Amateur Scientists and Explorers

It is no secret that I enjoy my job at Sony. I love what I do and my work conditions could not be any better. However that doesn't keep me from thinking about changing careers every now and then. I've thought about being a high-school teacher and even spent a week as a substitute one. Unfortunately kids treat substitutes with an insane amount of disrespect. The morning of the first day of class a kid walked in and said, "You must be a total looser if this is the only job you could get." Little did he know that I could afford to be a substitute teacher because of my successful career in the tech industry.

I've also thought about making my passion my career. I could follow my youngest daughter's career path and be a ski instructor or work at a ski resort. My fear is that skiing would then become like work. Right now when I head up to the ski resort before work, it doesn't matter what the weather is like, I will only be there for an hour and don't mind skiing in storms. If skiing became my job, I might learn to detest snowy days instead of embracing them like I do now.

I've also thought about doing something relating to sailing. I currently have a sailboat that I keep in the Great Salt Lake and love to take it out as my schedule permits. The only problem with a sailboat is that it is a hole in the water you pour money into and there are not a lot of ways to make money with them. Sure I could try to offer tours but that requires getting a captain's license and that takes a lot of work.

I was thinking along the lines of how to make money with a sailboat and came up with a new idea related to our planet's oceans. It doesn't require a sailboat but tiny submarines instead. Imagine a spherical submarine the size of a softball or large grapefruit with 3 or 4 fins and a propeller. When it sits in the water, it barely floats so that if it loses power, the submarine would automatically rise to the surface. Now put a solar panel on the top of it to charge the device's battery. You could include a number of sensors such as GPS, pressure, and temperature. You may even put a 4K camera on the front of it with some sort of low-power LED illumination. If you do it right and control costs, my guess is you could keep the price under $100. That would allow all sorts of amateur scientists and explorers to use them for any number of purposes.

I think the idea has merit and am looking for feedback. No I don't plan to leave Sony to create such a device nor do I think they have any plans to create one, though I could always ask. Instead I would like to open source the idea and get feedback on what sensors should be included and how it would be used. Some simple ideas might be tracking the changes in ocean currents or using AI and the camera to have the device follow specific marine life without attaching a tag. Who knows, it might best provide a platform to improve current marine research technology.

Let me know what you think and if there is use for such an inexpensive robot submarine. How do you think it would best serve the marine research community? With an idea like this, feedback is always appreciated.

Christmas Ideas for 2022

Every year I try to post ideas for Christmas gifts related to computers and technology. I find it gets harder ever year as I try to come up with new ideas. After all, it is not hard to go back through old postings and see my recommendations from previous years. So what are some new ideas this year?

New Video Game Console - Yes I used to work for Sony PlayStation and now I work for another part of Sony and so it is easy to expect I would recommend picking up a PlayStation 5. They are still hard to find but not impossible. I have also seen several deals on the XBox Series X and Series S consoles. Which one you get really depends upon the person you are getting it for. If it is for your son and all his friends have XBox consoles, he will want to play online games with them and so I recommend an XBox. If all your son's friends play on the PlayStation then go for that console. I do not recommend just getting a new console because you found one in stock. Make sure it is the console that is wanted.

Video Games - Here you have a lot to choose from. Be sure to ask those probing questions about if there is a game the person on your list wants to start playing. I am not a fan of sports games and so I would be disappointed with one. I am an anomaly though and so don't base a game purchase off my preferences. Find out what games are wanted and then try to find a great deal on them. If you have no idea what to get and that someone on your list is a fan of Star Wars, I highly recommend "LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga" as it has games for all 9 movies. That is on my list this year.

A Quadcopter or Drone - When I worked in Research and Development at PlayStation we had a number of quadcopters on the floor and would race them around the office. It was a lot of fun. DJI has emerged as the drone vendor of choice and they make quality stuff. There are quite a few models to choose from and which one you get is determined by your budget and list of features. If it is a first drone, I recommend a budget version. More than likely it will meet with tragedy and you will know if it is a good replacement gift for next year.

Portable Bluetooth Speaker - I have a number of Portable Bluetooth speakers scattered throughout the house and use them all the time. Both my wife and I have small ones that put out nice sound and are great when you don't want to wear headphones or ear buds. They can range in price from $40 all the way up to $100's. I wouldn't suggest any lower than $40 unless you are willing to gamble with quality.

Another Robot Vacuum - My house has multiple levels and our current robot vacuum cannot go up or down stairs. To solve that problem my wife will carry the robot to another level and let it run until the battery dies. A better solution is to have a robot vacuum for each level of the house. Don't tell my wife, but that is probably what she is getting this year.

Hopefully there are some new ideas in this year's list and I have helped you out. If not, feel free to leave a comment about what you think would make a great gift.

Robots

Every year our department does a team-building activity where we take the entire workday and do something fun. My first year, we did a scavenger hunt in downtown San Francisco and I had a great time. This year we got together in a hotel near our office, divided into 10 teams, and built robots. Once completed, we had a competition between the build teams.

I had a few people on my team that I know very well and several others that I got to know better. We had a great time building the robot even though we had to substitute parts as our kit had a missing piece or two. The hours we had to build our robot passed quickly. We all felt like kids playing with a complex Lego set.

Once we completed our robot, we had fun with the competition. Interestingly we had much more fun building the robot than we did playing with it. I think if I wanted to get into robotics with one of my kids, I would want a kit that you could reconfigure for various purposes. Remember that as we approach the Holiday Season.

Medical Robots

I got home from skiing today and found my son watching "The Empire Strikes Back." I love the Star Wars movies and so I joined in for some of the viewing. If you look at all of the movies, they are really the stories of the 2 robots: R2D2 and C3PO. Science fiction always has a use for robots but the only ones we have today are for building things, exploring other planets, or vacuuming our homes.

Yesterday I had to go to the doctor to renew a prescription. I used to never visit the doctor. Now I go quite frequently and know him well. He knows that I live in Utah and work in the Bay Area. He knows I am headed to Japan tomorrow. I know that last month he took his 3 daughters to Europe. My visit with the doctor lasted a good 20 minutes but most of the time we just talked about families and trips. I didn't mind the visit but afterwards I realized that I could have saved myself a lot of time if I could have replaced my doctor with a medical robot.

Don't get me wrong, Doctors play an important part in helping to diagnose illness and help us remain healthy. I just know that healthcare costs continue to rise and nothing our government is doing will keep that from happening. I suggest we give scientists at NASA a larger budget and have them build medial robots like the one that fixed up Luke Skywalker after his unfortunate interaction with the abominable snowman on the ice planet Hoth. When I look at all of my doctor visits over the past 3 years, only one of them really needed a physical doctor. The rest could have been to visit a robot. Most of the time when I go in, the doctor checks me over and then sends me to the medical lab next door to give a few vials of blood. Then I get a call from him the next week and he adjusts the quantity of a medication. For my visit yesterday, I just needed a prescription refill and my recent blood work from December eliminated the need to test my blood. A robot could have taken care of that for me.