Candidates or Issues

It seems most political campaigns focus on the candidates instead of the issues. Why are the candidates sold instead of the issues? Why don't the campaigns say "... is the way to handle issue ... because ... and candidate ... is the best person to achieve that" instead of "Vote for candidate ..., he supports ..., .., and ..." If you sell the issues then during the next election you can build off of the last election by expounding on the right way to handle issues and still mention which candidate will best achieve those results. Each election could build off of the previous election better and the voting population would be better informed.

I have the opportunity to vote in a primary election next Tuesday. If you have a similiar opportunity to vote then I urge you take take the oppotunity!

Distributed Internet backup

Consider a distributed computer program like the following.
1. You download the program an install it.
2. During install it asks you how much space you want to share for others to use and which folders you want to backup.
3. It then starts sending your data (encrypted) to other users on the network (the client would probably have to send the data to multiple places and keep track of where it is).
4. It also starts accepting backup data from other users.
If you need more space than you can provide then you can pay extra. If you provide more space than you need then you can get paid.

Then your backup data is distributed across the internet. I think it would be useful to many people!

Would this work well? Does it already exist?

Increasing vehicle efficiency

A friend directed me to a Popular Science articles titled "The Race to 100 MPG"
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/automotivetech/e5690576b64fc010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

I had some comments about the 3 advances mentioned.

• Cut weight and wind resistance: That is nice but there are some major problems with that. Cutting weight generally reduces the crash worthiness. I would hate to see that car hit even a mid-sized car at freeway speeds. I like efficiency but safety is more important. The size and shape of the car also reduce visibility of the driver which is also a safety concern. Finally I have a family of 4 with 1 more on the way so I could never dream of using that kind of car for anything but a commuter vehicle. I just don't think reducing weight and wind resistence will help much given the needs of car owners.
• Hydraulic drive system: I think this is excellent. One of the great things about it is that it could be fit into current car designs without major changes which should make adoption much easier. I like it that it is a component change so the engine could be made more efficient independantly which would make integration by the manufacturer easier. This sounds like something that could be in many new cars in just a few years.
• Jet Engine: First, this just sounds neat. Wouldn't you love to see your neighbor's face when they ask you what kind of engine your car has and you say "a jet engine!"? It would also be neat if it gives are car a "jet engine" sound (but much more quiet). Once again this appears to be an independant upgrade so that would really help.

As a developer I am a strong proponent of iterative development (many small changes instead of a few huge changes) and I think iterative effiency improvements will provide the fastest adoption also. I also like the electric motor and battery system from Tesla Motors.

I can't wait to see these things developed and make it into mass production!

Electronic vehicles

Someone showed me the cool developments by Tesla Motors. That is such a sweet car. I can't wait until they make a large family car and it becomes old enough that I can afford a used version (maybe in 15 years). That got me wondering if there is a better application of an electronic vehicle that would help accelerate its adoption. I think the sports car idea is great but is there something better?
Here are the attributes of electronic vehicles:

1. Quiet
2. High torque
3. Low range (Tesla is trying to improve that but for now the range is apparently about 120 miles for available vehicles).
4. Low maintenance costs
5. More simple system so less to go wrong
6. Higher initial cost
7. Low fuel costs
   
8. Long refuel time
9. Great for lower speeds and stop-and-go driving

The Tesla sports car finds 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9 positive and 3, 6, and 8 negative.

Is there another type of vehicle that would find more of the attributes positive? Consider a school bus:

1. Lower noise might help the driver hear children outside (if it isn't too noisey inside!)
2. High torque is good for moving a heavy bus.
3. Low range doesn't really matter. I doubt most buses go more than 100 miles in the morning or evening (for trips a diesel may still be best).
4. Lower maintenance costs would definitely help.
5. The simple system would be good for just about any vehicle.
6. Higher initial cost isn't good but a school district is more likely to look at the full cost over the expected life of the vehicle so with the lower fuel and maintenance costs this probably will not be a problem.
7. Lower fuel costs definitely help.
8. The long refuel time won't really matter because they could easily be recharged during the school day.
9. School buses are stop-and-go vehicles so this is a great match.

What do you think? Would electric vehicles make great school buses?

Update: I searched and found a few links about hybrid electric buses but not much about normal eletric buses. Here is a link about the Zebra bus:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/seminars/zebra-bus/zebra-bus.htm

Instant Messenger feature

It would be nice if instant messenger clients put some visual clue whenever the conversation is stagnant for a certain amount of time. That would usually show where each sub-conversations is. For example there could be a line across the screen whenever nobody types for 5 minutes. Of course the time should be configurable.

Global warming and clouds

Clouds act like a blanket. During the day they block the sun and therefore the earth doesn't heat up as much. During the night they reflect the heat back to the earth and therefore the earth doesn't loose as much heat. So would they prevent global warming? NASA wonders that too:

For example, if Earth's climate should warm due to the greenhouse effect , the weather patterns and the associated clouds would change; but it is not known whether the resulting cloud changes would diminish the warming (a negative feedback) or enhance the warming (a positive feedback). Moreover, it is not known whether these cloud changes would involve increased or decreased precipitation and water supplies in particular regions. http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html

Anna quote

"Please me have ... (pause, thinking) ... What I talking about?"

Mass media news is pathetic

I get most of my news through websites, blogs, etc -- not through mass media outlets such as T.V. and radio. When I do listen to the news on T.V. or radio I am absolutely astounded by how pathetic it is. It sounds like it is intended for children.

Examples from a 1/2 hour T.V. news program of which I listened to only about 15 minutes:

• There was a T.V. news story about some new new circles on the highway to help motorists follow at safe distances. That's nice. And it wasn't just 30 seconds mentioning an explaining. It was 3 minutes getting opinion, showing the circles, and other useless stuff.
• There was a T.V. news story about a hit and run accident. It was reported on the scene of the accident (like there is anything to see so why does that matter) and the reporter said the driver could have been distracted by a cell phone (but he could have been distracted by a million other things also so why make conjecture).
• Another T.V. news story about a group of rich people who took out an ad to request that taxes on the rich be increased to give more money to education. They reported that after the ad came out other rich people called them to give their support (so what -- So now you have 200 people out of the whole state who support you, which is insignificant). They did a few interviews with people on the street (the opinions of 3 people in the whole state are useless). They ended the useless report saying that it could happen in the future (well really, I didn't know that taxes might change in the future). They never even attempted to address real issues such as the potential impact of the tax increase and how the extra money would affect schools.
  

All of those stories were a few minutes long (not just a few seconds to mention it). Isn't there anything else more important than that happening in the world or even state? With commericals they spent at least 1/3 of the news on those stories. There is just too much junk to make it useful.

Cable Choice

Citizen Link supports the FCC mandating Cable Choice (http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/a0041214.cfm) but why should the government mandate that? AFAIK cable companies are free to offer cable choice and customers are free to not choose cable if cable choice isn't offered. Smells like big government.

Pig Rodeo

In England they have rodeos but because of space constraints they use large pigs instead of horses. They even have a national championship held at Buckingham Palace.