RocketHub--same as Kickstarter?

WIRED Magazine, Dec 2013, bills RocketHub.com as a scientific crowdfunding site, sans vanity movie projects by well-known movie stars and that sort of thing.

They touted it for a campaign to raise $250K to complete FDA studies on a drug to fight autoimmune diseases, an app to play whale songs and fund ocean research, and $18,700 for algae research..

Another project mentioned by WIRED was to examine Golden Eagle poo to see what they are eating. This only costs $1,600.

I went to the site and someone wanted money to replace his roof. Other projects seemed equally nice, but not really scientific.

What do you think of crowdfunding in general? I think it seems like a hard way to go. There is a time limit and the ones I have seen--including one for a great little independent film--seem impossible to fulfill.

But I guess people--sometimes--get what they need. And maybe it will be refined as time goes on.

You can talk to the judge right now, this minute

Brian Heaton, Government Technology Magazine, Dec 2013, says San Antonio, Texas, drivers with warrants for overdue traffic tickets don't have to go to court if stopped--they can get in the city marshal's car and talk to a judge via videoconferencing.

The software synchs with the license plate readers and an electronic court system. When the driver and judge decide on what is owed, the driver pays with a credit card--all in the squad car.

It's cleaner, insist the marshals--and usually the driver just forgot about the tickets.

It also saves time--an arrest can take hours of cop time.

San Antonio also has kiosks in grocery stores where people can pay tickets.

An effort is made to see if the driver matches the person ticketed. Then the car is pulled over. If the driver did not get the ticket, he or she is asked to tell the person who did it to take care of the situation.

If the person wants to contest the ticket, a trip to court is probably the next step.

I dunno--it seems to me pulling people over for unpaid tickets could be dangerous--what if the driver thought the marshal wanted something else and decided to fight or flee?

Have a startup weekend

There is an idea--pardon the expression--going around. Why not interest fellow head whackers in a startup weekend?

You could advertise it on Craigs maybe--or in a press release in the paper--or on Linked In's many creativity groups--or Facebook.

It could even be in someone's home. Everyone will make a "pitch" of their idea. Maybe others would join your "startup."

At very least, you will learn the flaws in your ideas.

Companies have started as the result of startup weekends. Zaarly is one--a mobil app that tracks nearby sellers and allows users to bid on items.  Planely--something about airplanes-is another.

You will have to get out of your comfort zone (if you have one, I don't). This is because people will inevitably pounce on flaws. They are like that.

My idea is Valet Cat--where cute guys and gals in shorts bring heavy kitty litter bags to your car, saving you humping them through the store with your aching limbs.

At a startup weekend, I am sure someone would tell me to quit being so lazy.

Some trends inviting creativity--2014

Do you belong to trendwatching.com--it's a kick, you should.

Anyhow, for 2014, the gurus of change see some themes.

Guilt-free status. They see a guilt spiral among people who think they should change their consumption, but don't. The biggest "guilt-free status" hits are cars that conserve. The status part means it has to be visible. Can you think of others?

Crowd-shaped will be big. People will pool their preferences--whether they want to or not or know it's being done or not. (I heard about an app that tells you what your friends are investing in so you can, too. That's not creepy.) Another example is juke boxes with a playlist shaped to the people who come to the bar. Uh--don't they have that now?

China will make us green.  The Middle Kingdom apparently is now the epicenter of green goodness.Intelligent streetlights, recycling bottles in the subway, a store made from trash, smart windows that saves and generates energy--Chinese.

Mychiatry--love this one. These are products for the "quantified self" (beats me). Stress reduction, headphones detecting your relaxation level in a game, a headband to gauge mental focus, a dreams analyzer.

No data. This will be a trend in walking the line between customizing for people and becoming scary-intrusive. Eight-six percent of internet users have tried to mask their identity. Darn skippy!

These are just some. I like the part about watching the creepiness. I do not want to walk in a mall, even if I could walk long distances, and have ads "read" me and flash up something I would like.

It's bad enough that some random search for say, white shoelaces--follows me to every site for weeks. I got the shoelaces--go away!

Got milk?

Sometimes creativity is whatever you say it is--and I say a story I read about milk in the University of Wisconsin alumni magazine was darn creative. It took the familiar and made it sing.

Check out: http://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/features/milk-matters/

As you know, Wisconsin is The Dairy State, to the tune of $26 billion a year. And the university owns cows. Yet, only 85 undergrads and 45 grad students come from farms.

But getting milk right is an obsession. DNA, big data--all are involved.

Most researchers are men, but one, a woman, is about to give birth and will actually experience their obsession with lactation and mammaries. She is obsessed with the latter herself, she says. Cows, it seems, put more calcium in their milk than they can take in, so they need serotonin to free calcium from their bones to their blood--this means they must "take" serotonin-based drugs. Some have been patented there.

This is just a little of the milk lore.

And did you know most adults are lactose intolerant--but they can still eat cheese. Many of the researchers cannot even have milk with their Oreos.

And--I did not know this--custom dictates that dairy cows' names begin with the same letter their mother's name started with.

Yo, Flipper, how's it goin', mammal?

I wonder if the name Flipper for a dolphin is like Rover for a dog. Cliche.

Anyhow, fun article by Alexis Madrigal in Next Gov magazine, Nov 21, 2013.

Apparently there is a rumor going around that Google is working on man-dolphin communication (I assume to get more users).

She says interest in this waxes and wanes.

A guy named Doug Michels lobbied for years to build a dolphin embassy under the sea to communicate with sea mammals. That's an artist's rendition in the picture. Never built.

There was also a push for a water-filled space station with a supercomputer and a dolphin crew.

Never built. And the guy was asked to step away from the vodka very slowly.

Now the Google X-dolphin thing. In a New Yorker story on Google's research arm, Google X, reference was made to cybernetic dolphins.

The author of the Next Gov piece wrote to Google, but some buzzkill there said sarcastically that she hadn't seen any dolphin tanks out back.

Well, there is a Google Glass guy from Georgia Tech who is working on some communication deal with dolphins. Apparently a diver outfitted with a complete acoustic system and a keypad on his forearm tries to see if dolphins are using "words" they taught them.

The dolphins probably think it's a giggle not a Google.

Invisibility cloak becoming a reality

When you were a child, did you ever wish you were invisible and could sneak around and spy on people?

Well, two researchers at the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto have demonstrated an invisibility cloak that's thin and scalable.

Professor George Eleftheriades and PdD student Michael Selvanayagam found a way to surround an object with small antennas that radiate an electromagnetic field that cancels any waves scattering off the cloaked object. (Nov 12, 2013 Physical Review X).

Light and radio waves get bounced away--voila, no way to "see" the object.

At present the antennas, which can be printed flat like a blanket or skin (or say a cloak), must be tuned to the frequency they are trying to cancel--but this can be corrected, the scientists say.

OK--we are now above my pay grade.

They say this can be used to "hide" bases or military hardware--but what about little kids wanting to sneak in their siblings' rooms?