Part Names

While shopping a week ago, I finally learned the names of the parts that I use on computers daily: * The screws that hold the outer case of the computer together are #6 - 32. They have a length of 5mm, and threading that rises 1mm per rotation. The outer diameter is defined as 0.1380 inches, which is a little more than 3.5 mm. * The screws that hold the internal components, such as attaching the hard drives to the frame, are M3. They have a length of 5mm, and threading that rises 1/2mm per rotation. * The screws that attach the motherboard to the outer case are, surprisingly, also #6-32, but with an extended head that has an M3 drilled into them. This allows an attaching layer to be attached to the case, then the motherboard to be attached to that layer, so the motherboard can later be removed for replacement. This is also necessary because there are conductive pins on the bottom of the motherboard, and if the motherboard were to physically touch the case, a short circuit may occur. This standardization helps to keep the price of computers down.

Ionization Theory

A common theory states that indoor air quality can be greatly improved by electrically charging the air. Air is accelerated over charged plates, imparting a charge to the air, which reportedly improves mood, causes bacteria, viruses, and dust to adhere to surfaces instead of becoming airborne, causes beneficial effects on the health of the people who breathe it, and even helps heal injuries. Some or all of these claims might be complete hogwash. One thing is definitely clear, though. Air ionizers create ozone, an oxygen variant that damages your lungs and is the major component in smog, although more useful in the upper atmosphere due it its tendency to neutralize harmful radiation.
The best evidence for the touted benefits of the theory was a study conducted in Bangkok, which showed that ionized air did improve rates of healing from injuries, and did in fact cause airborne bacteria to cease to be airborne, where it could be easily cleaned off the walls and floors that it stuck to. No mood difference was noted in participants. The data size was not large enough to be significant.
On the other hand, even if I assume this is all true, I would first worry about the ozone exposure. Fortunately, it is possible to filter out ozone using carbon-rich paper filters, and the ozone does kill all bacteria (and some viruses) while it is present.
So if this theory was true, the best air sources would be first ionized, then filtered (removing the dust, bacteria, viruses, and ozone), and then accelerated into the room. This also gives me a plan to experiment with this idea.
Get 3 groups of 30 people each. One group is put into a room in which the air is positively charged, filtered, then blown into the room. One group is put into a room in which the air is negatively charged, filtered, and then blown into the room. The last group is the control, and their air is not charged, but merely filtered. The filtering takes place some distance from the room so that it's not apparent which group you're in. The rooms are otherwise identical, and can support sleep, work, games, and eating. We have the group live there a period of time to be decided later. At the end of the period, we evaluate the groups for changes in health and mood, and we also measure bacteria concentrations in the rooms, walls, and floors.
If the theory is true, then I would expect that the positively charged room would be in better health than the control, which would be in better health than the negatively charged room, but that bacteria levels would be highest in the control room.

Continuous flow coffee computer

Electronics make a lot of heat, because heat is entropic energy. The act of flipping the state of electronics irreversibly converts some of the electrical energy powering the chip into heat. This heat then has to be carried away. This entropy can be converted to good use.

One of the most treasured machines at my company is the coffee maker. The company has to keep going at all times, 24/7, and an energized worker is a not sucking at his job worker, usually. The coffee maker deliberately converts electricity to heat, which it applies to water, and runs over ground coffee beans to produce coffee. This is caught in thermal jars so that the workers can enjoy it hours later, still hot. I try and keep this making coffee at all times, as it makes my surlier coworkers far more pleasant to be around.

This also gave me an idea of an interesting cooling system. Start with a water cooled computer, except instead of water, cool it with industrial refrigerant. This is piped to the chamber below, where it is intensely compressed, and water is continuously poured over it from a faucet supply. This water is quickly boiled from the heat, and compressed, slightly below room temperature refrigerant is brought back to the computer. Just before it hits the electronics, the refrigerant goes through an expansion valve. This makes it intensely cold, and better suited to take the heat off the computer components. So far, this is essentially a refrigerator.

Now with the hot water, we pump this up out of the chamber, and over to another area, in which there is a "switch" pipe that allows it to fall into one of four carafe's, each of which below contains a thermal jar. A scale below the thermal jar determines how full the jar is, and when the jar is full, the system instantly switches to the next carafe over. Full jars should be taken away (and distributed with cups, creamer, and sugar) with an empty jar put in its place. Also, the carafe will need fresh grounds and filter on a periodic basis. This would occur in two hour cycles, and could quickly be changed to capacity in a five minute break.

Assuming that this system is kept supplied, it would produce coffee continuously, which would clearly be a good thing for my company, which is constantly growing and getting thirstier for coffee by the day.

Planar Furniture

I'm imagining a super cheap form of furniture made of boards. Boards in little shapes slapped together to form a chair, and filled with expanding foam in the middle. Or, perhaps just an "X" like shape of more boards. A board chair could be had for $10, and a board bed for $30. Board desks would be maybe $5. For the cost of a professionally made chair, one can buy an entire studio's worth of furnishings. Furnishings that can easily be taken apart and hauled away. Just one problem: They'd be ugly.
True, to make them bearable I'd want to attach lots of cushions, but their primary benefits are also their main detractions. They're going to be boxy, kludge-like in appearance, and tacky. And yet, I believe there is a big market for them with college students (who have to make the most of every cent) and nomads (who can enjoy the benefits of furnishings by being able to take them apart and haul them away.

Self-Cleaning Bird Cage

You notice how when people have bird cages, the cages are almost perpetually dirty?
See, most birds live in trees, and live with the assumption that anything dropped is taken away by gravity, to the forest floor, which they don't care about. So an accumulation of unwanted objects beneath the area that a bird lives is inevitable. The cage floor becomes covered in seed hulls, detatched toys, and poop. The bird's owner must clean this accumulation regularly, lest it become a breeding ground for bacteria.
But, with a little engineering, the balance of nature can be restored. This cage would have a slanted, teflon coated under-section, which the bird cannot reach due to a grill. Dropped seed hulls would fall through the grill, and slide down the under-section. Then, if we connect this to a vent that goes to a waste receptacle, the cage will now clean itself. All dropped waste slides away for easy collection. (Just take away the can on occasion.)

Embedded Storage Computer

Embedded computers exist that draw only 2 watts or less for their operation. As a trade of for this, they are slow, often 10 times slower than a desktop computer. They are meant to be on all the time, recording probe information to send to computers that are only on 9-5.
RAID is a system to combine hard drives in various ways to gain various useful effects. The most common ones are mode 0, which has two (or more) hard drives act like one large combined drive, gaining extra space at the cost of reliability, as the entire array is destroyed if one drive fails, mode 1, in which two (or more) drives copy each other, so the information survives the failure of one of them, and mode 5, in which the information is split between at least 2 drives, with a third one keeping a parity checksum. The advantage of mode 5 being that if one uses hot-swappable drives, the array can run 100% of the time. (This being because if one drive fails, the computer can still determine the information with the checksum. One should swap out the defective drive for a new one as soon as possible, as a second failure will cost you the information.) RAID can also be stacked, most popularly 0 and 1 together for the combined advantages of both.
I think we should combine these technologies for an embedded RAID device that specializes in storing information for the rest of the computers on the network, which can be diskless terminals. The CPU of the RAID device doesn't need to be very powerful, but it does need to run all the time. Probably it will still end up using as much power as a desktop computer, since the savings from the low-power CPU are canceled out by the need for many many many hard drives, but one does get bigger and more reliable storage that's infinitely mobile.

OpenEEGs

EEG, or Electro-Encephelo-Graph, (literally: the reading of brains electrically) is a means of scanning the electrical activity in the brain, usually for medical purposes. Devices can do it, but as medical devices, they come at a premium. After all, you only get one brain, and it's not like you can go out and buy another if you fry it. So the device is built to very exacting specifications.
A group called Open EEG has an EEG hardware and software system for scanning your brain electricity that you can build yourself, or, alternatively, order from Bulgaria. The hardware connects your brain to your computer, and the software analyzes the output. Having this knowledge, most people are then able to control their brain output via a biofeedback process.
Hypothetically, one could go on to do Mindtyping, therapy, or something else, but that hasn't been written yet.

Ouch

Pushing sixteen wires into sixteen slots that they really don't want to do with only a hand-powered plastic tool really really hurts my fingers. Note to self: Buy the spring powered one next time.
Still, I now have a cable with RJ-45 jacks on the end, all ready to extend a network. I believe I can now build a network. Actually, I did this two days ago, but now my fingers feel well enough to type again. Ow.

Wiring

Today I'm trying to teach myself wiring. When a system administrator wants networking supplied to an area, it must have a cable to run the electronic signals through. The most convenient and least obtrusive way to do this is to have jacks in the wall on either end that a short cable can be connected to. I'm learning to hook up the jacks, as demonstrated in this video.
The good news is, the jack's internal components are color coded. The bad news is, it's way trickier than it looks. The damned wires don't want to fit into their ports, and there's two color schemes, contradictory with each other, and I'm not sure which is the "right" one. Also, it occurs to me now that I forgot to get a punchdown tool, which I'll need to secure the cable once placed.
I don't just want this for professional reasons, I also intend to someday have a house with this kind of thing in it.

ComputerWorld

In the future, when we humans as a species have some project so massive that all the world's supercomputers aren't enough, I have an idea for a huge omni-computer.
We build a planet, of which one side is purely solar cells, and the other is all a massive supercomputer-complex, with a radio-array to send and receive instructions. The interior could be storage batteries, or maybe even is hollow. Due to the massive size of this, it would have to be constructed in space. We then move it to a very close orbit around the sun, where it becomes tidally locked with the solar-cell side always facing the sun, and the computer array always facing away. The solar cell side heats to over 500C, and provides Exawatts of power. The computer side is very cold when the machine is off, -300C. When the computer turns on, that will change.
This project would easily cost a quadrillion dollars, but it would solve every computation problem known to humankind in 30 minutes. Only a more complex problem would justify the massive expense.

Ternary Computing

By all that is holy, someone actually made one. Or at least, a decent simulation of one.
All the successful computers ever made used binary, base two, to represent numbers. This is easy to work with, because computers are electrical devices. It either has current (on) or doesn't, and with many cells of this you could represent any number you care to think of, as well as the ideas of True (on) vs False (off).
A Ternary computer would operate on base 3. You'd have "Yes," "no," and "maybe." You could store larger numbers in the same number of cells. You could have one cell that branches based on its value. You'd have greatly increased complexity, because now you have to draw hard lines between what voltages are "Yes" vs which ones are "maybe." ("5V" vs "0V" are way easier to distinguish compared to "5V" vs "2V" vs "0V.")
Thanks to Awesome Geek Blog for pointing this out to me.

Operation Fabrication

There's a number of projects out there that offer things...that can build things, including copies of themselves. Such as the Reprap, a machine made of plastic parts that builds machines made of plastic parts. It is a plastic extruder, it melts plastic according to shapes given to the little tiny computer attached to it. Shapes are specified with CAD files.
Someone else found that too big, and a machine that they call the cupcake, because it vaguely resembles a cupcake oven. It works similarly, if somewhat smaller.
Of course, not everyone knows how to put together the CAD files, so there's a repository at ThingIVerse, storing loads of designs. All of this together got me thinking.
This got me thinking that this is as close as we're getting to a sci-fi-esque replicator without being able to teleport things. Open source hardware, it's a beautiful thing.

Cleaning my keyboard

One of the things I love the best about my keyboard is the way that the interior parts are connected, allowing me to dismantle it for cleaning. Keyboards tend to get nasty over time, as they are constantly touched, and have lots of crevices where spilled things remain until cleaned. Also, pets find them fascinating. A strange object! And the boss keeps messing with it! I should mess with it too! Which results in "pet typing." It looks like this:

rttatoitoiupppppoituuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuoooooooooooooo;
;l;;;;;;;;;'
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Also, the pets are responsible for many of the spills. Knock the boss's drinking glass over? Sure, why not? Maybe you'll get a sip of soda out of it.
So, my keyboard. I can take it apart like so:

Then I can take the outer shell and just chuck it in the bathtub with some soap. I used washing detergent.

Soap, swishing, and flipping, done repeatedly, knocks all the hair and dirt and cola and whatnot from the keyboard. Once it's clean, drain the bathtub, and take it somewhere to dry. I used my bed.

You have to let it dry totally, as water is a polar molecule and will interfere with the proper functioning of electronics. Once it's totally dry, put the keyboard back together.

The best part of doing this is that if I mess up, keyboards are $5 to replace. I suggest against doing this with any other part of your computer.

Maintenence Dock

Many people bring in computers for repair each year. The problem is often on the software level, with the hard drives clogged with viruses, spyware, and fragmentation for the computer to continue to function.

I'd like to invent a dock that, when a hard drive is plugged into it, scans and removes all spyware and viruses, backs up all remaining data to a RAID-0 storage, reformats and restores, and then defragments. The drive would then be returned to the original computer, fresh and maximally functional.

In the time it takes to do this, we can treat the rest of the computer to dust-removing treatment, thereby making an old computer good as new in maybe just half an hour. We also reduce the costs, allowing more people to have a cleaned computer.

Weird Climate Device

This is distinctly impractical, but I can't get it out of my head.

Have two buildings, one in Alaska, one in Nevada. Alaska is a polar area, and very very cold. Almost all of Nevada is a really hot desert. Have two long, insulated pipes between them.

In the Alaska building, compress some freon, which heats it up, and allow it to dissipate its heat into the house. Aaah, feels good. When it has cooled, send it down one of the pipes. This pipe ends in the Nevada house, with an expander. As it expands, the temperature plummets, air conditioning the Nevada House. Aaah, feels good.

Meanwhile in the Nevada house, send uncompressed freon up the unused pipe to Alaska, which arrives vaguely tepid. (It will lose some heat no matter how well the pipes are insulated.) Feed this pipe into the compressor, making this an endless heat exchange.

Problems with this system are numerous. One, that much pipe is insanely expensive, and two, it crosses an international boarder in Canada, or is an undersea pipe at some point. Either will exponentially increase the expense. Two, the energy burden is in Alaska, which has fewer options for electricity. Three, I'm not sure that much freon exists on earth. Four, if the freon leaks at any point, it will be hard to detect and a major environmental disaster.

I'm not even completely sure that it would be more energy efficient than just a heater in Alaska and air conditioning in Nevada.

International readers are encouraged to substitute closer cold-and-hot locations for this, like European readers substituting "Alaska" with "Finland" and "Nevada" with "Italy."

Reverse Keyboard

Carpel tunnel syndrome is a disorder affecting people who make repetitive movements. While many of the earlier, industrial age, causes like incessant hand-sewing, have been eliminated, the most common modern form is from typing. The repetitive movement compresses the median nerve in the wrist, causing pain in the hands, loss of hand strength, inability to sleep at night, and so on. Billions of dollars of worker's compensation claims are filed every year.
Some experts think that changing motions may make a considerable difference. Every ten minutes while typing, stop, flex your wrists, and flick your fingers upwards. They claim that this will prevent the syndrome. While others disagree, this has given me a tech idea.
Instead of a keyboard, we would have a tube, wide as a keyboard, and tall enough that a person's hands could be comfortably fit inside. Keys line the upper surface of the tube, and one can type by flicking your fingers upwards to the keys. (People with carpal tunnel from typing are most assuredly touch typists -- a hunt-and-peck typist could not make enough keystrokes in a day to injure themselves.) The device would come in USB and PS/2 styles, just like existing keyboards, and one would daily switch back and forth between the tube keyboard and the traditional kind.
Since the tube keyboard and traditional keyboard would require opposite finger-movements to type, this would allow people to type day after day with no repetitive injury.

Railgun Space Launch

Rail guns would greatly reduce the expense of launching items, vehicles, satellites, and so on, into space. Possibly down to the magic level that would allow privatization of space travel, finally putting advocates of such to put up or shut up. Allow me to explain.
A railgun is an engineered device that, using two electrically charged rails, exerts an enormous force on the object placed between those two rails. Aligning the currents with the right spin, this direction is "up." Yes, it uses a lot of energy to reliably produce a space launch, but less with this method because the energy will be provided at ground level. The launch vehicle will not require its own fuel, as the rail gun will be providing the energy. It can launch thousands of vehicles a day, if need be. (Though need will not be unless we're evacuating the Earth or something.)
Now space travel is expensive, because anything you want to get even into earth orbit must be sped to 11 km/s, or it will just fall back down again. 11 km/s is absurdly fast. To accelerate even, say, my car, to this kind of speed, some 19,958 Kilo-newtons must be applied. This would easily consume the entire output of a medium sized power plant, all charged in a bank of capacitors the size of a skyscraper.
Existing space travel uses massive hydrogen-oxygen bombs that, when
detonated, provide all that thrust and more. Of course, this means
carrying thousands of kilograms of those materials with you, which will further throw off calculations by being used up. Heavier thing, more fuel required. More fuel means even more weight. Any space mission will easily cost a billion dollars, leaving it solely in the reach of national governments.
With a rail gun setup, a very rich person could afford to send themselves and a Soyuz-type space station into orbit, for about $10 million. Plus maybe another $50 million in startup costs. Further advances might further reduce the expenses, bringing space travel to the masses.
Now at this time, there are people who complain that space travel is a misuse of government resources, and that space travel should be privatized. Very well. For $60 million, I offer you more material resources than the entire mining output of the earth. For $400 million, a consistent trade route could be developed, earning that sum back within 20 years time and employing a staff equal to the current population of Utah. I dare you to.

The Cycle of Computers

Always, in hardware computing as an industry, there is a cycle, as technology advances. I learned this from a former sysadmin, who I talk to frequently because he is wise.

First faster chips are developed. The fast chips are expensive, so they are made into a large, very expensive, super server, and the focus becomes maintaining the one server to perfection, and using the other computers as dumb terminals, to hide the fact that they're older and slower.

Then the chips become cheaper. Having completely saturated the market on big servers, the hardware companies then focus on selling many computers, each as powerful as what they were formerly touting as a super-server, so that all users can benefit from the power.

And then somebody develops a faster chip, repeating the cycle. Monolithic vs. cloud, the market swinging back and forth to sell the maximum amount of hardware possible.

Oddly enough, both moves are touted as saving the administrator's precious time and effort. The super server is obvious, as the administrator need only maintain one computer. The other computers are dumb terminals, which need basically no maintenance.

The "cloud" stage, when the chip is cheap and independent computers are being sold by the truckload, is promoted as easy because configuration cloning allows each user to start with an identical setup, which reduces the problem to the monolithic stage. Except when the users need custom configuration, but that can be fobbed off on the new technician.

If you'd like to save money on your hardware, don't get too excited about any one fad. Within five years, the pendulum will swing again. Currently we're in the cloud stage.