New Intensive Care Proposal

My recent experience with intensive care room of a hospital was very disappointing. I can understand the priorities in an intensive care room. However, not all patients are in deep coma while staying in those rooms. In my case, my father could open his eyes and react to what he hears by his eyes and tears.

The intensive care room contains monitoring systems that frequently beeps. Think you are a patient and you have consciousness to a degree which includes hearing. A cold room with a continues beep tone do not increase one's desire to live. I have some propositions for the intensive care room.

First, the beeping system should be removed to an external monitor outside the room. There should be no periodic noise in the room. There should be small speakers on the head section of the bed. From these speakers depending on the time of the day, special sounds will be played. Humans have biological clock which cannot work properly inside these rooms. Keeping this clock tick properly, I believe is important for the healing of the patient. For example, in the morning just before the patient receives his/her first medication of the day. A soft morning sound can be played. For example, another type of sound in the middle of the day and at night. The doctors ask patients previous health record. This questionnaire can also include the patient’s favorite music and songs. An AI system would choose an appropriate music based on the information. The patient’s reactions would be monitored by the AI computer which effects the music play. Depending on the reactions, the music can be stopped or another type of music would be played. These sound and music playbacks would be conducted briefly but frequently depending on the patience' medication. When I used to travel with bus, the internal audio system would start playing a soft tune a couple of minutes before a stop. I got my inspiration from this past experience. As a result, the patient would understand that it is morning, night or time for medication. AI system should also speak with the patient like SIRI. It shouldn't be for a long time as well. All these sound interrupts would be patient specific and patient's current health.

Finally, there should be a wired video conference system attached to the side of the bed. This is to allow patient's close relatives which cannot make it to the limited meeting time or live far away. Speaking and saying nice motivating words have considerable impact on the human metabolism to overcome the illness. A patient feeling alone in a cold beeping room can hardly hold on the life. Medications should be supported with proper moral. Solely medication-based cure would have high fatality rate.

12.12.1941

Babam

Five Thumbs Don’t Make a Hand

Modern digital backed audio systems are composed of several key parts. The speakers and their acoustics, digital amplifier with DSP equalizer, electronics to select the audio source which includes the wireless connectivity like Bluetooth, computer to playback the digital content either streaming or stored audio, embedded software, internet software and mobile app. And of course, there is the business and marketing side of it (modern - selling directly online or the old way - through resellers).

With the accelerated trend of mergers and acquisitions of consumer brands, high end audio companies are now part of giant holdings. Buying companies and collecting them inside a shopping cart like in a supermarket is not that profitable. Unless, you buy brands so that they create synergy among them. Five thumbs don’t make a hand. A hand needs index finger, middle finger, ring finger and pinky finger besides the thumb.

I am a Klipsch fan. Reading bad reviews of their failed high end active speakers, made me write this article. Speakers are not perfect due to laws of physics. Therefore, combining them with any external amplifier would not yield perfect flat sound reproduction. On the other hand, coupling the speakers with onboard digital amplifiers that perfect the sound output using specially programmed DSP equalizers would give perfect flat response. This also reduces the overall cost of the hi-fi system and increases the convenience of the product which is important for many non-audiophile listeners like me.

Klipsch’s high-end Heritage active speakers are designed for this purpose. However, their electronics fail after a year or two which is unacceptable for a high-end product. Klipsch has know-how on speakers and acoustics, and not so much on the other things I stated at the beginning of my article. Ideally, the holding which bought Klipsch should have bought other companies to fill this gap to create perfect products. That is one of the reasons I keep emphasizing the importance of vertical and horizontal integration on product design. Modern technology requires more know-how for a perfect product. Unfortunately, the current trend is just the make sales without designing anything. Companies just place a badge of a brand from their portfolio on a Chinese product and sell the product as if it was designed by that brand.

With so much junk on the market, there are opportunities for the companies which develop their products properly; market and service them accordingly.

Lunar Exploration

I recently read that the latest lunar space suits would be designed to allow days of sustained exploration. I thought of another alternative to achieve the same goal. The explorers on earth utilize mules on their expeditions. The extraterrestrial explorers can utilize rovers and handcarts.

Extraterrestrial rover would have a pressurized cabin for the astronauts to rest and fulfill their humanitarian needs. It would have large extended solar panels to charge itself and provide power to the astronauts. It would carry the food, water and additional oxygen supply. Additionally, it would have a section for quick emergency first aid.

In addition to the rover, the astronauts would drag a handcart which would carry spare batteries and life support systems. The handcart would also house some test equipment as well as power tools to extract samples. Additionally, it would have quick repair kits for the damaged space suits.

From the specifications I defined, it is better to have a lunar lander that can move instead of a need to carry an additional rover. Lunar lander rover does not need to move fast, but should be able to give life support to the astronauts in close proximity.

The Wall Grill

In the morning in my dream, I saw my mother cooking small fish fillet on an iron. She was holding the fillet from the extending skin of the fish and pushing the fillet on the iron with her thumb.  With this method she lightly cooked both sides of the small fillet that could be placed on a sushi. Then I woke up and thought about my dream and turned it into a product, The Wall Grill.

Lately, houses are becoming smaller in big cities. As a result, the kitchens are diminishing. How about using the wall of the kitchen as a cooking surface. A slightly angled stainless steel grill surface attached to the wall. The food to be cooked would be attached to the pegs on top of the grill. It would have separate heater sections controlled by thermostatic knobs. At the bottom of the grill there would be fat collection tray that can be removed and cleaned in a dish washer. A section of the grill would house holes for steam release like in a classic iron. This would allow steam, grilled cooking.

There would also be an external grilling iron. It would be a modified iron optimized for cooking food. You would press it on the food to cook it and steam it on demand.

Underwater Pipe Organ

While listening to Xaver Varnus playing Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in The Berliner Dom, I dreamed of an underwater pipe organ fed by the gas from an underwater chimney. I got my inspiration from Captain Nemo’s organ inside the Nautilus.

Pipe organ would be played by an underwater robot. How would it sound or would it sound at all I don’t know. The whales and the dolphins would most likely hear it. Imagine them gathering around the pipe organ like inside a giant cathedral.

Here is the Music played on surface 😊

Xaver Varnus plays Toccata and Fugue in D minor (edited by Mendelssohn) on the great Sauer Organ of the Berliner Dom.

Snooker League

I like watching snooker, but seeing so many problems in the organization made me think of new ideas. Organizing open tournaments with so many players is not something I support. This is a problem of Tennis as well. I am in favor of grouping players into leagues. I propose three leagues for Snooker. The top 32 players in the 2 years list will play in a Premier League, like in Football, for a year. The next 64 will play in League 1 and the remaining will play in the Amateur League.

Premier League will have tournaments with high frame count. The players will earn points according to the frames they win. As a result, a player loosing at the decider will get much more points than the one white washed. The games won on quarter finals and beyond will award extra points. All games will be played out of 15 red balls. There will be no Shoot-Out. Each frame won will award 15 points to the player. The tournament price money will be independently determined from the points. Every tournament will award points unlike the current Masters.

League 1 will have tournaments with lower frame count. The players will earn points according to the frames they win. In addition to the classical snooker, there will be 6-10 red ball tournaments as well as multiple Shoot-Outs. Frames won on 6-10 red ball and Shoot-Out will award 10 points. Amateur League will also have similar tournaments.

The objective is to make all leagues attractive to the audience and award the players fairly.

Missile Concept

I thought of a type of missile to be used on stealth fighter planes. These planes have enclosed bomber bays. Therefore, the protrusions would limit the number of missiles that can be deployed for each mission. The missile concept I propose would utilize a ramjet instead of the most common solid rocket engines. There will be no protruding air intake, instead the air will enter the engine by Coandă effect. The missile will have gimbled nozzle for thrust vectoring. As a result, there will be no fins or wings for flight stabilization, but thrust vectoring.

The missile will consume the same fuel as the fighter jet to simplify the logistics. Higher efficiency of the ramjet compared to solid fuel rockets will increase its range for the same mass or reduce its weight for the same range.

Fighter Jet Concept

I would like to propose a family of dual-purpose (piloted and drone) fighter jet. It will be based around commercial turbofan engines. The bigger variant will be designed around a Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engine and the smaller variant will be based around CFM International LEAP. The fuselage of the plane will not exceed the diameter of the engine. High bypass turbofan engines have a large fan in the front and narrow cross section at the back. Therefore, a tubular fuselage will allow space for fuel tank and bomb bays. Both engines I propose generate enough thrust to allow Vertical Takeoff and Landing. Much better fuel economy of a commercial engine allows longer range with less fuel.

The rear of the plane will house an afterburner for thrust boost on demand and gimbled nozzle for thrust vectoring. There will be an optional pilot bay as well. The pilot will lay down inside the bay. During takeoff and landing pilot would be in vertical position. In case of emergency, the bay will be released from the plane to save pilot’s life. Laying down position will be advantageous on high G maneuvers due to better blood circulation and less strain on the spine. The plane will also be operatable in drone mode without a pilot bay.

The plane will takeoff and land on three anchor points, one on its vertical stabilizer and the rest on each wing. VTOL operation will allow almost any ship to be an aircraft carrier and increase the launch sites outside the airports. Use of commercial engines will lower the cost of the planes and their operational cost, as well as improve their reliability.

Top-Down Rocket Design

Space exploration requires mission optimized rocket designs. A design approach that was successful for LEO missions would not necessarily be successful on high energy missions. I am referring to the two staged reusable rockets of SpaceX and similar companies. Ariane 6 has a much better approach especially for high energy missions. I would like to propose a new approach. It is a top-down designed rocket. A rocket design that would allow five or more stages. Depending on the mission, the number of stages would be chosen. For LEO satellite missions, two stages would be enough. For ISS module deployment like LEO missions three or even more stages would be utilized. For the moon four stages and for Mars, six or even more. Instead of strapping boosters around the main rocket like in Ariane design, the additional stages would be attached to the bottom of the previous one depending on the mission requirements.

This design approach would require unified propellent on all stages of the rocket. Additionally, the engines should have modular nozzles to allow easy swapping of them for optimal ambient pressure. The large rocket engine design I proposed earlier would allow this.

Ambitious space dreams require larger single use rockets. Reusability is only practical to the very first stage of any rocket and not for the upper stages.

A Large Rocket Engine

I had previously proposed rocket engines, this one is a scalable engine optimized for cryogenic propellant, liquid methane and oxygen. These propellants require pre heating for a sustainable combustion. Like in SpaceX Raptor engine, the propellant would be pe burned in order to heat them before combustion. My design puts the pre burner inside the combustion chamber. The objective is to transfer the heat inside the chamber more effectively to the propellent. This design negates the regenerative cooling channels outside the combustion chamber and the rocket nozzle. Allowing much larger combustion chambers than the current rocket engines. The problem with large combustion chambers is that the combustion efficiency decreases with the increase volume. I solve this problem with heat exchanger fins around the pre-burner. When the propellant is heated to auto ignition temperature they burn on contact. Therefore, increased heated surface inside the chamber increases the heat transfer between the gas molecules and the hot metal surface.

The pre burner, the combustion chamber and the nozzle of the engine will be made of Tungsten which has a very high melting point and still a good conductor of heat. There will be no regenerative cooling on the combustion chamber. Therefore, the internal temperature will be kept considerably below the melting point of Tungsten by pumping adequate propellant inside the chamber.

Removal of propellant pipes around the combustion chamber lowers the cost of manufacturing large combustion chambers and reduces the heat stress on the shell of the chamber. Removal of propellant pipes around the nozzle lowers the cost of manufacturing the rocket nozzle and simplifies the gimble mechanism.

Four Stage Rocket

The first stage of a rocket generates a lot of thrust which becomes too much as the fuel is depleted and the rocket gets lighter. The engines are turned off to keep the acceleration to an acceptable level. Adding more stages can be another alternative. Generate just enough thrust in each stage so that no engine needs to be turned off.

I thought of a four-stage rocket. First two stages would accelerate the rocket in earth’s atmosphere. The remaining two would mainly operate in vacuum. First two stages would have wings attached to them which would be optimized for their cruising altitude and speed. Once, one of these stages deplete their fuel, the successive stage would fire and push back the previous stage behind. This would also melt away the stage separation section. The depleted section would glide towards the sea with the help of its wings. In the meanwhile, the engine openings towards the nozzle would be sealed by polyurethane foam like material, to prevent the sea water entering the engine. The light weight empty stage would float on water once it lands on it. Then, it would be recovered by ships and refurbished for reuse. Unlike, current reusable rockets which can only be recovered on LEO missions. The rocket I propose do not require fuel to land and can be utilized on all missions, like the space shuttle.

The wings on the rocket will also allow it to take off from the ground with an angle like the planes. This also reduces the takeoff thrust requirement for the rocket.

At the moment, the rockets mainly have two stages, which I guess is not enough for deep space exploration.

Fusion Space Cuisine

Fusion cuisine is defined as "a style of cookery which blends ingredients and methods of preparation from different countries, regions, or ethnic groups; food cooked in this style". In the case of space, it is mainly space optimized cooking based on concentrated ingredients.

3D printed food produced by the TNO research center in the Netherlands, a member of the URBAN consortium investigating 3D printing in support of a lunar base. A food printer creates diversity in looks, tastes and textures from a limited set of ingredients.

The objective of 3d printed fusion cuisine is to provide space travelers with healthy, delicious and nice-looking food with minimum cargo requirement. I personally do not find feeding space travelers with freshly harvested vegetables and fruits. This method would be too bulky and cumbersome for weight conscious rocketry. It is best to send the dry extracts as nutrition and hydrate them with recycled water. The scent and food colorant wood also be included in concentrated forms to keep the moral and physiological wellbeing of the travelers by influencing them visually and olfactory (sense of smell).

Lunar Solar Corona Explorer

The solar eclipse is an ideal time to study sun’s corona. It is the moon’s shadow blocking the strong solar rays to allow the instruments to detect subtle changes without saturation. A lunar orbiting satellite can also achieve this even better. As the satellite orbits the moon, it would experience solar eclipse many times.  It would be a much better observation while there would be no obstruction like the earth’s atmosphere. The farthest the satellite is from the moon, the slower it would orbit and make much better observations. The satellite would also double as a communication relay for the surface instruments as well.

A simpler version of this idea was implemented by two satellites orbiting in formation. The one in front casting shadow like solar eclipse on the following satellite. Proba-3’s first artificial solar eclipse 

Sightseeing Plane

I got my inspiration from the airships attached to the top of the skyscrapers. The sightseeing plane would be a multi-wing plane to allow very low stall speeds like an airship. The passengers unlike a traditional plane would be seated in front of the plane. All seats would be front seats. The seats will rotate around. Therefore, there will be no need for aisles between the seats. The design is based on high aspect ratio wings. The passenger cabin of the plane will also follow the design of the wings. This would induce a high drag like in airships. However, utilizing multiple wings and lowering the cruise speed would reduce the drag to allow the plane to be airborne. The wings of the plane would accommodate low profile lithium batteries. The plane would be propelled by brushless motors with large propellers. This would lower the noise of the propellers and the motors compared to high-speed small propellers used on drones.

The sightseeing plane would be launched from a suspension bridge supported by vertical wind turbine towers. Once the plane’s motors reach the cruising speed, the plane would be released from the suspension bridge. As the plane descents down the ground, it would generate lift and fly higher. After the plane is released, the cranes on top of the suspension bridge would lower hooks on the ground. Then, grasp another plane on the ground and raise it to the top for a new launch.

Once the flight is complete, the plane will approach the bridge and let the hooks grasp it. Low cruising speed of the plane will allow this. Once the plane is grasped, the motors will be shot down and the plane will be lowered to the ground. The passengers will board and disembark from the plane on the ground.

The vertical wind turbine towers will generate electricity for the planes and to the city. In very windy days, there would be no flight, but a lot of electricity generated by the towers.

Nuclear Energy Strategy

After reading the article and the comments on “Westinghouse shifts eVinci microreactor focus away from commercial applications.” I decided to write this article. It seems small nuclear power plants distributed around the country is not feasible. Instead, the nuclear plants should be build larger and concentrated on few strategic locations. However, building nuclear plants in small sections is still a valid argument. At the moment nuclear power is mainly used by developed nations which have an average government lifetime less than four years. An energy project with first outcomes appearing after four years is not very attractive by the politicians.  Therefore, the next generation nuclear power plants should be able to produce some electricity within first few years of the project start. They may reach their full capacity much later, no problem.

It is important for a nation’s sovereignty to depend less on exported energy and raw materials. Producing excess energy using nuclear power is critical in my point of view. If it is not possible to produce nuclear energy in distributed locations, then the centralized high energy centers should be distributing the excess energy around the country. Aluminum power cables would be ideal in creating such network. Aluminum is abundant on earth's crust and its cost is mainly electricity. I recommend the nuclear plants to be built in close proximity to aluminum production locations. Excess energy would be stored as processed aluminum. Energy intense industries should also be nearby. In the old times such industries would be located close to the coal mining sites. Therefore, the new nuclear plants should be located close to the coal mining sites. One additional benefit of this is excess nuclear energy can be used to gasify the coal which can be fed into the existing natural gas pipelines.

Developed nations export natural gas which enter the country from a handful of locations. As a result, high energy nuclear plants can also distribute their immense energy to the whole country from few locations.

Future is Unmanned :)

After seeing “The Future is Unmanned” on a person’s profile in LinkedIn, I decided to write this article. AI with limited intelligence could have interpreted this phrase as “There would be no men in the future”. In reality, men are going nowhere, it’s just their location is changing. From the cockpit of an airplane to a chair inside a control room on the ground. They even have the same title, Pilot. More interestingly, autonomous technologies require more men. Such robots are complex compared to cockpit-ted ones and require more men hour in the development. Of course, once they are designed, they require much less men during manufacturing.

If the future is unmanned, then what will happen to all these men continuing to be born. What will happen to all those billions? Will robots work instead of men to keep men alive? Is the time coming for humanity to reduce its population voluntarily?

The nature finds its equilibrium at the end. The nature does not require humans to survive not the opposite. If we keep increasing our numbers, the nature will reduce it for us at the end and the Future will be really unmanned.

Universal Power Supply for Electronics

This one was an old idea. I wanted to record it as well. With so many different AC plugs globally, there is a need for standardized power plug for low power electronics. At the moment USB is used for this purpose and it is a mass. The plug I propose is only for power transfer not for data communication. It is a classic barrel type plug. They can be plugged in any orientation with grounded outside for safety. The major difference is the insulator layer which is not a black plastic but a light transparent insulator. The purpose of it is low bandwidth optical communication. When there is no load on the plug, the output voltage defaults to 3.3V. Once the plug is inserted into a socket, the socket send signal over the optical section to adjust the voltage. The current limit as well as voltage can be set by the receiving end. As a result, the power adaptor utilizing this plug can provide up to 50 volts to an electronics device. It is a more versatile and future proof system compared to resistively set chaotic standards of USB. It is best to send power and data separately over dedicated cables. There can be special combo cables that have both cables attached side by side for convenience. For data communication I opt for optical instead of copper cables.

Sustainable Hi-Fi Platform

If you are interest in Hi-Fi, I recommend you watch XrayTonyB YouTube channel. Especially his video on damping factor is very informative. When you watch the video, you learn that no speaker is perfect and amplifiers don’t match perfectly with every speaker. As a result, I believe that a true hi-fi of today should be a modular active speaker. We don’t need the clutter of old hi-fi components. Today, the audio and video are digital and don’t require physical medium to reproduce them.

The sustainable hi-fi platform I propose will be based on standardized modules attached inside hi-fi speakers. Each speaker will be driven with a dedicated amplifier. This dedication will be based on the characteristic of the speaker, not just it's ohm value.

Digital music will be streamed into the hi-fi via USB, HDMI (ARC), optical, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The DAC, digital stream processors and the wireless transceivers will be removable modules. As a result, changes in technology will not make the system obsolete. The consumers will be able to upgrade their system more economically over time.

The speakers will have removable casing to meet consumer esthetics. As a result, the manufacturers will not need to stock expensive powered speakers based on their color. The casings would be stocked which will be much cheaper than the electronic parts.

Placing everything inside the large speaker case negates the need for expensive audio cables and connectors, as well as external amplifiers, streamers and their cable clutter. Only one of the speakers within a system will house DAC, digital stream processor and the wireless transceivers. The rest of the speakers will be connected to the main speaker via special cable which carries electricity as well as the digital audio signal for the specific speaker.

Each speaker case will house detailed schematics of electronics and mechanics of the speaker to assist future servicing of the products. I got my inspiration from old radios where such schematics would be sticked inside the casing. Unlike the old ones, the schematics will be printed on long lasting coated papers.

Once the standards are properly defined, the result would an upgradable Hi-Fi system like the upgradable desktop PCs.

The Apple Way

My experience with Apple had many ups and downs from the first day. In 2009, I decided to develop iPhone app and bought my first iPhone and iMac. In order to register as a developer, I had to fill a form and fax it to USA in the year 2009. At least they didn’t request me to send the registration via post 😊. Additionally, the support and the way things operated behind the doors shaped my thoughts about the company. A luxury restaurant with an out-of-date kitchen. In 2011, I bought an iPad for my sister from an Apple store in Big Apple, NYC. I provided my credit card as a payment method and had to sign the virtual payment slip on an iPad with my fingers. The finger drawn figures on the screen by no means resembled my signatures but they accepted it. A month ago, I bought an external hard disk drive from Apple Turkey’s website. The online shopping page was leagues behind the mainstream. More importantly, even after a month of purchasing the product, I still do not have a receipt. I tried to contact the online and phone help. However, the person who answered me on the phone was very rudely hang up the phone and I couldn’t resolve my problem. The company only provides technical support nothing else. I tried to contact the retail shops and they divert me to the online help. Within the warranty period, if my product malfunctions I don’t have an official receipt to request for a warranty. I am glad that I didn’t bought an expensive Apple product online. At least I can throw away the disk if it fails. Green Apple with prehistoric operations, I have nothing to say more…

Auto Union

I would like to broaden my proposition for elderly care to automotive industry as well. If Europe wants to reduce the waste on their land and reduce carbon footprint of their manufacturing facilities, they need to define and mandate standards on parts that make up a car.

At the moment almost all car manufacturers own several brands and these brands share a lot of parts between them. I propose this point of view to be broadened. Not all parts need to be standardized, but the ones that are defined would have several quality levels which are also standardized. As a result, the manufacturers and the consumers would be free to select the quality themselves. The car modules would be defined by their percentage compliance with the standards, e.g. This car is manufactured using 20% Auto Union parts. This standard would cover the software of the cars as well. At the moment Europe heavily depends on exported operating systems and computer architecture and processors. For example, the car computer and entertainment systems, all depend on exported hardware and software.

The definition of green manufacturing should not be limited to proprietary parts produced out of recycled plastic or less material. A proper green manufacturing must rely on the life of a product. Fast degrading or depreciating products are by no means green. Additionally, wasting resources (raw material, employee time and energy) on manufacturing non-standard products is by no means green.

Sustainable Elderly Care

Anyone who is supporting elderly people knows that they require special equipment (wheelchair, patient bed, oxygen generator…) on their final days. The usable days of such equipment is unknown. Therefore, people usually do not want to buy very expensive models and opt for cheap ones. Most of these cheap products are not serviceable and cannot be used by more than one person due to their poor quality. This leads to more landfill.

My proposition for developed nations, especially for Europe, is to design and standardized such devices. The objective is to make these equipment 100% serviceable and modular with standardized dimensions and connections. Once such products are produced, they would be rented to individuals. The users would make payments as long as they keep using them. Some or all of this rent cost can be compensated by the social system of the country or the insurance firms. When the user stops using the equipment, it would be renovated at a servicing center. In order to reduce the waste generated during the renovation, appropriate materials should be selected in the design.

Once such system is formed, the people who requires such equipment would benefit the most while they would be using higher quality products at a reasonable cost and don’t need to consider the aftermath when they no longer require them. Additionally, much less waste would be generated over the years which also lowers the energy requirement to manufacture them.

Footprint of Tournaments

Today I was watching Snooker Xi'an Grand Prix and the commentor mentioned that the player had to pay a large amount of money to alter his flight date because he had wined his previous game and progressed on the tournament. Snooker is an individual sports where the income is based on one's success on the tournaments. Most of these tournaments are organized in England and China. These two countries have quite distance between them. As a result, any flight from one country to the other costs really high. Most players don't earn that much money to compensate these travel cost. My proposition for World Snooker Tour is to form a tournament calendar to minimize the travel costs. At the moment, an Asian tournament is followed by a British one. At some extremes, like the one this week, a tournament at the heart of China is followed by Northern Ireland. Which requires at least three connecting flights to reach from one destination to the other.

My recommendation is to organize all Chinese tournaments one after the other followed by the ones at Thailand and then the ones at Arabic peninsula then England and its surroundings. As a result, a player can travel from one destination to the other with a single flight and at a lower cost. Funny thing at the moment, depending on the tournament stage, an unexpected win for a player would cost money because a flight change and extra stay at the hotel surpasses the amount earned.

My proposition is valid for other sports events as well. Unfortunately, latest sports events require more and more travelling. This contradicts with the latest global warming movement especially in Europe. All these sports federations are filled with European executives and they make such decisions.

Hybrid Bi-Amping

People like tube amplifiers because of their softer tones at higher frequencies. At lower frequencies this effect is less pronounced. More importantly, due to audio transformers used on tube amps, the lower frequencies are less amplified. The high-end Hi-Fi speakers usually support bi-amping. Therefore, high frequency section of the speaker can be driven independent of the mid to lower frequency section of the speaker. I would like to propose a hybrid bi-amp to create the lovely soft tones of a tube amp with a much efficient and economical way.

My design solves three major problems. First, the low frequencies would be better amplified using transistor amplifiers compared to tube counterparts which are less affected by the tube’s tonality. Second, high frequencies do not need high power amplifiers. Therefore, the tube amplifier can be designed with much less power output which reduces the cost. Third, output audio transformers of the tube amplifier can be optimized for a narrower frequency range to lower cost and improve tonality.

The input signal would be pre-amplified using tube amplifiers. Then the amplified signal would be split into high and low frequencies using a cross-over network. The lower frequencies would be power amplified by efficient push pull amplifiers without coupling capacitors or transformers to output even the lowest frequencies, 20 Hz. The highs would be power amplified using a single ended tube amplifier, e.g. by KT-88, to create the beautiful tones of a single ended amplifier. Coupled with highly efficient horn speakers, e.g. Klipsch horns, they would produce really powerful highs with minimal input.

Hybrid Media Player

After the Millennium, technological advancements virtualized many things. However, humans still have five senses. We need to touch, feel and see. That’s why in the age of digitalization the sales of vinyl have increased. At the moment only CD and Vinyl have new releases. I would like to propose a hybrid media player to satisfy contemporary users’ demand. It would be an all-in-one product. Bringing back the advancements of turntable of 80s, CD players of 90s and streaming music of the Millennium.

People buy vinyl to see the physical media while listening to their favorite music. That’s why I propose a vertical turntable. I got my inspiration from Sony PS-F9. This allows the specially designed vinyl surface to be visible by the listener. Additionally, the turntable will have dual needle to be able to play both sides of the vinyl without the need for user flipping them over. Additionally, high end linear turntables of 70s and 80s could identify the tracks on a vinyl. However, their old detection mechanism doesn’t work on clear vinyl. I propose the advanced optical mouse technology to be adapted for this task. Some optical mouses can even work on glass surfaces, so they can also identify the tracks of a clear vinyl. As a result, the turntable would work in a similar fashion like a CD player.

For the CD player section of the media player, I propose a DVD writer mechanism. This allows all audio disc formats to be read including DVD Audio. The choice of a writer allows much longer laser life and ability to read rewritable discs with a high success rate.

The front section of the player will have two rotatable RGB spot lights. This would expose the effects overlayed on the latest LP records. There would optional accessories such as big analog VU meters attached in front of the player.

The media player will have on board amplifiers. The vinyl section will utilize an analog amplifier and the digital section a digital amplifier. Most importantly, the player will have a proper computer on board to play all audio formats developed so far. Once you read all the content on a compact disk, decoding the content is just software. It is sad to see latest CD players that cannot read many advanced audio disk formats and even CD text. If there is a license for a format, that cost can be charged to the end user.

The player will have dual Bluetooth (one for remote controlling the player, one for Bluetooth Audio connection) and Wi-Fi connectivity (for streamed audio).

Short Range Electric Boat

I would like to propose an electric passenger boat that operates at short distances like the ones in Bosphorus. Since the Titanic tragedy, the passenger ships have double hull. My proposed ship will have its inner hull made of aluminum capacitors. I had previously proposed such a structure for the wind turbines. Aluminum plates separated by aluminum oxide insulator layers. This plywood-like structure is very strong and comparably easy to manufacture. The oxide layer would be adjusted to allow optimum voltage difference between the plates. These capacitor plates would be connected to one another via insulated frames and fuse-able connectors. Therefore, if one section shorts, the fuse would protect the remainder sections.

As a result, large structure of the boat is used as an energy storage medium which has a much longer life than chemical batteries. This setup would only provide limited power which would only work for short ranges. The boat would be charged at every dock. The capacitor storage would allow rapid charging and can be charged many times without degradation.

This idea can be extended to other vehicles as well which would operate at short distances and can be frequently recharged.

Details of International Underwater Station

A submarine hull has two major components, the superstructure and the pressure hull. The superstructure of a submarine is the outer non-watertight hull which provides a hydrodynamically efficient shape. The pressure hull is the inner hull of a submarine that resists sea pressure and maintains the submarine’s structural integrity at operating depth. I propose a double pressure hull design for the International Underwater Station (IUS) while it doesn't need to travel at high speeds. In order to increase the usable space and maintain buoyance, the hulls of the submarine will be made of concrete filled steel structures. Manufacturing big steel structures is a mature technology for ship building. This will allow low-cost building of a big submarine that can operate at considerably high depths. Concrete has a high compressive strength and can be easily used to fill the void between the steel double hull. A special composition of concrete should be used for this purpose. The concrete would also seal the leaks that may occur on the superstructure. With special composition, they would resist the corrosive sea water better than most metals. The additional weight of the concrete would also allow more hollow space inside. Heavy weight and larger dimensions would also increase the stability of the underwater research station.

IUS would have hatches to allow additional submarines to be attached to each other like in ISS. Each IUS section would have emergency rescue spheres that would take the occupants to the surface in case of an emergency. Additionally, any damaged section would be released from the rest to maintain the operation of the IUS.

IUS would accommodate small submarines for humans as well as tethered robots. This would allow detailed inspection of tight spaces. Samples gathered by these inspections would be analyzed at the onboard laboratories.

We All Live in a Yellow Submarine

International Space Station has reached its end of life and new space stations are planned. I would like to propose an International Underwater Station which would benefit humanity more than its space counterpart. An underwater habitat was described in Jules Verne's "Vingt Mille Lieues sous Les Mers" almost two centuries ago. However, we are still leagues behind creating such habitat even though we have the technology. We should start by creating an underwater research station. It would be made of specially designed submarines. These submarines would be cascaded like the space stations sections are attached to one another. As time goes by more sections would be added and the old ones would be removed.

International Underwater Station would make research on deep-sea habitat and would also clean the surrounding region as it explores. It would create underwater farms to feed its occupants like in Jules Verne's novel. With a nuclear reactor on board, it would be a self-sufficient habitat.

An autonomous ship above water would accommodate the submarine to assist in logistics and as a rescue boat in case of emergency. A smaller version of this underwater station would be deployed on Mediterranean Sea first, then a larger version on the oceans.

Hybrid Streaming

For some time, I have been watching YouTube videos on vintage audio video media. In those videos the YouTuber tries to show its audience the quality of these stored media and the players. However, the current audio video formats treat the media as one single piece. Once different things are combined into one video, the quality of the sections making up the video are transformed into a single format and the details are lost. YouTube's compression algorithms worsen the case further.

My proposition is a new media format which is simply a gapless playlist of different media. It has some similarities to MKV, but the major difference is that it is a playlist. The video and audio are played in order without a gab. The viewer watches the video as one long piece. However, some of the video and audio would be streamed in different format to enable proper experience. The streamer services would stream them as it is without converting them into other formats.

This technology would allow proper product reviews of media recorders and players as well as true to life reproduction of vintage media.