ideas posts page 8

Suicide Steps

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there are three general steps one should take before committing suicide.

Suicide is a rather permanent choice, and thus one must be absolutely shure before committing to it. One should take three steps previous to commencing in order to ensure the decision is really wanted. These steps are long and involved and will be hard for a suicidal person to deal with, but they must be carried out with a full willingness and receptiveness to what the steps shall show. If these steps can be carried out with full diligence, only then may a person rightfully make the choice as to whether or not suicide is the best option. These steps will shine a light on possibilities and truths of life. The more significant the changes in each step, the better, and multiple instances of practicing each step are also significantly more effective. Time must be allowed in each step to get a feel for the changes and what they feel like to you: each step will take more time than the last, step 3 taking quite a while to really get a feel for the changes.

Step 1 – LIfestyle changes – In this step, the person will take parts of its lifestyle and change them to things it thinks will be better. Some of these, the person has probably been thinking about doing for a long time: now is the time to carry them out. Others must be thought of at the time of undertaking. These changes may include eating a healthier or more fulfilling diet, excercising more or less, socializing more, or having more sex; whatever the person desires. Do things differently, more like you want to. Don’t let worries about consequences hold you down, as you may be killing yourself later anyway.

Step 2 – Major life changes – The person will change the major facets of its life.

Possibilities

Old friends exchanged for new.

New spouse

Getting rid of (giving up for adoption) or having children

New job in a new career field

New hobbies

Committing some crimes or saving some lives

Step 3 – Complete change – In this step, the person will leave all that it has, without telling anyone from the previous life to where. The move must be far enough away to ensure extreme improbability of meeting people from former life. This is it, a chance to start a completely new life from scratch. There will be no people with memories of your former ways to tie you to that way of life. Make all choices based on what you feel will be most fulfilling.

Step 4 – Decision time – After partaking in all of the above steps, it is time to make a decision about life. If these steps have allowed you to find a life that you would enjoy living, then live it. If they haven’t, but they have given you a glimmer of hope, you may continue trying until you either find something that works or give up. If you still have no hope, then you are finally justified to off yourself.

Benefit Training

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No direct benefits are given. Instead, training is given to employees to train them to effectively use their money to cover the the necessary benefits themselves.

Training to invest money for best return/risk ratio to cover retirement, etc.
Training for health and nutrition. Things such as gym time would be provided to ensure healthiness. Nutrition analysis and training would be provided to ensure healthy diets.

The costs of the training programs should be significantly lower than costs of the regular benefits.

Very Variable Pay

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Employees are paid only minimum wage at the base level. Performance based incentives pay for the rest of their wages/salary. Numerous different performance measures are used for each employee.
Profit is shared. This gives employees a sense of ownership and incentive to examine the whole business instead of just themselves. They will be more likely to pressure others in the organization to do a good job.
Group performance levels. Employees can be seperated into groups of multiple kinds: AM and PM; servers, cooks, bussers, etc.; groups containing a certain number of people from each department that will work together. These groups can be paid based upon performance standards such as control of each positions costs, sales and customer ratings at different times of day, and observed contributions of each individual to the organization (team will then be given incentive to pressure other group members to perform better).
Individual performance levels.
Performance rewards will vary depending on employee performance compared to specified levels for achieving specific goals. Higher performance yields higher rewards.

Ideas: File Browser

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file browser (like finder) has built-in/plug-in capabilities to read and work with basic document formats. Images would appear as thumbnails, with preferences, that can be easily viewed at full size in a self controlled slide show type thing by folder. Movies would be viewable full size in the browser as well. audio files would be listenable toable, including being able to leave them play while doing other browsing. Text files would be completely viewable, possible editable. PDF’s would be viewable. Other formats would have plugins available from the maker of the app that produces them.

Allows viewing of files while still maintaining a file-browser like appearance and functionality at all times.

Controls would be provide when necessary from an easily accessible location, such as at the top of the window or in a floating window that disappears with no mouse movement. Proper controls would appear for the proper file-type.

All files would be able to be given tags, including user created tags, that are simply data about the file for informative and searching use. For example mp3 tags would be editable from the browser, as well as JPEG EXIF data.

Files could be organized in multiple directory setups without the use of aliases or anything, just an additional centrally located database directory file. Each media type would or could be given its own database so that one could look at all images at once in the image database while still have those images grouped with related other media in the regular directory system. This could perhaps be automated, having all images automatically put into the image database, which would then be able to be queried by its tags to show categories or specific dates or what-have-you.

All controls would be easily navigable and accessible with the keyboard as well as with the mouse, allowing speed and flexibility. This would include at least the major preference settings.

The browser would be very customizable to fit most peoples needs and tastes.

The browser would be designed to be slim and fast, taking up as little disk space, memory, and processor power as possible.

It would also be very plug-inable, so that users who don’t want certain features could easily remove them to save resources. Plug-ins would be able to be developed by third parties, so that alternatives for each file-type or function could be provided. If someone doesn’t like, say, the regular image browser, they could remove it and install a third party one easily that would integrate with the browser.

/****** the following is sort of a reworded, newer, and a bit different version of the above *****/

The independent application that handles specific document types is generally no longer needed, in my opinion. All files can be handled from within a single application, allowing the difference in file types to not affect the similarity in content (one should be able to view both text files and images relating to a given subject without having to change applications).

Plug-ins would provide the capabilities for multiple file-types: a plugin would essentially be the application for viewing and editing a given file-type, but would be opened within the ‘finder’ instead of separately. Each plugin would be loaded when opened, and taken back out of memory when no longer needed, possibly a specified time after the last opening of that doc type, with the amount of time weighted based upon the frequency of opening that given doc type.

Each document would be stored in the database like an object of an inherited class in an object oriented programming language. Every file would have certain attributes, such as disk location, creation and modification dates, name, user, group, as well as functions, such as rename, modifyContent, view. These would be part of the ‘file’ class. General categories of files may have more attributes and functions than that: ex ‘media’ category may contain author, date media was created. The ‘media’ category would contain some specific file types, or perhaps more specific of categories, such as pictures, movies, music. Each specific file type, what would be the instances created in the database, would have the most specific attributes and functions. A photo might have attributes size, color profile, shutter speed, and functions resize, contrast. Each specific file type, like in any OO inherited object, would have all attributes and functions of the more general categories of file type in addition to its own.

With standard setting, the document by default is opened in viewing mode. In this mode, no changes can be made to the file. All commands are designed to aid in the viewing of the file. A certain command would enter editing mode (likewise in editing mode, a certain command would bring you to view mode). In editing mode, all commands are set-up for editing. As an example, for a text document, typing ‘apple’ might put ‘apple where the cursor is currently when editing, but live-search for that text when viewing (another entry has more on this).

If anyone is interested in helping me build such a thing, contact me at public@tobymackenzie.com. I have only a little programming experience and have done almost nothing towards creating this project. I plan to start by making an application for Mac OS X that is like any other application and doesn’t affect the finder or its database, instead having an additional database that is its own and working through/with the systems database.

related thought

folders are not really files. they are used only for organization, so would not exist if there was no organization. files containing your content are a different kind of file from the organizing folders.

Employees Lives as Expenses

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Employees of a company are treated as assets of that company whose lives are expenses to the company, as would be maintanence of any asset. Instead of giving employees salaries, employees are given what they need to live. Food, shelter, car or bus pass, and other essentials would be covered as a bare minimum. Other extra benefits are given to produce more incentive, as would higher salaries or bonuses.
Employers would be given the power to manage the living expenses of employees. Lower “wage” occupations would be watched and managed very carefully to keep costs as low as possible, while higher ‘wage’ earners would enjoy a much more relaxed and free management of their expenses, allowing them to choose as they’d like.
Managers of more tightly managed occupations would choose food based on nutritional content, giving employees meal plans where each food contributes to getting RDAs of nutrients and the diets are designed to ensure all RDA’s are met without giving too much excess of a given nutrient. Meal plans would be managed per individual, giving people with more active lifestyles greater energy intakes and people who are ill more vitamins and minerals that are linked to helping that illness.
Housing would be a bare minimum sized apartment for low wage earners. Higher earners would be allowed more space and privacy.
Spending cash would be given to all but the lowest income jobs, allowing employees to make day to day purchases of small items they may want. The amount would increase with ‘wage’. The money would be given through a card similar to a debit card through a credit card service, allowing employees to use the card where credit cards are excepted and also withdraw cash from ATM’s for places where they aren’t. The cash would be inserted into an account for each employee that would, with higher wage earners at least, have the possibility of accrueing interest on the balance.
For lower ‘income’ people, things such as computers, sporting equipment, and musical instruments would be provided in a group ownership form, such as access to a computer lab, a gym, and a lobby located piano. Higher ‘income’ folk would be given the opportunity for more personal versions, such as a personal computer, their own tennis racket, or a keyboard.
This system would provide the most incentive to employees to do a good job if the better rewards are achievable through better performance. Perhaps an employee who does really well in sales one year will be given a bonus of a personal computer, which they may use in place of the employee computer lab. The rewards would have to be tailored to the desires of the individual: someone who doesn’t like computers shouldn’t be given one, someone who doesn’t like cars shouldn’t be given one. Management must attempt to ensure that all employees receive what would be considered equal value for equal performance. If an employee doesn’t want to drive a car to work but would rather walk or take the bus should be given something else if the other employees have cars. It must be something they want though, and maybe something that seems more of a necessity comparable to a car so that other employees then don’t feel jealous when the guy gets say $20000 (value of the cars the co buys normally) of whatever he or she wants.

variable heating

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Heating system will run continuously, providing heat to the house at the rate at which it is leaving. Output will be able to be varied very precisely to hone in on proper heating rate. Should not need as much ‘power’ (needn’t be as big of a maximum source of heat), as it will be matching outflow only.

Proper heating rate determined by monitoring carefully the temperature. If temperature starts to go down, need more heat. If it starts to go up, need less. uses interior and exterior temperature for better control.

Should be able to run very efficiently by running continuously.

gov inspection and control of business

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Each business will be given by the government a worker who will work in a management like position at the business, paid by the government, but only specifically in regards to ensuring the company complies with legal standards. Every business will be given a number, based on its size, mostly number of employees but also geographical size and industry, balanced to ensure that the gov worker always has work to do but not an overbearing amount. Small businesses too small to need or make economical use of a dedicated gov worker will share with other businesses to give a gov worker a full workload. This will make government headed decisions directly a part of the business, making inspections of certain industries built-in, and adding them to all others. Lawsuits will also be less common, as the gov worker should ensure the business is in compliance with all law including current common law.

In most businesses, the inspector will deal with accounting laws, employee related laws, and other such laws common to all or most businesses. Some businesses, such as hospitality, which have many industry specific laws, will have those watched by the inspector in addition to the basic business issues. Inspections of restaurants to see if they are up to sanitation codes would be eliminated in this system, as the inspector would continuously or frequently be at the restaurant and would have managerial powers to change problem areas. Instead of giving a score that decides whether a restaurant will be shut down or allowed to remain open, they will attempt to fix the problems through a managers capabilities. Only if changes are not able to be made and the inspector finds them unlikely to be able to be made will a shut down be considered.

Careful care must be taken to ensure that the inspector does not become attached to a company in such a way that he/she will bend the law or “look the other way” to benifit the company. The inspector shall
-recieve no pay or benifits, such as free meals, from the company
-hold no stock or other stake in the company
-make no company decisions other than those directly related to legal issues
-have as close to no ramifications as possible for making decisions that would harm the company in the interest of legality

Interactive Scheduling

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scheduling done interactively with employees. make forecasts for need, employees fill in shifts needed. as given day of work approaches, forecast may change. a few employees choose shift slots that may be dropped if needed. A few other employees, not scheduled to work for that day, choose to be in shift slot that may be used if necessary. management ensures that all employees are getting fair share of shifts. some may be given priority if need be. scheduling sign-up done on inter/intranet accessible database that allows employees to schedule from home and view the schedules from home, set up alerts in case of changes in their schedule. also allows for switching of shifts, and viewing of schedule at any time.