if you can't take it apart and put it back together again, it's not yours

For several years now I’ve been designing and thinking out an invention in my head.  It started out as the stereotypical “eureka!” moment in the shower and then moved on to a baby of thought that I nurtured on every subway ride to school.  The reason I think of it the most on subways is because the core market for this idea would be commuters who have to take public transport, although the idea could be extended to private cars. 

The idea is: visual-overlay virtual reality social networking

It has been approached many times before, the closest I’ve seen to my idea exactly is a project called Google Glass, and they almost hit my idea on the nail, except for a few key features.  The core idea is that you take a technology that lets you overlay information on your vision, be it glasses or contact lenses (or even a cranial implant), and you hook it up to a network that everyone else is connected to.

Offline info: Name, Date of Birth, blood type, house address etc.

Online info (maybe Facebook linked): Friend networks, maps, music, movies

Core Features: Flags, Tags, currently playing music for each person, destination, nationality, languages, interests, current website, music management

Technologies required: display: [lcd contact lenses/retinal projection glasses/HUD glasses], energy storage: [induction coupling, batteries], processing power, human interface: [bone conduction for humming commands, jaw movement racking, eye tracking, finger movement, phone linking, computer syncing, control jewelry], audio output: [headphones, implant], networking radios: [wifi, 4G, whisper net, bluetooth], cameras, audio input, environment tracking: [face recognition, distance measurement, compass, GPS, possibly synced with phone]

Also an explanation before I ignite it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFFTTS2VoDY

Thermite is an exothermic redox reaction involving the trading of oxygen atoms between the Iron (III) oxide and the Aluminum.  This is the ignition of the thermite mixture I created out of 1/8 magnesium powder, 4/8 Iron (III) oxide, and 3/8 Aluminum powder. Ignited with a magnesium strip and some magnesium powder dusted on top. The metal bowl is placed on top of an aluminum computer heatsink.

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Personality Type Report for Nick Sweeting, full MBTI assessment also carried out.

EXTROVERT

You are social and outgoing. You are most comfortable when with other people and experiencing the world first hand. Interaction with others and first hand experiences energize you. It is not unlike you to start conversations with strangers. You have a preference for the outer world: people, activities, and things. Other people provide you with a mirror, sounding board to help you develop ideas and plans. Being alone may sap your energies. Your concept of the world is derived from experiencing it firsthand and then drawing conclusions.

INTUITIVE 

While you do process information through your senses you add a twist to your processing by relying on intuition and serendipity. You look for undercurrents of meaning and abstractions in what you experience physically. You do not just see things just as they are, but as what they could be. While you may rely on common sense at times, you trust inspiration far more.

PERCEIVING

You like to have as much information as possible before making a decision. Putting off a final decision until the last moment does not make you uncomfortable. Indeed once a decision is made, a course plotted, you may feel a bit uneasy, because you feel bound to a certain course of action. You would much prefer to wait and see what happens. You enjoy the opportunity to improvise. Commitments are not etched in stone to you, and are changeable.

THINKING 

You evaluate data and reach conclusions by using your ability to apply logical, objective analysis to the information before you. Your thinking process values consistency and fairness over the affect your decisions will have on others. You compare courses of action logically and make your choices based upon what consequences you see them as having. If there is something wrong with a plan, you are the one to ferret it out. It is important to remember that this does not mean you are cold and unfeeling, but that your thinking process is analytical.

Your Personality Type

Extrovert/Intuitive/Thinking/Perceiving

You are outspoken and love a challenge or debate. Social by nature, you are very charming and witty. You value your freedom. You can be very creative and resourceful, spontaneous and impulsive. You are a risk-taker who is aware of all the possibilities your actions will create. You are curious about almost everything.

In relationships you are charismatic, quick-witted, and can keep up your end of any conversation. Instead of judging your friends and loved ones, you use your energies to understand the motivations behind their behavior. You are intellectually and spiritually growth oriented, and do well with a partner that shares these qualities. You also have a bit of the adventurer in you and do well in the company of like-minded people. Like all of life’s experiences, you want your relationships to be full of excitement and adventure.

Famous People of Your Type:

John Adams, James A. Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Lewis Carrol, Suzanne Pleshette, George Carlin, Valerie Harper, John Candy, John Sununu, Weird Al Yankovick, Alfred Hitchcock, Tom Hanks.

Occupations Suited to Your Type Include:

Actor, advertising director, lawyer, programmer, engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, marketer, doctor, psychologist, social scientist, professor, and writer

In response to: http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/torture.html

The Flawed Case for torture

Michael Levin’s “Case for Torture” makes several ground assumptions that make the article shaky at best and immoral at worst.  The first assumption is that constitutionality is less important than lives.  This is a major assumption to make, as many supreme court justices would disagree with Levin here.  The Constitution, which we choose to found our entire government on, dictates the basic rights every person should have, both as a citizen and as an inmate.  Disregarding the constitution may save a thousand lives the first time, but next time it may be disregarded to save only 100, and the time after that only 10, until it no longer holds meaning because we can shrug off the rights of a citizen with the justification that it will save lives.  Over time it will become so unvalued that the freedom of every citizen to never be used as witnesses against themselves may be overlooked to convict the simplest of criminals.  It sets a bad precedent.

The second major assumption made by the article is that torture is the only option.  Levin implies that torture will only be used as a last resort and in the most extreme situations, however if the government finds that it gets results, it will be used as the de facto standard for extracting information.  The fact remains, however, that torture is never the only option.  Basic technologies exist (such as alcohol) that make individuals divulge information, these are as immoral as torture itself when used as a tool of justice.  One cannot argue whether something is more moral or less moral, there is only moral and immoral.  The moment you begin to balance numbers of lives against the basic rights of humans as a species, you break the values that separate us from animals.

The third, but least severe assumption is that things are always clear-cut.  Every terrorist situation we’ve had in the past has had legal grey zones and questionable facts.  Apprehending the designer of the 9/11 plot and torturing him till he divulged the flight plans of the planes would have only allowed us to attempt to shoot them down, resulting in the deaths of everyone onboard, but maybe not the 3,000 in the World Trade Center.  This is precisely the grey zone, what determines whether the lives of those in the WTC could have been saved by sacrificing the lives of those on the planes, and who determines whether it is worth trying to shoot them down when there wasn’t a 100% chance that they would hit their targets.  In a world as clear as Quartz, torture may be used to achieve a defined goal that would save a definite number of people, and only for that purpose.

The final reason torture should not be considered is more logistical, its inaccurate.  When under excruciating pain a victim is unlikely to give accurate information, more likely they will say whatever they think will make the torture stop.  There have been several cases of information acquired behind the walls of Guantanamo Bay that has led down false paths.  When used as a tool of justice, torture is inaccurate, immoral, and it sets a bad precedent for the future of human rights.  Hundreds of years from now we hope for a better world that bases its justice system on truth, rights, and balance.  If we even begin to condone torture now, our future generations will look upon it as a valid method gaining the desired, but not the correct information from a witness or criminal.