While it would not be as useful as on the TV, the ability to pause and rewind live radio would be a nifty feature for a radio. It also wouldn't take much hardware to do. The amount of space audio recordings take is far less than for video recordings.
You could also have scheduled recordings. Once again, while not as useful there have been times where this feature would be great. For example a station I like has an hour long period of commercial free songs (as many do). However, it always plays the hour before I get out of work. When I drive home I get to listen to commercial after commercial on that station. But if my radio could be set to record and save for later that music, well that would just be great.
Of course we are getting into the realm where you would likely want to redesign the radio interface. After all if it is recording things you need a good method of selecting / playing /deleting recordings. Well this sounds like a 'luxury' item anyway so why not just give it a touch screen interface. While you are at it you might as well give it the ability to have the user load mp3s on it and listen to them.
Another feature that it could easily have involves some more recent advances in radio. Most radio stations now transmit digital data that identifies the station, the name of the song they are playing, and the artist. Well the Radio Tivo could segment recordings based on this data. It could even split them up into mp3s and automatically tag them. This information would also allow it to easily skip over commercials.
Now there might be some weird laws or regulations that this would violate. If that is the case though I need to ask "why is it OK on TV and not on the radio." If such a device is legal though I have to wonder why everyone isn't using one already.
There is one 'unintended' consequence. If these became popular, music radio stations would half to reconsider their commercial layout. If people were recording, but then skipping over, commercials I imagine that it would hurt their bottom line. However, I imagine that with the advent of cable DVR boxes there is similar data for how frequently commercials end up skipped over now.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Finer Temperature Control
It seems like whenever I am driving I need to play a ridiculous game of balancing the AC blower strength and the AC temperature control in order to get the climate in the car just the way I like. If I don''t fiddle with the knobs I either get too stuffy or too cold. The problem is that there are such large differences between each setting on the AC.
Now I will admit that it may be possible that some luxury cars implement the suggestion that I am about to make. I would not know. I do not drive those types of cars.
The thing is, thermistors (electronics that are sensitive to temperature) are not that expensive. It wouldn't be pricey to allow the driver to punch (or dial) in a specific temperature. If the ambient temperature is colder, the car turns off the AC (and possibly turns on the heat). If the temperature is warmer however the car kicks up the AC to optimal level to hit the target.
"But Richard," you might say, "What if the blower is a step motor that can only operate at specific levels." To that I reply there is an easy solution that is still cheap. A bypass vent connected to a servo. If you want to reduce the air from the blower simply redirect some of it elsewhere.
Ultimately I believe that either
1) This actually exists in luxury cars and I just need to drive a higher class of vehicle.
2) This is a good idea and has little barriers to limitation
3) I am simply too picky
Now I will admit that it may be possible that some luxury cars implement the suggestion that I am about to make. I would not know. I do not drive those types of cars.
The thing is, thermistors (electronics that are sensitive to temperature) are not that expensive. It wouldn't be pricey to allow the driver to punch (or dial) in a specific temperature. If the ambient temperature is colder, the car turns off the AC (and possibly turns on the heat). If the temperature is warmer however the car kicks up the AC to optimal level to hit the target.
"But Richard," you might say, "What if the blower is a step motor that can only operate at specific levels." To that I reply there is an easy solution that is still cheap. A bypass vent connected to a servo. If you want to reduce the air from the blower simply redirect some of it elsewhere.
Ultimately I believe that either
1) This actually exists in luxury cars and I just need to drive a higher class of vehicle.
2) This is a good idea and has little barriers to limitation
3) I am simply too picky
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Environmental Labels
One of the ideas behind nutritional labels is that the government doesn't keep us from eating food that is bad for us, but they do make sure that we are informed about it if we want to be.
Now if people want to eat themselves into the grave you can't really stop them. But if people want to eat healthy they can do that easily.
The same thing can not be said about people who want to try to 'live green.'
Certainly people can try simple things like turning off the lights, composting, and not wasting water. But when it comes to making purchases it can become a bit more murky.
I propose, in the same way foods have nutritional labels, other products have environmental impact labels.
Now there are a lot of issues with this that I am going to address. The first one is exactly how do you quantify environmental impact. I believe that such a label should contain the following information.
Manufacturing Emissions: This is how many pounds of CO2 that were produced in the manufacturing of the product. Not only does this include the emissions from the factory where it was built but also the emissions from factories that built required parts. It would also need to include emissions caused by electrical power consumed by the factory. This last number could be reduced easily if a company purchases power from a 'clean' source. This number would be calculated by monitoring the emissions from a factory over a years time and dividing by the number of the product produced.
Transportation Emissions: This would be a measure of, on average, how much CO2 is created in transporting a product from the factory to the store. This is obviously going to be higher for products made oversees. This could perhaps encourage people to buy local. Of course unless labels were printed for each region it would not specify how much emissions were produced getting the product to your particular store.
Manufacturing Biodegradable Waste: Manufacturing is going to produce a certain amount of waste. Luckily some of it may be biodegradable or at least semi-biodegradable. In some cases the waste may even be recyclable. This category as well as the following waste categories would include waste produced earlier in the manufacturing chain in producing any parts or materials that go into the product. This type of waste would have the least negative impact on the environment and a conscious consumer would want to see most of the waste fall into this category.
Manufacturing Regular Waste: The measures how many pounds of non-biodegradable, but non hazardous waste are manufactured in the production process. This would include plastics, metal slag, and the like. While its not great to have this stuff filling our landfills for hundreds of years, there are worst types of waste.
Manufacturing Hazardous Waste: This measures how much hazardous waste is produced. Basically any type of dangerous chemical byproduct that needs special handling would fall into this category. Its inevitable that some products will produce hazardous waste but people would want to avoid products that seem to produce excessive amounts of this type of waste.
Packaging Waste: How much waste is there in the packaging. This might not be a necessary entry as it should be obvious by looking at the product.
Product Waste Breakdown: A listing of the type of waste that will be produced when the product is thrown away. This is more to help put things into perspective with the manufacturing waste scores.
Power Consumption: A clear label of how much power (if any) this product consumes. Rather than just looking for an 'energy star' label a consumer could clearly be able to find the 'peak,' the 'average,' and the 'standby' power consumed by electronics.
These are the only major categories that I can think of that I would want to see on the label and that could easily be measured. They could be given as both straight up values, and also in percentage form measured against the weight of the product.
Note, this isn't requiring companies to meet any types of standards in terms of being 'green.' With these labels they can be inefficient as they want. What it is requiring is accountability. Companies need to keep tabs on how much they are polluting and also need to consider how much their suppliers are polluting. A company may have incentive to switch to a 'cleaner' supplier in order to improve their numbers.
One issue with this is that it would require a fair bit of governmental oversight to ensure that numbers are being accurately reported. Now some of this oversight could be paid for by fining companies for cheating or misreporting.
Another issue would be the international complications. Do you disallow products that lack this information from being imported? What happens if a company wants to buy steel from another country that does not track the environmental impact of their actions.
One option for that last example at least, is that the company buying the steel must assume 'worst case' environmental impact from the steel if they can not get solid numbers. This could perhaps lead them to encourage their supplier to start keeping track of things.
In the end though there is one major problem. It is a similar problem that nutritional labels have. An environmental label can only have a real impact if people actually care. Of course, part of my hope is that the label would make it easier to care.
Now if people want to eat themselves into the grave you can't really stop them. But if people want to eat healthy they can do that easily.
The same thing can not be said about people who want to try to 'live green.'
Certainly people can try simple things like turning off the lights, composting, and not wasting water. But when it comes to making purchases it can become a bit more murky.
I propose, in the same way foods have nutritional labels, other products have environmental impact labels.
Now there are a lot of issues with this that I am going to address. The first one is exactly how do you quantify environmental impact. I believe that such a label should contain the following information.
Manufacturing Emissions: This is how many pounds of CO2 that were produced in the manufacturing of the product. Not only does this include the emissions from the factory where it was built but also the emissions from factories that built required parts. It would also need to include emissions caused by electrical power consumed by the factory. This last number could be reduced easily if a company purchases power from a 'clean' source. This number would be calculated by monitoring the emissions from a factory over a years time and dividing by the number of the product produced.
Transportation Emissions: This would be a measure of, on average, how much CO2 is created in transporting a product from the factory to the store. This is obviously going to be higher for products made oversees. This could perhaps encourage people to buy local. Of course unless labels were printed for each region it would not specify how much emissions were produced getting the product to your particular store.
Manufacturing Biodegradable Waste: Manufacturing is going to produce a certain amount of waste. Luckily some of it may be biodegradable or at least semi-biodegradable. In some cases the waste may even be recyclable. This category as well as the following waste categories would include waste produced earlier in the manufacturing chain in producing any parts or materials that go into the product. This type of waste would have the least negative impact on the environment and a conscious consumer would want to see most of the waste fall into this category.
Manufacturing Regular Waste: The measures how many pounds of non-biodegradable, but non hazardous waste are manufactured in the production process. This would include plastics, metal slag, and the like. While its not great to have this stuff filling our landfills for hundreds of years, there are worst types of waste.
Manufacturing Hazardous Waste: This measures how much hazardous waste is produced. Basically any type of dangerous chemical byproduct that needs special handling would fall into this category. Its inevitable that some products will produce hazardous waste but people would want to avoid products that seem to produce excessive amounts of this type of waste.
Packaging Waste: How much waste is there in the packaging. This might not be a necessary entry as it should be obvious by looking at the product.
Product Waste Breakdown: A listing of the type of waste that will be produced when the product is thrown away. This is more to help put things into perspective with the manufacturing waste scores.
Power Consumption: A clear label of how much power (if any) this product consumes. Rather than just looking for an 'energy star' label a consumer could clearly be able to find the 'peak,' the 'average,' and the 'standby' power consumed by electronics.
These are the only major categories that I can think of that I would want to see on the label and that could easily be measured. They could be given as both straight up values, and also in percentage form measured against the weight of the product.
Note, this isn't requiring companies to meet any types of standards in terms of being 'green.' With these labels they can be inefficient as they want. What it is requiring is accountability. Companies need to keep tabs on how much they are polluting and also need to consider how much their suppliers are polluting. A company may have incentive to switch to a 'cleaner' supplier in order to improve their numbers.
One issue with this is that it would require a fair bit of governmental oversight to ensure that numbers are being accurately reported. Now some of this oversight could be paid for by fining companies for cheating or misreporting.
Another issue would be the international complications. Do you disallow products that lack this information from being imported? What happens if a company wants to buy steel from another country that does not track the environmental impact of their actions.
One option for that last example at least, is that the company buying the steel must assume 'worst case' environmental impact from the steel if they can not get solid numbers. This could perhaps lead them to encourage their supplier to start keeping track of things.
In the end though there is one major problem. It is a similar problem that nutritional labels have. An environmental label can only have a real impact if people actually care. Of course, part of my hope is that the label would make it easier to care.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Waterbed Sealant
Waterbeds may not be as popular as they once were, but they are still darn comfortable.
Recently I had the sad experience of seeing a waterbed put down after one too many leaks. You can patch them but you are only biding your time.
It occurred to me that there could be a market for some type of waterbed sealant, similar to the sealant you can spray into car tires.
Such a product would be a mixture of two chemicals. One chemical would be heavier than water and the other would need to be lighter. When added to the water in the waterbed, one of the chemicals would separate to the bottom and the other would separate to the top. This way one of the chemicals could deal with leaks in the top half and the other would deal with leaks in the bottom half.
Ultimately you would want a chemical that when exposed to oxygen would begin to polymerize. As long as the chemical was in the bed it would remain in liquid form. But if it began to seep out through a leak it would begin to turn into a plasticy goo. The hope would be that it would allow the bed to self seal.
Of course with larger leaks it might not be able to do the job. However, if the chemical was some other color (but one that could wash out of fabric easy) it might make it easier to spot where the leak is to allow for more traditional patching to be done easier.
Now there may be some difficulties finding or designing a chemical that would have the necessary properties. A market for this product might also not really exist. And even if the market is there, the product would have to work well enough to encourage people to actually buy it. In the end though, waterbeds are nice, but it sucks when the leak.
Recently I had the sad experience of seeing a waterbed put down after one too many leaks. You can patch them but you are only biding your time.
It occurred to me that there could be a market for some type of waterbed sealant, similar to the sealant you can spray into car tires.
Such a product would be a mixture of two chemicals. One chemical would be heavier than water and the other would need to be lighter. When added to the water in the waterbed, one of the chemicals would separate to the bottom and the other would separate to the top. This way one of the chemicals could deal with leaks in the top half and the other would deal with leaks in the bottom half.
Ultimately you would want a chemical that when exposed to oxygen would begin to polymerize. As long as the chemical was in the bed it would remain in liquid form. But if it began to seep out through a leak it would begin to turn into a plasticy goo. The hope would be that it would allow the bed to self seal.
Of course with larger leaks it might not be able to do the job. However, if the chemical was some other color (but one that could wash out of fabric easy) it might make it easier to spot where the leak is to allow for more traditional patching to be done easier.
Now there may be some difficulties finding or designing a chemical that would have the necessary properties. A market for this product might also not really exist. And even if the market is there, the product would have to work well enough to encourage people to actually buy it. In the end though, waterbeds are nice, but it sucks when the leak.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
American Politician
So to celebrate this 4th of July, this post is regarding the time honored American tradition of voting.
One issue many people claim to have with our government is the difficulty that third party candidates face in getting recognition.
My proposal is for a TV show in the same vein as American Idol. The idea would not be for the show to replace voting, but rather to increase awareness.
The show would start with 30 some odd third party presidential candidates. The first episode would be designed to let the viewers know a bit about each candidate as a person. The next one would give a brief overview of their political stances. After that each following episode would focus on a particular issue and the candidates would make their views known.
There would be no first party candidates on the show. Furthermore to prevent people from rallying behind party names, the contestant party affiliations would not be revealed until a few episodes in. Granted people could just look them up online, but most viewers wont.
After each episode people would vote by texting their favorite candidate. As the show went, a candidate would be eliminated each week Near the end when only a few candidates remained they could engage in head to head debate.
Viewers would also be able to vote on which issues they would want to see on the show.
Now there are issues with this. I'm not necessarily sure that this is the way I would want my president selected, but thats not the goal. The voting mechanism could also end up having the voting being manipulated, but once again, that is why it would not be official.
Contestants would agree not to do outside campaigning while the show was running. As a nice twist the network that is hosting the show could contribute commercial time to the campaign of the winning contestant.
It might not have any impact on politics in America. In fact such a show could further contribute to the sensationalizing of politics. However, it just might have a positive impact and maybe could make some network money.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Cooling Slats in Cars
When you park your car outside in the sun, it is going to get hot. It will get hotter than the the ambient temperature in fact. You can reduce this by putting one of those ugly reflectors in your window but most people are too lazy for that. Ultimately the only good way to fight this is by leaving your window open and having your car stolen.
But imagine if your car had a metal grating in the ceiling that could be closed up. While it is closed its like it is not even there. While open, the grating acts like a 'screen' and prevents would be thieves from gaining access to your car. However while criminals and other unwanted things could not pass through, the warm air would be able to rise right out of your car being replaced with 'cool' air from outside.
The system could be designed to automatically operate while your car is off. If the interior temperature is rising and it is cooler outside (and not raining) go ahead and open the grate cover. Determining if rain is coming down could be accomplished through a variety of relatively easy methods.
The entire system could run off, or at least partially run off, some small solar panels installed on the grate cover. The days on which it will be needing to operate will be the particularly sunny days when you are parked in the sun. It could even use the power output of these solar cells to determine if it should be opening or not.
While it will not keep your car cool in the same way an AC would, it would be a cheap, green, way to ensure your car does not feel like a pressure cooker when you get in.
But imagine if your car had a metal grating in the ceiling that could be closed up. While it is closed its like it is not even there. While open, the grating acts like a 'screen' and prevents would be thieves from gaining access to your car. However while criminals and other unwanted things could not pass through, the warm air would be able to rise right out of your car being replaced with 'cool' air from outside.
The system could be designed to automatically operate while your car is off. If the interior temperature is rising and it is cooler outside (and not raining) go ahead and open the grate cover. Determining if rain is coming down could be accomplished through a variety of relatively easy methods.
The entire system could run off, or at least partially run off, some small solar panels installed on the grate cover. The days on which it will be needing to operate will be the particularly sunny days when you are parked in the sun. It could even use the power output of these solar cells to determine if it should be opening or not.
While it will not keep your car cool in the same way an AC would, it would be a cheap, green, way to ensure your car does not feel like a pressure cooker when you get in.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Shower Clocks
Another idea related to the health club.
I tend to go with my family. I also like long showers, but don't want to keep them waiting. However, every time I try to speed up my shower, I find myself waiting for awhile for everyone else to get finished.
Of course, I could just take a stop watch. But I am lazy.
If water proof digital clocks were installed in showers it would be easy for family members to decide "lets meet in the lobby in 15 minutes" and then actually do that.
It's a small thing but it would be nice
I tend to go with my family. I also like long showers, but don't want to keep them waiting. However, every time I try to speed up my shower, I find myself waiting for awhile for everyone else to get finished.
Of course, I could just take a stop watch. But I am lazy.
If water proof digital clocks were installed in showers it would be easy for family members to decide "lets meet in the lobby in 15 minutes" and then actually do that.
It's a small thing but it would be nice
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