All posts by George Evans

About George Evans

I think, therefore I think

Air Calories

George, Idea Polish Level: 1, My Ideas, , ,

I wonder how many calories you get just by breathing. Would location matter? I think it would, because somewhere like a pizza place probably has more microscopic particles of food in the air than somewhere like your house. After all, they deal with a lot more food than your house (unless I’m completely misjudging the average household).

What about places like the forest, where there would be lots of pollen and stuff like that floating around? While that’s not food for us, it would certainly still have calories.

Finally, would it be possible to have a restaurant in which you only “eat” by smelling the food? I guess it’d be possible, but it wouldn’t last long…

~ George

World Delete Button

George, Idea Polish Level: 2, My Ideas, Uncategorized, , ,

What would the world be like if there was a world delete button?

The world is in chaos. A now deceased scientist designed and built a button which, when pushed, will delete the Earth. The world already knows that it works because the first button he made deleted a 100 mile crater in the US, the second button he made deleted Africa, and the third button he created deleted the moon. Each of the buttons self-destruct when pushed, blowing up everything in a precise, planned radius. No buttons other than the scientist’s last button still exists. Its radius is set to 10,000 miles, and another thing: it’s wired so that if it goes farther than 100 miles from the earth’s surface, it will detonate automatically.

What would the nations do to get a hold of that button? It’s indestructible by any known means, and it can’t leave the planet, so they can’t get rid of it. Hiding it would only work for so long, and no country would want it to be unguarded, less some mad civilian were to try to push it. None would want to use it themselves, but they certainly wouldn’t want the others to have it. There would be wars and wars over which country would hold the power to delete the planet, meanwhile all the capable nations would be looking for ways off the planet. Whoever controls the button and is no longer on Earth would have the ultimate bargaining power in any trade opportunity with Earth; they might even just try to take it over. On the other hand, if you got off Earth but didn’t have the button, then you’d  be the one who’d be threatened with destruction.

However, if the button COULD get off the planet, the actual goal would be to get to another planet, but only if you are going to be able to have the button at that time. Thus, the constant warring over the button. Following that idea, it’s scary to think of someone who would threaten to delete the earth, have the power to follow through that threat, and actually be willing to do it if his demands are not met. Actually, that would be quite terrifying. With that happy thought, here’s a note to all who read this: DO NOT BUILD PLANET DELETE BUTTONS (please). It wouldn’t be very fun.

~ George

How to play Runner Games with Multiple People

George, Idea Polish Level: 3, My Ideas, ,

I often find myself riding in a vehicle with friends who either don’t have the game that I’m playing or don’t have a device at all, so I often end up sharing my tablet. Runner games are the easiest to switch between people and are also my favorite type of game (e.g., my high score in Temple Run 2 is over 22,000 meters with no re-spawns), so we usually end up playing them. Because of this, I’ve gotten pretty good at making sure that people don’t feel too left out when playing, even when I’ve played the game for hours and they’ve played the game for minutes.

There are two main things that you need: A number  of “runs” (usually three) and a minimum distance (usually 3 times 10 raised to some power, aka, 3, 30, 300, etc.). After the player has done a certain number of runs, he/she will pass it to the next person, no exceptions. However, for something to count as a run it must make it over the minimum distance, and if the run doesn’t make it past that distance then it counts as a half run. If the number of “runs” you are doing is 3, then if you get under the minimum every try you can do up to 6 half runs, but that should be highly unlikely.

Below I’ve made a list of some of the running game that I regularly play along with my recommended run count and minimum distance (and yes, 3 runs and 300 meters is the base number that I always go to):

  1. Temple Run – 3 runs over 300 meters
  2. Temple Run 2 – 3 runs over 300 meters
  3. Ski Safari – 2 runs over 3000 points
  4. Subway Surfer – 3 games over 300 meters
  5. Jetpack Joyride – 3 games over 300 meters
  6. Benji Bananas – 3 games past level 1
  7. Ninja Ninja Ninjas – 3 games past 1/2 the high score of one of the players, the higher high score if the two players are equally good at the game, the lower or middle (if multiple players) high score if one player is much better than the other. Or past 30.
  8. Mr. AahH!! – 3 games, no minimum
  9. Cyclone – 5 games past 5 seconds
  10. Red Ball Run – 3 games past 30

I’ll add more as I have time, happy running (or skiing or swinging or whatever it is you are doing…)!

~ George

How to Commercialize Thanksgiving (Humor)

George, Idea Polish Level: 2, My Ideas, , , ,

Following the conversation mentioned in this post, me and my friends started (jokingly) trying to see what it would take to commercialize Thanksgiving, because it appears that no one else really has. First we thought of lights, like Christmas and sometimes Halloween, then maybe fireworks like 4th of July or New Year, but they didn’t feel like they’d work. (What would you do with brown lights or fireworks? Yuck.) Even candy, which so many other holidays have monopolized on, doesn’t quite work. But then we struck gold when we thought about Easter: We need to start doing Egg Hunts. Turkeys actually lay eggs (unlike a certain animal I could mention *cough cough*), so it’d be perfect! However, as mentioned before, candy doesn’t fit quite right, so we were stumped until someone thought of another brilliant idea: Pie! (After all, everything is better with pie; don’t pretend that you’ve never heard that before, I’ve heard it at least ONE time before writing this post) (Yes, indeed, that one time was myself saying it, but that still counts!) Thus, the Pie Hunt was born! You could manufacture some sort of egg-shaped pie and special plastic eggs that are Thanksgiving themed, then promote things like Church and State Pie hunts, run Pie Hunts in your own backyard/neighborhood, get it into the newspaper, etc. Do that for several years in a row until it starts catching on. Later, while everyone else is trying to catch up with the Pie Hunt trend, you’ll already be raking it in (whatever “it” is, probably leaves ; ) ), and then you’ll be your own millionaire or something.

Up next: Groundhog’s Day!

~ George

Interesting Observation: Thanksgiving isn’t a Money Holiday

George, Idea Polish Level: 2, My Ideas, , , ,

Recently I was talking with a few friends about the fact that stores are selling Christmas supplies long before Thanksgiving even started, when one of them pointed out that Thanksgiving isn’t really a money-making holiday. Apart from the famous Turkey and other foods, along with pilgrim supplies, there really isn’t much for the stores to sell you. Easter has eggs and candy; Halloween has costumes, decorations, and candy; valentines day has cards and chocolate; Christmas has decorations, gifts and candy; even 4th of July has fireworks. Thanksgiving has none of those; it is perhaps one of the more “pure” of the widely celebrated (national) holidays, that is, it is not a commercial holiday. Just thought this was something cool to think about.

~ George

(Later the conversation turned more humorous with us discussing ways to make Thanksgiving into a money holiday. You can see my post on that conversation here)

Awesome Job Idea: To Be Awesome

George, Idea Polish Level: 1, My Ideas,

What if a millionaire sponsored someone to simply be awesome at stuff? Although, unlike usual, the guy wouldn’t stick to one thing, he would simply spend all of his time finding and learning things that interest him. Then, whenever he’s ready, he’ll perform/teach for his employer. In retrospect, it sounds less like something that someone would pay for and more like something that someone who is extremely rich would do for himself.

~ George

Change Log of November 1-17, 2014

Change Logs, George, Miscellaneous Posts

Note: I haven’t made a change log in a long time, but I’ve started working on one. Hopefully I’ll be able to get one out again.

Every few days I make a post that highlights all the changes and/or posts that have been made since the last change log. This way I can update previous posts and actually have the changes be found, plus readers will be able to get easy access to all the new posts without scrolling down too much. Note: Since this post may be the last thing I post on a given day, it is less likely to be properly cleaned up, as I will be rather tired at that point

New Posts:

    • George’s:
    • World Idea: No Passing This Point – Instead of categorizing all my “story ideas” as just “story ideas”, I decided to specify it a bit; in this case it’s a “world idea”, meaning that the main thing I touch on is the setting rather than other stuff
    • How to do tan^1 on a calculator is based on my reply to someone asking me that very question. As I am prone to do, I got in much more detail than I think the asker intended, but in this case I think it was better to over-explain than under-explain
    • Rose’s Birthday Gift: Lyrics Book brings one of my real-world projects to the blog; as said in the title, it contains a download of what I printed off and gave to Rose for her birthday
    • Steve’s:
    • How to pass-through connections on an intermediate Riverbed SteelHead is Steve’s thorough and understandable (to those who know what a Riverbed SteelHead is) answer to the title’s question

Major Changes:

Minor Changes:

    • I changed the description text of this change log to make reference to the fact that I won’t always be posting a change log the day of an update to the blog, because it’s hard enough to write 100 words a day without making a change log for everything I post.
    • I fixed some typos in wish two of The Ultimate Wish: Part 1 of 3 – The Wish

Of Special Note:

    • Just wanted to mention that I am now 10 weeks into the 100 words for 100 days activity! As of now I written over 10,000 words for this blog in the last 9 weeks 🙂

Certified Brilliant:

~ George

Complete Amnesia

George, Idea Polish Level: 1, My Ideas, ,

What if someone completely forgot everything, and not just memories but also words, images, tastes, everything. How would someone with this “Complete” Amnesia describe the world? They wouldn’t know colors or textures, verbs or nouns. They wouldn’t even know what colors, textures, verbs, or nouns were or that there even was a such things. What if that person tried to describe what he “saw” in a book? Over all, I think it’s be pretty interesting.

~ George