Howzabout…

When a used book is purchased, often times there will be a name written in the front. At some point that individual and the book were separated, but how and why is an unknown that is not paid any attention.

But what if it were? Might there not be something to learn about authors’ abilities to influence their readers? Are their commonalities between the folks that would own such a book that would provide insight into the work’s significance?

Perhaps as an exercise in literary scholarship this effort would bear no fruit, but the potential for a great story is there nonetheless. Documenting the search for a past book owner might reveal a trail with unexpected twists and turns that would be entertaining enough to warrant the attempt. Imagine a knock on the door in the upper northwest at a home where an elderly woman is surprised to learn her book was bought and inspired a young writer in SoHo 60 years after her parents donated it to a book drive without her permission.

The possibilities are as limitless as the plots that fill the pages of the world’s libraries, and I believe the stories are potentially as intriguing as most plucked from imagination.

In the world of credit cards, certain uncharacteristic behaviors will “red flag” transactions and prompt a service representative to contact the account owner to check that a purchase is authorized. This system is in place to help limit fraud and saves all consumers money in the lower rates it supposedly will allow. With the increasingly more affordable GPS devices, and ever more complex computer mapping functionality of various technology companies, a similar network could keep automobiles where they are meant to be by alerting owners when they stray beyond predetermined boundaries.

The Problem
Cars are often involved in the commission of crimes, but they rarely belong to the criminals, instead having been stolen shortly beforehand. Clandestine meetings are driven to by spouses on the sly, and rebellious teenagers go to forbidden locations to engage in questionable behavior.

The Opportunity
These instances and many more could be effectively limited if an early warning system of some sort were put into place.

The Insight
By putting electronic fail safes into the computer systems of new automobiles a sort of “dead man’s switch” could keep a car from going somewhere it ought not be.

The Execution
Allow user profiles to be loaded into on-board computers that set parameters of use and notification preferences that allow an “administrator” to OK use that is questionable, beforehand with a code of some sort, or on the fly when necessary after an alert has been issued.

The Selling Point
Greater ability for parents to monitor and limit the driving of minors, and issue drawing increasing attention due to the rise in fatalities in accidents with teen drivers.

The Incidental Benefits
Heightened safety for the general populace through a reduction of renegade criminal activity involving driving. An over ride could bring an immediate and safe end to high speed chases that create extraordinarily dangerous situations for innocent drivers.

11/20/2007

ATTN: Jeff Fisher
Tennessee Titans
Baptist Sports Park
460 Great Circle Rd.
Nashville, TN 37228

Dear Coach;

I know you are a member of the Competition Committee, so I figured it would do no harm to contact you. I have an idea for a simple, elegant improvement to the rules that I would like to share.

Instant replay is meant to be there to insure the right call is made, but the loop hole of the “once the next play happens you can’t throw the flag” nonsense cuts into that significantly. Last night I watched you waffle on the sidelines b/c you didn’t have the time to decide if a review challenge was warranted. Under the current system that should NEVER happen to a coach, a team, or a fan base. (Turned out the Broncos rendered that moot, but that instance is a perfect example b/c you were almost gypped out of 6 points!)

There is an easy fix for this: extra points don’t count as a play.

No need to change the rule, because that is already true! No time runs off the clock anyway, and there is always a commercial break after a touchdown. If they adjusted the rule so that a team had until the following kick off to challenge, then the decision of whether to contest a call or not could be an informed one and the rule would be more in keeping with the spirit of the system.

It won’t make games longer b/c the review could actually be taking place during the scheduled commercial. Go ahead and let the teams line up and kick the PAT, and if the on-field ruling of a score stands, then the result is recorded: it counts if it is good and doesn’t if missed. If the score is overturned, then it’s like that play never happened. No harm done either way. Who can argue against that obvious improvement?

Thanks for hearing me out. I hope you agree with me and are willing to propose the concept to the powers that be.

Sincerely,

Ken Head
kenhead@howzabout.org

PS - Field goals aren’t reviewable?! They’re a SCORING PLAY!! How do you stand it? That needs to be the next fix.

It has been a summer of unprecedented drought throughout the Southeastern United States this year, and about the only positive to come of it is a heightened awareness of just how wasteful we are when it comes to treated water usage. It is hard to blame someone for leaving the water running when they brush their teeth when water is a symbol for a limitless and free resource. But neither of those things are true, which got me to thinking…

The Problem
The pipes throughout the average home are a one-way path for treated water to the sewer system irrespective of the use it has seen. This standard needlessly causes much waste over time as homeowners wait for the water temperature to reach the desired level for bathing and hand washing.

The Opportunity
Construct homes with closed systems so that clean water would be recirculated without being used while it overcomes the drop in temperature that accompanies sitting in the pipes while not in use.

The Insight
The water from the hot water heater in a house can be brought to the desired faucet without first opening the tap, instead it can be circulated through the piping past that point until the water at the desired location has gotten warm enough for use.

The Execution
Install hydrothermostats in faucets and have them serve the same “pre-heat” function we already use when cooking with an oven. Once the water is hot enough the faucet can alert the user in some simple way.

The Selling Point
Water conservation. It has been postulated that humankind will run out of fresh water before food. (Sorry, no time to find a proper documentation to support this statement.)

The Incidental Benefits
It may be that having a constant circulation of water through the pipes (in the style of radiator heat systems) would bring down heating costs enough to offset the power used to drive pumps if the pipes and building materials used in the home were designed to lose heat in such a way as to warm the air when needed.

By now most folks have seen the hanging, glow-in-the-dark trunk releases that are meant to allow people forced into a trunk to escape. Certainly a step in the right direction versus the old “kick-out-the-tail-light-and-wave” option, but hardly 21st century. It is scary enough to think this device was warranted in the first place, but just imagine the scenario if it was actually used. There is probably no way to know for sure if the kidnapper is nearby to risk sneaking out, and if the car is moving the option is hardly any better. Since a job worth doing is a job worth doing well, it is time for the next iteration of this safety device to be developed.

The Problem
Opening a trunk lid is only the beginning of an escape from a kidnapping. Should the attempt to flee be foiled, the attacker will likely be all the more dangerous. If a panic-induced attempt is made while the car is moving, the end result could be tragic for many reasons.

The Opportunity
Enhance the practical functionality of an in-trunk “panic button” by utilizing increased digital connectivity to tap into a large network of possible rescuers.

The Insight
A locked trunk keeps a would-be aggressor out as much as it keeps a kidnap victim in. By switching perspective in this way, the safer option of staying put, alerting the outside world, and awaiting help is created.

The Execution
Link into the automobile’s central electronics systems controls from inside the trunk and allow for a digital SOS to be broadcast. The trunk could be locked to any outside entry attempt until an override was authorized. Flashers and an insistent horn could drive away the kidnapper(s).

The Selling Point
As usual, peace of mind benefit and a bit of “you-never-know” insurance.

The Incidental Benefits
Once the shift is made to incorporate more recording capabilities into on-board technologies, much data could be captured for the use of authorities to solve and prosecute crimes or to aid rescue workers in their efforts. The height and weight of occupants, voice imprints and video images from inside the car cabin, and external camera feeds are all examples of information that could assist in locating criminals or victims in many diverse emergency situations.

Dear Chairman Majoras:

Once issued, U.S. passports are sent by regular mail and cannot be tracked. This is astonishing to me. For a long period of time I was under the impression that my newly issued passport and an original copy of my birth certificate were in a single envelope lost in the mail delivery system. Talk about an identity theft Starter Kit!

In my case it turned out the letter was lost in the internal shuffle of the Passport Services Office and eventually found its way to me (well over a year later), but it could have ended up in the wrong hands easily. Multiple calls and emails to my various government representatives yielded nothing but shrugged shoulders. Supposedly the Postmaster General was notified directly of my situation, but the answer remained the same: a passport can’t be tracked once it leaves the processing center.

One does have the option to request expedited shipping with tracking, but unfortunately I didn’t opt for that. When I suggested to one of the various bureaucrats I encountered that certified mail be required of all applications, it was explained to me that it wouldn’t be fair for the government to compel people to spend the extra money. In this instance it seems as though the United States Postal Service could make arrangements to absorb that cost in the interest of national security.

This terrific oversight must be rectified.

I’ve been away from the blog for a while now, and this latest suggestion (the first I’ve decide to post that is unrelated to the automotive industry) provides a big clue as to why. So let me just launch in…

The Problem
It is hard enough to get baby to sleep in the first place. Every parent has struggled with the decision to either check their little one’s diaper, risking waking them up and perhaps needing to spend another chunk of their night settling a crying baby upset they have been woken, or let them lay there with a urine-soaked diaper. I can report from personal experience that at 2AM this decision is very difficult to make!

The Opportunity
Create a way that a parent can determine if a baby has wet their diaper that does not require its removal.

The Insight
Diapers are traditionally made with a white outer layer of plastic, but this need not be the case. Clear plastic would do the job just as well and reveal the inner workings to allow a quick visual check without the need to disturb baby overly much. (PJ’s aside!)

The Execution
Polyacrylamide gel sucks up the pee and traps it, providing a diaper its absorbency. My guess is that product engineers could easily modify it for a diaper application so that it would change colors in the presence of ammonia or some other component of urine.

The Selling Point
Though a see-through crotch panel probably has a place in everyday diapers as well, making a version expressly for bedtime provides the opportunity to dominate a niche market that has yet to be truly defined. A specialized diaper like this could be a virtual given when it came to a parent’s decision making at the grocery store.

The Incidental Benefits
Switching to a clear outer plastic could even allow us to have a better sense of when there is actually lightning to go along with baby’s thunder, if you know what I mean. So daytime diapers could be made more telling as well, which provides a chance to distinguish a product that has reached the point of commodity.

This is a fairly straightforward approach to improving our driving habits and fuel economy. In a similar fashion to the memory function that saves the preferred seat configuration of multiple drivers, this computer profile of the driver could be used to do some of the following:

• Regulate top speed to keep drivers from going faster than the posted limit and enhance overall safety
• Set a maximum acceleration rate to save wear and tear on the engine, increase fuel economy, and train young drivers to be less aggressive
• Save preferred settings like mirror position, radio stations, optimal temperature, even suspension stiffness and handling characteristics
• Disable the ability of a particular driver from starting the car between certain hours (sorry teenagers)

As the price of gas continues to hit new heights, it seems sensible that we should be paying greater attention to how our driving affects fuel economy. With computers an ever present component of late model automobiles, the mechanisms for capturing and analyzing data are already in place.

It would be no major challenge to move a complete statistical history of every mile driven from a car’s computer to a PC to learn about how we drive. Software could be configured to make suggestions of driving modifications that would help us to improve our safety and reduce our fuel consumption. Businesses could monitor the habits of their drivers and look to reward those with the best habits and as a training tool for those that require improvement.

Burning of headlights when the wiper blades are on, and the regular use of turn signals could be either automated or tracked for a broad increase in safety across the nation’s roadways if we’d only reconsider (and change) how dramatically underutilized computers are within the automotive industry at the moment.

At times we all drive faster than the posted speed limit, and often we are guilty of knowing that we are dong so. But there are also times when our speed just creeps up on us because we just get into a bit of a groove. Maybe there aren’t other cars around to pace ourselves, or we get geared up by a particularly upbeat song on the radio, or maybe we are so involved in telling a story to a passenger we simply don’t realize that we are breaking the law.

One day, in the not-too-distant future, I can imagine that GPS systems will have the ability to feed on-board computers with real time updates of the speed limit at our precise location, but in the meantime couldn’t we protect ourselves from tickets and unsafe driving if our cars had a self applied governor that we could set to cap our top speed? Or maybe the better solution would be to integrate a programmable chime or alarm of some sort to notify us when we are approaching an unsafe or especially illegal cruising speed.

I don’t think this would be particularly hard to pull of with late model cars. Of course the radio would need to be somehow temporarily disabled so you wouldn’t miss the warning, and perhaps there should visual warnings also, or a vibration could be sent through the seat or steering wheel. An additional feature could be a maximum speed read out that could be used to contest speeding tickets. This sort of system would be useful when applied to things like taxis, school buses, and the cars of young and inexperienced drivers.

A friend of mine told me a story he’d heard I thought was very interesting. And since it is related to the car industry I thought I’d share. It is an ingeniously simple strategy for avoiding the haggling that ordinarily is part of the car buying process.

1. Research the car and create a detailed description of everything you want, from the color down to the options.
2. Fax the wishlist to all area dealers that carry the make and model you want with a cover sheet explaining that the reseller which responds with the lowest quote by a certain time will win the sale.
3. Arrange to be preapproved and go pick up your new car.

The key, of course, is to only take proposals by fax so that the sales people don’t have the opportunity to do the voodoo that they do on you. (Say that fast three times!)

By the way, I’m guessing most people know this, but by having your financing arranged before going to the dealership, you’ll have the option to either use their bank or your own. In my experience, no dealership will be able to turn down a car loan opportunity no matter how low the rate they have to match because it’s still higher than zero.