When your Purchases have Memory

So I was reading an article on flexible graphine memristors, which are a non-volatile data storage device.  And I was thinking about how most modern electronics actually are washable -- as long as they don't have power attached.  And so I thought, what if you put flexible memory devices in clothing, they'd be just like any other tag on it.  And then I thought okay, what if I add a radio antenna and attach it to a microprocessor that's small enough the radio waves alone are enough to power it.

Now you've got a bit of data-storage that you can attach to every item in a store, that can be read and writen at a distance over RF.  And it's flexible, so it can stay attached for the life of the product without bothering your customer.

Kewl huh?  Imagine walking into a clothing store and they know exactly how much you paid for each item you're wearing.  Did you pay full price?  Did you buy each item by itself, or as an outfit?  How long after the new products came out, before you purchased them?

What if other retailers "bomb" the tags of their competitors, so that after you've visited a Levi's store, your Lucky Jeans start lying, saying you bought them at a total loss to the retailer .. and months after they came out?  What if you rewrite your own tags, to get better service, by setting off the "pays full price, buys multiple  items at once, adopts early" flags in a target retailer's scanners?  And that's just clothing.  I can't wait to mess with more ubiquitous computing.

Professional Communication for Tech People

I need a book that teaches tech people how to communicate in professional settings.  We know how to talk to each other, but when we're out in the wild we could use some help.  This book would provide multiple "zoom levels" of content, so for each subject I could read a thirty-second treatment, a five minute overview, or a thirty minute in-depth analysis.

Here are a few sample subjects:

• How to talk when a translator is mediating a language difference.
• How to be clearly heard, when talking on a conference room speakerphone.
• How to start a new wiki page on a technology, a process, or an unstructured subject.
• How to write Service Announcement emails that will actually be read by normals.
• How to write clear, memorable technical policies that apply to non-technical people.
• The art of the elegant tweet.  Corollary: the perfect-size blog post.
• Making a resume that matches on broad keyword searches .. without looking like it!
• Presenting super-confident slideshows even when you don't feel it.
• Building powerpoint presentations that don't suck.
• The basic "network diagram" and the basic "flow chart" visual conventions.
• Ninety-nine Star Wars & Princess Bride quotes everyone should know.

Can someone please write this?  KTHX  BAI

Old-Skool Ambient Notification

It's fun to think I'm travelling into the future, implementing ambient notification and using ubiquitous/wearable computers.  But the fact of the matter is that ambient notification is very old.  The most obvious example is the cathedral bell tower that chimes every fifteen minutes and tolls on the hour.  I also like to think that skylights ambiently inform you of the time of day and outdoor weather without having to look at them.  What else?

Old-School Pasteup

We got new business cards at work, with better, more-descriptive titles. The layout looks unbalanced to me, tho, so I cut one up and balanced it. It's so easy to submit a digital print job to a professional bureau, these days, I wonder if I should just redo mine on my own...