Desktop Organizer background

As basic as it gets - inspired by an XKCD entry that I'm failing to bring up right now.

Link to 1280x1024 version

Find my things

Here's a really simple web application idea - a list that will help me locate things in the physical world that I can't remember where I "carefully placed" months back.

Not for things I use every day - finding my keys or the TV remote requires a level of web-to-physical world integration that is not quite feasible. Or needs psychic powers.

Lets say I bought all this camping gear, and it won't go into a single box in the closet - need to put the sleeping bags in one place, the smaller items in another, and so on.

When it comes to packing for camping gear, I have to either correctly recall where I carefully organized each item, or have to hunt through the closets till I find the item in the last place I search (that's a self fulfilling condition).

What if, when I am organizing the stuff, I can make a list and put it safe on the web? Then it would be a simple case of retrieving each item - the bags from the big closet, the flashlight and propane stove from the top shelf of the coat closet, etc.

There are other possibilities - now that I know what stuff I have, I can create packing checklists on the web as well. A winter snow trip will have a list very different from a beach getaway or am outdoors camping trip. Whatever the trip, the night before will be an organized effort of running down the list, grouping the items by retrieval location, and dumping them into my luggage.

If there's already something like that online - great. If not, here's my timestamped blog post on the idea.

A better hard disk

Speaking of new ideas - here's one for external hard disks.

We have the regular hard disks at about $100 for 250GB, and the super expensive SSD disks.

The ones I like most - like the Western Digital Passport series - come as a nice small package and derive power from the USB cable, no external adapters required.

But these are slow.

Is it possible we can do the following:

- a RAM slot that the user can fill in - say, I put in a 2GB DDR2 piece in there, like my netbook

- a small battery - the iPod runs for hours and hours, surely a battery charged from the USB cable can store enough to run the HDD for some time

- some system software

Now, when I write to the disk, it will fill in the RAM first - just like a memory cache. This should be blazing fast. Then, at a slower pace, it will copy over the data to disk.

Because I have the battery backup, I am free to disconnect as soon as I've transferred data to the RAM, and the disk setup will take care of running on its own - disconnected - to transfer data to the HDD

Is that possible, or just an useless thought? By leaving the memory slot user-filled, costs should not increase much from the basic HDD - but perceived throughput certainly will.

Building a better gym

Gyms and I don't gel well.

I like the idea of coming out from the gym - feeling lighter, more agile, and fresh from a shower. I just don't like the part of going to the gym, and the part where I need to actually exercise.

So its natural that I come up with ideas on why I don't like the place, and how we can do it better.

Idea 1 : Retrieve heat generated from the machines

The idea to make gym machines "green" by making them generate their own energy and also contribute to the grid has been coming up lately. However, electricity generation is a lossy process - any energy conversion other than heat will invariably be lossy. How about make the machines generate heat, then? Large gyms like the LA Fitness I go to now have hundreds of people taking showers through the day - if the gym can generate all the hot water it consumes, that's a lot of energy saved!

There are lots of places to head from that point - surplus hot water can be used to offer free laundry, at least for towels, making our gym bags a little lighter and giving us a straight motivation (a free hot towel, powered by our sweat, waiting after the workout)

Now, there were a few other ideas I had come across, but I forgot them all by the time I opened this browser window. Will update this post when I remember.

Wish there was a "green" way to revitalize my memory.

Desktop Tower Defense

I came across Desktop Tower Defense at http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Game3.asp while aimlessly roaming about - and have been stuck since.

Its a flash based game, with crude hand-drawn graphics, and it takes all of 2 minutes to see what is going on - little creeps are trying to cross the desktop, and the player needs to build a maze of towers to prevent them.

That said, its more addictive than the flowerpot throwing Jardinains several years back.

If you need to read more, there's Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Tower_Defense

-kundan