Have you ever eaten something that was really hot but you didn’t realize it until it was in your mouth? What I find myself doing is trying to keep it off my tongue by holding it between my teeth. I then breath in through my nose and out through my mouth in an attempt to cool the food. It occurred to me that in doing that, I am trying to cool food down using air that is close to 100 degrees, or 98.6. Or perhaps, the air is cooler not having been in my lungs for long. In any case it always seems to work! Then I wondered if there was a better way to do it, which of course there is. Don’t eat really hot food!
The Ultimate Wish: Part 2 of 3 – Safety
You were just given the ability to grant wishes and have become the most dangerous person both on the planet and to the planet. With a single wish you could destroy the earth. If anyone find out about your power they might seek to control you, or perhaps simply kill you. What are the first wishes you make to ensure that you (and humanity) survives?
In bold are the wishes, and in parenthesis are my comments on the particular wish. “!!!” will be placed in front of particularly important wishes, although they are all important. Note: if you were going to make these wishes, you’d probably want to find the precise wording of the wish; these are more of the idea of the wish than the wish itself
- !!!!!! I wish that all the wishes I grant must be fulfilled according to my intention(so that I won’t be surprised by the outcomes of my wish. Definitely should be first, because it is critical to everything else. Also needs to be the most precisely worded)
- !!! I wish to need a password to grant wishes(so that I won’t accidentally make a wish that I shouldn’t; perhaps the password is a very hard word that I’ve written down)
- I wish that I am not able to grant a wish without consciously agreeing to it (again, I don’t want to accidentally destroy the world. The first wishes will have a lot to do with that)
- I wish that if I say the word/phase __________(really long, hard phrase), and then speak of a previous wish, then all the effect of that wish will be undone, apart from the knowledge that I had to say the phrase for some reason(In case I make a wish that messes everything up, despite my precautions. The last phrase is so that I’d know not to wish for whatever I was about to wish for)
- !!! I wish that if I say the word/phase __________(another really long, hard phrase), and then speak of a previous wish, then all the effect of that wish will be undone, apart from any effects it had on myself(In case I make a wish that messes something up, but I want to remember what happened anyway)
- I wish that if I die, all the effects of the last wish I made before my death would be undone if one of the consequences of the wish was my death (If I destroy the universe, then the wish would be undone (hopefully), perhaps I might want to not make it the last wish I made, in case it wasn’t the one that killed me (and the universe))
- I wish that if I am about to make a wish that will cause the death of someone I will know exactly 30 seconds before I make the wish, along with what the wish would have been (more backup for the “don’t destroy the earth” plan)
- I wish that any wish I make containing the word __________ (word that I’d never unintentionally say in a wish) will be undone exactly 24 hours after my death, unless I wish otherwise (Just in case)
- Having hopefully protected the universe from myself (although I may want to do something about the time stream), the following wishes will be mostly about protecting me from the universe.
- I wish to be able to grant wishes without speaking out loud (in case I’m in a situation that I can’t speak, such as underwater or gagged, although perhaps I should need to speak to decrease the possibility of accidental wishing?)
- !!!!!! I wish that I’ll automatically know and understand the answer to any question I ask, so long as it doesn’t regard the future. (This is a REALLY big one, with this power alone you could rule the world. If I wasn’t already wishing to grant wishes, this would be one of my “3 wishes”. Maybe someday I’ll do a post on it)
- !!! I wish to be able to stop and start time (note: unless I made wish #1 of this post, this could lead to some dire consequence, such as not being able to start time again, or instantly killing me. Also, this is important for my safety because it can help me get out of bad situations)
- I wish that I wouldn’t age while time is stopped. (Who knows how the whole “Time Stop” thing would work, so it’s better to be prepared)
- !!! I wish that if I were to die, time would rewind until exactly 5 minutes before I lost clarity of thought and start again, but I’d know exactly what killed me and how it killed me (You might want to put a limit on how many time this happens; “clarity of thought” is supposed to help against dying when I’m asleep or drugged.)
- I wish to be completely indestructible so long as I cannot think clearly, along with the 10 minutes following the point at which I am thinking clearly (This wish has two purposes: 1st, if someone tries to attack me while I am asleep, drugged, or confused, they won’t succeed; 2nd, if something really bad happens while I’m asleep or something, I will have a chance to fix it)
- I wish that any bullet, missile, rocket, dart, sword, or knife thrown or shot at me will instantly be teleported inside the black hole at the center of the galaxy (I know that there are many other things that could kill me, some of which I might add later, but this is just to cover the basics. Besides, if I said anything thrown at me would disappear, then dodgeball and games like it would become much less fun. As for the black hole part, I figured that no matter what someone shoots at me, it isn’t something a black hole couldn’t handle, meanwhile if the person was desperate enough it might blow up the sun, or something)
- I wish that the moment someone decides that he/she wants to kill me, he/she will immediately forget that he/she wants to kill me (pretty self-explanatory, I think)
Notable Exceptions (wishes that I thought would be good, but upon further reflection turned out to be bad ideas)
- I wish to be able to teleport anywhere at conscious desire (with the power to wish for anything, I can easily wish to be any place I want. Having taken some measures to make sure that I don’t accidentally wish for something bad, it’d probably be safer to just stick with that rather than risk accidentally teleporting myself into the center of the sun, for instance)
- I wish to be able to know the future (or something along those lines)(I never thought this would be a good idea, but I thought I’d explain why I make the last statement in wish #10. It’s pretty simple, to be honest. In many of the movies/books, the person who knows the future often dies or something else horrible because he/she tries to change it. While that may be just in fiction, I wouldn’t want to be the first to try it.)
This post will continue to be updated as I think of more, but for now this is good. Part 3 is about the fun I’d wish for now that everything is safe.
~ George
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This post is part of a 3 post triad, each focusing on a specific aspect of “The Ultimate Wish”.
- For Part 1 – The Wish, go here: http://evansforever.com/the-ultimate-wish-part-1-of-3-the-wish/
- For Part 3 – Fun, go here: http://evansforever.com/the-ultimate-wish-part-3-of-3-fun/
Story Idea: The Hidden Extra
What if someone got the rights to a bunch of different popular books and inserted the same extra into each book? No one would know where in the book the extra is, and perhaps they wouldn’t even know which books have the extra in it! It would become a little “Easter egg” for those who found the “Hidden Extra” in their book, especially since not all the books would necessarily have it (if it was inserted after the book became popular). Eventually, maybe the hidden extra guy could create a story that somehow links all the books and hidden extras together. Also, who knows? Someone might have already done this, but hasn’t revealed it yet. Brandon Sanderson has started something like this, inserting the (extra) character Hoid into at least three of his different book series, and (I hope) is planning to explain how they connect. As cool as it may be for Sanderson to be connecting his own books’ universes together, imagine how awesome it would be to have the universes of the books of several different authors all connected!
~ George
Change Log of September 1, 2014
At the end of every day (or, at least every day that I change something), I make a post that highlights all of the changes and/or posts that have been made that day. This way I can update previous posts and actually have the changes be found, plus readers will be able get easy access to all the new posts without scrolling down too much. Note: Since this post will be the last thing I post each day, it is less likely to be properly cleaned up, as I will be rather tired at that point
New posts:
- Posts by Dad
- Posts by George
- Story Idea: The Hidden Extra was inspired by what the author Brandon Sanderson has started in his books, with a character that transcends his own story and appears in another
Major Changes:
- As Dad mentions in his post DDOS and Wafs, he’s activated Incapsula on the site. See his post for more details!
- Dad also added the Tag Cloud that you can now see on the front page! One more thing to check off the To Do List!
- Dad changed his post list under technology to show an image next to each post along with the title, date, and a brief summary.
Minor Changes:
- I made a slight update to the text of the To Do List, and I deleted checked off items, like I’ll be doing at the beginning of each month
Of Special Note:
- Soon I should be able to start Certified Brilliant again! So long as school, which is starting up, isn’t too hard, that is…
- Updated to WordPress 4, “Benny” tonight!
~ George
Google Glass is great, but its not what I need. I need the PPDA!
Google Glass is great idea. The idea of having an always-on link to your Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) is appealing. Unfortunately, the execution in Google Glass leaves a lot to be desired. For starters, it’s too distracting, both to the user and those around them. Questions arise such as “Is there wearer giving me their full attention?” and “Are they recording our conversation?” Data input is also a challenge since voice is the only real way to interact with Google Glass and unfortunately, the voice recognition is lacking, not to mention the challenges of a noisy environment. Also, let’s face it. They just look silly. I’d certainly consider wearing them when you can get them as contacts or seamlessly built into a pair of Ray-bans, but not as they exist today. So if Google Glass misses the mark, what kinds of things am I looking for in a PDA?
I think that the Perfect Personal Digital Assistant (PPDA?) is one that is there when I need it, not distracting, and invisible the rest of the time (unlike Google Glass). It should use available information to predict my needs and be available to answer any question I might have. Here are some of the attributes the perfect PDA should have:
- Context sensitive voice parsing. I am very impressed with the Windows Phone’s new Cortana voice assistant. Let me give you an example. I asked her “where is the closest theater?” She responded by telling me the name of the closest theater and that it was 1 mile away. Without having to press a button, I responded “how long will it take to get there?” She replied, “it will take you about 1 minute to drive there” and showed a map. I asked, “how long will it take if I walk?” She replied, “…about 12 minutes.” I said “show me” and it launched the mapping app with the walking route highlighted. Not bad at all. That conversational interaction is exactly what the perfect PDA should have. Also, it is very important that the system not require strict syntax for voice commands. The Windows Phone does this pretty well. For example, I can say “Remind me when I get home to check the air filters” or I could say, “When I get home, remind me to check the air filters” or I could say “Remind me to check the filters when I get home.” They all work fine. Cortana creates the reminder and uses GPS to know when I’m home in order to remind me to check the filters.
- The ability to use environment to bring additional value to data. This is already being done well with Google Now and Microsoft Cortana. My windows phone announced to me this week that I had a meeting at 11:30am and given my current location and current traffic conditions, I would need 18 minute to get there and it was thus time to go. I had lost track of time so this was extremely helpful! It’s this kind of well-timed, actionable information that I’m looking for.
- High quality audio transcription. It should be able to automatically take notes on meetings including which speaker said what. I’m not talking about something like Google Voice transcription, which is laughable, but something that can actually take accurate transcriptions. For example, I once used a product called Ribbit, which transcribed the text of voice messages into text. Once, my family called and left a message and Ribbit correctly identified “speakers 1,2,3, & 4” as they each spoke and then came back to speak later. “Speaker 1: Hi honey. Here are the kids. Speaker 2: Hi Dad. Goodnight. Speaker 3: Sorry we missed you. goodnight! Speaker 4: Good night daddy! Speaker 1: Talk to you tomorrow. Bye.” Unfortunately, they went out of business, but the technology exists and that is what is needed.
- The ability to record everything and answer questions about it. How great would it be if a device recorded everything that I said and was said to me, every phone call, every meeting, and provided actionable information based on that information? For example, perhaps in a meeting I say things like, “I’ll take away an action item to get you pricing on XYZ.” My PPDA should recognize from my calendar that I was in a meeting and after I’ve left that meeting, offer to create a to-do list task to get the pricing. Perhaps it even integrates with a CRM like Salesforce to tag that on the customer’s record. It should able to answer my questions like, “when did they say they needed xyz?” and read and dictate emails.
I’ve used a number of examples of how my Windows Phone meets my criteria in what I’m looking for. It’s the closest thing I’ve found. But it is still a long way from being the Perfect PDA. Technology advancements in CPU, memory, and battery life will be necessary to bring my PPDA to life. But I expect I will see it in a few short years. I can’t wait to post my first blog entry entirely dictated, edited, and posted using my PPDA. Is that so much to ask?
DDOS and WAFs
I found a company called Incapsula that is able to easily front-end a website to provide services such as Web-Application-Firewalling, (WAF), Caching (CND), and DDOS attack protection (Distributed Denial-of-Service). I’ve activated it for this site, but I only did the free version since this is only a blog after all! Still, very cool technology. Implementing it was a simple 3-step process which really boils down to changing your DNS to point to their many servers.
Change Log of August 27, 2014
At the end of every day (or, at least every day that I change something), I make a post that highlights all of the changes and/or posts that have been made that day. This way I can update previous posts and actually have the changes be found, plus readers will be able get easy access to all the new posts without scrolling down too much. Note: Since this post will be the last thing I post each day, it is less likely to be properly cleaned up, as I will be rather tired at that point
New posts:
- Story Idea: “Spoiler:…” part 1 of 2 – “…Someone Lives” and
- Story Idea: “Spoiler:…” part 2 of 2 – “…Everyone Dies” both came from the same conversation. While it doesn’t have much of a story, it’s more of a frame or a goal that someone might try to write a book towards. The second one, though, is not something I’d recommend anyone trying 🙂
Major Changes:
- none
Minor Changes:
- none
Of Special Note:
- none
~ George
Story Idea: “Spoiler:…” part 2 of 2 – “…Everyone Dies”
Please read part one before reading this, so you can understand the conversation this came out of.
After thinking about the last idea, the “Spoiler: Someone Lives”, this came to mind. What if there was a book which had a cliffhanger in which everyone is about to die, then the book ends. Actually, there are a number of books like that, and when you read one you just have to wait for the next book to see how they save themselves from dying. But what if the sequel, when published, was simply “They all died” or something similar. Then there was never another book afterwards, and “They all died” was simply the ending, not a fake ending. Perhaps the book would have a preview of the next book at the end, and it was simply:
- TITLE: They all died.
Or perhaps:
- THEY ALL DIED: The End.
I can just imagine how horrible that would be. I don’t know what the story would be like, but it’d sill be interesting to see if someone could pull it off. Perhaps the story was about a bunch of immortals who’s dearest wish was to die. Then at least the ending would be good. Either way, “Spoiler: They all die” would indeed be a huge spoiler.
~ George
Story Idea: “Spoiler:…” part 1 of 2 – “…Someone Lives”
While me and a few friends were talking about the Ranger’s Apprentice books, someone said “Spoiler: Someone Dies”. If you’ve read the books, then this would be an extremely obvious spoiler, because the series has many wars and fights. I then said “Spoiler: Someone Lives”. After laughing, I thought: What sort of book, outside of the horror genre, would it be a spoiler that someone lives? How could you craft the book in such a way that at any point in the book it is a legitimate spoiler that someone actually lives? Remember, this isn’t a horror book, and in general most people think that the hero will do something miraculous and they will all be saved. How could you trash that thought, without making the book a horror book? I don’t know, but it’d be interesting.
~ George
Change Log of August 26, 2014
At the end of every day (or, at least every day that I change something), I make a post that highlights all of the changes and/or posts that have been made that day. This way I can update previous posts and actually have the changes be found, plus readers will be able get easy access to all the new posts without scrolling down too much. Note: Since this post will be the last thing I post each day, it is less likely to be properly cleaned up, as I will be rather tired at that point
New posts:
- The Ultimate Wish: Part 1 of 3 – The Wish is something I’ve been wanting to post for about a week now. Part 2 is going to be about what happens immediately after the wish :D, but unfortunately might take another week to put out 🙁
Major Changes:
- I added a new page for miscellaneous posts. This way everything I post will have a page to be on
Minor Changes:
- I checked off Add the new “Humorous Post” tag to the posts that it applies to from the To Do List, tonight I plan on checking a few off of it. Click the tag’s link to see what I marked! I also partially marked off something else, involving the new page for misc. posts.
- I added the top 3 items to the To Do List. As fast as I cross them off, I find new things that I want to do 🙁
- I added the “Magic” tag to a few posts. Note: this is not fantasy, so Story Idea: Benedite wouldn’t be included
Of Special Note:
- 🙂
~ George