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cryonics links.
author Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu>
date Sat, 23 Apr 2016 18:01:05 -0700
parents ba80a6a67b55
children 7a6b855cfb99
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rlm@145 1 #+title: Big List O' Ideas
rlm@145 2 #+author: Robert McIntyre
rlm@145 3 #+email: rlm@mit.edu
rlm@145 4 #+description: list of ideas from Robert McIntyre
rlm@145 5 #+keywords: aurellem ideas half-baked random
rlm@145 6 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org
rlm@145 7 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org
rlm@145 8 #+babel: :mkdirp yes :noweb yes :exports both
rlm@145 9 #+HTML_HEAD_EXTRA: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../css/ideas.css" />
rlm@145 10 #+OPTIONS: num:nil
rlm@145 11
rlm@145 12 * Ideas
rlm@145 13 # :PROPERTIES:
rlm@145 14 # :HTML_CONTAINER_CLASS: ideas
rlm@145 15 # :END:
rlm@145 16
rlm@145 17 This is a list of all the good ideas I've had that I felt like writing
rlm@145 18 down for the past ~ 10 years. Some of them could be practical
rlm@145 19 inventions and are "just" waiting for that 95% perspiration to bring
rlm@145 20 them to fruition, some are ideas for science fiction, and some are
rlm@145 21 simple observations. They are arranged roughly in reverse
rlm@145 22 chronological order, with the most recent ideas at the top of the
rlm@145 23 list. The ones at the bottom of the list are heavily influenced by my
rlm@145 24 time at MIT, the ones at the top, by my time at 21st Century Medicine.
rlm@145 25
rlm@145 26 If you find some of these interesting and would like to collaborate on
rlm@145 27 them with me or discuss them in more detail, I'd love to hear from
rlm@145 28 you. You can email me at ideas@aurellem.org.
rlm@145 29
rlm@145 30 If you want to use one of these ideas as your own and run with it,
rlm@145 31 please feel free. I'd love to hear about it if you do.
rlm@145 32
rlm@145 33 #+begin_quote
rlm@145 34 There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about
rlm@145 35 getting credit.
rlm@145 36 #+end_quote
rlm@145 37
rlm@145 38
rlm@145 39 #+BEGIN_HTML
rlm@157 40 <hr/>
rlm@145 41 #+END_HTML
rlm@145 42
rlm@162 43
rlm@162 44
rlm@162 45 ** A simple merge procedure for uploads
rlm@162 46 Putting aside the philosophical problems around mind-uploading for
rlm@162 47 a moment, imagine that you were /already/ a computer program
rlm@162 48 running on a suitable robotic body. Let's say that the program is
rlm@162 49 based off a detailed emulation of your brain -- no one really
rlm@162 50 understands exactly /how/ the program is doing its computations,
rlm@162 51 only that it faithfully recreates the original biological
rlm@162 52 computations. At this point, you might want to be able to exist in
rlm@162 53 multiple places at once while still maintining a coherent unity of
rlm@162 54 identity, but how do you do it? You /can't/ modifiy your mind to
rlm@162 55 handle multiple bodies at once, because this would require
rlm@162 56 extensive understanding of exactly how your program is doing its
rlm@162 57 computations in order to scale it to multiple bodies. But you can't
rlm@162 58 just copy yourself either, because the copies will eventually
rlm@162 59 diverge leading to a loss of unity of identity. You can't easily
rlm@162 60 merge copies together after they've "diverged" because again, you'd
rlm@162 61 have to come up with a coherent theory of mind to merge the
rlm@162 62 datastructures. One simple way to do merges is this: First, you
rlm@162 63 need to acchitect the robot bodies to record every single bit
rlm@162 64 that's passing through all sensory nerves throughout a small time
rlm@162 65 interval that's insufficient to create significant divergence. For
rlm@162 66 sake of argument I'll assume that you do this each day. This stream
rlm@162 67 of data represents the ultimate "life recording" and can be easily
rlm@162 68 accomplished either in simulation of physical reality by using
rlm@162 69 custom sensory organs, like in [[http://aurellem.org/#CORTEX][=CORTEX=]]. This set of information,
rlm@162 70 if played back to a copy of you in the exact mental state right
rlm@162 71 before the start of recording, would perfectaly match with the
rlm@162 72 choices of the individual and serve as an adequate replacement for
rlm@162 73 the world, even though it contains almost no information compared
rlm@162 74 to the world! Once you can do the "full life records," then the
rlm@162 75 procedure works like this: At the morning of Day 1 you "checkout"
rlm@162 76 the one copy of you from yesterday and make around 10 copies which
rlm@162 77 each live out their day. Each copy records a full "life recording"
rlm@162 78 for the day. Then one copy is chosen as the "trunk" and the rest as
rlm@162 79 branches. The trunk replays the life-recordings of the branches in
rlm@162 80 accelerated time over the night, and the branches are then deleted
rlm@162 81 leaving only one individual that remembers 10 consecutive days
rlm@162 82 spent in different contexts. Then you repeat the process for Day 2
rlm@162 83 and so on. I'll call this the "small delta-T approximation" method
rlm@162 84 for mind-merging. It works as long as the timeframe is not too long
rlm@162 85 an is limited by how fast you can faithfully replay life
rlm@162 86 recordings. You don't have to be "offline" for any amount of time
rlm@162 87 while doing this: You can also alternate two sets of 10, one for
rlm@162 88 the day and one for the night, and have the night and day trunks be
rlm@162 89 generated from the last day / night group's trunk,
rlm@162 90 respectively. This trades having to "sleep" for the day/night crews
rlm@162 91 not being able to remember what happened last night/day
rlm@162 92 respectively. The more you know about how brains work, the faster
rlm@162 93 you can integrate previous experience and the more copies you can
rlm@162 94 sustain. This methods means that you never lose any experience, but
rlm@162 95 if you're willing to lose some nonessential experiences, a more
rlm@162 96 extreme version of this might be to make a copy of yourself that
rlm@162 97 accomplishes a task and then reports anything of note in a written
rlm@162 98 report.
rlm@162 99
rlm@157 100 ** Earth, Air, Water
rlm@157 101
rlm@157 102 Probably all intelligent species name their planet "dirt" in their
rlm@157 103 language, unless the're aquatic or flying, then they'd name it
rlm@157 104 "water" and "air" respectively.
rlm@157 105
rlm@155 106 ** Cure for Color Blindness
rlm@155 107
rlm@155 108 Could it be possible to administer some retroviruses via direct
rlm@155 109 injection to the retina, to cause some of the cells in the retina
rlm@155 110 to begin expressing different color pigments? The brain ought to
rlm@155 111 easily sort out the rest and enable color vision. Furthremore,
rlm@155 112 could we add some more colors to baesline human eyes? Theory --
rlm@155 113 people who are color blind have better color spatial accuity for
rlm@159 114 the colors they can see, because this is the tradeoff involved with
rlm@159 115 the retrovirus therapy: Re-purposing color detectors to see new
rlm@159 116 colors at the expense of spatial acuity for the old set of colors.
rlm@155 117
rlm@155 118 ** Passion of the Christ Missed Opportunity
rlm@155 119
rlm@155 120 In the Passion of the Christ, they do the entire show using Latin,
rlm@155 121 Aramaic, etc, with subtitles. They should have had a part where
rlm@155 122 Jesus does the sermon on the mount, he turns to the camera, and
rlm@155 123 starts speaking in English, with no subtitles. It would have been
rlm@155 124 1.) biblically accurate and 2.) awesome. It would have been such a
rlm@159 125 powerful example to convey Jesus' divinity, and show off another
rlm@159 126 miracle. It felt like they were setting up for it the entire movie,
rlm@159 127 and they missed it!
rlm@155 128
rlm@155 129 ** Xenobiotic Chimeric Methalation Rewriting
rlm@155 130
rlm@155 131 You make chimeric sea urchins with human reproductive stem cells,
rlm@159 132 so that the sea urchins produce sea urchin-like HUMAN sperm and
rlm@159 133 eggs. Then you can have two human males / females reproduce without
rlm@159 134 the methylation problem, by using the sea urchins as
rlm@159 135 intermediades. And the normal ethical problems of human/animal
rlm@159 136 chimeras are avoided because the sea urchins don't have brains to
rlm@159 137 begin with.
rlm@155 138
rlm@155 139 ** Physical PGP Signatures
rlm@155 140
rlm@155 141 You punch into your phone "I want to sign a contract" It gives you
rlm@155 142 a gensym (or you enter a name) like:
rlm@155 143 https://contracts.example.com/car-insurance-2015-09-26
rlm@155 144
rlm@155 145 Then you sign your name, date, and include the link on the contract
rlm@155 146 under "PGP sig". Then you take a picture with your phone and enter
rlm@155 147 your signing password. It gets uploaded to your website and the
rlm@155 148 image gets PGP signed with your key. Now you have a timestamped
rlm@155 149 archive of the contract, and anyone can verify it by looking at the
rlm@155 150 physical contract itself!
rlm@155 151
rlm@155 152 ** The Digital Third Eye
rlm@155 153
rlm@155 154 You wire in a third optical input to the human brain, but it
rlm@155 155 doesn't tranduce light form the real world, bus instead is
rlm@155 156 connected to the "internet of things" and shows you metadata about
rlm@155 157 things you are looking at // serves as an interface to your own
rlm@155 158 mind and body. Then eventually simply real things without metadata
rlm@155 159 seem flat and fake compared to the objects in cities and other
rlm@155 160 annotated areas. This third eye doesn't occupy any of your normal
rlm@155 161 visual field but actually EXPANDS your visual field.
rlm@155 162
rlm@155 163 ** Ultimate Limits of Monogamy
rlm@155 164
rlm@155 165 Let's say that you're immortal and monogamous. The longer you live
rlm@155 166 with your partner, the more you build an internal model of them,
rlm@155 167 and they you. Eventually these models may become complete, and then
rlm@155 168 you two are actually one single recursive entity which references
rlm@155 169 itself. As you offload more processing to the other (such as old
rlm@155 170 couples actually do -- "remember when we were at that place,
rlm@155 171 what-was-his-name honey?"), then computationally you are a single
rlm@155 172 mind distributed across two bodies. (There's a reason why old
rlm@155 173 couples often die as a pair). You might decide to actually merge
rlm@155 174 bodies eventually. But then, you were both monogamous, so the
rlm@155 175 combined person will be monogamous (and lonely because it lacks a
rlm@155 176 partner). So you get married again, rinse, wash, repeat. All the
rlm@155 177 monogamous people within a certain "compatability group" eventually
rlm@155 178 become one. Our "social center of mass" doesn't lie within our own
rlm@155 179 bodies!
rlm@155 180
rlm@155 181 ** Dream Rewinding
rlm@155 182
rlm@155 183 How to record a complete dream without disturbing it or modifying
rlm@155 184 your brain? you need to be an upload: split yourself, and one of
rlm@155 185 you stays awake whike the other sleeps. then you detect a dream in
rlm@155 186 progress by monotoring rapid eye movememt in your sleeping self,
rlm@155 187 and you wake yourself up every few minutes and tell yoursef about
rlm@155 188 the dream. Then sleeping-your restarts the dream, continuation
rlm@155 189 passing style, forgetting everything that was just said, and you
rlm@155 190 repeat this process until the dream is over. Then awake-you and
rlm@155 191 sleeping-you merge each other by taking sleeping-you and replaying
rlm@155 192 the memories of awake-you, and you write a final report on the
rlm@155 193 dream using the "saccade" reports to jog your memory.
rlm@155 194
rlm@155 195 It would really let you directly test theories of memory because
rlm@155 196 you can test a person every second if you want to. I see a couple
rlm@155 197 ways this could play out: you could report a dream that follows a
rlm@155 198 linear narrative, with the story advancing a little bit each time
rlm@155 199 (the "storytelling" hypothesis), you might say something totally
rlm@155 200 different each time (the "garbage memory access" hypothesis), or
rlm@155 201 something even weider like where you report exactly the same thing
rlm@155 202 between seconds 0-20, then something totally different during
rlm@155 203 seconds 20-40, etc.
rlm@155 204
rlm@155 205 ** Denser than Osmium
rlm@155 206
rlm@155 207 Do the "misicibility" thing with an osmium alloy to get something
rlm@155 208 even more dense. Basically osmium + something else might be denser
rlm@155 209 then pure osmium.
rlm@155 210
rlm@155 211 ** AI Hypnosis
rlm@155 212
rlm@155 213 Hypnosis might be good for studying AI, becuse it might probide a
rlm@155 214 "debugger" for ananlyzing the human mind. I briefly tried this
rlm@155 215 while at MIT, but it needs MUCH more work to be properly
rlm@155 216 evaulated. Also, things you can do under hypnosis provide
rlm@155 217 constraints on what the mind's capabilities are. Also, hypnosis
rlm@155 218 iteslf is a worthwhile thing to study in its own right.
rlm@155 219
rlm@146 220 ** The Ocean Becomes a Drop
rlm@151 221 Upload faces challenges to grow into the type of person that can
rlm@145 222 join the greater society -- a god. They have to go though quests
rlm@145 223 that replicate all the things that humanity had to accomplish, like
rlm@145 224 going to the moon, by themselves.
rlm@145 225
rlm@145 226 ** Butterfly Drone
rlm@145 227 If big butterflies used to exist, then maybe we could make
rlm@145 228 butterfly-inspired drones!
rlm@145 229
rlm@145 230 ** Methylation Sex-Symmetry Breaking
rlm@145 231 Human sex cells have methylation patterns that encode male/female
rlm@145 232 origin. If you combine two male patterns, the fetus grows "too
rlm@145 233 fast" and dies. Two female patterns causes the fetus to enter a
rlm@145 234 "vegatable" state and fail to develop. Evolutionary biologists say
rlm@145 235 that this reflects the asymmetry of energy investement for creating
rlm@145 236 offspring. If that's true, then species that cast-spawn will lack
rlm@145 237 this asymmetry, and give clues about how to remove it in humans. If
rlm@145 238 even cast spawners like sea urchins have it, then that means
rlm@145 239 there's something deeper going on!
rlm@145 240
rlm@145 241 ** Homosexual Reproduction
rlm@145 242 You take genetic material from two males and put it into an egg
rlm@145 243 cell that has had all genetic material removed. Or, you take the
rlm@145 244 genetic material from one egg and put it in another egg. This would
rlm@145 245 allow homosexual couples to genetically reproduce. One technical
rlm@145 246 challenge blocking this technique is that human gametes have
rlm@145 247 methylation patterns that encode male/female origin, and only a
rlm@145 248 male+female pattern gives rise to viable offspring. You could
rlm@145 249 "recondition" male / female gametes to give them the opposite
rlm@145 250 pattern, perhaps by incubating them in the appropriate
rlm@145 251 environment. You also could try taking stem cells and making them
rlm@145 252 form the appropriate structures in vitro.
rlm@145 253
rlm@145 254 ** Poly-Vitrification
rlm@145 255 Large molecules such as PVP are able to vitrify at around -20C, and
rlm@145 256 at farily small concentrations. IF they could be introduced into
rlm@145 257 cells, they would be quite useful as vitrification agents. However,
rlm@145 258 it's difficult to get them in because they are so big. So instead,
rlm@145 259 use smaller agents which combine together into polymers at low
rlm@145 260 temperature. In particular, Fructose, trehalose, and glycerol seem
rlm@145 261 to have the desired properties (though you need to make versions of
rlm@145 262 fructose and trehalose that can penetrate).
rlm@145 263
rlm@145 264 ** Whole Brain Perfusion Embedding
rlm@145 265 Do the standard EM embedding protocol, but skip the osmium step,
rlm@145 266 and use the "perfusion pausing" method to prevent overextraction
rlm@145 267 during the dehydration and embedding steps. I think that you can
rlm@145 268 perfuse resins into the brain, simply because you can perfuse
rlm@145 269 viscous rubber when doing vascular casts.
rlm@145 270
rlm@145 271 ** Very Slow Physiological Pressure Perfusion
rlm@145 272 Less extreme example of the "perfusion pausing" trick -- just keep
rlm@145 273 the perfusion running and don't put the perfusion target into the
rlm@145 274 liquid as deep.
rlm@145 275
rlm@145 276 ** Perfusion Pausing
rlm@145 277 One problem with doing perfusion of heads / organs where the veins
rlm@145 278 freely leak fluid is that if you STOP the perfusion, you rapidly
rlm@145 279 loose pressure in the organ as your perfusate leaks out. You can
rlm@145 280 prevent this by submerging the organ/head/rat whatever in fluid at
rlm@145 281 an appropriate deepness. You would have to slowly decrease the flow
rlm@145 282 rate while simultaneously lowering the perfusing object into the
rlm@145 283 fluid. To start again, reverse the process -- reengage the
rlm@145 284 peristaltic pump slowly while removing the organ from the fluid.
rlm@145 285
rlm@145 286 ** Textbook Mimiricy Evolution
rlm@145 287 As surgery becomes more common, there develops a distinct selective
rlm@145 288 pressure for individuals' organ layouts to look more like the
rlm@145 289 medical textbooks!
rlm@145 290
rlm@145 291 ** Transparent Skin
rlm@145 292 Temporary / permament transparent skin. Allows for examination of
rlm@145 293 organs / muscles and visual prevention of disease and detection or
rlm@145 294 abnormalities / good things eg. excercise optimization.
rlm@145 295
rlm@145 296 ** Sweet Information
rlm@145 297 Candy with a whole book written in it. Eat a book!
rlm@145 298
rlm@145 299 ** Targeted Immunosuppressant
rlm@145 300 Just kill off the B-cells and friends that would cause problems in
rlm@145 301 a organ-transplant / other situation. AIDS is good at killing these
rlm@145 302 cells -- maybe make it can be modified to just target the ones that
rlm@145 303 will cause problems. Then you can premptively kill off that part of
rlm@145 304 someone's immune system before a transplant. ALSO, you can kill off
rlm@145 305 everyone's defenses against other blood types and make people
rlm@145 306 effectively type AB+ w.r.t blood transfusions. Actually, why not
rlm@145 307 give babies this treatment so that they're automatically compatable
rlm@145 308 with all blood types? It would be like a blood transfusion
rlm@145 309 vaccine. The immune system does this already when it's first
rlm@145 310 growing; maybe it can be "retrained" to accept new things, or the
rlm@145 311 mechanism of immune cell death be co-opted for these purposes.
rlm@145 312
rlm@145 313 ** Fuck-you Tetris
rlm@159 314 Tetris that actively gives you the worst possible
rlm@159 315 piece. Implemented! http://fph.altervista.org/prog/bastet.html ,
rlm@159 316 https://github.com/johnny-morrice/solumns/releases
rlm@145 317
rlm@145 318 ** Pockets
rlm@145 319 More things should have them! Chairs, tables, cups, hats,
rlm@145 320 trashcans, basically anything is better with a pocket.
rlm@145 321
rlm@145 322 ** Colored Shower Head
rlm@145 323 A shower head add-on that measures the temp of the water and
rlm@145 324 changes the color of the water streams w/ an LED to show you the
rlm@145 325 temperature. That way you can align to the color you want and see
rlm@145 326 the temperature without feeling it.
rlm@145 327
rlm@145 328 ** Giant Dragonflies
rlm@145 329 We could rapidly MAKE giant dragonflies by evolving modern
rlm@145 330 dragonflies in an very oxygen rich environment!
rlm@145 331
rlm@145 332 ** Whirlpool of Light
rlm@145 333 Shine a laser out into space. But the planet is spinning! What you
rlm@145 334 get is a spiral of light! And as this signal expands, does it
rlm@145 335 eventually reveal it's quantized nature?
rlm@145 336
rlm@145 337 ** Perfusion Cooking
rlm@145 338 You do cardiac bypass on an animal like a pig, then pump in tasty,
rlm@145 339 tasty perfusate (like marinade) into the animal's
rlm@145 340 vasculature. Then, you switch out to saline and increase the
rlm@145 341 temperature of the saline to rapidly and uniformly cook the
rlm@145 342 animal. It could be the tastiest meat ever!
rlm@145 343
rlm@145 344 ** Timestamp Verification
rlm@145 345 You sign your message, and it has a timestamp at the top, with a +-
rlm@145 346 percision number. Then you send it over to the public timestamp
rlm@145 347 server, which only signs the message if it gets the message within
rlm@145 348 the timestamp window. Or the computer just signs the message but
rlm@145 349 puts a timestamp at the beginning. So if everyone trusts the
rlm@145 350 timestamp server, you can get reliable timestamps, and prove
rlm@145 351 priority on ideas, etc.
rlm@145 352
rlm@145 353 ** The Great Computing Slow-Down
rlm@145 354 In general, our computers are getting faster and faster according
rlm@145 355 to Moore's law. However, eventually our brains will be made of the
rlm@145 356 same stuff our computers are made of! This has very interesting
rlm@145 357 consequences -- I can add 2+2 and get four in about a second. Since
rlm@145 358 my neurons actually work at around 10-60 hertz in parallel, this
rlm@145 359 means that it takes me around 10-30 operations to do this
rlm@145 360 addition. That's actually not bad in terms of computing time. If my
rlm@145 361 neurons were as fast as the latest transitors, then most
rlm@145 362 calculators (made with earlier transistors) would be SLOWER than me
rlm@145 363 at adding numbers. Only the newest, most optimized calculators
rlm@145 364 would be faster, and then only about 10 times faster! This means
rlm@145 365 that once we begin to think at the speed of our technology, that
rlm@145 366 technology will suddenly seem pitifully slow in comparison to how
rlm@145 367 it seems now. And no amount of technical progress will remedy it,
rlm@145 368 because that same progress will also make us all think
rlm@145 369 faster. We'll either have to settle with living in "slow time" to
rlm@145 370 do some computations, or learn to make smarter hardware with
rlm@145 371 special optimizations. But this is actually really hard, because
rlm@145 372 we'll be working with machines that will appear to us about as fast
rlm@145 373 as MECHANICAL computers. So, in the future, all the cool parties
rlm@145 374 will be in cyperspace at vastly accelerated speeds compared to how
rlm@145 375 we exist now. But at these parties, the computers will SUCK! Of
rlm@145 376 course, this is one of the few things that can save us from AI
rlm@145 377 risk, because those AI's won't seem so scary when the're build out
rlm@145 378 of rickety old mechanical parts form our perspective.
rlm@145 379
rlm@145 380 ** Unitary Reverse Evolution of Chaos+Minds
rlm@145 381 Chaotic systems diverge exponentially in state space. Do you get
rlm@145 382 anything interesting when part of the physical system associated
rlm@145 383 with the chaotic system is a object that performs some sort of
rlm@145 384 computation? Is it possible for the computational system to play a
rlm@145 385 percision-enabling role in determining the final/initial conditions
rlm@145 386 of the chaotic system, just by tracing out thoughts in its decision
rlm@145 387 paths? This is probably too vague of an idea right now, I just
rlm@145 388 wanted to write it down.
rlm@145 389
rlm@145 390 ** Microwave-Time
rlm@145 391 The cooking time you enter on most microwaves is insane. It's
rlm@145 392 expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a combination of base 10
rlm@145 393 and base 60. You can get absurd things like 100 < 61, and 120 ==
rlm@145 394 80! I wonder if these hybrid base systems could be very useful for
rlm@162 395 some purposes! Dylan [[http://logical.ai/microwave/org/sawtooth.html][wrote a blog post on this subject!]]
rlm@145 396
rlm@145 397 ** Three Eyes
rlm@145 398 If you had three eyes, would you still draw cubes like we currently
rlm@145 399 draw them? Or would all 2D-representations of 3D space always look
rlm@145 400 hopelessly fake?
rlm@145 401
rlm@145 402 ** Digital Taste/Smell Assay
rlm@145 403 Get a grid of bacteria, each expressing a human taste/smell
rlm@145 404 receptor linked to some sort of fluorscent activity or ion
rlm@145 405 pump. Use a camera / electrical grid to transduce the smell / taste
rlm@145 406 signal into bits! Inspired by gel-sight from MIT.
rlm@145 407
rlm@145 408 ** Childrens' Tool Shop
rlm@145 409 I think that kids should be provided with tool shops -- these would
rlm@145 410 be nice sheds with a good collection of tools to do various things
rlm@145 411 -- circuit components and soldering irons, wires, a small lathe,
rlm@145 412 drill press, belt sander, a centrifuge, microscope, and telescope,
rlm@145 413 etc. The idea is that the kid can now think, "I could use X to do
rlm@145 414 this thing that I'm thinking about" -- the building becomes an
rlm@145 415 extension of the kid's body & mind.
rlm@145 416
rlm@145 417 ** Fluid Display
rlm@145 418 Like the previous idea about matching refractances between glass
rlm@145 419 and liquid, except you make a lot of switchable glass tubes in
rlm@145 420 various patterns in the glass, and actively pump colored liquid
rlm@145 421 through the tubes (the tubes have glass-like fluid in them by
rlm@145 422 default.) The result is that you can cause the tubes to appear and
rlm@145 423 dissappear, and vary their colors as well!
rlm@145 424
rlm@145 425 ** Immunoincompatibility
rlm@145 426 Take the human genome, and refactor it so that it doesn't use a
rlm@145 427 particular codon at all. Then remove the support from our ribosomes
rlm@145 428 for that codon. What does this do for us? It makes us immune to
rlm@145 429 almost all viruses! There is at least one bacteria that already
rlm@145 430 does this to great effect.
rlm@145 431
rlm@145 432 ** Life Cycle
rlm@145 433 It's called a cycle, right? So, the thing that repeats itself over
rlm@145 434 and over, right? Not much of a cycle if you don't come back after
rlm@145 435 you die, if you ask me!
rlm@145 436
rlm@145 437 ** Car with no Blind Spots
rlm@145 438 Use some cameras in the back of the car to augment the rear-view
rlm@145 439 mirror so that you never have to turn around in order to lane
rlm@145 440 change.
rlm@145 441
rlm@145 442 ** Metabolic Windows and Freezing
rlm@145 443 You freeze a set of cells using some cryo protocol and 60%
rlm@145 444 survive. How can this be explained? It seems to me that if the
rlm@145 445 cells are the same, and the conditions homogoneous, then all the
rlm@145 446 cells should either die or live. However, suppose that there is a
rlm@145 447 metabolic cycle that needs to be in a certain phase for the cell to
rlm@145 448 survive. If the cells are asynchronous, then you might end up with
rlm@145 449 some cells dying because there were in the wrong part of their
rlm@145 450 cycle. This implies that you might be able to cryoprotect cells by
rlm@145 451 causing them to enter a certain metabolic mode before freezing.
rlm@145 452
rlm@145 453 ** Cryonics Color Appeal
rlm@145 454 Perfusate used by cryonics companies could have red food coloring
rlm@145 455 in it. It's just a nice touch so that the cryonics patient looks
rlm@145 456 more life-like than with clear CPAs, and hopefully might get
rlm@145 457 treated with more respect.
rlm@145 458
rlm@145 459 ** Paramagnetic CPA
rlm@145 460 you take a CPA that can be influenced by magnetic fields so that
rlm@145 461 its degrees of freedom are limited. Then, you release the field,
rlm@145 462 instantaly increasing the size of the state space of the system and
rlm@145 463 dramatically decreasing the temperature enough to plunge the system
rlm@145 464 past homogenous nucleation temperature and directly to the glass
rlm@145 465 transition temperature, creating a doubly unstable glass at much
rlm@145 466 lower CPA concentrations than possible at conventional CPA
rlm@145 467 concentrations. A major technical limitation facing this technique
rlm@145 468 is that it's a very minor effect -- you can only get about 0.1C
rlm@145 469 with most systems that have been studied so far.
rlm@145 470
rlm@146 471 ** Room Temp Ramen
rlm@146 472 How does the physics of cooking noodles work? Could you use a
rlm@146 473 vacuum instead of heat to force water into the noodle?
rlm@145 474
rlm@146 475 ** Personal Carbon Offset
rlm@146 476 Feel bad about contribuiting to global warming by using electricity
rlm@146 477 / driving a car? Forget trying to "conserve" or "minimize your
rlm@146 478 carbon footprint". Follow the Platinum rule -- make the world
rlm@146 479 BETTER off than you found it! This would be a small, self
rlm@146 480 contained system that sucks C02 out of the air. It uses
rlm@146 481 electricity, but it's so efficient at removing CO2 that it more
rlm@146 482 than offsets the CO2 produced by even a coal plant to produce that
rlm@146 483 electricity. This way, you can still drive even a gas guzzler, but
rlm@146 484 have a net negative carbon footprint! Maybe something cool could be
rlm@146 485 done with the carbon as well. Use as much electricity as you want,
rlm@146 486 but negate the damage to the enviroment with more technology.
rlm@145 487
rlm@146 488 ** Undoing Spermogenesis
rlm@146 489 With enough sperm, you can derive the donor's entire genome. You
rlm@146 490 gain more confidence in the alleles for a particular gene the more
rlm@146 491 sperm you have. Each additional sperm gives you the same sort of
rlm@146 492 information you'd get flipping a coin and trying to decide whether
rlm@146 493 the coin is H/T of H/H. Is there enough sperm in the the average
rlm@146 494 load for you to be as confident as mitosis?
rlm@145 495
rlm@146 496 ** Mars Life
rlm@146 497 We could engineer life that could survive on mars (probably some
rlm@146 498 non-vascular photosynthetic poikilohydric creature like a lichen)
rlm@146 499 by taking an extremophile from Antarctica and evolving it in
rlm@146 500 increasingly Martian conditions. This could be an easy start to a
rlm@146 501 terraforming process.
rlm@145 502
rlm@146 503 ** Problem with Aubrey de Grey's Ideas
rlm@146 504 Aubrey de Grey says that we might be able to live forever by
rlm@146 505 continually repairing our bodies at the cellular level -- he
rlm@146 506 details 7 different mechanisms of damage and says that if all of
rlm@146 507 them are dealt with /together/ that it would stop aging. (You can't
rlm@146 508 miss even one because they're all fatal.) However, it doesn't take
rlm@146 509 into account that we are also beings of information and that there
rlm@146 510 is a very real software component to our existence. Even if our
rlm@146 511 biological chassies can be maintained forever, I think it is
rlm@146 512 unlikely that our minds will operate well far outside of the design
rlm@146 513 constraints that we've evolved to handle. Say I programmed a
rlm@146 514 webserver with the express goal of it being able to serve webpages
rlm@146 515 for month on some stock server. I'll do fairly rigorous testing to
rlm@146 516 make sure that it can handle the expected load then then some. Now
rlm@146 517 say that you want to keep a particular instance of this webserver
rlm@146 518 running indefinitely. (The program instance is like your mind and
rlm@146 519 the computer it's running on is like your body). You might very
rlm@146 520 well be able to keep the physical computer infrastructure running
rlm@146 521 for forever by replacing hard drives / ram / CPUs, etc. However,
rlm@146 522 since I designed the webserver to work for a month, it probably has
rlm@146 523 memory leaks, rare stochastic bugs, or other built in limits /
rlm@146 524 constraints (think log files or some date rollover shenanigans)
rlm@146 525 that will ultimately kill the webserver even with eternally perfect
rlm@146 526 hardware. Do you really expect that a webserver engineered to work
rlm@146 527 for 1 month will run for 10 years without catastrophically
rlm@146 528 crashing? Not even Apache can do this! In fact, if I put in the
rlm@146 529 extreme effort to make it that robust, I've wasted time that I
rlm@146 530 could have spent on other projects by pursuing an unnecessary
rlm@146 531 engineering goal. Likewise, human minds have only ever run for at
rlm@146 532 most 122 years before they are destroyed due to hardware
rlm@146 533 degradation. Fixing the hardware doesn't change any software bugs
rlm@146 534 that are almost certainly present in the human mind. Think of all
rlm@146 535 the pathological things that can go wrong with a webserver,
rlm@146 536 multiply it by a million, and that likely how evolution has
rlm@146 537 designed our minds. For example, consider memory : why should you
rlm@146 538 expect that we have evolved the ability to coherently organize
rlm@146 539 memories past say 150 years? There's been absolutely no selective
rlm@146 540 pressure for this ability, so you can bet that if there's any
rlm@146 541 fitness to be gained from not having unlimited memory potential
rlm@146 542 (such as better metabolic efficiency), we have it! You might think
rlm@146 543 that maybe we would just forget things the same way that we sort of
rlm@146 544 forget things that happen earlier in our lives, but complicated
rlm@146 545 information processing systems don't have to fail gracefully when
rlm@146 546 they're pushed far past their design constraints. A 150 year old
rlm@146 547 person is just as likely to suffer a catastrophic psychosis due to
rlm@146 548 software limitations associated with memory as he is to do
rlm@146 549 something with all those memories we might consider
rlm@146 550 reasonable. More likely, in fact, since there are so very many ways
rlm@146 551 for a complicated software system to break and so few ways for it
rlm@146 552 to run successfully. Therefore, I think Aubrey de Grey's
rlm@146 553 "hardware-only" approach is missing a very important component of
rlm@146 554 longevity science, and any successful effort to make people live
rlm@146 555 orders of magnitude longer than they do naturally will need to deal
rlm@146 556 with people's software as well as their hardware.
rlm@145 557
rlm@146 558 ** Validating Neurocryopreservation
rlm@146 559 Problem : you want to test whether a brain is functionally
rlm@146 560 preserved through vitrification, but you don't want to figure out
rlm@146 561 how to preserve all the other organs in the animal. It might be
rlm@146 562 possible to keep the rest of the body at almost 0C and vitrify just
rlm@146 563 the head for only a few minutes. Induce hypothermia, then separate
rlm@146 564 out the head's blood supply from the rest of the body, then just
rlm@146 565 cryoptotect and vitrify the head. Might need some sort of thermal
rlm@146 566 guard to keep the outer head / neck from becoming too cold. You
rlm@146 567 leave the spinal cord intact! Then you devitrify to 0C, remove
rlm@146 568 cryoprotectant, and then reattach the blood supply. You can
rlm@146 569 determine brain preservation using behavioral assays!
rlm@145 570
rlm@146 571 ** Freezing Water Purifier
rlm@146 572 You slowly freeze water, but also run liquid water over the frozen
rlm@146 573 mass. This takes away basically all impurities and creates "washed
rlm@146 574 ice" then you melt the ice. Maybe you could re-use the heat from
rlm@146 575 creating the ice to melt the ice?
rlm@145 576
rlm@146 577 ** Ultra Strength
rlm@146 578 Allow a person to visualize their muscle recruitment patterns. Give
rlm@146 579 them adrenaline and let them feel what it's like to have the normal
rlm@146 580 limits removed. See if they can replicate the effects.
rlm@145 581
rlm@146 582 ** Phone Names
rlm@146 583 Make a PX record for domain names that's like the MX record, except
rlm@146 584 that it is a phone number instead of an IP address. That way, you
rlm@146 585 can use the domain name registration system to provide names for
rlm@146 586 phone numbers. Then, as long as you control the domain, you can
rlm@146 587 point people to your current phone number by updating that record.
rlm@145 588
rlm@146 589 ** Edible Flowers
rlm@146 590 Edible white flowers that you put in a colored solution with
rlm@146 591 flavor. When the flower turns the right color, it is also flavored
rlm@146 592 and ready to eat!
rlm@145 593
rlm@146 594 ** Lead Bone
rlm@146 595 Could you fill in all the empty spaces in a bone with lead? Might
rlm@146 596 be cool!
rlm@145 597
rlm@146 598 ** The Quest for Life
rlm@146 599 Many stories that have immortal characters have the "immortal who
rlm@146 600 wants to become mortal" trope. I want to story where the
rlm@146 601 protagonist loses their immortality and feels /angry/ and ashamed
rlm@146 602 about losing something that's so absolutely crucial to their
rlm@146 603 identity. A reverse of "death makes life worth living", they feel
rlm@146 604 that living forever is what makes life worth living. Now they've
rlm@146 605 "lost their sunrise" or their "connection to the timeless universe"
rlm@146 606 or something. So they go on a quest to get it back, learning about
rlm@146 607 themselves along the way, and regaining the precious thing they
rlm@146 608 lost in the beginning. Which, it they can actually gain their
rlm@146 609 immortality back, means that they never lost it in the first place!
rlm@145 610
rlm@146 611 ** World Map
rlm@146 612 Take a small table and paint the continents in toothpaste on the
rlm@146 613 table. Make a slightly raised barrier around the table. Slowly pour
rlm@146 614 water onto the table, and it will form the oceans!
rlm@145 615
rlm@146 616 ** Stage Magic Rituals
rlm@146 617 Rituals should incorporate elements of stage magic. For example in
rlm@146 618 Teller's rendition of Shakespeare's Tempest, they have a scene
rlm@146 619 where they levitate a crown in front of someone, then put it on his
rlm@146 620 head. They also have a wedding ceremony where they levitated the
rlm@146 621 bride as well. Actual weddings and other ceremonies should
rlm@146 622 incorporate stage magic as an enhancement to the gravitas!
rlm@145 623
rlm@146 624 ** Isotope Time Dilation
rlm@146 625 Use a cyclotron to speed up rare isotopes developed in nuclear
rlm@146 626 fusion experiments. The relativistic time dilation will stop the
rlm@146 627 isotopes from decaying, and allow time to study them. This is based
rlm@146 628 on radioactive isotopes that fall through the earth's atmosphere
rlm@146 629 that take hundreds of times longer to decay than normal.
rlm@145 630
rlm@146 631 ** Marsupial Stimulation
rlm@146 632 You take a freshly pouched marsupial baby, and show it videos and
rlm@146 633 other interactive things while it matures in the pouch. What mental
rlm@146 634 effects would this have?
rlm@145 635
rlm@146 636 ** The Dynamically Well-Tempered Clavier
rlm@146 637 Some older ways of tuning instruments sound better, but we use the
rlm@146 638 even-tempered scale today because it makes it easier to switch
rlm@146 639 keys. With electronic music, why not make key-annotations and
rlm@146 640 dynamically re-tune the piece to sound good in the current key?
rlm@146 641 Could be done as a midi+annotation -> midi compiler for initial
rlm@146 642 experimentation.
rlm@145 643
rlm@146 644 ** Death Always Implies Damage
rlm@146 645 is is possible for a corpse to differ from a living person only in
rlm@146 646 the fact that one is dead and the other is alive? NO! A corpse must
rlm@146 647 always have some sort of molecular damage which causes the loss of
rlm@146 648 function!
rlm@145 649
rlm@146 650 ** Inner Eye
rlm@146 651 Surgically install a bunch of tiny cameras inside a person. Then,
rlm@146 652 you can activate them all and get a picture of your internal organs
rlm@146 653 for diagnostic purposes.
rlm@145 654
rlm@146 655 ** Chaos Rails
rlm@146 656 The homoclinic tangle (which I call the "rails of chaos") is very
rlm@146 657 beautiful. We couldn't even visualize it before computers because
rlm@146 658 it's so complicated! Someone should make a visualization of
rlm@146 659 it. Here's my inital stab at it: [[../images/rails-of-chaos.png][The Rails of Chaos]]
rlm@145 660
rlm@146 661 ** Cryonics Middle Ages
rlm@146 662 Some people say that cryonics is an experiment and that it is
rlm@146 663 foolish to wait until we have revived a human. There is a middle
rlm@146 664 ground where the procedure has a dismal success rate on humans, say
rlm@146 665 1 in 20, so that you'd be a fool to try revival. Nonetheless, this
rlm@146 666 very risky procedure could be the legal proof of concept needed to
rlm@146 667 create a new class of life between "living" and "dead": "stasis".
rlm@145 668
rlm@146 669 ** Minds and Mirrors
rlm@146 670 Neat thought experiment -- if you take a mirror of someone by
rlm@146 671 actually reversing a person's chirality molecule by molecule, then
rlm@146 672 will the only be able to read mirror writing? The answer is yes, by
rlm@146 673 analogy to a purely mechanical scan-tron device. This is one of the
rlm@146 674 only interesting transforms I know that can take a human brain and
rlm@146 675 change it in subtle, non-destructive ways. It's also an argument
rlm@146 676 against dualism.
rlm@145 677
rlm@146 678 ** Biosphere in a Bottle
rlm@146 679 There are around 15 million species. 15 million stem cells will
rlm@146 680 fill only a tiny size, far less than a cubic inch. Preserve a
rlm@146 681 single cell from every species on earth in this small space, and
rlm@146 682 you will have a record of our current biosphere that can be
rlm@146 683 protected. "Hold the genetic data of all species in your hand!"
rlm@145 684
rlm@146 685 ** Chaos Lock
rlm@146 686 The "arrow of time" points in the direction of increasing
rlm@146 687 entropy. The time evolution of chaotic systems depend exquisitely
rlm@146 688 on their initial state. If you take a measurement of a chaotic
rlm@146 689 system at any given point of time, you can evolve that system
rlm@146 690 backwards or forwards based on your measurement. So let's say you
rlm@146 691 start the chaotic system in a VERY low entropy state, then let it
rlm@146 692 run for a while, then take a measurement with some
rlm@146 693 uncertainty. Your measurement is pretty good, but obviously not
rlm@146 694 PERFECT. If you evolve the chaotic system back in time, then you
rlm@146 695 will see that you don't really reach a state with low entropy an
rlm@146 696 hour before (the entropy is easy to measure with surrogates like
rlm@146 697 alignment, etc). So use this technique to SEARCH for a more
rlm@146 698 accurate measurement! This potentially can give you many more
rlm@146 699 orders of magnitude than you could get alone just using an
rlm@146 700 instrument. Sometimes it will give you bad results, the the odds of
rlm@146 701 it doing that are infinitesimal, and you can just measure a couple
rlm@146 702 of times.
rlm@145 703
rlm@146 704 ** Cryo Evolution
rlm@146 705 Perhaps there would be a way to rapidly evolve a symbiotic
rlm@146 706 bacterial organism that could protect human tissues from freezing
rlm@146 707 damage.
rlm@145 708
rlm@146 709 ** Suicide Parasite
rlm@146 710 Sometimes, people kill themselves for no good reason. We often
rlm@146 711 explain this with things like "hidden depression" or we say that
rlm@146 712 they had something like chronic jaw or back pain. I think that
rlm@146 713 smells of rationalization. I don't buy it. I propose that in many
rlm@146 714 suicide cases there is a disease that causes the suicidal
rlm@146 715 behavior. We already know that certain parasites have mind-bending
rlm@146 716 properties in other animals, even mammals like mice. It's not much
rlm@146 717 of a stretch to imagine a parasite that causes suicides in
rlm@146 718 humans. Some problems:
rlm@151 719
rlm@146 720 *What does the suicide parasite get out of it?* : This might be
rlm@146 721 answered by the whole thing being a glitch caused by cross-species
rlm@146 722 contamination. Toxoplasma works this way.
rlm@145 723
rlm@146 724 *What predictions does a disease model make* : suicide should be
rlm@146 725 more common among people who share a contagion vector. There should
rlm@146 726 be suicides that don't make any sense : people who weren't really
rlm@146 727 depressed, who had no reason to kill themselves. People who have
rlm@146 728 killed themselves should have a higher incidence of some unknown
rlm@146 729 parasite in their brains.
rlm@145 730
rlm@146 731 ** Domestic Insects
rlm@146 732 People should eat more bugs because they're much more efficient, so
rlm@146 733 why not do some major domestication research to make very appealing
rlm@146 734 bugs? Beetles, in particular, seem to be excellent targets for
rlm@146 735 domestication because they have extreme levels of genetic
rlm@146 736 malleability. Remember that lobster was once seen as an animal only
rlm@146 737 fit for prisoners to consume!
rlm@145 738
rlm@146 739 ** Birth-Clones
rlm@146 740 What if each person was intentionally split at birth into a normal
rlm@146 741 embryo and a few "backup" cells which are then frozen. The backup
rlm@146 742 cells are created just the same way as natural identical twins. The
rlm@146 743 backups can be used to regenerate organs. etc. Also, it would be a
rlm@146 744 good sci-fi concept, because you could have a culture where people
rlm@146 745 reward people who were especially awesome are "reborn" from their
rlm@146 746 backups. Imagine having a young Bach every generation, etc.
rlm@145 747
rlm@146 748 ** Pronunciation Guide
rlm@146 749 A simple webpage where you type in a word and it returns a simple,
rlm@146 750 English sentence describing exactly how to pronounce the word. For
rlm@146 751 people who don't want to learn IPA.
rlm@145 752
rlm@146 753 ** Learning to Teleport
rlm@146 754 This is a story about a person who is struggling with his/her
rlm@146 755 society's ideas about teleportation. It's considered a fundamental
rlm@146 756 part of being a member of that society (after all, the difference
rlm@146 757 between animals and humans is that humans are creatures of pure
rlm@146 758 information while animals are burdened with base matter, "that's
rlm@146 759 how you travel the stars, etc") Humans are born normally, grow up,
rlm@146 760 and then eventually transcend via destructive upload. Analogies to
rlm@146 761 jumping off a diving board into a pool (which I simply /could not
rlm@146 762 do/ for a long time), etc.
rlm@145 763
rlm@146 764 ** No-Float-Ice
rlm@146 765 Cup that has cross beams at the bottom where ice forms. Then when
rlm@146 766 you drink liquid from the glass, the ice stays at the bottom and
rlm@146 767 doesn't hit your lips. For bars and fancy things.
rlm@145 768
rlm@146 769 ** Bitcoins for Immigrants
rlm@146 770 A common case with Mexican immigrants (illegal or not) is that they
rlm@146 771 want to send money they've earned in the US back to their families
rlm@146 772 in Mexico. They currently do this through things like Money Gram or
rlm@146 773 Western Union, and they get fleeced in the process with
rlm@146 774 fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce the cost of sending money from
rlm@146 775 America to Mexico, but I don't believe that it's currently used for
rlm@146 776 that among Mexican immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I
rlm@146 777 bet you could set up physical locations like those obnoxious
rlm@146 778 Western Union huts in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly
rlm@146 779 undercut them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin
rlm@146 780 might be in order. There's some money to be made there because
rlm@146 781 there is great demand, and it's a good thing to boot!
rlm@145 782
rlm@146 783 ** Reverse Eye-Tracking
rlm@146 784 A painting that is actually a digital screen with a camera. It
rlm@146 785 records people's eye tracks permanently. It's "artistic" because
rlm@146 786 paintings are normally these things that you look at without
rlm@146 787 changing, but this one is changed the second you look at it,
rlm@146 788 recording where /you/ looked forever for others to see. Make it be
rlm@146 789 a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the breasts and groin
rlm@146 790 area light up with interest from all the males passing by. Then
rlm@146 791 watch as the painting turns into a commentary on perception and
rlm@146 792 popularity -- a sort of eigenvector of perception! Will all
rlm@146 793 paintings turn into the same thing eventually?
rlm@145 794
rlm@146 795 ** Smart Toilets
rlm@146 796 Instead of using indirect measures like infrared detectors of the
rlm@146 797 presence of a person, use computer vision to directly measure
rlm@146 798 whether the toilet needs to be flushed. I think a lot of things
rlm@146 799 will end up going this way as we get better computer vision.
rlm@145 800
rlm@146 801 ** Validate Chemopreservation
rlm@146 802 Chemopreservation is difficult to validate because it destroys the
rlm@146 803 functionality of a brain, and brain simulation will take a long
rlm@146 804 time to mature as a technology. However, one very powerful way to
rlm@146 805 validate chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn
rlm@146 806 something with high complexity such as a number or the solution to
rlm@146 807 a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain
rlm@146 808 chemically, slice it up, and read /that specific memory/ from the
rlm@146 809 detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable.
rlm@145 810
rlm@146 811 ** Candy Screw
rlm@146 812 Edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw as well.
rlm@145 813
rlm@146 814 ** Better Bibliography
rlm@146 815 When writing a thesis or paper, have the bibliography not just be
rlm@146 816 an opaque list of resources, but have it be a list of /summaries/
rlm@146 817 and /qualities/ that each paper has in the context of the paper
rlm@146 818 being written. When examining a bibliography, I want to know if
rlm@146 819 reading the papers in the bibliography are worth my time, and I
rlm@146 820 also am probably also interested in exactly the things that are
rlm@146 821 being discussed in the paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the
rlm@146 822 perfect place to provide information about the referenced papers
rlm@146 823 from the author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in
rlm@146 824 my own thesis!
rlm@145 825
rlm@146 826 ** Chess Visual
rlm@146 827 To show the vast size of the game trees considered by computers,
rlm@146 828 show two people playing chess in a void. They are floating in
rlm@146 829 space, and there is a simple chess board between them. Then, as
rlm@146 830 they play, the game tree's they are considering are drawn behind
rlm@146 831 him. The root of the tree starts centered in their heads or
rlm@146 832 whatever they use to think, and the tree grows out from behind,
rlm@146 833 never crossing the dividing plane between the two players. Each
rlm@146 834 player's tree is a different color. As they grow, there are
rlm@146 835 animations for pruning, etc. Eventually, they look like the
rlm@146 836 hemispheres of a brain, wings, etc. A human's tree might
rlm@146 837 occasionally have a long chain, while the computer tree would be
rlm@146 838 more uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern laptop. Use
rlm@146 839 actual data when fighting two computers!
rlm@145 840
rlm@146 841 ** Tamper Proof Gold Bars
rlm@146 842 [[Http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html][This site]] offers gold plated tungsten bars as "novelty" items. One
rlm@146 843 reason to prefer coins is because they are much harder to
rlm@146 844 counterfeit because there is less surface area to mass
rlm@146 845 ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design because they can
rlm@146 846 hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar could be given the
rlm@146 847 same protections (and more) that gold coins have to offer by
rlm@146 848 changing it into a "gold book", which would have hundreds of
rlm@146 849 "pages" of gold bound together. This could be implemented with
rlm@146 850 multiple steel rods going through the book which can be removed, or
rlm@146 851 some more classier mechanism for holding the pages. The point is
rlm@146 852 that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and people would perform
rlm@146 853 this test before buying), thus guaranteeing it's authenticity.
rlm@145 854
rlm@146 855 ** High School Science
rlm@146 856 This is a lesson in scientific ethics. The goal is to calculate
rlm@146 857 /g/, the local gravitational acceleration. The students are told
rlm@146 858 that the textbook says it's /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the
rlm@146 859 experiment. See how they doctor their results to get closer to the
rlm@146 860 textbook value. It's neat because for any given school, /g/ is
rlm@146 861 probably *not* exactly equal to 9.81, because that is just an
rlm@146 862 average!
rlm@145 863
rlm@146 864 ** Opencourseware Subtitles
rlm@146 865 There are people who type up lectures at MIT while they are being
rlm@146 866 given, so that hearing impared students can follow along. These
rlm@146 867 recordings should be kept and given to OCW for subtitles. If the
rlm@146 868 timestamps of keys are recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.
rlm@145 869
rlm@146 870 ** Screen Locking Timing
rlm@146 871 You use your computer camera to see if you are sitting in front of
rlm@146 872 the computer. If you are, then the screen will never lock. If you
rlm@146 873 are, then the screen will lock with a 30-40 second timeout. It's an
rlm@146 874 extension of using inactivity to initiate the countdown, just with
rlm@146 875 more information.
rlm@145 876
rlm@146 877 ** Mirror Toilet
rlm@146 878 A toilet with a square basin made of mirror instead of
rlm@146 879 porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a wipe job you have
rlm@146 880 done / watch how your excretion system works.
rlm@145 881
rlm@146 882 ** X-ray telepresence
rlm@146 883 given that a doctor is operating on a patient via telepresence, one
rlm@146 884 cool things you can do is shine X-rays into the patient to view the
rlm@146 885 insides during real time. (This doesn't expose either the doctor or
rlm@146 886 patient to chronically damaging amounts of X-rays) If the system
rlm@146 887 was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure,
rlm@146 888 and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the
rlm@146 889 model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage and
rlm@146 890 surgery risk could be minimized.
rlm@145 891
rlm@146 892 ** Superfluid Vascular System
rlm@146 893 I wonder what would happen if you replaced the blood in a human
rlm@146 894 with a superfluid. What would the physical dynamics be? Would the
rlm@146 895 superfluid flow through the vasculature, or would it ignore it and
rlm@146 896 travel through the cells, or something else entirely. Since
rlm@146 897 superfluids need to be cold to retain their superfluidity, how
rlm@146 898 would the dynamics change during perfusion of a superfluid, where
rlm@146 899 the fluid gains and looses superfluidity as it goes deeper into the
rlm@146 900 body and is cooled by superfluid from upstream. In summary there
rlm@146 901 are two things to simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with
rlm@146 902 superfluid instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.
rlm@145 903
rlm@146 904 ** Projective Guessing
rlm@146 905 I think that we read and see things by making a really good guess
rlm@146 906 about what we're expecting to see, and then searching for our guess
rlm@146 907 in what we see. If it really doesn't match, then we start to make
rlm@146 908 more guesses / analyze the image from first principles, but most
rlm@146 909 stuff is projective guessing.
rlm@145 910
rlm@146 911 ** Intestinal Flora Maintenance
rlm@146 912 Why not inoculate babies at birth with "ideal" gut flora instead of
rlm@146 913 whatever bullshit they naturally get, thus giving them optimal
rlm@146 914 digestive/nutrient extraction capabilities. Might also be able to
rlm@146 915 make their farts not stink for life, too. MORE IMPORTANTLY, might
rlm@146 916 help to preventatively stop some forms of /colic/, which affects 1
rlm@146 917 in 5 babies and causes constant screaming and pain for about 5
rlm@146 918 weeks.
rlm@145 919
rlm@146 920 ** Server Culture -- Mirrors
rlm@146 921 Make a distributed system where people can mirror the websites of
rlm@146 922 people they like -- essentially cover the server costs of favored
rlm@146 923 websites. This could make popular websites run at no cost. The
rlm@146 924 system would require that the mirrored content be the same as the
rlm@146 925 official source. Sort of like bit-torrent for websites.
rlm@145 926
rlm@146 927 ** Map Programming
rlm@146 928 One problem with functional programming is that in order to remain
rlm@146 929 functional, you have to pass up arguments up into each calling
rlm@146 930 function to get the full range of behavior from the lower level
rlm@146 931 functions. Normally people come to a compromise involving
rlm@146 932 abstraction and sparing use of dynamic variables to configure
rlm@146 933 runtime behavior. What would be the advantages of making a
rlm@146 934 programming language where every function receives one argument, a
rlm@146 935 map, which contains all the symbol bindings it would ever need?
rlm@146 936 This map is passed on to all subordinate functions. This way, you
rlm@146 937 could replace functions on the fly, and arrange for there to be
rlm@146 938 sensible defaults, etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an
rlm@146 939 interesting idea.
rlm@145 940
rlm@146 941 ** Rest Nest
rlm@146 942 A small EEG device you would attach to your head when you go to
rlm@146 943 sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine your particular sleep
rlm@146 944 cycles. This would mostly be an alarm clock that you could give a
rlm@146 945 time range, say 7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an
rlm@146 946 ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90 min sleep
rlm@146 947 cycles. You would feel much more rested upon waking up, and would
rlm@146 948 wake up faster. There might be some other uses for the EEG data as
rlm@146 949 well.
rlm@145 950
rlm@146 951 ** Image Compression
rlm@146 952 Use a library like gimp or opencv to process an image to make it
rlm@146 953 have less entropy, then store the reverse of those operations along
rlm@146 954 with the compressed simpler image as a super-compressed image file
rlm@146 955 (possibly accepting some losses). Trades file size for
rlm@146 956 decompression time, and allows one to cheat by using information in
rlm@146 957 gimp/opencv to compress the image.
rlm@145 958
rlm@146 959 ** Aldehyde-Stabalized Cryopreservation
rlm@146 960 Why not use a fixative to buy enough time to ramp up
rlm@146 961 cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room temperature? Then,
rlm@146 962 the whole system can be rapidly cooled and vitrified. This method
rlm@146 963 "severs the biological link" in that the fixatives are highly
rlm@146 964 toxic, but current vitrification procedures do this anyway since
rlm@146 965 there can be a lot of freezing damage.
rlm@145 966
rlm@146 967 ** Dilated Security Camera
rlm@146 968 A security camera that would capture full video footage of
rlm@146 969 everything at 60fps but then decide to keep only every 1 frame
rlm@146 970 every 5 seconds unless there's something "interesting" happening.
rlm@145 971
rlm@146 972 ** Bitcoin Wallet
rlm@146 973 Part of "server culture", this would be something like
rlm@146 974 "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as your personal trusted
rlm@146 975 access to your own bitcoins from anywhere.
rlm@145 976
rlm@146 977 ** Libpay
rlm@146 978 This would be a free library which would enable micro-donations to
rlm@146 979 software projects and other projects, so that you could donate a
rlm@146 980 penny to "emacs" and it would be automatically split up to every
rlm@146 981 person who has ever contributed to emacs in proportion to the
rlm@146 982 amount of community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the
rlm@146 983 community decides. This might make it possible for programmers to
rlm@146 984 live entirely off of free programming.
rlm@145 985
rlm@146 986 ** Pronouns
rlm@146 987 Use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve pronoun
rlm@146 988 referents and gender neutrality, are short to say, and you can
rlm@146 989 encode useful information into the choice of letter. For example,
rlm@146 990 instead of "Meetings shall be presided over by the president,
rlm@146 991 unless she is absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the
rlm@146 992 president, unless P is absent." We already use this a little, since
rlm@146 993 I and U are reserved for the subject and object respectively.
rlm@145 994
rlm@146 995 ** Phone DSP
rlm@146 996 Software app that inserts an audio DSP between the input to a phone
rlm@146 997 and the output. The DSP is delicious and configurable, and can
rlm@146 998 allow men to make their voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you
rlm@146 999 to hear your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how
rlm@146 1000 their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to immediately
rlm@146 1001 change the parameters of the DSP using good presets.
rlm@145 1002
rlm@146 1003 ** Restaurant Receipts
rlm@146 1004 Use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid copies.
rlm@145 1005
rlm@146 1006 ** Crossdressing
rlm@146 1007 Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to wear a burka.
rlm@145 1008
rlm@146 1009 ** Book-Mode
rlm@146 1010 Intelligent color highlighting for books and articles. It would
rlm@146 1011 disambiguate pronouns and involved references. For example, if
rlm@146 1012 "Rachael" was assigned the color red, and "the blonde haired girl"
rlm@146 1013 refers to "Rachael", then "the blonde haired girl" would be colored
rlm@146 1014 red. Also, you could disambiguate multi part run-on sentences by
rlm@146 1015 highlighting each subcomponent. Maybe would also have applications
rlm@146 1016 to scientific reading.
rlm@145 1017
rlm@146 1018 ** Handheld Light Rain Measurement
rlm@146 1019 This would be a clear, teflon coated plastic disk with a camera
rlm@146 1020 underneath the disk. You would be able to hold the device out and
rlm@146 1021 it would measure the rate of accumulation of water droplets from
rlm@146 1022 fine mists and light rain by using computer vision to measure the
rlm@146 1023 diameters of the drops.
rlm@145 1024
rlm@146 1025 ** Big Brother Farming
rlm@146 1026 This would be a vision system that would individually monitor each
rlm@146 1027 plant and turn on water, etc to ensure maximum/uniform growth for
rlm@146 1028 each plant.
rlm@145 1029
rlm@146 1030 ** Discrete Faucet
rlm@146 1031 A faucet with discrete ticks instead of continuous.
rlm@145 1032
rlm@146 1033 ** Laser Circle
rlm@146 1034 Take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one end at an
rlm@146 1035 oblique angle. It will make a perfect, large circle on the wall,
rlm@146 1036 converting a laser beam into a laser cone, preserving most of the
rlm@146 1037 energy of the laser.
rlm@145 1038
rlm@146 1039 ** Invisible Glass
rlm@146 1040 Take a container of liquid and embed a glass sculpture made out of
rlm@146 1041 glass that has exactly the same index of refraction and color of
rlm@146 1042 the liquid. Then the sculpture will be totally invisible in the
rlm@146 1043 container, and will only be revealed when the liquid is
rlm@146 1044 drained. The container might be a fancy wine/spirit bottle or an
rlm@146 1045 hourglass.
rlm@145 1046
rlm@146 1047 ** Caterpillar people
rlm@146 1048 A race of caterpillar like creatures gains intelligence after eons
rlm@146 1049 of predation by birds, etc. These caterpillar creatures still
rlm@146 1050 undergo metamorphosis into a large butterfly-like creature. The
rlm@146 1051 metamorphosis process turns the caterpillar's brain into mush and
rlm@146 1052 reforms it into a minimal, dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely
rlm@146 1053 destroying the person the caterpillar was. The society develops all
rlm@146 1054 sorts of customs and religious interpretations of the
rlm@146 1055 metamorphosis. It is viewed as good and natural by some since it is
rlm@146 1056 part of their life cycle and necessary to propagate the species, as
rlm@146 1057 only the butterflies can mate. Some think that the butterflies are
rlm@146 1058 still the same person because they have the same soul, even they no
rlm@146 1059 longer posses the memories or personality of the original
rlm@146 1060 caterpillar. Some see the butterfly form as the "true form" of the
rlm@146 1061 species, since the butterflies can fly, mate, and are
rlm@146 1062 beautiful. Many make a big deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the
rlm@146 1063 caterpillar's mind is actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see
rlm@146 1064 it as a terrible tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try
rlm@146 1065 to stop the metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very
rlm@146 1066 important members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery
rlm@146 1067 to prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as
rlm@146 1068 themselves.
rlm@145 1069
rlm@146 1070 This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being
rlm@146 1071 something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,
rlm@146 1072 something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that
rlm@146 1073 hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains
rlm@146 1074 now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic
rlm@146 1075 legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a
rlm@146 1076 compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second gender
rlm@146 1077 characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes homophobia
rlm@146 1078 look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of pain and death
rlm@146 1079 is made to look like the tragedy it is through the lens of the the
rlm@146 1080 caterpillar people.
rlm@145 1081
rlm@146 1082 ** Relationships as a Business
rlm@146 1083 [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx][Turnover-Crisis]] is an excellent talk about the "culture of
rlm@146 1084 quitting," which is about better business by letting people go
rlm@146 1085 instead of keeping them around past their "apex". Focuses on
rlm@146 1086 information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni network, which for
rlm@146 1087 relationships would be a group of satisfied ex-lovers, who would
rlm@146 1088 recommend new people your way, and who might consider coming to you
rlm@146 1089 again, refreshed from their time away with new
rlm@146 1090 stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and how
rlm@146 1091 they worked out.
rlm@145 1092
rlm@146 1093 ** Psychic Crystal
rlm@146 1094 In a science fiction story, this would be an object that is very
rlm@146 1095 easy to move physically but is extremely difficult to move with
rlm@146 1096 telekinesis.
rlm@145 1097
rlm@146 1098 ** True Reflection
rlm@146 1099 There's a "true mirror" in the MIT student center -- it's two
rlm@146 1100 normal mirrors at right angles, like staring at a corner of a
rlm@146 1101 room. The light reflects so that it shows you what you actually
rlm@146 1102 look like, instead of your mirror image.
rlm@145 1103
rlm@146 1104 ** Remote Control Wasp
rlm@146 1105 Use computer to drive wings with remote power/logic.
rlm@145 1106
rlm@146 1107 ** Encrypted Email Phone Book
rlm@146 1108 Public (distributed?) database of email->private-key pairs, to
rlm@146 1109 enable automatic encryption.
rlm@146 1110
rlm@146 1111 ** Universal Eye Color
rlm@146 1112 Every equivalent creature will see each others' eyes as black --
rlm@146 1113 it's universal. Even if the creatures see in radio waves, and their
rlm@146 1114 eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged metal, when those creatures look
rlm@146 1115 at each other, they will see black, the absence of light and color
rlm@146 1116 (since it's being absorbed by the sensor array).
rlm@146 1117
rlm@146 1118 ** Intelligent Microwave
rlm@146 1119 It learns where the hot nodes of its fields are, and uses them to
rlm@146 1120 evenly heat any food item. It has an infrared camera or something
rlm@146 1121 to keep track of how hot the food is. That way, you don't get bowls
rlm@146 1122 where the edges are boiling, while the center is still
rlm@146 1123 frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since the
rlm@146 1124 exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of the
rlm@146 1125 food. Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer, just a
rlm@146 1126 desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automatically
rlm@146 1127 defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much
rlm@146 1128 faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with
rlm@146 1129 heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor
rlm@146 1130 too.
rlm@145 1131
rlm@151 1132 *+* Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would
rlm@151 1133 "sputter" and splash liquid much less.
rlm@145 1134
rlm@151 1135 *+* Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked
rlm@151 1136 foods and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have
rlm@151 1137 been cooked before -- it can get faster the more it's used.
rlm@145 1138
rlm@146 1139 ** Flesh Pillow
rlm@146 1140 A pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete with simulated
rlm@146 1141 temperature, bones, and heartbeat.
rlm@145 1142
rlm@146 1143 ** Light Filter
rlm@146 1144 Works like light-tweezers to mechanically separate fluids with
rlm@146 1145 different indexes of refraction.
rlm@145 1146
rlm@146 1147 ** Silver Socks
rlm@146 1148 Socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial properties.
rlm@145 1149
rlm@146 1150 ** Rod of Moses
rlm@146 1151 Device to distill urine through evaporation and easily dispose of
rlm@146 1152 urea crystals for use in desert -- produce drinkable water and live
rlm@146 1153 an extra few days!
rlm@145 1154
rlm@146 1155 ** Lottery Scraper
rlm@146 1156 Web scraper which monitors various lotteries, looking for "special"
rlm@146 1157 gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x winnings on Wednesdays) and
rlm@146 1158 computes expected value...
rlm@145 1159
rlm@146 1160 ** Memristiors Novel Design
rlm@146 1161 Make an evolutionary algorithm to make old stuff using all four
rlm@146 1162 basic circuit elements.
rlm@145 1163
rlm@146 1164 ** Conductive Concrete
rlm@146 1165 Concrete that has embedded metal fibers so that it can conduct
rlm@146 1166 electricity.
rlm@145 1167
rlm@146 1168 ** Little Bitty Melting Pot
rlm@146 1169 Might be useful for some types of manufacturing/3D printing -- how
rlm@146 1170 small can an induction melter be made, for example.
rlm@145 1171
rlm@146 1172 ** True Pure Tones
rlm@146 1173 Hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the nerves of the
rlm@146 1174 ear. Like when Adelson "saw green".
rlm@145 1175
rlm@146 1176 ** Mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp
rlm@146 1177 would be an object with two levers -- you pull on one lever and the
rlm@146 1178 other moves the same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is
rlm@146 1179 driving. This analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.
rlm@145 1180
rlm@146 1181 ** Light Capacitor
rlm@146 1182 Suspend some ball of material with a high index of refraction and
rlm@146 1183 shine light into it so it gets stuck -- would the light stay
rlm@146 1184 trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited quantities of light
rlm@146 1185 inside the sphere (which could then be released slowly by
rlm@146 1186 frustrated internal reflection?
rlm@145 1187
rlm@146 1188 ** Reading Comprehension
rlm@146 1189 use the screen capture routine to make a quiz program that
rlm@146 1190 constructs questions about the content you seemed to gloss over
rlm@146 1191 while reading. could be easy if the pdf came with embedded
rlm@146 1192 questions. Dylan: automatically generate word-cloud about the
rlm@146 1193 parts you found most interesting; help others who read the same
rlm@146 1194 stuff by drawing attention to the interesting parts.
rlm@145 1195
rlm@146 1196 ** Optimize an Article
rlm@146 1197 Capture reading of a scientific article via screen capture while
rlm@146 1198 people read it, then use it to make the article better. like the
rlm@146 1199 movie-pruning idea.
rlm@145 1200
rlm@146 1201 ** Movie Pruning
rlm@146 1202 Movies always are too long at first. One way to shorten them
rlm@146 1203 ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the move and then
rlm@146 1204 remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which there are a lot
rlm@146 1205 of blinking (average this over multiple people) better yet, put it
rlm@146 1206 online and do it across thousands of people. I got this from
rlm@146 1207 youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill which is composed
rlm@146 1208 entirely of the parts in which people had their eyes
rlm@146 1209 closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their eyes
rlm@146 1210 off of? Just take those parts out!
rlm@145 1211
rlm@146 1212 ** Explosive Thermite Epoxy Putty
rlm@146 1213 One part would contain the rust, one part the aluminum.
rlm@145 1214
rlm@146 1215 ** Concrete Epoxy
rlm@146 1216 Epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.
rlm@145 1217
rlm@146 1218 ** Hard Sword
rlm@146 1219 Make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of martensite for
rlm@146 1220 the cutting part; it should be a better sword.
rlm@145 1221
rlm@146 1222 ** Close Range Wireless
rlm@146 1223 use the induction technology used to recharge electric toothbrushes
rlm@146 1224 with no metal links to send data without any metal at all!
rlm@145 1225
rlm@146 1226 ** Perfect Pitch
rlm@146 1227 Learn perfect pitch using another sense in combination (sight or
rlm@146 1228 touch).
rlm@145 1229
rlm@146 1230 ** Bio Metallic Structure
rlm@146 1231 Metal grids with seeds inside, which grow together and form a
rlm@146 1232 durable biological matrix. The metal substrate delivers
rlm@146 1233 water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?) Dylan: enrich plants
rlm@146 1234 with inorganic compounds; electrical interfaces in cellular plant
rlm@146 1235 matter => remote-controlled photosynthetic/bioluminescent
rlm@146 1236 structures.
rlm@145 1237
rlm@146 1238 ** Conducting Extracellular Matrix
rlm@146 1239 To allow better control of organic systems and an enhanced nervous
rlm@146 1240 system.
rlm@145 1241
rlm@146 1242 ** Cross-Modal Memory Hashing
rlm@146 1243 A way to retrieve memories more robustly.
rlm@145 1244
rlm@146 1245 ** Greener than Green
rlm@146 1246 If you stare at a red light, then you get a green after-image. If
rlm@146 1247 you immediately look at something green while still seeing the
rlm@146 1248 green after-image, you will experience a Green like none you've
rlm@146 1249 ever seen before -- color so intense it's beyond the range of
rlm@146 1250 anything that exists in the world.
rlm@145 1251
rlm@146 1252 ** Wooden Refrigerator
rlm@146 1253 To give food a better taste Dylan: like barrels for wine, or planks
rlm@146 1254 for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor planks" for your pre-existing
rlm@146 1255 fridge. Need to mitigate effect of temperature on volatility?
rlm@145 1256
rlm@146 1257 ** Radioactive Transmutation Molecule by Molecule
rlm@146 1258 Create precious metals or something else economically
rlm@146 1259 advantageous. Best transmutation I can come up with is mercury into
rlm@146 1260 gold, but it's not economically viable.
rlm@145 1261
rlm@146 1262 ** Preservation Via Crowding
rlm@146 1263 Inoculate food with tons of harmless bacteria so that there's no
rlm@146 1264 room for bad bacteria as a method of preservation
rlm@145 1265
rlm@146 1266 ** Old-School Preservation
rlm@146 1267 Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon as a way to store
rlm@146 1268 sterilized liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o
rlm@146 1269 refrigeration.
rlm@145 1270
rlm@146 1271 ** Restaurant Policy
rlm@146 1272 Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter of course -- make
rlm@146 1273 ambiance much better.
rlm@145 1274
rlm@146 1275 ** Clean Windows
rlm@146 1276 Make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant water (and reduces
rlm@146 1277 the pressure a bit) and use it to clean windows of buildings.
rlm@145 1278
rlm@146 1279 ** Ocarina
rlm@146 1280 Make an ocarina out of pure silver. Might have really good acoustic
rlm@146 1281 properties.
rlm@145 1282
rlm@146 1283 ** Fire Pen
rlm@146 1284 Pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing any
rlm@146 1285 ink. Is there a way to make it runnable from body heat?
rlm@145 1286
rlm@146 1287 ** Website to Design Your Own Soda
rlm@146 1288 and label, and have it mailed to you / sell it from your own online
rlm@146 1289 store.
rlm@145 1290
rlm@146 1291 ** Ocean Power
rlm@146 1292 Solar panels that float on the ocean.
rlm@145 1293
rlm@146 1294 ** Handcuffs with More Than Two Cuffs (3?)
rlm@146 1295 Great for daisy chaining people, binding them to environment, etc.
rlm@145 1296
rlm@146 1297 ** Vector Based SOUND Files
rlm@146 1298 Like the pictures but with SOUND. codify sound in a language with
rlm@146 1299 enough symbols so that it can describe everything and encode it in
rlm@146 1300 that. would be like going from speech to text or smtg. Could also
rlm@146 1301 store sound as an image of the wavefront encoded as a vector image.
rlm@145 1302
rlm@146 1303 ** Genetically Engineered Glowing Fruit
rlm@146 1304 They have some animals that can glow, but glowing fruit that you
rlm@146 1305 eat would be AWESOME!
rlm@145 1306
rlm@146 1307 ** The Body as a Key to Memory
rlm@146 1308 IF memories are encoded using particular sensory impressions, what
rlm@146 1309 happens if the sensory organ itself changes? those memories would
rlm@146 1310 become inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember much from
rlm@146 1311 our childhoods. also, could this happen throughout life as well?
rlm@146 1312 Could S remember stuff from his childhood?
rlm@145 1313
rlm@146 1314 ** Lighter Flint on Spring
rlm@146 1315 Make hot, throw it at something, and it makes sparkles!
rlm@145 1316
rlm@146 1317 ** Rare Bubbles
rlm@146 1318 Engineer a material which has both ductility and high surface
rlm@146 1319 tension to make the "third" minimal-surface-energy solution to a
rlm@146 1320 bubble suspended between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are
rlm@146 1321 cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles, and a
rlm@146 1322 double-cone)
rlm@146 1323
rlm@146 1324 ** Magic Textbook
rlm@146 1325 whose content can be varied continuously alter level of difficulty,
rlm@146 1326 rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain other discipline,
rlm@146 1327 etc. Content generated dynamically from knowledge base, along with
rlm@146 1328 questions that are moreover altered to guide knowledge
rlm@146 1329 acquisition. Motivation: One book of knowledge. /One./
rlm@145 1330
rlm@145 1331
rlm@145 1332 #+BEGIN_HTML
rlm@145 1333 <p class="end"> Still want more? Visit the <a href="./ideas.html">Raw
rlm@145 1334 Ideas</a> page, but prepare for extreme half-bakedness. </p>
rlm@145 1335 #+END_HTML