off by one for 2007 July

Mon Jul 09 21:03:39 PST types of academic research, first in a series:

The Retroactive Umbrella

This is when you look at something new, and you say, "Oh, actually that thing is a member of a whole class of things that either don't exist or nobody's identified yet." Example: identifying the coming expansive P2P revolution after seeing Napster for the first time.

Pros: You get to herald an as-yet nonexistent class of things and hopefully have some influence over their development. You also didn't have to come up with the initial idea -- you just had to identify it as significant.

Cons: You didn't come up with the idea.

Related: developing taxonomies for things that exist but haven't been put into little boxes yet.

Fri Jul 13 17:32:35 PST free ideas: a series:

If I were a chemist or a physicist or whoever would be doing this, I would design a microwave mode that wouldn't make reheated coffee taste bad. It would have to be some kind of uber-gentle microwave mode. But even if it took 2 minutes to heat up a cup of coffee, as long as it tasted like it was fresh off the press/percolator/whatever, I would be happy to wait.

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