Speaking your Ideas for Clarity, Continuity and Completion

Here is a recording about talking out loud and indeed recording what you are saying to gain a certain organization to your thoughts.  While organized, you lose flexibility to bounce around like we often do in our head.  But inventing is half bouncing around and half organizing.  So if you are scattered, talking out loud can help you focus.

http://www.yaseesay.com/file/id/333333

The link takes you to YaSeeSay - it was this recording that prompted YaSeeSay to be built.  It took a week of massive puzzle solving.  See the post in Interactive Multimedia that proposes programming is an environmentally friendly puzzle - one where the brain power is used for an outcome that helps society beyond just keeping brains healthy.

- 80 -

Inventing in the Environmental Age

THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGE

A friend of mine and I wanted to sit down and figure out what age we are in. Has the “Information Age” passed? Has the “Space Age” been put on hold?

So just today, it came to me - this is or should be the Environmental Age. I was all excited and asked a few friends and they had not specifically heard the phrase. I came home and found about 11,000 entries in Google with the quotes on (how I determine originality).

• Information Age: 9 million Google results
• Space Age: 3 million
• Atomic Age: 360,000 (Surprisingly small)
• Environmental Age: 11,000

This also finds the words with punctuation between which is not usually the same. But the phrase Environmental Age has definitely been used for instance in the 1989 book, “The New Environmental Age”. This also implies that there was an old environmental age - the Hippie movement probably. So while I did independently come up with this illuminating proposal, I guess I did not invent it.

Having said that, I do not get the sense that people in general have realized that this is or should be the Environmental Age. This post is to encourage and recommend that we officially all agree that this is the Environmental Age.

We have a better chance of there being an Environmental Age if we are to declare an Environmental Age. Much like it helps to call yourself an Inventor if you wish to invent. This is one of the first tips of inventing. Introduce yourself as an inventor and you become an inventor. Let us label this the Environmental Age and it will come to be the Environmental Age. A combination of positive thinking and a goal or mission statement - a focus!

Please pass this along. We are in the ENVIRONMENTAL AGE

INVENTING IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGE

I was just at a Design Open House and was happy to see many design incorporating environmental consideration. Indeed, designers will have a major role if not the biggest role in turning our products, services, luxuries, necessities, etc. sustainable or even beneficial to the Earth. Architects, Designers, Engineers, anybody who decides how things are made will have a big impact. Governments setting regulations will rely on these bodies for initial guidelines.

Aside from how things are made (design) influence on our environment will come from what is being made. Here is where inventors step in and come up with new ideas. This splitting of design and invention is not quite fair on designers - as much of what they do is inventive. Given a necessity, they invent solutions and design them. But often, what to make - the invention proper, is already established and designers work on aesthetics, materials and ergonomics and there is room for invention in the choices and the decisions certainly affect the environment.

Digression - read at own risk:

Is invention independent of design? Looking at the single hierarchy of Nodism, design is generally the working out of an embodiment. Traversing down a branch from a parent node. The parent node being the invention. But the parent node is itself going to be a child node of another parent. So in a sense, becomes the design of its parent. Invention happened to provide context. Design concerns the forging of the content. This is circular in that when you forge content, it creates context - hence you would also be inventing. So… perhaps the answer is not in the structure of nodism but in the actual semantic value of the nodes themselves. ie. if it is a value relating to aesthetics then it is design but if it is a value relating to its utility then it falls under invention. Anyway… somewhat of a digression. Digression is good when thinking and inventing but it is polite though to return to the point…

This can be exemplified by taking modes of travel for instance. We can redesign current modes (cars for instance) or come up with new ones (teleportation). coming up with a unique mode is hard - and even then, I did not invent teleportation - as a matter of fact, until there is a useful working model, nobody has invented it. In trying to think of unique modes of transportation I have arrived at things like a gondola, jet pack, auger, conveyor, segway, catapult - all these are existing potential embodiments. But luckily, invention can can be found in improvements. For instance:

• A pogo stick with compressed gas boost triggered at the handle (compression builds up as you land).
• A portable gondola the size and weight of an umbrella with bumpers (maybe only works downhill).
• Moving sidewalks that are powered by the riders like a skateboard.

Some say that improvements are all we have left. There is the fabled “basic patent”. An inventor’s equivalent to a paradigm shift.

Improvements can come by completely phasing something out. One might wish to phase out cars all together and rely solely on public transport. But we as a culture, at times need freedom - not at the expense of the environment - but still it would be better if we could redesign the car (as we already have for years…)

Shifting to electric allows us to separate the energy source from the vehicle. There are many ways to create electricity - it is a carrier not a source. So we can use solar, wind, wave, thermal, nuclear, even gas (but we should not). The size of the car too needs to be revisited certainly in America. There is an issue of safety during impact and in visibility. It is a bit of a catch 22 there where if cars were small we could see better but until they are small we can’t. There is also the fact that trucks are around. This might require separate roads for trucks perhaps. We see futuristic cars like shells made of fiberglass - which should be made from some sort of semi-cured sap and recycled fibers.

How we use cars should change too. For instance, we should not drive cars where we live but rather plan living areas of about 100 houses with pathways and gardens and leave our cars in garages surrounding our living areas. We could have carts for taking larger items between our cars and houses. Or perhaps provide some sort of conveyor system. Imagine your existing survey where the roads are gardens and paths and imagine the community and feeling of safety for children. Please see the Sage Project for an artistic rendering

One problem is that once we get somewhere - say going from Hamilton to Toronto… we want to then go all over the place and who knows where in Toronto and do not feel that public transit will get us there. So we drive from Hamilton to Toronto when we would have liked to take the train. Well, a solution would be to park a car in Toronto and one in Hamilton. Then commute between cars. This sounds a bit crazy due to parking prices in Toronto for one reason. Having two cars for another…

But what if we do like Holland does with bikes. If we had light weight communal cars maybe a cheap rental or honor program would work - or maybe government subsidized free parking of a certain environmentally friendly cheap vehicle would allow for two cars - one at each destination. Drive your little cheap electric Zenn car to the terminal and plug it in. Take a train to Toronto, get in your second little cheap electric Zenn car that is at a terminal there or a rental and take it from there. Ideally you would not have to take this commute at all and instead would live where you work.

Use ingenuity and inventiveness to aid in all areas of environmental design. For instance, if it nags you to drain your bathtub or shower to have all that water go unused back down to the sea then think about a solution. Hmmm… I then am going to go outside and use a hose to water my garden… hmmm. Do you see the answer. See if you can build it - make an alternative drain that drains into your garden. If you can’t build it then post the idea so that others might try.

CONSUMERISM IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGE

The whole concept of consumerism needs to be redesigned.

We should try and be consumers of ideas rather than products.

Then we can make things from the ideas using local resources and recycled resources even recycled within our own dwellings. As in… start repairing again! Start sewing and crafting again. I can’t tell you how many toys I have made from cardboard tubes and boxes and some tape. These outlast store bought toys by years. There is meaning in them, ownership, pride, history, love. The same goes for art, furnishings and clothes, meals, etc.

Sharing could work for us. We do not all need a lawn mower. As a matter of fact, in general we should just outlaw grass cutting and introduce mosses, etc. But for now… sharing is good. We can share ladders, tools, etc. and curb our purchasing of seldom used items.

Buying local produce and bringing reusable containers. Companies need to reduce shipping and packaging. Go to perhaps online marketing rather than relying on cardboard for display. Maybe OLED displays in stores rather than on packaging. Start making and selling things that are helpful to nature. Make games out of tree planting, put solar panels on everything. Make battery chargers to go on exercise machines and bicycles. And of course, make as many things as possible recyclable and from recycled products. Give to second hand stores and go to second hand stores.

Government programs might be put in place to help start alternative second hand stores. Ones that are creating new fashions from previously worn clothes or creating art and accessories out of scrap, etc.

So… just some current thoughts on inventing in the Environmental Age. If you have read this far, please it would be encouraging to let me know that you have and perhaps leave a comment with some ideas of your own or feedback on some of these ideas. Do not be shy! Thanks.

Inventing with Nesting and Nodism

Nodism is a philosophy of nesting and exploration of hierarchy with respect to our learnings in the information age with such systems as:

• XML - extensible markup language - the standard way we share information (organized data)
• OOP - object oriented programming - the current way very logical people model the world to make games and simulations.

The term hierarchy is sometimes considered cold because of the popular management structure - going back to feudal systems and food chains. It might also seem rigid with respect to the wonderful free world of association being the Web.

But… the Web sits on a hierarchy - that being our files in folders. Not only that, but Nodism talks of a single hierarchy where items are placed in many different places of the hierarchy. So it goes against the data in one place of relational database talk - it however explains the Web and you can turn any Web (or Network or Grid) into a hierarchy as pictured here:

Each item, N, for instance a bike, has its properties such as color=red, location=driveway, and wheels=true. To turn that into a hierarchy, you just duplicate the item and dangle it from its properties. Now the bike is organized under things that are red, mine or in driveways.

The value of this is that we can get at an item in a number of different ways. These different ways represent context. A specific way along a branch is a sort.

Here are some terms that mean or use hierarchy:

• Life:
  • grouping
  • categorizing
  • classifying
• Navigation:
  • folders
  • directory
• Format:
  • nesting
  • tabbing
  • indenting
• Structure:
  • tree
  • hierarchy
• Coding:
  • Multidimensional Array
  • XML Nodes
  • OOP Objects

These are all ways to organize data or thoughts. With Nodism, we can also study how language uses hierarchy. There is certainly a nesting with a document, a section, a paragraph, a sentence, a word, a letter. But also within sentences, how each word relates can be placed in a hierarchy.

I like a red bike

Under bikes, we have bikes that are liked and bikes that are not liked. Of those, some are red or green or blue, etc. And then another branch of the hierarchy has bikes that are green or red or blue and each node has ones that are liked and not liked. Or we have things that are red and of those there are bikes and trucks and flowers, etc. So this sentence is really a branch in a hierarchy.

It is at this level that we start to see practical uses of hierarchy for invention. The patent system is based on hierarchical claims of broader claims encompassing or nesting more specific embodiments.

INVENTION TECHNIQUE
All you need to do is look at each part in your invention and ask yourself are there any siblings (alternatives) for each little part. Once you do that you start to explore embodiments. It also gives you a sense of breadth. And can give you a clue to a parent so you can classify your invention. You look up one level and be able to see that your invention works across all these embodiments. This is the act of META or generational thought. It is thinking outside the box - out of the node that you started in - broadening your scope, generalizing, etc.

EXAMPLE
We start with the problem that pillows slip off the end of a couch that has wooden arms. I have an idea. We put velcro on the wood and on the pillow. That in itself is an agregate and not really an invention. And Velcro is a trademark for a hook and eye faster. But let us continue.

Break down the idea into its words (non-nouns optional):

• Pillow
• Velcro
• Couch

Now, lets start with Velcro. What alternatives are there?

Velcro
——
tape
snaps
screws
string
elastic
wrap - hmm… I like wrap - it sounds soft and flexible

And Pillow

Pillow
——
magazine holder
cup holder
remote control holder

hmmm… you say you yourself, maybe I should make my fastener hold more than just a pillow. Look at all these handy things I can keep on the couch.

Then you look at couch…

Couch
—–
chair

dentist chair
reclining chair
lawn chair
toilet
car seat
bycicle seat

bed
table

Etc. So by examining siblings we explore the embodiments of our invention. We see that it is not important to have a couch or pillow specifically. We might make a decision to go for a more generic fastener that is a fabric. And then we look at ways it might fasten. And who knows, we invent the bungee cord.

At the final stage of exploring siblings is the realization of the parent. The couch is a base - perhaps a base with an arm rest. The pillow is an item - perhaps an item of necessity (kind of a tough one). And then Velcro is a fastener. So a fastener to attach an item to a base. You might not be able to invent this broadly, but you want to invent as broadly as possible.

Rather than listing siblings, we can take a short-cut by saying META. Going up or outside. In any idea or any situation, you can just say meta to yourself and all of a sudden, you are not just concerned about the health of a tree but of a forest and then of the province, etc. Usually broader can be more important. But at the same time, it is harder to affect change at broader levels. Sometimes it is in the specific embodiments that we need to concentrate. This is the idea of a milimeter of change. Little steps leading to big change. In that regard we are doing the reverse of meta, we are focusing. So meta is focus out (focuso) and ento maybe - is focus in.

Cellphone Umbrella - Umcella

Click through to see larger size pictures on flickr (original photo by  Masahiro Hayata).

Well, I guess a picture is telling 1000 words on this one. To the word’s defence… I bet I can think of more than a thousand pictures about one word.

This idea came to me as I was walking in the light rain and seeing people on cellphones. I thought it would be neat if their little antennas could sprout umbrellas. Who cares about the hair… protect the equipment.

It might be possible to sell umbrellas with little slip-ons for the antenna. It would certainly be fun to try Let me know if you are interested in going into production.

Make it Yourself - Waxpaper Snowflake Holiday Cards

Watch the mix on how to make

I have never bought a card - not one Christmas card, not one birthday card… If you want to invent, I would recommend that you do the same. What a perfect opportunity for a little creativity.

You might say, “but I do not have time to make cards”. Well… you can either not give out so many (and hook up with someone who will handle the general card sending) or you can apply inventive means to the production. Of course digital production makes it fairly easy but this post explores an example of a physical production - well human scale physical production (we should always hesitate when we suggest that a computer is not physical).

This Zen Mix mini-mash shows the simple production of Snowflake cards - 50 snowflake cards in about 20 minutes. I handed them out to students and staff at the College and let them float softly down at their desks. It was very beautiful to see their smiles of wonder.

Just cut squares of everyday wax paper and fold them diagonally then in half a few times, twist the center point and twist the outer point and open them up! Each one is different and you can experiment with the types of folds and twists to add even more variety. They are very pretty when you hold them up to the light.

Snowflakes aside… cards can be made from anything - I like old wallpaper or wrappings, but wood or stone and a the dremel can be fun, tubes are very interesting to write on. Always keep tubes around and you can saw them to make smaller tubes if necessary. Cards on long strips of paper are exciting… try carefully burning the edges of your cards for a lost look, you get the idea.

Happy Holiday Going With the Flow…

I usually do not like going with the flow - even though I write psychedelic lyrics like “floating down the river”. I prefer a vision and then stick with it. I was just looking back through a sketch book and was very satisfied to see sketches of tools such as Zen Pan and Node Notes (two yet to be released features) and they have been built to be exactly like the sketches.

There are times however when some things may not work out quite how planned or better yet, something better comes up during prototyping. We should not turn a blind eye - sometimes, you can use the prototyping phase as a creative phase - most of the time though, to be sure… it is during the thinking phase with hands clasped behind thet head or in the sketching phase on paper that you maximize your creativity due to the flexibility of thought - or the eraser

In constructing an online holiday message with animated Christmas balls to the multimedia industry, students and friends I came across a couple of almost accidental adjustments that formed the final product. Here is a summary of how the message was created.

• CATALYST FOR CREATIVTY
  It started with the picture - a focuso shot of Christmas balls in a window display during a flickr photoclub night walk. When I saw the results I thought, hmmm… that would make a good backdrop to a card. Focuso once again acts as a catalyst for creation- see the “Dan Zen Gives Pecha Kucha Talk on Focuso at FITO, Toronto Flash User Group” post.
   
• COMPUTE SPECTRUM CONNECTION
  I have been building a tool that will let anyone on the Web place animations that move to the frequency of sound such as from an mp3 over top of any picture or video. This uses the compute spectrum in Flash. A very simple example of compute spectrum is here. The interactive tool is partially complete but I have realized that I was really building Zen Mix II. So I have put the tool on hold as I organize Zen Mix II - it has been sketched out. I can now access YouTube videos directly in Flash with just the video page url so that will be reason in itself to make a version II - unfortunately, Zen Mix is in ActionScript 2 and ActionScript 3 is needed for YouTube access. So… I thought I would put the animations to sound over top of the Christmas balls for the holiday message.
   
• SIBLINGS OF SOUND
  I needed some music - although here is a slight twist - I would use voice rather than music to trigger the compute spectrum. I think there is a wide open field with respect to using sounds and voice as opposed to music in visualization and am planning on exploring these spaces one day with Zen Sound a tool that you can place sounds and mix them in space along with some other interesting features. For voice work, I have just started using Ableton Live and have started in on a piece that uses only vocals as psychedelic sound effects and delayed forever looping and stuff. I am planning on embedding thoughts of Nodism on some of them and may work with Future Girl Madeline Zen on some of these. In Ableton, I recorded 9 tracks of different Happy Holiday voices. Unfortunately, it was a test recording and I was not even paying attention but I thought they sounded okay so I started mixing. I was getting roughly what I wanted - sort of like a round of these voices but with individual ones to start so that individual Christmas balls would light up. And then I found this eternal delay that was amazing! This was the accident. I did not have to do anything, it seemed to know what I wanted and the voices became a round almost magically.
   
• DISPLACEMENT MAP MOUTHS
  There are the displacement map experiments I have been doing such as mentioned in the “Light Show for Christmas Psychedelic Band” post. I wanted to displace the picture of the Christmas balls with sonic ripples coming from the balls themselves. This would look cool but would possibly lack relevance as balls do not usually vibe like this. I got the displacement working with the Christmas balls but was sort of not liking it very much initially because it was too jittery and not fluid like the light show. So I went into the code and reduced the speed at which the spectrum was calculated using a simple modulus and then applied a tween to the size of the animation and things smoothened out - but it was so strange. I had happened to set width and then set the height based on the width and scale and this caused a feedback in the tween that made the width and height of the circle go wider and higher like a mouth talking rather than a uniform radius. That coupled by the semi-bothersome issue of the compute spectrum being smaller until the normalization I programmed in picks up and hence the animated wobbling circle starts smaller inside the Christmas balls, led me to one conclusion - accident two - use the animation as a mouth. This has more relevance to the “music” and looked cute on the Christmas ball. Eyes followed and it was fun to include them in the spectrum animation rather than outside because eyes move when you sing. There are times when this automated animation looks very realistic - certainly as realistic as a muppet So in the end, displacement was not used - maybe next time.

Enjoy the creation - if you have read this far, thank you for your interest - and please say hello in the comments.

Exploration Leads to Invention - An Hour With Inventor Dan Zen

Exploration is an important part of inventing. It helps to have things or places to explore. You can explore the same things or places over again if you are exploring with a different context.

In this video series, an hour’s exploration through the workshop is captured. The context is roughly that I am trying to mend a favourite pair of pants. So this is an exploration of what material could be used to turn the pants into a more personal design.

During the exploration, I am open to new thoughts - meta or generational thoughts that might indeed lead to more important ideas. There is always the pull between inventing and making. I want to make the modifications to the pants, but other ideas arrive. The act of filming is also meta as I realize that what I am filming is becoming a summary or history of various other inventions. I play this out a bit and in combination with branching to other inventions, I do not end up completing the pants. But I have explored materials and came up with some good ideas for future construction.

Here are the minivids in Zen Mix format merely for uniformity. There are 53 along with descriptions of salient points. You can also watch them all at once in a mash. The early ones are a little dark which is okay because it looks like I could use a shave….

Mash of all mixes (61 Minutes)

View Mix (85s)	TEXTURE IN CLOTHES All to often we worry about keeping our clothes clean. Yet, it is nice if what we are doing or have been doing is reflected in our attire or in how people see us. I like getting a bit of wax on my clothes - it reminds me of time in candle light. A few burs from the woods hanging on is a way to keep in touch with the experience. So, the act of wiping your hands on your pants is not the end of the world - it saves on electricity and paper towels in some cases as well.
View Mix (85s)	I DO NOT WASH MY CLOTHES The study of clothes care through the ages might lead to interesting commentary on society. I think of blacksmiths and artists who wear clothes that reflect their work. The grime of the mechanic, the dust of a cowboy. These days, we seem to wash our clothes a lot and dirt or texture is discouraged. This attitude has environmental impact. In general I do not wash my clothes and I survive in the normal everyday life without any difficulty. So if this is so, could you not wash too? We would save energy that goes into washing.
View Mix (47s)	TECHNIQUES FOR AIRING OUT CLOTHES Clothes can be hung up or put over a chair and air out. I have sweaters and shirts that I have never washed yet have worn hundreds of times. I have work pants that are five or six years old that I have never washed. I never dry clean my jackets.
View Mix (34s)	WHAT ABOUT UNDERWEAR???? Yup… that gets aired out too and after a while I might put a couple pairs in the wash but primarily because I feel guilty that I never have anything in the wash and that might be perceived as yucky. I am sure that is going through your mind right now.
View Mix (79s)	LAYERING TECHNIQUE Wear layers to separate body contact from outer contact. Rotate wearing. Store clothes laid out beside the bed. Sleep in your clothes.
View Mix (50s)	SOCKS? DO YOUR FEET SMELL? I can wear socks 20 or 30 times without any problem. They do not smell. So I think I am lucky that my feet do not smell. But there may be many of you out there whose feet do not smell either. Well then you do not have to wash your socks all the time. Again, take them off, let them air out and you will be okay.
View Mix (85s)	WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOUR CLOTHES WEAR OUT? What happens is that as things wear out you patch them or fix them. I am proud that my shoes were fixed with a bolt and I have gotten an extra year out of them. Pants can get paint stains or rips. These add character and can be mended to add further character.
View Mix (44s)	MENDING IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR CREATION It is when clothes need mending that you know you like that article of clothing. You have worn it a lot, it is you! Now you have an opportunity to use some creativity to patch it. Take some other fabric that you like and work it in. Eventually those pants will become an art piece. Now you may not wear them to work perhaps but give them a chance. And certainly do not throw them away. At least keep them for fabric. Make bags out of them etc. At this point, I have decided to patch the pants and I go down to the workshop to look for material. It may be that I use an old pair of pants in the operation.
View Mix (121s)	MESS CAN BE BEAUTIFUL I pop into the workshop and there is stuff everywhere. I clean it about once a year. But all this stuff acts as items to explore and explore again with respect to different context. Is there a possible space theme or circuit board theme… I consider medallions to hang on the pants, etc.
View Mix (90s)	REUSE - THE UNJUNK MOVEMENT A fabric bag is a handy thing to have around to tuck old fabrics and shirts and pants, etc into. I have made pouches, wrappings, costumes, etc. of fabrics. Here I see a mesh but not the type I like and realized that I like rope meshes like old hammocks. We all have gone through the rope hammock that breaks after three years. Well keep it around. I found a great loop on the end of rope that if I were to sew it into the pants it would make a great loop to dangle things on. This type of urban invention could become a fad. I have worked through many options called lupey. Lupey involves marketing to perhaps the most looked at free space for marketing. Stuff that hangs from belt loops. A finding of this string hammock loop can lead to Lupey being realized at least in prototype. And also the idea behind many of my inventions is that people can make things themselves - rather than mass produce.
View Mix (70s)	KEEP MATERIALS LIKE SHOWER CURTAINS Having raw materials to make things is important when inventing and prototyping. This does not mean that you go out to a big box store and buy expensive craft wares. Just start noticing things. Packaging is often great to collect. Wallpapers, foils, carboards, Styrofoam, cartons, cans, jars, old clothes, purses, etc.
View Mix (179s)	MAKING A PURSE FROM A SHIRT Bags, pouches and purses are easy to make from shirts and pants. I made bum bags out of pant bottoms cut out and folded in half. They had belt loops at the top so I could just run my belt through them to fasten them to my pants. It looked cool and carried lots of stuff. Here I visualize that the front pocket area of a shirt would make a good bag with the arm folded into it like a liner. The strap can be made of a strip of the shirt. This is something that you can do with a shirt that no longer fits or is ripped.
View Mix (92s)	FRINGE AND FRAY THAT MATERIAL! Technique for making a strap with a fringe. Certain materials fray really well and can lead to interesting looking design.
View Mix (99s)	A WIG MADE FROM THIRTY MISMATCH SOCKS I ran into this wig that was made of mismatch socks. I used to wear black suits as a patent agent and this was from that time. It is amazing how many mismatch socks one can manage to find. These were careful analyzed
View Mix (42s)	THESE TWO SOCKS DO NOT MATCH Further discussion on the riveting topic of mismatch socks.
View Mix (179s)	SHIRT COVERED IN BURS In hunting for a box of computer straps, I found a shirt full of burs. I have been saving this shirt because they are amazing burs. They are the micro burs that do not hurt and you can squeeze them and they still work - they are like fleas! I want to cultivate these and put them on pads for cleaning and velcro-like applications. I have been enthralled with these for a good number of years and I can’t imagine why it took so long for the invention of Velcro. So I am hoping to plant these seeds in the garden for further experiment.
View Mix (40s)	AMAZING MATERIAL IN COMPUTERS I have enough old computers of my own to keep me happy with respect to harvesting them for materials. But on any given week, the dump has hundreds of computers and that is one source of amazing materials. The drives have super powerful magnets in them - can you believe that! There are wires and circuit boards, fans, metal, etc.
View Mix (104s)	USES OF COMPUTER PARTS You can glue Lego to pieces and pieces to Lego. You can make art, jewelry, lampshades and all sorts of things.
View Mix (101s)	EXPLORATION OF MATERIAL Metal shavings from a mill make great sci-fi decor, river stones are amazing for carving into with Dremel and making stacking games, etc. keyboards have these great rubber nub spring things and all sorts of different insides - each one I opened was different and most have really cool simple beautiful green circuit boards. Computer straps look good frayed.
View Mix (28s)	ART COMBINING COMPUTER AND NATURE Here is one of the cyber stones in my collection available for viewing at http://www.danzen.com/art
View Mix (49s)	MENDING AND REUSING TO FURTHER TIES WITH PAST If you mend something or reuse something then you are extending its life with you. This can bring comfort. It also is environmentally friendly. I have had the same ladder ever since I have had a ladder. I have ties to the ladder, the paint stains are from our toil. The step broke and if felt good to spend a few hours mending it and I feel good every time I step on it. My dad’s ties from the 70s and some that I have collected are just pinned over a bamboo stick to act as a room divider like love beads. This has been a fascinating part of our home for many years and I never tire of it. I think of my dad every time I see them.
View Mix (157s)	EXPLORATION OF MAD INVENTOR’S GARAGE Cyber stones, light shows, old macs that you just plug in and press a button and instantly the computer is on and ready to use. And they still work years later. Old bikes with propellers on them.
View Mix (28s)	DRAGONS AND WALKING STICKS Every year we put up a dragon in the red hedge. This is an example of relevance and has been very popular with the neighbors. We are known as the house with the red dragon. I have a set of walking sticks in the corner that remind me of many walks. They are kind of rustic and I do art pieces with them like make miniature tree houses. Some examples are to come or visit http://www.danzen.com/art
View Mix (31s)	SPOOKY SHADOW PUPPET SHOW Every other Halloween we put up a spooky shadow puppet show with the garage door opened and covered with a white sheet. We use cardboard cut-outs and a bright light behind. The kids sit in the driveway and watch. The stories have been neat. There is a little girl and all these monsters take turns scaring her and then all of them at once. At which point, the girls hair flips down and turns into a cape and her face is revealed to be a demon! In a second, the monsters scare a poor little teddy bear only later to reveal that its six jagged arms come popping out and it is a huge spider!!!
View Mix (178s)	THE BIN OF FABRIC! Some from old chesterfields that were going to be used for luxurious towels. Sheets for backdrops, Seventies drapes, scarves signed by Donovan, and Harris Tweed bags or pouches made from old suit jackets would be very cool!
View Mix (76s)	COAT HANGERS, EGG CARTONS, AND THE EASIEST LAMPSHADE EVER Coat hangers are the most accessible, strongest wire that you can bend by hand. They are amazing. Always be on the lookout for more! Egg Cartons too are easily stacked - I have been for years and one day they will come in handy. They already have for various decorations and sound proofing. I used a scarf and pinned it on its side in a square shape around the garage light. It makes for a very nice shade. It could be round too I suppose. Check it out!
View Mix (37s)	DO NOT BLIND THE NEIGHBORS! Here we use scarves to block the garage light from blinding the neighbors.
View Mix (14s)	MECHANICAL LIGHT SHOWS - A THING OF THE PAST I have been making light shows for years - see http://www.opartica.com but now I am making organic looking light shows that respond to music on the computer - see http://www.danzen.com/lightshow for an example.
View Mix (39s)	FOUND! INVENTOR GOGGLES THAT MAKE ME LOOK LIKE WILLY WONKA I have a pair of old welding goggles and I cut the extra strength off to give a sort of mad inventor looking pair of goggles. I had lost them and just found them in a basket of things in the house that were destined for the garage. This kind of system where you have a main living space and a procedure to cull or circulate to a creation space is often productive. It is important to have a workshop or a studio or at least a study where creation can happen.
View Mix (14s)	MOD AND THE SNOUT OF SNOOD Here is the resting place of puppet, MOD, and the Snout of Snood. I have a few more episodes of the Snout of Snood to drum up. This mock intro leads to a philosophical owl that asks why instead of who.
View Mix (7s)	THE BUDDHAS AND THE BANANA Here is another modified windchime - windchimes are easy to make and even easier to modify. Every windchime that I have had that breaks, I fix it in a unique way. It is much more fun that way! In the background here is a painting that I painted and then found that I liked it better upside down. This lead to three or four pictures that I drew or painted and displayed upside down.
View Mix (11s)	A JEWEL OF A BYCICLE This is a bike with a large emerald (glass) jewel set on the front. It is actually a bracelet that I mounted on an old watch band - actually, it is an old door knob of all things! I have a matching silver dome bracelet - about the same size and I wear them and tell people that they are sun dials. They believe me too and really, they probably would work as such. You point north and the refraction in the facets or reflection on the dome tells you the time. This is Madeline’s old bike which matched Elliot’s old bike with the large grey propeller on front.
View Mix (45s)	ZERO ONE - A BINARY ROBOT Zero One has two faces filled with cool parts. The parts are stuck in this foam that was cured with a sealant of some sort so it will not crumble. If you can ever find that stuff it is amazing!!! I made Elliot’s Bionicle costume with it and he has made art pieces out of by stabbing in popsicle sticks cracked in the vice - what fun! Zero One has huge magnetic ears that collected money out at an art charity puppet ball that he was made for along with Mod.
View Mix (32s)	HUNDRED FOOT HIGH TREE HOUSE Another tree house - there are 18 of these around - see http://www.danzen.com/art. This one is a glass house on top of a tall patterned tree with a bending top and seed beaded ladder.
View Mix (45s)	ZEN CORNER - LET’S MAKE A SIGN! I like custom signs - they are always exciting to me and combat the official signs. Here is the Zen Corners prototype sign. We have a Z corner in front of our house which I am hoping to brand Zen Corners. I have some subversive alternative ideas for that too. One day…
View Mix (50s)	A BOX OF SILVER - TREE HOUSE TO TIN MAN This scene is on the way upstairs where we pass a tree house - they are very skinny so fit in corners where other art does not - that is handy. Then we pan across the living room to the tin man made of tin. If you collect a box of silver stuff, this type of thing becomes quite easy to make. This was a few hours - maybe an evening of piecing together found objects. If you need a start, go to the Amity and spend $10 of kitchen utensils and pans. Or collect old ones from garage sales or family storages.
View Mix (12s)	KIDS - THE GREATEST PEOPLE TO CREATE FOR AND WITH Kids have few concerns about the difficulty of creating. As far as they know, anything can be built and just to let them have that feeling a bit longer… well… anything has been built. And when it is not built, it can be drawn or at least told in a story. Here Santa has created two doll houses from old drawers.
View Mix (14s)	ALWAYS WANTED TO BE AN ARCHITECT? Designing houses is fun and a doll house is a great place to try out your sliding pole you always wanted. And how would that meditation room look? Hang little medallions. Try an old slide viewer as a TV…
View Mix (63s)	ARABIAN LAND IN BEADS Here we picked out six aspects of magical lands - camels, fruit, stars, jewels, baskets and of course flying carpets! All made from beads that run on coat hanger tracks mounted in wood and put up like a shelf. The thief is getting away in the basket! Hey, stop that camel from eating the fruit!
View Mix (49s)	GYPSY CARAVAN WITH LOVE BEADS A rolling caravan made from a basket with hanging beads, carpet, fortune telling table and working sink with tap that captures rain water from the roof. Perfect for the bad hat Pepito and Madeline to escape in.
View Mix (84s)	MACHINE THAT GOES BLEEP ON PAPER AT LEAST, SNOWFLAKES, DRAGON FLY CLIPS AND SNIFFING TEA Well, I suppose the title is fairly descriptive. These are little things that are made that have outlasted many of the bought toys - there is just a special connection to things that are home made. They save money and resources, are unique and inspire further creativity. Smelling tea to go to sleep easier was an interesting solution.
View Mix (96s)	KALEIDOSCOPE - A MOST MAGICAL CONSTRUCTION Of all the gifts that you can make, a Kaleidoscope is the most rewarding. Take three mirrors cut with a glass cutter to fit in an equilateral triangle or at least go for an isosceles to fit inside a cardboard tube with perhaps foam wedges to keep the mirrors from moving. Try fabric tubes for instance. Cut a couple plastic disks from a CD case with a Dremel grinder for instance and fit them into the end of a cardboard cowl with spacer cardboard leaving a half inch gap. Fill the gap between them with buttons, wires, rings, tidily winks, marbles, etc. This is the fun part, designing what goes in there. Frost the inner side of the outer plastic disk with wax paper for instance and fit the cowl onto the end of the mirror tube. Variations are possible depending on material at hand.
View Mix (33s)	TOWER HOUSE IN KAZAKHSTAN Drawings let you express all sorts of creativity. In the last five years, I must have drawn twenty different rooms with various decor, secret passage ways and futuristic designs. Towers are fun to imagine.
View Mix (65s)	A MYSTERY A DAY AND A BLOCK OF BREAD If you are in the position of being asked for a mystery a day cumulating in a football game with a mystery a quarter, then you are probably being fairy stretched thin. Although I did like the lying girl being caught going to the football game with another guy because she was seen on the big screen. Anyway, a box of Nancy Drews might be just what you need! Thanks Kim! Also in this clip you can spot the loaf of bread I made Madeline out of a block of wood. It is sanded into a loaf shape and one slice is cut that can stay on by Velcro and then be sliced. She loved helping sand.
View Mix (81s)	FASHION DUMMY FOR BUDDING FASHION DESIGNER You can check out fashion by Madel put together in a Zen Picture presentation at http://www.madelinezen.com and then fashion. And by the way, that was not my clipboard. Here I found the discovery that she stored all her shirts, dresses, pants and shoes in order. That happens quite often with Madeline - she pays more attention to pattern than anyone I know - except maybe me. The more you recognize patterns, the easier inventing becomes. Patterns are also a form of siblings which lead to alternative embodiments or indeed generational thought.
View Mix (87s)	MAGNETIC WORLDS! Inventing with alternatives. Here we see a magnetic scene which leads to very powerful thoughts of creating a magnetic climbing game on circuit boards.
View Mix (66s)	CLIMBING UP CIRCUIT BOARDS Specifying the design for a climbing game in a circuit board land. Again just a plan for others to make the game themselves by opening up an old computer. Mount the mother board so it is standing up. Then make two climbers (robots, men, etc) that are tethered together with a thread or a thin wire - for instance a stripped copper computer wire. The climbers are magnetic and in theory you could attach the wire so it can be lengthened or shortened - or maybe just make a few different sizes. These then have to start at the bottom and work their way up the board by sticking on metal parts of the board. It is like a maze. I made up a game similar with suction cups traversing a room on things that are smooth.
View Mix (107s)	SEARCH FOR ROBOTS OR NANO HEROS Here we look through a tray of smaller computer parts. This tray has come in so handy from needing little screws to decorations for jewelry and art. Is it not so filled with yummy things! Here relevance and scale are considered as I try and look for a hero to go scaling the circuit board world.
View Mix (61s)	THE TOOTH FAIRY THAT GIVES OUT MAGNETS Magnets are in rare supply in our house because the tooth fairy hands out magnets instead of money. And lenses and magnifying glasses to the other. This clip also discusses the concept of stretch where we wonder what relevance a magnet or a disk on the bathroom tiles might take. Could we make a game with it - would it work as an amusement. I can’t tell you how many times I have played little games with tiles so perhaps there is an opportunity. Do not just look at something and say that it does not belong. Ask yourself what would make it belong. Stretch your mind.
View Mix (179s)	LEGO CIRCUITS Quick prototyping through testing material can help mold an invention. Here we test how much of a circuit board is magnetic and predict that it might make the game too hard if rely solely on magnetic connection. Having said that, Elliot and I returned to discus the magnetic circuit climbing game and we tried two magnets, one on back and one on front and you can easily make the one magnet move with the other which makes it seem alive. You could play some sort of attacking game or indeed any type of role playing game - like dolls for nerds. We could mount the circuit board as a floor and move robot / nano / cyber characters around to act out stories. With further testing jumpers were considered and that led to the idea of Lego which is further explored in the next video.
View Mix (58s)	CYBER LEGO WORLD! The concept of attaching Lego to circuits and old computer parts to build up a cyber world. Perhaps this gives Lego too much well… credit. Any fasteners would work but Lego is so common and is a pretty good size and seems to go well with the plastics of the computer parts. It might be handy to have micro Lego around which would be so cute. We have seen big Lego blocks take off - what about smaller Lego blocks. We have jumpers, pins, cables, screws to hold together the circuit world but if we were playing in this world we would want something more adaptive perhaps. Gluing Lego mounts would work but there might be alternatives.
View Mix (102s)	A MAZE OF IDEAS Well, after a whirl-wind tour of the workshop in search of material for pant repair, a number of ideas were racked up. I was in pretty good shape to put the camera down and get building. As I went to put the camera down, this maze was spotted by the computer. I am planning on scanning it in and then making a system where any maze can be scanned in and actually played on the computer say in a flash application. So you just point the application to a maze picture and it will display it and let you drag a little ball though the maze but not over the lines. This of course is a dream of any maze maker and I have been making mazes for as long as I can remember. It is a great thing to get kids to do!
View Mix (59s)	MAZE DESIGN If you draw a structure with some sort of repetition and then make a maze around that structure you will find the maze takes on a nice organized look and it stretches your maze making skill or perhaps makes it easier to make the maze harder to solve. It does so because you have to work your way around the restraints of repetitive design. Here we have a circular outer restraint and then a number of pretty well symmetrical dashes and alternating circle hubs.

Quirk - the Quirk Principle of Invention

The word quirk or to be quirky is inspirational. Keep it in mind although some might say that you’ve got it naturally or you don’t have it. There may be some truth in this - if you have little aptitude for the unusual, the odd, the zany - then inventing amusements may not be for you.

So quirky is perhaps a style although it can also define the invention. Form and function and how they relate are at play here. And in general, form vs function is what design is all about. You can have quirk in the packaging or the name of the invention - things that are more form related. But you can also have quirk in the idea itself.

Take the Jack in the Box pictured in this article. This elevates the aspect of surprise. Perhaps it is not the most inventive of products but one important part of invention can be that it points away from the prior art. After years of seeing jack in the boxes pop out the top, this one falls through the bottom. Much easier to build ;-). Relevance is continued but making it the feet of the jack.

Something to watch out for is that quirk is like a lure. If you make it too odd, it is perhaps not believable or people do not understand it and your invention can be ignored. I generally like to blame all my failures on the invention being too zany. I suspect though that this is not the case - marketing is what is needed to educate or entice the public to accept the invention.

When a quirky product, whether in form or function, makes it big - it usually really makes it big. This may be because it is generally more unique. It could be that people are proud that they get the concept - or the gimmick. Web 2.0 is somewhat based on stylistic gimmicks. Pet Rocks, well… I’ll let you make the list - and see if you can be the next harbinger of quirk.

Inventing Words

Inventing words is relatively simple as you do not need to actually make anything. We’ve already discussed making concepts by combining unrelated words in the post: Utopia, an Erotic Mystery - Used to Exemplify the Stretch Technique of Creativity and Invention. Inventing words is a little different and often comes up in the realm of trademarks. Trademarks are usually used for the name of a product of service.

I was a Patent Agent and Trademarks were along side so I have a little training on them. They should be suggestive but not descriptive. So you do not name your white staple invention, white staples. You would trademark it as Stealth - so we have Stealth brand staples. Now that is not making up a word but many people do for trademarks. Styrofoam, Kleenex. Kleenex suggests clean.

When making Web games or sites, sometimes you get a chance to make up words. Here are a few that I have made up:

• Gorgolon - an underwater civilization where the bubbles in their filtration system make a “gorgle”.
• Opartica - an online art maker
• Infizoom, Congon, Kitekilt, Choofu are combinations of shortened words for Motogami or motion games
• Gycopo is an acronym word for game you can only play once
• YesUmNo again a combination word for a voting game where you actually use the word as interface to vote yes, maybe (um) or no.
• Tilator - is a word plus an ending for a tiling tool.

Endings can be fun - we had an art movement called the Figmentalisticanarianismists. That reminds me, aside from names of things there are also words like traditional words where you are naming a concept:

• Nodism - is the philosophy of connection or nodes and in particular for a single hierarchy
• Focuso - the art of shooting photographs out of focus

There are words being invented all the time to cover our evolving experiences. There are a number of sites that foster this invention like wordspy. Some of these catch on better than others and the concept of memes is certainly related - memes also being a fairly newly invented word.

So have fun thinking of a word or two - often, as an Inventor, you need a name for your product or service or thought. If you have any words you would like to share, please leave a comment! I am currently inventing a technique to encourage more comments and will launch that here soon.

Snout of Snood Part 2

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Here we reach our arm bravely once again into the Snout of Snood! What magical things will we find and will they lead to any invention? Of note here is the interesting construction of the rocketship.  The bug is also of neat compact construction - not invented by me…

Click here for the seond item - the Rocket

Click here for the third item -the Bug

Click here for the Mash to date

Note: on any mash (more than one mix) you can roll over the Zen Mix logo and use the little arrows to go from one mix to the next.

Food Inventing - Banana Bacon Sandwich

Well… that old saying, “necessity breeds invention” works wonders in the kitchen. When you scour your cupboards and turn the fridge upside down for some sort of meal. When I said turn the fridge upside down… that is really my head so I can see the bottom of the shelves to hunt for ingredients.

Let’s not move too quickly here… a little diversion never hurts the inventor…

What would help us be able to see into our busy fridge? Past the yogurt containers (half the times filled with other things - more room for invention or just perhaps labeling) the ketchup bottles, etc. to the very back of the shelves. Well… looking under the shelves helps. But there are often non-descript bottle bottoms staring back at me. Maybe labels on the bottom of bottles. Sounds a touch extreme - but cute…

If only we could see around the sides. A-ha! Mirrors on the inside sides of the fridge. How hard could that be? I’ll be prototyping that soon!

But for now, back to the task at hand… inventing food.

Say you are out of bread and out of wraps. But you feel like a bacon sandwich - which I do kind of but I don’t because I have been a vegetarian for a year and half. But this next sketch book example is from a while back. Probably not the best idea to propagate but oh well - it gets across the point. So you are out of bread and want a bacon sandwich…

Click here to see the sketch in Zen Pan

Here is a simple - which is often a good idea when it comes to inventing - solution that was most delicious and I suppose sort of healthy - as healthy as anything can be with bacon.

Sometimes I get a calling. The calling of alliteration. If things go well in word they can entice people to use them or try them so… we have a Banana Bacon Sandwich! Sounds nice and easy. And boy did they go together well. Perfect size, perfect combination of consistencies, pleasant flavor - really quick to make and a delightfully original finger food sensation.

The Snout of Snood

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Mod, channeling Dan Zen, introduces the Snout of Snood in this spur of the moment production. There will follow a series of discussions about what is in the Snout of Snood - or perhaps Snood. The discussions will feature impromptu invention based on the item or at least discussion about invention with the item as a starting point.

Click here for the introduction

Click here for the first item - massager?

Click here for the Mash

Note: on any mash (more than one mix) you can roll over the Zen Mix logo and use the little arrows to go from one mix to the next.

Vision of the Future

I have been expecting OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) to come along pretty soon to make OLED walls for instance where the whole wall is a “screen”. They are in phones and on shirts now. But I just had a vision with the help of the Focuso work I have been doing…

In naming a series of Focuso pictures I imagined them as everyday objects but with OLED on them to make them glow and seem interesting. Now, OLED will bring us information too but it can be just used as a light - and will probably replace our lights at least general room and space lighting lights in the next five years.

Coins 2020

In naming or associating or connecting, I am inventing - it kind of came by accident initially - but by watching out for invention… I realized, hey - cool!

So.. you can see the pictures with their titles and see if you too have a vision. I am running the contest too - the pictures can be seen in part here and eventually in full here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danzen/sets/72157600038941825/

But the vision is more important than the contest - please come and visit.

And, take the TAPOLL predict-a-poll on the issue to see what area you think OLED will affect most (just the expected locations here) - it is posted on the Tapoll Tech Blog:

http://tapoll.blogspot.com

Inventions Before Your Eyes!

Inventions often happen in situ - or they relate to things right where you are. This is probably because invention is often fulfilling a need. So if you happen to need something, you just invent the solution.

The invention featured once you click through the Sketch Book icon below is an example of an idea to solve a direct need - that of squeezing toothpaste. It came to me in the bathroom as preparing to brush my teeth.

Click here to see the sketch in Zen Pan

Because I invent a lot of things while relaxing in the bathtub… I have a number of bathtub inventions. These I will feature in future Sketch Book posts.

I used to write down inventions in the car and many of them would relate to the road or driving, etc. So if you want to invent in a certain area, it helps to be in that area to gain focus and recognize possibilities.

Inventing for your location is not always necessary. Our minds of course can project our thinking into distant scenarios - even into the realms of fantasy and future. One thing that helps is a sketch book. A sketch book and a bunch of Mirado pencils could be the best buy you ever make!

Over the next while, I’ll be posting sketches from my sketch books along with tips with respect to creating using a sketch book.

Utopia, an Erotic Mystery - Used to Exemplify the Stretch Technique of Creativity and Invention

Utopia - the erotic mystery set in… well, Utopia, is another example of a principle I call STRETCH - taking unrelated concepts or even words and finding some reason for them to be connected. Back in my psychedelic partying times, we used to play fit the facts (remember that one Gaven?). We’d find reason to fit a few different facts. It is a great exercise for creative story telling. And indeed, this post is directed at creativity which is and important aspect of invention.

In the last post, Gorgolon was mentioned. Gorgolon is the result of the combination of a “spot the artificial intelligence” game (a Turing test) and a poem about an underwater civilization written for the space rock band, Thee Gnostics. This combination stretched the creativity and a story was born as was a number of theoretical inventions - if you read the story. Inventions are still ongoing as people play Gorgolon and make up games and stories to fit the facts of the environment. Players are being STRETCHED and the results of their thoughts are seen by the winners of the game.

Getting back to Utopia, I had written four other mysteries for Moustache Mysteries and was wanting to write another. To do so, I made use of the Tower of Babel - a Dan Zen feature where people whisper unrelated words (nonsense) into the wind and the words are taken to the tower. Here, viewers can vote on how interesting the combinations are by using the radio buttons that construe the walls of the tower and then pressing the god button up top. The more interesting posts rise to the top and the less interesting ones fall to disappear into the ground.

I happened to whisper the phrase, “Sasquatch Seeds” into the tower. I was quite intrigued by this phrase as to what it might mean. And in combination with my conviction that I have seen the Hamilton Hairy wandering the escarpment of Hamilton and stopping to read poetry to some Swedish tourists… I STRETCHED and came up with a connection. (Connection is by the way a very closely related concept to stretch and connections have long been understood as a foreshadowing to invention).

SPOILER TO THE UTOPIA MYSTERY… So what does “Sasquatch Seeds” mean? Well, the Sasquatch, like a Loch Ness Monster, is in part a tourist attraction. A seed is birth. So we have the birth of a tourist attraction. In the Utopia mystery of 1998, over 4,000 people lined up to solve the mystery. They viewed the mystery through scopes. They thought the line up was completely unrelated but it was not. What they were lining up for was a reality show. They were watching six characters, hypnotized into thinking they were in Utopia and placed in a Utopian land of sustenance. Utopia pre-dated Reality Shows by two years. At least in America.

Does the ad for Utopia pictured above take on a little more meaning now? Here are some of the other ads and posters:

Utopia Promo 2 | Promo 3 | Promo 4 | Promo 5 | Promo 6

Dan Zen

Woken by Invention

This is my favorite way to get up and happily it happens often. I love sleeping and perhaps more so, dozing. And dozing is an easy time to invent. Your mind wanders from one thing to another - often surreally (do you like that one?). Sometimes I feel like I would slumber forever… but then comes that idea for which I have to get up and write down!

My idea this morning was that it would be cool to take screenshots of Dan Zen code in related fonts and post the pictures on flickr. I did this for the Canadian New Media Awards and I wonder if that is why I won. It looks kind of cool! The code below is from Gorgolon, the underwater civilization multiuser sci-fi game from 1995. The game and more particular, the story to match the games I consider one of my greatest inventions. You can read about it here: Dan Zen Blog on Gorgolon