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.

One Child, One Computer

I must confess that we are headed into the best time of the year. Football season is about to start. Ski stores have started gearing up for their preseason sales. Of course, let's not forget that school is just around the corner. Last year at this time, I mentioned that now is the time to start getting your computer ready for those kids in your house. I second my recommendations from last year and encourage you to make sure you have plenty of ink/toner for your printer and that your word processing software is up-to-date.

This year I only have one child at home using the family computer. That makes it effectively his own computer. My son knows better than to ask to put the computer in his room as we have a rule about that in the house. Good parents understand the dangers of allowing children, that is anyone under the age of 18, to keep computers in their rooms. While there is a lot of useful information on the Internet, there is also a lot that can harm your children as well. Even my college-age kids are encouraged to use their computers in the family room as opposed to their bedrooms.

My oldest daughter's laptop needs a new battery and so she wasn't able to fully comply with the laptop-in-the-family-room rule. That was not good for her this summer as she was constantly staying up late and watching Netflix into the wee hours of the morning. As she is 23, it didn't really bother me, but I use her as an example to other parents to show that pornography is not the only problem caused by computers in the bedroom. Luckily my daughter is wise and cancelled her Netflix subscription before heading off to school. She doesn't need anything else competing with her study time.