Tag Archives: Idea Polish Level: 2

To Be A Hero

Note: Unlike most posts, this post is more of a brain dump, in which my thoughts are just swirling around in my head and I just need to write them down. Usually I do a lot more to organize it, but in this case, because I don’t really have a conclusion, I just want to give a bit of a glimpse of how I think/write. Note: this was written a few months ago.


What makes someone a hero, or something heroic? After a really good book discussion earlier tonight, I came up with Four key things to look at:

  1. What was done
  2. How it was done
  3. Why it was done
  4. The scenario (when, where, & who) that it was done in

Each of these can be used as a reason for something to be heroic or not heroic. For example if someone were to save a planet from destruction he would be called heroic. This would be an example of the What. However, someone who saved the planet but did it by completely annihilating another planet would have done something great (he saved the country), but the way he did it (the How) was awful. Does he still deserve to be called a hero? Also, if there was no other way to save his own planet without destroying the other planet (which may have been trying to destroy his planet), does the Scenario justify the How?

What if someone saves a planet (What) by doing (How) nothing but that which would be considered “good” by the average person. He would again be called a hero. But if the reason he did it was purely for self gain (Why), would he truly be a hero inside? Would the reason that he did good outweigh the good that he did, at least in an eternal perspective, or when looking for a role model? What if someone kills someone but did it to save his family? Would the Why outweigh the What? Many people seem to think along this line, but it can be harder to determine than it seems

For example, I once heard/read that no villain thinks himself the villain. While there are of course many exceptions, what if someone destroys an innocent planet (What) with no provocation (Scenario), but does so because he believes it is the best thing to do? What if Hitler thought that he was doing the world a favor (which, I hear, he may actually have thought)? The Why may be good intentions, but does it outweigh the What? I don’t know. I simply don’t know.


More about the other things. If you do something good (What), but in a terrible way (How), which is more important, the How or the What? Does the end justify the means? What if you do something awful, but the way that you do it is really good (for example, drive a government/nation into bankruptcy by giving food to the poor)? Do the means justify the end?

Another thing: At what point does the How become the What? After all, Every single “How”, if taken individually, becomes a “What”. If only the What counts, what if you don’t finish the What and are left halfway through the How? If the How is good but the end was bad, then now you managed to do a good thing without the bad results (gave food to the poor without driving the government/nation into bankruptcy). However, if the How is bad and the end was good, and you get stopped before it’s finished, then now you’re stuck with having done something bad without getting the good results you were looking for.

So is the What the end of the process, meanwhile the How anything before that? As hinted at before, how do you know when to stop the clock and check whether the result is good or bad? What if you accomplish a good What, but it’s only good for a short period which becomes the cause for something really bad to happen? Does the What suddenly become a How?


What’s the difference between the Why and the Scenario? Perhaps the Scenario is what is going on outside or you, meanwhile the Why is what is going on inside of you. In the case of saving your family by killing someone, the Scenario is that your family is under threat, meanwhile the Why is that you wanted to protect them.


Finally, what is good and what is bad? What What’s are bad things to do, what How’s are bad ways to do things, what Scenarios justify what actions, and what Why’s are good reasons to take those actions? I’m Christian, and I’m thankful that I can look to God, His scriptures, and His Prophets for what is ultimately right and what is wrong, so fortunately I don’t have to get into an unending post trying to describe good vs. bad. However, I will leave with this statement:

To be a Hero, Do the Right things, the Right way, in the Right situation, and for the Right reasons, reasons which are based on the Right principles, which principles you can find as you look toward God for guidance.

~ George

GPS Measuring Device

What if you could measure the length of a room without all the hassle of finding a tape measure, getting someone to hold one end down, then moving to the other end of the room? What if all you needed was your phone?

Wouldn’t it be cool if someone managed to make an app or phone functionality that would let you hit a button in the app, move your phone, and the GPS would tell you how far the phone moved? You could stand at one end of the room, hit the button, walk to the other side of the room, hit the button again, and the phone would spit out a number saying how long the room is!

Unfortunately, a quick Google search says that GPS’s are only accurate to 3-15 meters, but maybe there are other ways. I know that phones can detect how many steps someone has taken in a day, so maybe it can use some of that functionality to detect how fast and how long the phone moved and use those numbers to tell you how far it moved.

If not a phone, then maybe someone could invent a device that splits in two and measures the distance between the two halves. Just set them on opposite sides of the room and hit a button to get your answer. They would even work with smaller things like a toothpick; you would just set them closer together. Or they could also work with larger things, like a soccer field. Again, just move the halves apart and push the button.

It would be best if they would transmit information in a way similar to those remote controls that can work no matter where you’re pointing them, so that it wouldn’t matter if something was in the way or not. I bet there’s a way to find the delay between the sending of the information and the receiving of the information, which can be multiplied by the speed of light to find the needed distance.

I’m not sure how practical it would be to make, but I think it would be an awesome invention and would certainly want to buy it.

~ George

Interesting Observation: Better Late Than Never

You all probably have heard the phrase “Better late than never” at least once in your lifetime; if not, well, it’s better late than never to learn it. Either way, a friend recently said it to me, and I was about to reply “yeah, of course, it’s always better late than never,” when I realized something: “What if it was my execution?” :/

Imagine the executioner coming to your jail cell to fetch you; he unlocks the door, binds your hands, and as he leads  you to the guillotine, he says, with an apologetic look on his face, “I’m really sorry that it has taken so long to get your execution set up, we’re usually not this sloppy; but, you know, better late than never, right?”

~ George

My Fourth Santa Theory: Particular Santa (the best of my current theories)

There are many arguments against Santa being real, so I came up with a few ideas that work out a couple of kinks without being too unrealistic.

So here’s my fourth theory: What if Santa actually paid attention to the rule that if you’re naughty then you don’t get a gift? When I say that this is my “best” theory, I don’t mean that it is my favorite. Instead I mean that this theory fits everything I know about Santa better than any of my other theories and also obeys almost all the laws of physics (unlike almost every other theory), with the one exception being that Santa is immortal. I believe it to be the most elegant and simple of the lot, and it just makes sense to me. As with my third theory, if you received a present from Santa this year then this theory must not true, so you don’t have to continue reading.

Anyhow, what if Santa actually cared whether you messed up? What if the naughty list was actually enforced? No one is perfect, I doubt anyone would disagree with that, so why should we all get presents? We’re all on the naughty list, after all, and even if the list is cleared every Christmas it wouldn’t take too long before we mess up and are back on it. Santa has only ever had to give about 33 gifts in his entire life, and they were all to the same person. If only we could all be as nice as that one person.

~ George

My Third Santa Theory: Sorcerer Santa (doesn’t work if Santa still visits on Christmas)

There are many arguments against Santa being real, so I came up with a few ideas that work out a couple of kinks without being too unrealistic.

So here’s my third theory: What if the gift that Santa gives every child doesn’t have to be tangible? That’s the premise, and it can be turned a lot of different ways. I’ll just show one here. Of course, if you received a toy or something else from Santa last Christmas, then this theory must not be true, and you can stop reading if you want.

Santa is a powerful sorcerer who can cast a spell over the entire world in such a way that when it’s midnight wherever you are, you receive his gift: the gift of a good feeling. Or maybe it’s a good dream that he gives you, and if you aren’t asleep then Santa “won’t come”. Or maybe it’s a brief feeling of love for all. It could be all sorts of things, but those are the three that I thought of first. Either way, it would be very hard to quantify what it was that he gave you and whether or not he give you anything at all. Plus, Santa still gets to give everyone a gift.

~ George

My Second Santa Theory: Business Santa (my favorite of my four theories)

There are many arguments against Santa being real, so I came up with a few ideas that work out a couple of kinks without being too unrealistic.

So here’s my second theory: What if Santa doesn’t have to give the gifts in person? So long as the gift makes its way to the child, why should he care if he’s the one credited for it? Whether by the parents, a random stranger, or the child finds it lying on the ground, it wouldn’t matter for him. With that, now the gifts no longer even have to come on Christmas! With that, the gifts don’t even have to be free! Getting rid of the when and how the gifts are delivered frees Santa to actually do his job without killing himself when his multistory tall bag falls on him due to a small mishap.

Most kids get toys for Christmas. Since Santa is immortal (or not, if he has children as in my first theory), he has had plenty of time to build himself an empire of toy makers all over the world. He is indirectly in charge of every major toy manufacturer in the world, and has been for long time. Almost every toy a child receives can be traced back to Santa and his unknown monopoly on toys.

As for the kids who don’t get toys for Christmas or have never gotten a toy at all, Santa didn’t want to leave them out. So he worked and worked put himself at the top of every food, charity, hospital, schooling, and clothing operation in the world. In fact, Santa has expanded his empire to almost every product that is made so that he is continually giving “gifts” to every child in the world. What a nice guy.

~ George

My First Santa Theory: Many Santas (the least realistic of my four theories)

There are many arguments against Santa being real, so I came up with a few ideas that work out a couple of kinks without being too unrealistic.

So here’s my first theory: What if there wasn’t only one Santa? The rest of the population grows with time, so Santa’s would to. Santa has had children, his children have had children, those children have had children, and so on. At this point in time, each city has many Santas who are in charge of their own small group of people, and the rest of the Santas are scattered throughout the world. Each Santa is precisely located so that they can get as many people as possible with the given time. They would still need magic so that they wouldn’t get caught, but they wouldn’t need the millions of tons of presents  for billions of children or to go at the inane speeds that one Santa would need to go to give all of those gifts. He wouldn’t even have to be immortal, because his children would be able to continue his work.

Another benefit of having lots and lots of Santas is that all those movies that show Christmas being saved by one person or the other could all be true. Every year some of the Santas would get caught by police, fall off the roof, get shot out of the sky, etc., and some group of kids, animals, and/or adults manage to save Christmas despite Santa being incapacitated in some way. Who knew all those movies were true the whole time?

~ George

The Customer is Always Right Bonus

My family and I were eating at a high-quality restaurant today and my Dad wanted a straw. Because our waitress wasn’t in sight, he tried asking one of the clean-up ladies for the straw and was surprised when she actually brought him one. He said that usually when he’d ask someone who wasn’t going to get a tip from him (and thus had no interest in his happiness) to get something, they’d say yes but never be seen again. As I said earlier, this was a high-quality restaurant, so I suggested that maybe they were paid something like what I on-the-spot called a “The Customer is Always Right” bonus.

A “The Customer is Always Right” bonus would be small cash incentive to make any customer happy and not just the ones that are going to tip you. The idea is that if everybody is paid the same flat sum of let’s say a $10 bonus everyday/week (this’ll be cash and not part of the regular salary), they could spare up to $10 worth of time to help customers with random thing like getting a straw for them. This way, those who want to be helpful and give the restaurant a good reputation can be helpful without worrying that they are wasting their time on something that won’t benefit them.

Of course there would still be some who would just pocket the money and still not help customers, and at some point all would start to consider the $10 as part of the salary (not a bonus, just a given), but I still think the idea has promise. For those who just keep the money, perhaps have someone make sure they at least try to do something to help customers sometimes. As for the others, maybe the bonus would be changed each week. It’d retain a constant value of about $10, but what the $10 was spent on would be different from week to week, with things like putt putt tickets or candy or whatever. Since the bonus would change, the employees wouldn’t get used to the bonus and start to ignore it.

~ George

World Delete Button

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 Commercialize Thanksgiving (Humor)

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