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Tech re:drafted »

Currently, wireless communication protocolls (802.11 etc) have some sort of reactive collision detection or collision avoidance mechanism to deal with colliding packets. The hidden terminal problem makes this an important but challenging task. I propose to re:draft such protocols to use a pro-active collision-reduction scheme (paired with a detection in case a collision does happen). This is a somewhat bionic technology: a self-organizing system taken from the flashing patterns of fireflies.

Society re:drafted »

There is an ongoing dispute about the best ways how to teach math (and related topics such as physics) in school (and university). The common understanding (I claim) is, that "it's really really important" but at the same time "I can't remember anything – doesn't matter because luckily you don't need all that stuff in real life anyway". This is sad. Therefore, I propose to re:draft math education to be more fun and less formula.

Fiction re:drafted »

Discuss  | Read More | |  Bury | Tagged: books drama
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Our teachers really had to force me to read Goethe's Faust: The first part of the tragedy. Only years after I left school I re-read it and began to love it. I still have one complaint, though, and that is: Faust doesn't take enough advantage of Mephistoles' powers. Once he falls in love with Gretchen all the previous magic fun is forgotten. Therefore, I propose to re:draft Faust such that he continues playing magic tricks on people even while he is in love.

It all starts out so well: Faust a

Society re:drafted »

In almost every course I taught at the university we had the problem of students being accused of "cheating". However, nowadays it is far from being clear what that means. I therefore propose to re:draft "cheating" based on the simple rule: "cite your sources".

Society re:drafted »

Instead of structuring the government around arbitrary geographic divisions ("states", "kantons"), structure it around statistical categories, like income or race. The idea originates in a Washington Post column by Annie Lowrey.

Tech re:drafted »

1 Comment  | Read More | |  Bury | Tagged: gmail web storage
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I propose that every user should have control of where their data is stored and who accesses it. This means that the interface to read your mail should be separated from the place where that mail is stored. You would have a provider that gives you web-accessible storage space (or you could run your own server) and you would grant access to portions of that site to websites you are using.

Tech re:drafted »

Run newly downloaded applications with few access privileges to start and prompt during execution to gradually increase the set of privileges.

The Law re:drafted »

Discuss  | Read More | |  Bury | Tagged: patents
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I think most people agree that the patent law today isn't really doing what it was (supposedly) invented for; namely, to protect the "garage-based inventor" from the "evil big corporations". I propose to re:draft the patent law in a way such that "stealing an idea" is the crime, not "re-inventing" it.