Vertical Farming

Thinking three dimensionally - why not grow plants in a multidimensional setting.

Time magazine recently had an article on Vertical Farming.

Also here is a link to the Valcent Farm in El Paso (Check out the video)

Finally here is another link to vertical farming projects by Dickson Despommier (Columbia Professor) http://www.verticalfarm.com/Designs.aspx

---------------------------

We are back to the concept of utilizing available resources and space.

Combining PDAs to build "Supercomputer"

Here is an interesting idea of combining the power of several computers (in this case PDA's) to perform a particular task.

Spb Software company has created a cluster of twelve PDAs that distributes the task among the nodes using infrared connection.



http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/about/pressreleases/2003/pocketcluster.htm

While they do not claim that it is a practical solution, there is something about the idea of extending, distributing, and utilizing all available resources.
----------------------------
P.S. I remember reading about a chess contest where Players were allowed to use computers to make their decisions. The guys who won the competition – were not the chess champions, and they did not own a supercomputer – they just utilized several of their home computers by running them agains and parrel to each other using different chess programs.

Complexity Slider

What if our tools had a complexity slider:

For example remote control for a DVD at the most basic level will have only two buttons play and pause. As you slide complexity slider the remote control will get populated with more and more buttons.

That way you can eliminate rarely used buttons from cluttering your field of vision.