Author: Dan Black

Dan Black lives in Gilbert, Arizona and works full-time as a Senior IT Project Manager. Dan is a retired Army NCO who served overseas during Operation Desert Shield, Storm and Calm. He is also a registered Arizona Firefighter I & II, EMT-B and Combat Lifesaver.

Nanobots to the Rescue

How will history view our current state of medical care?  My thought is they will stare in open mouthed disbelief at pictures of surgeries which to them will seem nothing short of barbaric.  I would imagine a conversation a few hundred years from now might go something like this, “They actually cut into people?!”  Would they be so wrong?  Don’t we essentially use sharpened pieces of metal to cut people open and then literally sew them back together?  Have you seen a hip replacement lately?  They literally use a drill to auger out the bone.  It’s all very medieval looking.

So what is the answer?  Well for starters I think we will see a huge move toward the use of some type of nanobots.  Imagine finding out you have lets say cancer.  Your doctor has already mapped out your specific body chemistry and physiology.  He then orders a custom designed injection filled with millions of nanobots.  These nanobots are programmed to find and attack any cancerous cells.  Once finished the nanohealers would simply be deactivated or die off after a set period of time and the body would absorb them.

The possibilities are almost endless when you think about it.  How many lives would be saved if these micromedics could clean out clogged arteries, do minor repairs to blood vessels, heart valves, etc.  On that note, imagine they could be injected with small electrical receptors, encapsulate someone’s heart and if needed provide a small electrical charge to keep it pumping correctly.  This would be much more effective that a modern pacemaker.  Replacing them every six months or so could be as simple as another injection.  Better yet, what if they recharged themselves from the beating of the heart or by some sort of heat transference thing?

Of course this same principle could be used for something like for instance appendicitis.  A surgeon would use a device no bigger than my smartphone to guide the nanobots to the inflamed appendix where they would perform set routines to remove/repair it.

What about something simple like broken bones?  How about the same nanobots weave a mesh like covering over the bones and position them back in place and then hold them there while they heal?  On their way there they might also release a substance directly into the nervous system to temporarily numb the limb.  These repair bots could be simply programmed with your bodies physiology from before the injury and then be directed to put the pieces back in place.

Take the whole concept a step further and have nanobots positioned throughout the body to monitor key system functions like heart, lungs, kidney, etc.  When they noticed a fluctuation, they could alert your doctor directly or save the information and relay it to your doctor at the next visit to establish a pattern of say impending renal failure.

How small could they be and still provide a service?  If they were small enough, could they for instance provide an electrical bridge across a damaged portion of the brain to restore certain synaptic function?

I can just see it now, the body might start developing a resistance to the nanobots and you could only have a certain percentage of your total body mass that could be nanobots.  I’m sorry patient X but you already have .001 saturation of nannites and your body can’t host more.

Paintball Park

Continuing on with the theme of business ideas, another of my favorites is the paintball town/park.  If you’ve never played paintball it’s extremely fun and a little addicting.  There are some really fun scenarios you can act out on a paintball field from recreating an old civil war battle to protecting the president.

However most of the fields I’ve played on were nothing more than patches of dirt with shanties built on them.  My idea would be to create several themed paintball areas all interconnected.  For instance one of those would be a mock city built out of real cinder block complete with sewer systems.  I went through some army training in one of these mock cities and I can tell you it would be a paintball dream.  The initial cost of construction is also a lot less than a real building because there are no glass in the windows or pictures on the walls.  Instead they are just concrete shells with only floors, walls and stairs.

Another zone or area might include vehicles where you could act out an attempted VIP kidnapping with one side trying to protect and the other trying to take him/her out.

And yet another zone could have an old decommissioned airplane that you would have to take back from hijackers.

The civil war zone might have authentic type cannons that would bellow from time to time to add to the atmosphere.

The list is endless and the best part is that you could simply start off with the town and then build the other zones as needed.  Interestingly enough, you would likely find the local law enforcement agencies renting your facility from time to time to do their own training. :)

Add in some concessions (food, drink, equipment rentals, etc.) and you could have a real fun money maker.  Who wouldn’t want to go to work at a place like this?

 

Western Adventure

So for the longest time I’ve had a couple of business ideas floating around in my head and finally decide to share the vision as it were. One of my favorites is to buy a large expanse of desert acreage and build an old west town out in the middle of nowhere.  I know there are already old west type towns (ie, Old Tucson, Tombstone, etc.)  but this would be something completely different.

By different I mean the visitors to this attraction would be completely immersed in the old west theme from start to finish.  At the start visitors would park their cars, surrender their electronics (phones, iPads, etc.) and don period appropriate clothing.  Yes guns included. :) They would then have a choice to ride a stage coach or pick out a horse, that they would keep for the entire time of their stay, and then ride the several miles into town.  Speaking of stay, I would imagine that the length of time for this “adventure” would be about 4-5 days.  This would allow time for the town to be turned around for a different set of visitors every week.

The town itself would be completely authenticate in appearance and construction.  No electronic equipment what so ever would be allowed.  However unbeknownst to the guests the town would in fact be built on top of an elaborate system of underground support facilities (similar to Disneyland I would imagine) where the staff (actors) could work.

I thought it might even be nice to have specific jobs that the visitors would apply for prior to arrival.  For instance one might be the sheriff for a week, doctor, bartender, banker, shop owner, etc.  The really interesting twist would be to plant actors in with the arrivals and have them pretend to be guests.   These actors could then create stories about the town, start gunfights (blanks only folks), and generally create drama that the visitors might have fun dealing with in a very controlled and choreographed way.  Of course we would have a working jail for those that create mischief, real or faked.

A town playhouse would present period type plays as well that the visitors could be lured/encouraged into participating in.  Herding cattle on horseback would be a big deal with a desert bonfire type finish.  Poker playing and general gambling could be integrated into the salon as well.

Digital Personal Assistant

I love looking at the new apps for my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 on the Google Play store.  One thing I keep looking at never seems to disappoint and that’s the plethora of apps calling themselves “Digital Personal Assistants.” (DPA)  Yet when one digs a little deeper it’s apparent that they only deliver a ridiculously small smudge of real functionality.

What I want is a true digital assistant that can intelligently respond to queries and anticipate my needs based on lifestyle.  For instance I want to be able to ask the phone a question such as “how far away is the moon” and have it answer.  If need be the application should filter through the various Google results and determine the real answer based on verified sources.  If I ask it a philosophical question, the application should regurgitate the best answers of great minds.

I understand what I want is on the verge of artificial intelligence (AI) but honestly aren’t we at a place in time where rudimentary AI should be common place even in hand held devices?

How about the ability to ask my phone to tell me the location of my children?  It would communicate/authenticate with a similar application on the child’s phones and report back their location.

How about voice programming?  Wouldn’t it be amazing to have the ability to dictate a simple if/then statement to the phone and have it program an alert or event based on that?  For example you might tell the DPA if one the kids get home before 5pm, remind them to water the plants.  The application would then package the code and send it over to the complimentary application on the child’s phone.

The same logic could apply to other requests, such as set temperature in house to 74 degrees until 4pm and thereafter set it to 72 degrees.  The application would then send the programming over to the home automation system.

That same home automation system would detect my wife’s car pulling into the garage and then tell me as much.  Or would simply log her status and if I ashed, would say she had arrived at home xx minutes ago and was on Facebook updating status.

The beauty of my idea is that it’s not just a single application but more of a digital neural network of handheld and household devices.

Wouldn’t it be mind blowing if you were grocery shopping and the DPA told you that the refrigerator wanted to remind us we needed milk?

Now venture over to the business side of life.  Say I’m on the phone and a call comes in.  My DPA answers the phone in the background and collects information about the caller.  If it is a new contact, it would ask me if I wanted to add them to contacts.  If it were say one of the kids, it could talk directly with them and answer basic questions via voice, like what time will Dad get home?  The DPA could then look at my calendar and based on my meetings and history of driving home, make an educated guess.  Once my call had ended then it would fill me in on all of the activity/questions it had fielded and give me the option to update the kids with my real arrival time.

 

Technolution

Technolution – Evolution & Technology

As humans have evolved over the last five-hundred thousand years or so the laws of nature have played a predominate part in the evolution of man.  For the majority of our time on earth, our very existence was based on our ability to hunt and forage.  However over the last 10,000-20,000  years we have started making a dramatic shift toward an existence not dictated by a lack of food but of one dominated by technology.  Farming has evolved as the primary source of subsistence and as such people don’t have to spend hours every day hunting for food.  Water brought to cities via aqua-ducts allowed man to spread out to regions previously thought uninhabitable.

My point is that the very latter part of our existence has changed the rules of evolution so dramatically that the path for future changes is uncertain at best.  Take for instance computers, every two years or so computers double in their computational capacity.  As software keeps pace, the emergence of new applications are starting to blur the divide between reality and virtual.

As a better example one only has to look at young children and their daily activity.  Children rarely go outside and play and instead the majority of their interaction with friends is done via the Internet or text messaging.  What effect will this have on our evolutionary development?  In the past the traits that helped a person  run, jump and hunt better was good.  Now those traits are not dominate or even relevant.  BUT will that actually translate into physical changes?

What about people and their physical traits.  For 99% of our history being fast, strong and having good vision was the key to survival and thus you survived and passed your genes on to future generations.  But now with technology will that focus shift toward people with higher intellects and an aptitude for quicker adaptation (word used intentionally) of new technology?

Of course given modern medicine, even someone who isn’t very smart is likely to live as long as someone who is, so where does this lead us when it comes to evolution?  Could modern medicine actually usher in the era of the decline of the human race?  Interestingly enough I think nature has a way of fixing itself and we might wake up 500 years from now with rampant over population and people will have to abandon technology and revert back to the basics.

Damn the Torpedoes

Don’t ask me why but for some reason I get most of my ideas when I’m in that realm between sleep and waking.  Last night was no exception and at 2am I found myself contemplating submarine defense systems.  In particular anti-torpedo defenses.  Currently submarines rely on countermeasures that involve decoys, bubble barriers, etc.  Besides thinking that the very idea of a torpedo (cigar shaped tube with explosives) is primitive, it occured to me that one might be able to simply fire off some sort of remote controled net in the path of the oncoming torpedo that would snare it.  Once snared the net could employ either an electrical charge or small explosive to destroy the torpedo or at the very least render it ineffective.

A more sophisticated idea would be to have some sort of electronic countermeasures that fry the brains of the torpedo.  Like a highly focused energy beam?  Of course the problem with that is the natural barrier the water presents.  But if one could fire the beam inside of a very narrow bubble tube maybe?

Now go way outside the realm of possibility and figure out a way to manipulate water density and one might therorectically be able to just crush the torpedo from afar.  This one I like the best but I don’t see us having the ability to do this any time soon.

Update:  Thinking of defenses got me to thinking of offensive weapons.  Enemy ships and submarines are alerted to incoming torpedoes primarily based on the sound from the propellers, so why not develop a propulsion system like flipper on a seal?  The noise would either be silent or mimic an animal.  The explosive, tracking , or eavesdropping device could then operate almost completely undetected.