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

"Take me Away" - website that can suggest vacations

I have taken days off, and have some money put aside for travel, and need to take a break - somewhere, anywhere, as long as its a nice place. Searching on Expedia and the lot is painful -as 300 million other people also have that weekend off (say, thanksgiving or labor day), and have beaten me to the air tickets. Where do I go?

If that sounds familiar, the best match I've found so far is http://skyscanner.net - key in your home airport and your dates, and it will present prices to many destinations - both domestic and international. That can give you some ideas.

Granted, presenting all possible combinations for a given set of dates, a starting airport and a budget is probably a few billion places, but even a pick of 50-odd options to places I've never been to is great - beats having to punch in random places into the online travel sites!

Also useful: http://us.lastminute.com/ for a list of last minute destinations and prices

Geeky fun with Google Maps

Came across this website today:

http://www.mapofstrange.com

Allows users to submit strange things seen on google maps. Hit or miss, and a lot of crop circles and old planes, but some are really interesting.

Take, for example, these high resolution aerial photos in Africa that have been contributed to Google Maps from national Geographic:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=10.90385,19.935069&spn=0.000244,0.000429&t=h&z=22

There are a few other high res images - zoom out and scroll around. Look for others in the region from the map of strange website.