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project history
selected flashbacks 1977 Dialogued about a "still-point" theory of physics with applications in core consciousness, combining themes of coalescence and divergence, roundness versus radiance, and progressions of unity; a physics of existential manifestation in all its forms. Someone wrote a poem about a nexus. 1978 Prepared a submission for the National Research Council about an idea for harvesting solar energy by means of mirrored, parabolic arrays focusing reflected sunlight onto a heat-energy transfer medium located along the common focal plane of each array. Nailed it. Sure wish we'd mailed it. 1981 Conducted our first prank over the Internet, surreptitiously, through a terminal at York University. "Confided" to a member of Stanford's Crystal Ball Experimentation Laboratory that we had discovered a new quantum particle, the bison, possessing a dualistic nature. Complained about the zealous enforcement of secrecy surrounding the project and at being warned repeatedly not to discuss it with anyone. Then, logged off abruptly, in mid-sentence. ( Sorry, John. Thx, M.T. :-) 1984 Predicted that the Internet would have a huge impact on society if fonts and graphics could be incorporated into the mix; and if the necessary bandwidth and storage requirements could be met. (Our first notions about streaming music and video through the internet were still a few years away. After all, people already had stereos, televisions -- and, of course, there was the revolutionary Sony "Walkman".) 1990 Devised an awkward but effective process-colour (CMYK) separation solution for a desktop app (Ventura Publisher) that supported only spot-colour separation. 1995 Projected that the Internet's IP addressing scheme would run out of network numbers in less than twenty years. 1995 Pioneered a low- to no-cost stochastic reproduction method for offset and flexographic printing at a time when such technology, purchased from established industry vendors, cost tens of thousands of dollars. In a comparison of the various solutions by a respected industry journal, this rudimentary alternative was ranked among the highest in reproduction quality. 1999 In July, after a few rounds of correspondence with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, delivered to Cupertino a number of ideas for operating system enhancements, including: executable and/or scriptable icons existing on an interactive system overlay (reference Dashboard and Widgets in OS 10.4 [Tiger - 2005]); and a user-definable mechanism for individuating workspace environments (just like Spaces in OS 10.5 [Leopard - 2007]). Most advanced Apple operating system in distribution at the time: OS 8.6 2001 Determined that gravity waves are merely incidental to high-speed, high-mass interaction in close quarters; and that gravity, contrary to widespread scientific belief, is essentially a non-waveform phenomenon. 2002 Concluded, in January, that the "real" Osama bin Laden perished, irretrievably, in a Tora Bora cave on December 13, 2001. (Oddly, Saddam Hussein would subsequently end up being captured on Dec. 13th, precisely two years later.) 2002 Predicted the demise of String Theory and most Dark Matter & Dark Energy theories within ten years. (String Theory currently seems to be collapsing under its own weight and many notions about Dark Matter and Dark Energy are growing increasingly untenable... which could pose a deleterious threat to the virtual sanctity of "Big Bang" cosmology.) 2003 Contested the findings of a joint NRAO - University of Missouri physics experiment which claimed proof (within a 20% margin of error) that gravity propagates at the same speed as light; contended instead that the team had only managed to prove that light responds to gravity at the speed of light. (The paper was withdrawn some months later, after several major universities opposed it on the same grounds. Besides, Einstein never said that gravity and light progressed at the same rate; he only said that one might as well consider them to be the same. Gravity is fundamentally atemporal, but its effects cascade through time.) 2004 Resolved a symmetrical error in the prevailing n-sphere generalisation by redefining the 0-sphere as Ø-sphere: an arbitrary point with null interior and with exterior potential equalised in all directions. 2004 Predicted in early December, based on a significant increase in geo-crustal piezo-electric output in southern Ontario, Canada, that a very dangerous quake could happen somewhere in the world within a few weeks. 2005 Following the election of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, predicted that the new regime would bring the world to the verge of a global nuclear crisis. 2005 Reconciled Special Relativity with Classical Mechanics in a mathematically-supportable statement of fewer than ten words, known as the Butterfly Equation or METS. 2005 Forecast the complete inundation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina four days before landfall, while it was still over Florida. 2006 Detected and reported seismic evidence of a second North Korean nuclear test eight days (almost to the minute) after the country's maiden October 9th detonation. 2008 Recommended, in a formal letter to the Canadian government, that a comprehensive, fast-track industrial innovation program be implemented to encourage and assist in the development and manufacture of serial-hybrid automobiles. 2009 Predicted that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment at CERN would fail to locate the "Higgs boson", or "god particle", widely suggested to be the root of all mass in the subatomic hierarchy. 2009 Reconciled various accounts of ancient Medo-Persian history (8th-5th Centuries BCE) and ascertained that Cyaxares was the "Ahasuerus" of the Book of Daniel; and that his son, Astyages, was the "Ahasuerus" of the Book of Esther as well as Daniel's "Darius the Mede". 2009 Established an informal, grassroots Mideast peace initiative based on ideas solicited from hundreds of regular people worldwide. 2010-2011 We'll begin posting up highlights of our adventures of the past two years in early 2012, so stay tuned. Or, better yet, get involved! Of course, we've done some "normal" stuff, too... contributed to naming strategies for companies, brands, products, file formats, acronyms, and web sites; created numerous unique logos, advertisements, posters, product labels, symbols and icons; contributed to a range of business and software development strategies; wrote dozens of technical papers, product reviews, magazine articles and press releases; and worked with various industry leadership groups on initiatives at the provincial, national and international level.
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(1) ideas; and (2) ideas about ideas.
