things were done right the first time.

too much time is spent on fixing careless mistakes. humanity's biggest threat is not malice but indifference.

homo galacticus

wow! the ansari X prize has been taken! capitalism has broken the frontier of space travel and richard branson has launched Virgin Galactic!

 

although space travel has never been my overriding passion as much as some others, i am quite excited about the ability to feel weightlessness without forsaking most of my organs! what a thought to be able to tour the earth from space. why can't we make it there faster. i have to commend the enterprising entrepreneurs that renew my faith in individual initiative - congratulations and BRAVO!

 

now let's see if we can observe relativity in person and achieve (real or perceived) time travel....

people would wait their turn before speaking!

i've noticed this more and more recently but it's hard to converse with someone or debate an issue without the conversation turning into incomprehensible spaghetti. of course this is something that has existed forever and it's a major part of the skill of adroit communication...

if i remember correctly - we never had any proper and dedicated classes on interpersonal communication. some may experience the odd public-speaking class in college but what i'm envisioning is more aking to debate and open discussion.

at the end of it - the matter has much to do with the person's ability to train the mind and appreciate the nuances of intelligent conversation. listening is oft-touted as a virtue but seldom applied. it's about time someone took to seriously introducing practical dialogue as a part of early education.

one thing that might be interesting - voice neutralizers! devices that could be directed at anyone to shut them up (or at least mute their speech). don't scoff - the basis for this technology is available today and its only a matter of time before its applied on a more "confrontational" level. can't wait - it's gonna be fun!!!

we could search data efficiently?

Copernic Desktop Search - a free search tool that offers commercial quality - The Tablet PCs Weblog - tabletpcs.weblogsinc.com now here is a possible answer. i had been a fan of copernic for a while before it had been nudged aside by google but for local PC searches i think i'll give them a try....

people were a little less greedy?

and therefore caring about who they step on - literally! at least two people died and scores of others injured when a new IKEA store in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia stampeded into a new store at its grand opening... apparently the first couple of customers were offered a bunch of freebies (think cheap coasters) and the estimate was for 20,000 customers in the first day - which happened in the first hours!

i wonder how people rationalize such acts - or don't.... life in saudi must be hard these days for people to flock to an IKEA opening for freebies. reminds me of a story - a good samaritan was invited to give a speech about helping others to a large audience and was late to the presentation (in reality a staged experiment) and a cripple in need of help was made to fall in his way! the guy stepped over him in his rush to give a speech about selflessly helping others! a nice and true example of how sometimes overemphasizing the goals can obscure one's judgment...

Gomez enables customers to define, achieve and maintain performance excellence.

Gomez enables customers to define, achieve and maintain performance excellence.

gave a similar idea to a guy that was selling me market research services last week. i wonder who's selling to who ;) its about time such consumer empowerment movements grew. why are they always in the US? (one answer's the hugeness of the market but that can't be the only driver!)

we need to rate any product or service provider. its critical and its democracy in action - one of my goal's in life is to eradicate mediocrity. it sounds like miss world wishing for peace on earth but i think there's more hope for this one!

we could package the weather!

as i sit here looking out on the park on a pleasant summer day in london the thought crosses my mind.... why isn't weather moveable? as i ponder heading to the heat of the desert in the middle of the summer and the dreaded midday meltdown that's inevitable in 50degree plus (celsius - yes its really possible in nature!) i begin to come up with crazy ideas for packaging the weather or chunks of it for use on demand! :)

one day.....

we had a network for frequent travelers....

this has been on my mind for a long time. i'm always traveling and know people all around the world. i'd always wished i could just drop in to town and instantly know who was in - resident or guest.....

what has me more interested these days is the emergence of the social/functional/business networking sites. things like plaxo.com (a great candidate for this feature and one that i already heavily use) and linkedIn.com..... i was imagining a service or addon to an existing one that would allow the user to simply click on where they were located and that could be viewed by anyone who had access to the user's email (by permission of course).... i think its only a matter of time that we'll see it.. but will it survive if it emerges???

until then i will just have to do the email and phone tag trick and try to corner them the old-fashioned way (8)