the lunch bunch save christmas

i have the best idea for a Christmas movie. it will involve Santa clause being kidnapped by his ancient Nemesis, the Krampus, who i intend to bring back into mainstream Christmas continuity.

In this movie, Santa and krampus were a dualistic deity, and thus their power is tied. As mythical beings, like all gods and creatures, their power is derived from people's belief in them. I am somewhat borrowing this idea from Neil Gaiman's "American Gods." many years ago, Santa found a way to separate himself from krampus and imprison him in hell. while Santa has grown exponentially more powerful in recent times, so has krampus, who is now strong enough to escape hell and kidnapp Santa. his intention is to make Santa miss Christmas. when this happens Santa's power will wain, but the krampus will remain unaffected thanks to his new magic (courtesy of an unseen villain I'll leave for the sequel.)

I'll need to think up a group of human protagonists to follow as they figure this out and attempt to save Christmas.

this may be able to link to a related idea of many restaurant and food mascots living in a shared continuity universe.

that idea sprung from some friends and i trying to figure out what the hell "the grimace" was. we determined that he was a ally and friend of Ronald McDonald, who was sent to spy on the burger king and report his evil plans. he was captured and injected with a huge dosage of the kings "secret sauce" which mutated him into a big dumb purple monster. Ronald rescued him and made it his mission to one day cure his old friend.

The character rights will be hell to get but maybe i can produce it as an indipendent or internet comic.

invisibility suit

a lot of the proposed designs for invisibility have involved capturing images or light from one side of the target object and projecting it onto some kind of screen on the other side. I'm wondering if the system needs to be that complex. would it be possible to line an object with a specialized grid of fibre optic wires that completely redirect the light that comes into contact with them along their special path onto the desired side of an object?
I have an basic understanding of how fiber optic technology works but by no means have the technical ability to pull this off. I'll have to consult the Internet or perhaps a physics professor as to how efficiently fiber optics and absorb and channel ambient light as opposed to the focused and specialized light used in most applications.

Stand up

Hey ryan or matt, since you're the only ones who are ever going to read this, can you mention in class to go onto the rooftop comedy site and vote for psu standup as being funnier that all those other colleges? we're trying to get a trip to aspen here!

also im having a thought about heads up display technology. why isn't it being utilized more and in more fields? i can think of nearly a dozen practical applications that the current tech level would be ready for but so far nothing. maybe i'll just have to take it up as a side project of my future company.

Flight suit

I still cant stop thinking about this video. we saw it as inspiration in class and i have ben obsessed with the idea since. how could i make this more awesome? i know. don't make them glider suits, make them flight suits.
All one would need is to add some source of thrust. maybe a tiny booter or turbine one could wear on their back in flight? that and increase the wingspan some. depending on the sustainability of this flight the uses for this could be far more than recreational. My first thought goes to army para-troopers, but the possibilities are limitless.

Planetary ionosphere relay idea

I was watching something about the HAARP station in alaska. I remembered that Nikola Tesla once proposed similar ideas that are currently being researched at this station. The one idea that particularly stuck out was the idea of polarizing sections of the planetary ionosphere for use in relaying EM signals, in effect turning the planet's atmosphere into a giant satellite dish. I had heard that this might be more efficient, since a lot of satellite signals are lost going through the atmosphere.

here's my new twist on the idea. how about turning it outward instead of inward? earth isn't the only planet with an ionosphere. how useful would it be to be able to relay signals off of the ionosphere of mars, Venus, Jupiter, etc. into deep space probes? what would need to be done to do this? would each planet need a similar HAARP type station to properly effect the atmosphere? could an orbiting version be built and sent to each planet?

organic computers

new thought:
the human brain is simply an organic computer. That's been said before but I've been exploring the possibilities of that idea. Like a computer or micro controller the mind has input/output sensors, graphics processing, etc.
Does that mean that DNA is the binary code on which the mind runs? or is there another code? are there nuroscientists researching the signals that out brain sends and receives and trying to form it into a programmable language?

moreover, has anyone begun experimenting with actual organic computers? growing a simple multicelled system to respond to electrical stimuli in much the same way a ic circuit or switch does? seems like a field worth pursuing

on bitterness and selling out

soijust got anew keyboard for mylaptop via ebay. i think it works fineother than one glaring problem. i'lllet you figure out for yourselves whatthatis. looks like its back to buyingmore techfrom hongkong forme.

i also just sold out and got a twitter account. not because i wanted to, but because i had to read some for another project and the only way to do that for alot of them is to get yourself an account.
what should i tweet about?

here and there

first things first, since a friend of mine helped me out by signing up for my mailing list, I'm helping him out by posting a link to his site to help his Google rank.

http://www.cmu.edu/summit/zeliveau

hope that helps.

I've been pondering the pros and cons of the all nighter. i was gone all day in new york for my internship and once i got back at around 8 i had to begin studying for a midterm tomorrow. naturally i stayed up all night, as i do when most deadlines approach. i've watched the sun fall and rise quite a few times this semester,and while i always get my work don't and it is of excellent quality, i find myself wondering if maybe it wouldn't be better if i was doing it during normal human hours, or if i had planned ahed.

Perhaps the fact that im rushing it is the secret to my success and i work better under pressure and lack of sleep. this is something that will require more research throughout the rest of my college career.

Las Vegas

Things learned from Vegas:

1) when gambling, don't just feed in money in small amounts. it will instantly be lost, especially when working with long term gambling systems. instead, decide on the full amount you intend to spend on that night and start with that. it's better to have a larger buffer of chips to work with as your winnings wax and wane rather than using small amounts and getting cleaned out every time you get a bad hand.

2) The city is expensive. even if you leave the casino with net gains, that money will soon be spent on cabs, food, and entertainment. its hard to truly gain money in Vegas.

3) The "station" casinos and other local and downtown casinos pay out more and have lower minimum bets than the ones on the strip. They also give more comps.

4) If roulette is your game, go to MGM grand, Bellagio, or one of only a few other casinos and ask for the European roulette table. It only has one zero instead of two. this lowers the odds substantially, however there are higher minimum bets on these tables.

So my week goes something like this:
Sunday night - work on a lab for 4 hours.
Monday morning - hard drive dies, work lost
Wednesday - finally get hard drive replacement, spend the day looking for and trying to use various downloaded versions of windows, with little help. finally get one working and spend the entire night reformatting my computer.

Also, an interesting note. if your hard drive dies of mechanical failure, there is one possible way to reclaim data. By putting it in the freezer, it is possibly that the contractions resultant in the metal parts will cause some broken joints to be reconnected, small parts to be moved back in place, ect. But you only have a good 10 minutes before it warms up and dies again, so make it count.
I liken it to reviving a dead person long enough to ask them one question.

Planning for Vegas

You'd think planning for a sweet spring break vacation would be easier. Months ago I call up friends, classmates, and acquaintances seeing who'd be down for going on a sweet trip for spring break. Most if not all seemed interested, even after the idea started swinging from driving to some beach to flying to Vegas cheep.
We found really cheep prices online, but still the idea seemed to grand for some and they began to drop. One by one my friends who were "totally in" on any trip and "so pumped" for Vegas, like with all events and trips you plan, will slowly realize you were serious.
Shit will start to pop up for them. "no dude I have a dentists appointment/jury duty/ lots of homework to do that week." Eventually from what was 7 or 8 solid friends becomes about two or three adventurers who actually do follow through on things.

I guess when you plan things like this, the ideas seem grand and cool when they're far away and unreal. but when they approach and you begin to plan to make them real, that's when most people flake. oh well, they'll regret it when I come back with the pictures.

So I'm preparing for the career fair for the next two days. Spicing up the resume, getting the suit cleaned, ect. So I start to wonder ways to stand out from the crowd. Maybe I'll hand out my resume on colored paper, or not wear a tie, or wear a tie but not a suit? Yeah.
I also thought I could just show up in street clothes, no resume, and just tell people how cool I am. With that kind of moxie people will be fighting to hire me, right? ....Right?

phoning it in

This is the first blog entry for engr 407. From this page you can watch as i slip slowly into madness.