. The guy was said he knew how that was because his family was mennonite, which sparked an hour and half conversation. It was a cool event and reminded me why I like meeting random people - you never know what you will learn.

The Power of a Name

2008-03-31T18:21:00.000-07:00

A few months ago we were having a minor problem at work. The janitor responsible for our office would regularly forget to clean, or when he did come, he would do a poor job. Our office manager would continually talk to his superior who would reprimand him. He would come in and begrudgingly clean; however, he would make sure to speak his mind in the process.

Now I don't condone poor work quality. I think you need to take pride in what you do no matter what position. However, you could tell that our janitor was the kind of person that had been walked over countless times in his life. I decided to get to know him because I felt bad for how he was being treated - despite the fact that it was partly his fault.

One day I went up to him, introduced myself and learned his name. Everyday after, I made sure to say hello to him and say his name at least once in the conversation. I would also make sure to say his name in front of his peers.

Needless to say, in less than a week all the problems of office cleanliness were solved. We never had to talk to his superior again.

This taught me the power of a name. Now I always work hard to learn someones name and use it frequently. This is very difficult for me since I generally have the memory of a 1988 computer. However, with a little work I've gotten much better. Not only do I feel better because of it (I'm making a genuine effort to know people better), but I also have noticed many positive results. People respond and are much more open and friendly, which facilitates closer friendships.

Goldmine

2008-03-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

This is why I love Craigslist. For $50 I got...

Beatles - Let it Be
Doors - LA Woman
The Who - Who's Next
Cat Stevens - Teaser and the Firecat
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road + 3 other albums
4 Yes Albums
4 Floyd Albums
Probably every Chicago Album
Some Paul Simon
Some Chick Corea
Some Joe Cocker

All in all well over a 100 albums.

I can now make the earth tremor

2008-03-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

I just got my new sub today. It is an Athena AS-P4100. 400 watts and 10 inches of pure bass power. Combined with my Athena ASB2 bookshelf speakers, it makes for a pretty rocking sound system. It sounds like heaven. The neighbors downstairs are very pleased.

Economic Bailout Moral Dilema

2008-03-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

So we are in the midst of the whole subprime mortgage mess, and recently the major politic candidates have been making several speeches on economics and the possibility of a mass government bailout. Bear Sterns will live on thanks to JP Morgan and uncle Sam. Both Obama and Clinton are in favor of a mass government bailout of both the banking industry and personal foclosures, while McCain pretty much has said they should have known better.

This is a tough situation. On one hand, I think McCain is correct. People made poor risky decisions and they got burned. It is not the responsibility of the rest of the country (and the world) to correct their mistakes. However, I have seen some estimates that as many of a 1/3 of new homeowners are at risk for losing their home. I find it hard to believe that 1/3 of new homeowners would have knowingly made such a poor decision. It is more likely that the banking industry made things so convoluted that most people didn't know what they were buying. Although that doesn't excuse their decisions, it definitely muddies the water.

I don't know the solution - maybe some hybrid between a complete bailout and nothing at all? There's not a question that it's a tough moral issue.

The Devaluation of the American Dollar

2008-03-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

The advantage of being poor is that you have nothing of value to steal. The other day someone broke into my car. If they would have thought for a second, they would have seen that I am driving a 10 year P.O.S., I reside in an apartment that is falling apart, and I live on a street where most cars are so old and worthless that the owners do not even bother to shut their windows or lock the vehicles. Although, a man desperate enough to break into a car of no value probably has little to no common sense.

First he tried to steal my CD player (which is broken anyway), but as he was taking it out, it fell to pieces. He then proceeded to take the unit and throw it on the ground outside in an act of frustration. At this point, I think he realized that he was not going to find anything of value. The perpetrator then scoured my car for anything of value. Of course, there was nothing. They looked in every crevice of the car, and the only thing they stole was my registration and insurance card. After talking to the police I found out that there was absolutely nothing they could do with this information, and I had a good laugh at the situation. At least he saved me trouble of uninstalling my broken cd player and throwing it away.

However, the most humorous part of this whole ordeal was my realization of the diminutive value of the American dollar. Like most people, I keep spare change in my car. Unlike most people, my spare change is little more than a bunch of pennies, a couple nickels, a few dimes, and one or two quarters. The homeless man took the time to dig out all of the change in the container, place it on my drivers seat, and sort through the pile. He proceeded to take out all of the quarters (3 at most), all of my dimes (a total of 2 at last count) and leave the rest. Apparently, nickels and pennies have become so worthless that it is worth the time of a homeless man, who is so desperate that he is willing to break into a decrepit automobile, to sort out the change and only take the "high value" coins. Ironically enough, I counted the change I had left, and there was actually more money in the pennies and nickels than he ended up taking in the quarters and dimes. What has the economy come to?

(Originally posted on 8/16/07 on my other now non-existent blog)
*Note - since this posting the dollar has dropped dramatically. I wonder if they would even bothered to grab the dimes now?

The Essence of Intelligence

2008-03-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

I believe that one major problem of the neuroscience community is the lack of an overlying theory that is capable of making sense of the brain. It's obvious that our brain in incredibly complicated, and it is the basis for intelligence. I think that understanding intelligence is essential to understanding the complexities of the brain, what its function in, and why it operates in the manor it does.

I've talked to a lot of people who believe that intelligence is relative, and that depending on the way you measure it, people are more or less intelligent. This does not make any sense and it stems from the fact that I do not think that we have clearly defined what intelligence is and how to measure it. This is illustrated in the study of artificial intelligence, where researchers essentially try to make computers "smart." They have succeeded at making their machine better at the assigned task, but we have yet to see a machine that would be classified as intelligent. A uniting theory is essential to advancing technology and our current understanding of the brain.

I have been thinking about this problem, and I believe that there are four requirements to intelligent beings - whether living or non-living.

Necessity to survive, driven by a need to reproduce (I could foresee non biological intelligent beings not having a need to reproduce).
Ability to receive consistent inputs from the environment automatically (ie - have sensory systems)
Ability to store information
Ability to use stored information to predict future outcomes. In other words, the ability to recognize patterns in the past knowledge and be able to analyze current input information for these similar patterns.

Pattern recognition is really the basis for all intelligence. The better someone is at recognizing patterns from all of their sensory inputs, the better they will be at predicting future outcomes when they recognize similar patterns in their current environment. The need for survival is creates a drive to interact in the world and a drive to become the most adapted to your environment. This can only happen by getting "smarter." The necessity for sensory input arises because knowledge of ones environment is essential to being otherwise the being will have no basis of information for which they can detect patterns and no way applying these patterns to the current environmental situation (because they can't tell what the current environment really is).

Essentially intelligence stems from your interaction with the environment, and beings that have no way to receive sensory input - whether tactile or sensory - cannot be intelligent. You can clearly trace the rise of intelligence through the phyla as organisms gain better sensory systems and adaptation techniques.

(Originally Posted on 9/2/07 on my other now non-existent blog)

Creamy Vegetable Soup

2008-03-27T06:01:00.001-07:00

It's winter in Rochester, NY. That means extreme cold, incredible wind chills, and too much snow. So I decided to make a soup. It's a medium thick vegetable "chowder." I use chowder in quotes because its not the usual cream based chowder, but still has the creamy taste and is thicker than a stock based soup. Here's the deal:

2 medium potatoes diced
4 stalks celery diced
2 medium carrots diced
1-2 crowns of broccoli diced
1-2 onions diced
4-5 cloves of garlic diced
1 bag frozen corn
1 can chick peas drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup (+ 2 cans of water)
1 can of coconut milk
1/2 cup of uncooked rice
3 tablespoons of black pepper
3 tablespoons of "italian seasoning"
2 tablespoons of coriander
5 bay leaves

Throw the potatoes, carrots, broccoli, garlic, onions, celery into a pot on medium heat for about 5 minutes. Shake it up occasionally to mix up the veggies. Put the rice, spices/bay leaves, cream of mushroom, coconut milk, and 2 cans of water in the pot and bring to a boil. Take it down to a simmer, cover, and let it go for about 15-20 minutes. Put the corn and chick peas in the pot and let it go for about 5 more minutes. Fin.

(Originally Posted 12/18/07 on my other blog that no longer exists)