Science Friction (Perpetual Motion's Nemesis)

These days I seem to be posting my ideas more infrequently. Which is to say, I've been posting my ideas more sparsely, with a higher rate of infrequency, and in fewer abundance. Which is to say, in plain English, I've been posting less inperiodically or more commonly less frequently more often.

It is for this reason that I challenged my genius brain to come up with an idea that will solve more than one of mankind's problems in one go. We're talking killing two birds with one stone. But I didn't want to stop at two. Anyone who knows me knows how I love to maim a multitude of feathered creatures with one projectile, but on this occasion I decided to leave them be, and just think about the problem I'd set myself. Well within 15 minutes I came up with a single concept that will help reduce humanity's social, environmental, technological, residential and economic problems. All you need is a few decades work on an international scale, in a large section of Antarctica.

(an area of 500km radius around the south pole to be exact)

Problem 1.
The prisons in [insert country here] are full, but people keep doing crimes.

Solution: Send all the world's prisoners (or all the lifers at least) to one massive prison on an island. Perhaps not such an original idea. It's like when the US used to send criminals to Alcatraz. ...or when the UK used to send criminals to Australia. (In retrospect we call all agree that the latter was a terrible idea).
A large prison will be built in the centre of the continent of Antarctica, which (when the prisoners have finished building it) will be escape-proof. Anyone leaving the prison complex to go outside is essentially committing suicide. This of course is illegal, and will be punished by 24 hours isolation in the cooler.
Once it's up and running, a vast majority of the worlds prisons can be closed.  ... and then converted into budget housing. I'm not suggesting people will live in cell-sized flats. (not everyone anyway) I'm saying you could knock though several cells and have an apartment that was made up of up to 5 cells. Luxury.


Problem 2.
How can the world save money on the space program?

Solution: You'd have a lift into space. Yes, this isn't a new idea, not even by me. But it is an idea I came up with many years ago. I've adapted it though, so that the base of the lift is in the Antarctic (to capitalise on the very cheap/free labour among the local residents), and the counterweight at the other end is in a low orbit in space, but at an angle (of maybe 60°) from the base. The counterweight can make several orbits of the Earth each day in the opposite direction that the Earth is turning. The base in this new design however is actually anchored to a platform that moves around a large track with a circumference of approximately 3142km around the South Pole (again, built over many years by convicts). The speed of the platform around the track can be altered any time the lift needs to be used. Why the track? Well this is part of the answer to my third problem...


Problem 3.
How can we create renewable energy and stop burning fossil fuels?

Solution: This is also a question I've attempted to answer before. Albeit, not very convincingly. The idea was a very simple perpetual motion machine. And while that genius magnetic contraption has it's charms, I'll be the first to admit that it does sort of contravene Newton's third law of motion. Generally you can't create energy from nothing. You can only convert energy. Which is exactly what we're doing here. For all intents and purposes, this coasting Antarctic space elevator is a genuine perpetual motion machine. It would actually work. Why? Because it's not actually a genuine perpetual motion machine. But it almost is. The movement on the track will either turn a giant underground wheel, or turn a series of generator as the platform speeds round the track. The speed of the thing is determined by the radius of the track as well as the height of the counterweight's orbit.* It will never stop, so long as the Earth keeps spinning. A by-product of this ingenious suggestion is that (very gradually) the Earth's spin will slow down as a result of friction. The Earth's spin is slowing down very gradually anyway, but this machinery will increase this deceleration. However, it's worth pointing out that you won't see any noticeable effect of this for many hundreds of years.  ...probably.

Still, I'm always saying there aren't enough hours in the day.



*Assuming the counterweight goes round the earth just twice a day, and the track has a diameter of 1000km, then the base will be travelling at about 262km/h (163mph). For convenience this speed can be sped up or slowed down by decreasing or increasing the length of the counterweight's tether.

The Return of the Thin White Duke...

As those of you who know me know, I have always been entertained, fascinated and inspired by a young man named David Bowie. Perhaps you've heard of him.

He's one of those old fashioned all-round entertainers, but He's particularly fond of producing music. Timeless music (and decades of it), comprising of such a diverse range of sounds and ideas as to make you wonder which planet this talented genius came from. His genres of choice and artistic vision for each album has always been ahead of the curve (with the exception of 80's albums Tonight and Never Let Me Down, which were somewhat behind). He has influenced every recording artist you care to name in the last forty years. - Yep, every single one of them. (Yes, even them!)

His ability to foreshadow musical trends is astonishing even to me. Assuming that He hasn't stolen the keys to my time machine, the man truly is a genius. I feel honoured to be sharing a planet with Him.

But what's waxing lyrical about a fellow genius got to do with Jon's genius ideas? Very good question, imaginary reader. I'll tell you...


About five years ago, in the days when it had seemed that He may have retired, I thought up a fantastic idea for a David Bowie concept album. I also thought it would be a great idea to write a letter to tell Him of said genius idea. The concept was as follows: He should record an album of new songs, each song written and sung in the style of a different Bowie era. Not only that, but for the sake of authenticity, the appropriate instruments and recording technology of the time should be employed, as well as the appropriate musicians and producers for each era (assuming they're still alive. - No-one needs to bother exhuming Mick Ronson*). The whole album would be like a mixed alternative reality 'best of' album. It'd be called Evolution, or some such. Perhaps a naff title, but the more I thought about the album name, the more I realised that didn't really matter - It was the concept that was important.

There'd be a track from his hippy 60's era, a Man Who Sold The World style prog-rock epic, a couple of Ziggy-like glam-rock song, a plastic-soul number, a couple of Eno-written/produced songs, a new romantic song, a pop 80's hit, a song about goblins, a tin-machine-esque rock song, an experimental quirky one that sounded like it was from Outside, a drum'n'bass track, and finally a couple of contemporary tunes that sound like His more recent output. This was a great idea! Ok, maybe not the Tin Machine style song, but the rest of it's all good.

Two weeks ago Bowie released his first studio album since 2003. The Next Day is awesome. It's probably His best album in the last 30 years, and I'm not just saying that.
...Ok, I am just saying that. But if you give it a listen, I'm sure your ears (and eventually your brain) will agree with me, and then you'll be saying that too.




When you hear The Next Day for the first time it's quite obvious that some of the songs sound similar to earlier incarnations of Bowie. On repeat listens, you can pick out a different corresponding album from his back catalogue (from Ziggy onwards) for almost every song on the album. Have a listen yourself and I'm sure you'll agree. Some are more obvious than others though.



My track/album comparisons are as follows:

  1. The Next Day : Scary Monsters

   2. Dirty Boys : Lodger        

3. The Stars (Are Out Tonight) : Reality                                   
4. Love Is Lost : Heathen         
5. Where Are We Now? : Hours                          
6. Valentine's Day : Ziggy Stardust   
7. If You Can See Me : Earthling                  
8. I'd Rather Be High : Heroes                   
    9. Boss of Me : Diamond Dogs
10. Dancing Out in Space : Black Tie White Noise   
11. How Does the Grass Grow : The Next Day**                       
12. (You Will) Set the World on Fire : Tin Machine                                   
     (maybe. not so sure about that one^ I've never heard Tin Machine)
13. You Feel So Lonely You Could Die : Young Americans (maybe)                
  14. Heat : Outside

**Ok, I couldn't really think of which specific album sounds like track 11. It sort of encompasses lots of Bowie albums... which in itself make it quite typical of this album.

I know what you're thinking. And the answer is no, I'm not sure that I do have too much time on my hands. And also I realise maybe four or five of the tracks don't exactly sound like the album I've linked them to,... but some really do. Particularly tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 14. They sound like giving them a retro album style was the very idea. And what a great idea it was.

So, did the Gobin King actually go with my idea? ... Well no, because I never actually wrote to Him. I mean, you've gotta ask yourself, am I even worthy to communicate with the great man?

So how come He ended up making an album that seems so close to my original genius idea, even though I'd never published this idea until now? Perhaps He did steal my time machine after all. Other than that, I'd say that it's more likely a case of great minds thinking alike; He must've come up with this genius idea on His own. I mean, it's not like He's omniscient.


*Thinking about it, Ronno would make a pretty good zombie.

Labyrinth Game

     You remind me of the babe

          What babe?     
               The babe with the power           
                    What power?                 
                         The power of voodoo                       
                              Who do?                             
                                   You do                                   

                                        Do what?                                         

                                             You remind me of the babe                               

It's one of the greatest stories ever told. It's a musical fantasy epic up there with other classic cinematic milestones such as Citizen Kane, Ben-Hur, Apocalypse Now and Look Who's Talking Too. It's certainly the greatest film ever produced by George Lucas. It features a mixture of ground-breaking CGI* and puppetry**, and it stars Jennifer Connolly before she was legal and some bloke called David Jones*** as the goblin king. But for some reason no one has ever had the foresight to turn Labyrinth into a boardgame...

[Clarksonian pause]
 

 ...until now!

 

 

Maybe the film didn't do so well on it's initial release to warrant a board game release. But it certainly deserves one now, given it's current cult status.

No, I'm not going to make it. I'll let some other idiot do that. But I was inspired to make my own interpretation of the Escher-esque room in the middle of the labyrinth (see picture below). Then I figured, if you had an accurate 3D model of that room then you can turn it into a 3D board game with the use of magnets. It'd be like the not-very-scary Ghost Castle from the 1980's, but with an extra dimension. It could be the simplest dice game; a race from start to finish, or it could be a more complicated affair, with various different marked routes around the room: There would be four players; Sarah, Toby (the baby), Jareth, and Jareth's magic balls ball.

Well?... Laugh.
(more pictures available in the Arts Hole)

The idea is that each player has a target player they need to land on to win.

Jareth's chasing Sarah,

Sarah's chasing Toby,

Toby is chasing Jareth's ball,

and Jareth's ball is chasing ...Jareth? No wait, that can't be right.

Jareth is chasing Toby,

Toby is chasing Sarah,

Sarah is chasing Jareth... oh hang on, that's wrong again.

There has to be some other way that fits in better with the film's storyline.

So,... Toby is chasing Jareth, Jareth's ball is chasing Toby, Hoggle is chasing Sarah, and Sarah is chasing Jareth's package.

*The owl at the start is genuinely cinema's first ever CG animal.

**For the film, director/muppeteer Jim Henson created some very realistic creatures. You'd never have guessed that the life-like role of Sarah's step-dad was created with pioneering animatronics.

***I've asked around at Hollywood, David Jones is apparently the father of the excellent film director Zowie Bowie.

The Speed of the Universe

"People often ask me about the universe..." says the daft-punk speak'n'spell robot voice controlled by supposed genius Professor Stephen Hawkings. Well people would ask him wouldn't they. But then people are stupid. Believe me I've met a few.

Today (and over the next few days/weeks) I'm going to tell you about the universe... (yes, I am aware you never asked). I'm going tell it how it really is and point out where current science has got it wrong.

First up, the speed of the universe.

 
It is currently trendy in cosmological circles to believe that the universe is expanding. Not only that, but expanding at an accelerating rate too.

This is nonsense.

The universe is not accelerating. It is definitely decelerating. Not only that but it's possible it could have come close to stopping expanding all together. You want proof? ... Gravity.

The effect of gravity generally makes matter attract other matter. This is why the universe is and always has been slowing down. If the effect of gravitation didn't exist, the universe still wouldn't be accelerating. It would just keep expanding at the same speed. That's Newton's first law right there; the law of inertia.

So what we have is an expanding universe that is not naturally inclined to speed up, even before we include gravity. Once we add effect of gravity to this universe as well as the resulting effect of friction, we have a universe that is definitely slowing down. As a result of gravity and friction in our universe, matter (particularly solid matter) generally doesn't like to be stretched.

Ahhh, you say, but what about the red spectrum shift that proves that all galaxies are spreading out and that the ones furthest away are getting further away faster?
You're not thinking fourth dimensionally!(as the creator of time travel will famously say). I agree those farthest galaxies are expanding toward the outer universe and they are expanding at a faster rate than the nearer galaxies. But you forget, those galaxies at the edge of the viewable universe are 13.7 billion light-years away. We're looking at that area of space the way it was 13.7 billion years ago. It's has taken that long for their light to reach us.

Now lets look at a relatively close neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda. It's only 2.5 million light-years away. Like all galaxies, it is getting further from us, but not at nearly the same rate as those at the edge of the viewable universe. When we view Andromeda, we're seeing it as it was just 2.5 million years ago.

Let's look at those (very approximate) figures again...

Edge of the observable universe as seen:  13,700,000,000 years ago.
The Andromeda galaxy as seen:                            2,500,000 years ago.

So in conclusion, things were flying about much faster a long long time ago, and things are flying about a lot more slowly more recently. Therefore:

The expansion of the universe is slowing.  Q.E.D.

Ha! In your face, Hawkings!

Also I should add that my claim that the universe has now almost come to a stop is based upon the the above fact, the known age of the universe, and the known effects of gravity.
I postulate that at this very moment, at the actual edge of the universe (that we cannot see), the current speed of those galaxies will not be much faster than the relative speeds of the nearby galaxies in the local vicinity.

Can someone get Professor Brian Cox on the phone, I have some news for him.

Battersea Power-Table

I was on the train in South London* a couple of weeks ago. I looked out of the window and wondered why the above item of furniture doesn't exist. It's a genius idea! And it's all yours. Someone's going to make a fortune with this one. Perhaps I should see if Ikea will produce a flat-pack version.


*Actually correctly pronounced 'Sairf Lahnden' by the locals.

The Future Of Home Entertainment ... (3D Trifle part 3)

This is one of those ideas that doesn't need any scientific explanation, and doesn't rely on non-existent technology or bad science. In short, it's one of my genuinely serious genius ideas.


Think of your favourite movie. How many times have you seen it? Ten?... twenty times? ... more than one hundred times? (seriously, give it a rest). Well you must know that film pretty well by now. Have you ever wondered what would happen if only that character didn't take that action. If only those characters hadn't gone that way or said that line. If they'd taken the blue pill instead, or had hired a bigger boat, ... then what? I'm talking about the alternative universe where the character survives. Where they still have the money, or they realise sooner that the other guy was a figment of his imagination. Or whatever. What I'm proposing, is that film makers should create their cut of the film and also film alternative scenes for if the action had taken a different direction. These wouldn't just be alternative scenes for dvd/blu-ray extras, but entirely new takes on the movie as dictated by the viewer. I'm suggesting releasing the theatrical version at the cinema, then when the blu-ray comes out, have an interactive option halfway through the film, or at the end, or in various places throughout. These options will let the viewer choose a variety of different actions or dialogue choices for certain characters to do, and in some cases they will radically alter the movie's plot. It'd be like those text adventure games or the role-playing books where at certain points you choose what happens next and turn to that page accordingly.

A crew member yells 'Iceberg! Right ahead!'.  What order do you relay to the engine room?

a. Full starboard.  Turn to page 101
b. Full astern.  Turn to page 57
c. All stop.  Turn to page 298

Decisions... decisions...

Obviously in some cases the decisions you make can make the story much less interesting. But it's nice to have the choice. Such interactive movies would only be feasible on blu-ray as a dvd would not be able to hold as much information as required in a film with multiple branches.


Where games and movies meet...

What I'm doing here is blurring the lines between movies and video games. It can still be completely movie like, but with a single choice in the 3rd act - (imagine if Ripley, Hicks, and Bishop decided NOT to rescue Newt at the end of Aliens ... The three of them would get away safely on the Sulaco. The alien queen wouldn't be with them and so Alien³ would never have happened!).
Or it can be much more interactive and more like a video game. I'm not saying shoot alternative scenes for existing movies, - although a retro-redo could be fun (somewhere George Lucas sits up and takes notes) - I'm saying new films could be shot in a way to make their home-market releases a lot more interesting. A plot could go a variety of ways but end at the same destination. Or a single line of dialogue could alter the final scene of a film. The possibilities are endless. Imagine a film shot from a character's point of view. Now if this character has a normal amount of dialogue, but say 5 of his/her lines which are pertinent to the plot are multiple choice lines for the viewer, then what you have there is an interactive POV movie.  ...but it is still a movie. It's not a game.    ....or is it? This is a concept for a movie that puts the viewer in the directors chair. But it doesn't need to be shot from a POV. The lines of dialogue don't need to be plot-oriented. They can just be alternative lines. It's an option that you could simply turn on or off in a menu setting before you watch the film. Having watched the director's cut of the film already you can then choose alternative dialogue/scenes before the film starts. This is the least interactive idea, and one that would be a fantastic extra on a blu-ray. In fact I don't know why no-one has done this already.

The plot thickens...

Now lets look at the flip side of the coin. I've talked about semi-interactive movies, now lets make video games more interactive-movie-like, and see if there is a line that can be drawn between the two.
Imagine a video game where you control the plot, where your actions and choices have a direct effect on the storyline (the Mass Effect series obviously springs to mind). Now if you minimised the actual playable part of the game and fleshed out the cut scenes to the majority of the playing time... then we're getting closer to the interactive POV movie outlined above. If this game was stereoscopic 3D and playing on a virtual reality headset with depth perception abilities (such as this one I've invented), then what we have is a 3D film with interactive game play. Now lets reel the game-play back even further. Lets say you have no control over what your character does... aside from half a dozen lines of dialogue a with multiple choices. You can't choose where you walk or what you do but the film/game is constantly interactive in that you can look around. You can turn your head 180 degrees and can choose at which depth you wish to focus (thanks to the aforementioned genius headset).  The resulting experience would be like a dream where you can't really control what's going on but everything around you is completely real. Imagine being Mr (insert colour here) in Reservoir Dogs. You'd have other character talking directly to you (or even punching/shooting you!) You could effectively watch a film from any character's point of view. Again, I'm not saying remake this film and re-shoot it from all perspectives. It's just an example of what can be done. This version of the game/film crossover can be filmed on real cameras (albeit ones with a 180 degree panorama and a large depth of field).

For the above to become a reality, the 'VR headsets in every home' dream will have to become a reality. It will be a gradual thing, but it will be the video-games market that will make this reality... err, a reality. Then we can have fun with interactive films.  Until then, films can still be 2D on a flat screen with a modicum of interaction.

Like I say, a game (or a movie) does not have to be shot from someone's point of view. It doesn't have to be completely interactive. There's a sliding scale between traditional games and traditional cinema. There is no clear dividing line. You could have a traditional movie experience in 2D, but still have decisions to make. The decisions could have been made before the film starts giving the viewer a totally passive experience again. On the other hand the 'film' could be shot with a completely virtual camera à la Avatar. It could be stereoscopic, photo realistic, 360 degree-spanning, first-person perspective at 48fps with the largest interactive depth of field, surround sound and total control over what you say and do in the virtual environment. How the hell you going to tell this from the real world? 

With the above tools, a director has more choices to make about the end product. Just when you thought that all movie plots had been done before, that every film has been sequeled, prequeled, remade and rebooted... Jon goes and puts a whole plethora of other options on the table. The possibilities for interactive movies are endless, and I predict they'll make the home entertainment industry interesting again in a way that 3D digital cinema could never imagine.

NotAGenius Interactive Stereoscope ... (3D Trifle part 2)

Finally I'm prepared to reveal to the world my genius virtual reality headset concept. It's a new VR headset that will revolutionise gaming and home cinema.... and it's so ingeniously simple, an idiot could've invented it. Ladies and gents, I give you ... the NotAGenius-Interactive-Stereoscope! 

Ok, rubbish title. But it's the idea that counts.

The new Sony* VR headset
(for illustrative purposes only - My concept is nothing like this. Probably)

The problem with existing virtual reality systems is that no matter how good the graphics and smooth the animation, it's still not quite as real as reality. One of the reasons for this is focal points. In the real world when you look at something in the distance, close up objects in your peripheral vision go out of focus. Likewise when you focus on an object close up, your distance vision is out of focus. In the virtual world either everything is in sharp focus (regardless of it's depth), or the programmer/director who created the environment has told the viewer at which level they are to look at, by forcing specific depths in to focus (you can see this in any modern 3D movie). My new interactive VR headset will remove this choice from the game/film creator and puts it back in the hands (or head) of the viewer. For example you will be able to play a first-person VR game where you can focus at any depth. The depths that you are not looking at go out of focus: This makes the users VR experience all the more realistic.

So how does it work?

It's as simple as the vacant expression that currently adorns your face. Inside the headset there are 2 little cameras looking though the screens to see each eye. Each camera can see at exactly which point on the screen the eye is looking at. From this input the system creates instantaneous meta-data that feeds into the output of the headset. The stereo picture that you see is altered instantly and accordingly to put the correct depth of field on to whatever you are viewing at the time. Not only will the system know what you're looking at by the position of an individual eye, but it will also take the position of both eyes giving convergence data that will corroborate the correct focal depth used when viewing a 3D image within the headset. These readings will be taken at least 48 times per second. Obviously everyones eyes are different, so a calibration needs to be done for each user. This only needs to be done once though, as settings can be saved and reloaded every time someone different uses the same headset.

But how can the little cameras see though the screens?

I'm glad you asked. The solution is as simple as simplicity itself, if simplicity had been personified, lobotomised, and christened Boris. The cameras doesn't actually look through the screens but through a two-way mirror. This mirror is at a 45 degree angle and the actual screens (above and perpendicular to the viewers line of vision) are reflected in the mirror. The inclusion of such a mirror in the headset (when shaped correctly) also allows for the appearance of a larger screen further away as opposed to a smaller screen close up. As people find it more difficult to view screens close up, this is another reason that makes the as yet un-patented NotAGenius Interactive Stereoscope headset more comfortable on the eye.

But that's not all!

Oh no sir. For with this new technology it will be possible to create 3D feature films where the viewer can choose what he/she is looking at.


Whatchu talkin' 'bout, genius?

Well I'll tell you. Just like this new technology will make a video gaming experience even more real and interactive, similarly it will make a movie watching experience more real and yes, interactive. Imagine a film where the main action is in the foreground. Perhaps two people are talking in a bar. If there is nothing relevant happening in the back of this shot then the director will only focus on the people talking. With my new system a viewer (having seen the film already and bored with the foreground actors dialogue) can focus on whatever that non-speaking extra is doing in the back of the shot. It'll be like you're there. You can choose what you're looking at. Obviously such films will have to be specially made with a very long depth of field in order for every depth to be viewable.


So what use is it?

A writer/director of such a movie can put hidden 'easter egg' elements in their films. Be it a passing character or vehicle in the background that turns up later in the film or perhaps there is some background action that will only occur to you to focus on from the second time that you see the film. Also if you've got one of those movies by the likes of David Lynch,... you know the ones. The movies that don't really make any sense. Well you can have more 'clues' throughout the film. More depth, more clues, more weirdness for fanboys to discover, that not everyone will get, and then argue about on internet forums for decades to come. It opens up a whole new way of creating cinema. Cinema that's 3D, viewed within a headset, interactive, with hidden elements. Not only that but the interactiveness blurs the lines further between video games and movies. But more on that at a later date.


* Incidentally, if anyone at Sony or any rival company should like to employ my genius brain and make this genius idea a genius reality, please get in touch. I am looking for a more practical outlet to hone my ideas, and there's plenty more ingenuity where this came from.