The $1 Billion Exercise...
This little exercise is stole and modified from Charles Stross' blog...
You get a billion dollars, no conditions on how you want to spend it beyond practicality. How would you spend it? If you decide to answer, make sure to note where you found it, the whole chain of where it was found...
*$250 million setting up a trust fund for myself, so I would never have to work again. With strict instructions to the managers of it that the goal is the fund is to make at least 1% after taxes a year. If we make any more than 1%, it gets rolled back into the fund.
*$50 million to help family and friends out. Never money directly, but services-for example, I know at least three friends I'd drag to a oral surgeon and dentist with instructions to put in dental implants. An aunt with a son that might not be able to afford college.
*$300 million dollars in a foundation to award prizes to people that develop the following five technologies...
1)A solar panel that could replace roofing shingles, meeting all safety and housing regulations, that only cost 50% than a non-panel shingle.
2)A battery package that is effectively a "gas" tank for cars-i.e. you can replace the gas tank in a car with the battery and get the same effective mileage.
3)A bimodal nuclear thermal rocket that can be launched into space via a Delta IV Heavy, dock at the ISS, do at least five runs from the Earth to the Moon, be refueled at least once in orbit, and carry at least one manned crew from the Earth to the Moon and back.
4)A "sealed" nuclear power package that can provide a city of at least 10,000 people power for twenty years.
5)Improvements in fuel cells to make them cheap enough to compete with gas engines.
*$50 million to the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund.
*$50 million to the first company that can produce a cloned body replacement part.
*$100 million to every museum in the SF Bay Area, distributed evenly.
*$200 million to buy the US rights to Macross Frontier, get the VERY BEST in voice actors and subtitles done, and release it in beautiful HD quality on BluRay. At a reasonable pace...
You get a billion dollars, no conditions on how you want to spend it beyond practicality. How would you spend it? If you decide to answer, make sure to note where you found it, the whole chain of where it was found...
*$250 million setting up a trust fund for myself, so I would never have to work again. With strict instructions to the managers of it that the goal is the fund is to make at least 1% after taxes a year. If we make any more than 1%, it gets rolled back into the fund.
*$50 million to help family and friends out. Never money directly, but services-for example, I know at least three friends I'd drag to a oral surgeon and dentist with instructions to put in dental implants. An aunt with a son that might not be able to afford college.
*$300 million dollars in a foundation to award prizes to people that develop the following five technologies...
1)A solar panel that could replace roofing shingles, meeting all safety and housing regulations, that only cost 50% than a non-panel shingle.
2)A battery package that is effectively a "gas" tank for cars-i.e. you can replace the gas tank in a car with the battery and get the same effective mileage.
3)A bimodal nuclear thermal rocket that can be launched into space via a Delta IV Heavy, dock at the ISS, do at least five runs from the Earth to the Moon, be refueled at least once in orbit, and carry at least one manned crew from the Earth to the Moon and back.
4)A "sealed" nuclear power package that can provide a city of at least 10,000 people power for twenty years.
5)Improvements in fuel cells to make them cheap enough to compete with gas engines.
*$50 million to the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund.
*$50 million to the first company that can produce a cloned body replacement part.
*$100 million to every museum in the SF Bay Area, distributed evenly.
*$200 million to buy the US rights to Macross Frontier, get the VERY BEST in voice actors and subtitles done, and release it in beautiful HD quality on BluRay. At a reasonable pace...