Mercurial > thoughts

annotate org/good-ideas.org @ 146:e9c46842080b

Find changesets by keywords (author, files, the commit message), revision number or hash, or revset expression.
finally updated ideas page.
author Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu>
date Sun, 12 Apr 2015 17:52:40 -0700
parents f5a56e2241fb
children 0f8cb1752964
rev   line source
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@145 40 <hr/>
rlm@145 41 #+END_HTML
rlm@145 42
rlm@146 43 ** The Ocean Becomes a Drop
rlm@145 44 Upload faces challenges to grow into they type of person that can
rlm@145 45 join the greater society -- a god. They have to go though quests
rlm@145 46 that replicate all the things that humanity had to accomplish, like
rlm@145 47 going to the moon, by themselves.
rlm@145 48
rlm@145 49 ** Butterfly Drone
rlm@145 50 If big butterflies used to exist, then maybe we could make
rlm@145 51 butterfly-inspired drones!
rlm@145 52
rlm@145 53 ** Methylation Sex-Symmetry Breaking
rlm@145 54 Human sex cells have methylation patterns that encode male/female
rlm@145 55 origin. If you combine two male patterns, the fetus grows "too
rlm@145 56 fast" and dies. Two female patterns causes the fetus to enter a
rlm@145 57 "vegatable" state and fail to develop. Evolutionary biologists say
rlm@145 58 that this reflects the asymmetry of energy investement for creating
rlm@145 59 offspring. If that's true, then species that cast-spawn will lack
rlm@145 60 this asymmetry, and give clues about how to remove it in humans. If
rlm@145 61 even cast spawners like sea urchins have it, then that means
rlm@145 62 there's something deeper going on!
rlm@145 63
rlm@145 64 ** Homosexual Reproduction
rlm@145 65 You take genetic material from two males and put it into an egg
rlm@145 66 cell that has had all genetic material removed. Or, you take the
rlm@145 67 genetic material from one egg and put it in another egg. This would
rlm@145 68 allow homosexual couples to genetically reproduce. One technical
rlm@145 69 challenge blocking this technique is that human gametes have
rlm@145 70 methylation patterns that encode male/female origin, and only a
rlm@145 71 male+female pattern gives rise to viable offspring. You could
rlm@145 72 "recondition" male / female gametes to give them the opposite
rlm@145 73 pattern, perhaps by incubating them in the appropriate
rlm@145 74 environment. You also could try taking stem cells and making them
rlm@145 75 form the appropriate structures in vitro.
rlm@145 76
rlm@145 77 ** Poly-Vitrification
rlm@145 78 Large molecules such as PVP are able to vitrify at around -20C, and
rlm@145 79 at farily small concentrations. IF they could be introduced into
rlm@145 80 cells, they would be quite useful as vitrification agents. However,
rlm@145 81 it's difficult to get them in because they are so big. So instead,
rlm@145 82 use smaller agents which combine together into polymers at low
rlm@145 83 temperature. In particular, Fructose, trehalose, and glycerol seem
rlm@145 84 to have the desired properties (though you need to make versions of
rlm@145 85 fructose and trehalose that can penetrate).
rlm@145 86
rlm@145 87 ** Whole Brain Perfusion Embedding
rlm@145 88 Do the standard EM embedding protocol, but skip the osmium step,
rlm@145 89 and use the "perfusion pausing" method to prevent overextraction
rlm@145 90 during the dehydration and embedding steps. I think that you can
rlm@145 91 perfuse resins into the brain, simply because you can perfuse
rlm@145 92 viscous rubber when doing vascular casts.
rlm@145 93
rlm@145 94 ** Very Slow Physiological Pressure Perfusion
rlm@145 95 Less extreme example of the "perfusion pausing" trick -- just keep
rlm@145 96 the perfusion running and don't put the perfusion target into the
rlm@145 97 liquid as deep.
rlm@145 98
rlm@145 99 ** Perfusion Pausing
rlm@145 100 One problem with doing perfusion of heads / organs where the veins
rlm@145 101 freely leak fluid is that if you STOP the perfusion, you rapidly
rlm@145 102 loose pressure in the organ as your perfusate leaks out. You can
rlm@145 103 prevent this by submerging the organ/head/rat whatever in fluid at
rlm@145 104 an appropriate deepness. You would have to slowly decrease the flow
rlm@145 105 rate while simultaneously lowering the perfusing object into the
rlm@145 106 fluid. To start again, reverse the process -- reengage the
rlm@145 107 peristaltic pump slowly while removing the organ from the fluid.
rlm@145 108
rlm@145 109 ** Textbook Mimiricy Evolution
rlm@145 110 As surgery becomes more common, there develops a distinct selective
rlm@145 111 pressure for individuals' organ layouts to look more like the
rlm@145 112 medical textbooks!
rlm@145 113
rlm@145 114 ** Transparent Skin
rlm@145 115 Temporary / permament transparent skin. Allows for examination of
rlm@145 116 organs / muscles and visual prevention of disease and detection or
rlm@145 117 abnormalities / good things eg. excercise optimization.
rlm@145 118
rlm@145 119 ** Sweet Information
rlm@145 120 Candy with a whole book written in it. Eat a book!
rlm@145 121
rlm@145 122 ** Targeted Immunosuppressant
rlm@145 123 Just kill off the B-cells and friends that would cause problems in
rlm@145 124 a organ-transplant / other situation. AIDS is good at killing these
rlm@145 125 cells -- maybe make it can be modified to just target the ones that
rlm@145 126 will cause problems. Then you can premptively kill off that part of
rlm@145 127 someone's immune system before a transplant. ALSO, you can kill off
rlm@145 128 everyone's defenses against other blood types and make people
rlm@145 129 effectively type AB+ w.r.t blood transfusions. Actually, why not
rlm@145 130 give babies this treatment so that they're automatically compatable
rlm@145 131 with all blood types? It would be like a blood transfusion
rlm@145 132 vaccine. The immune system does this already when it's first
rlm@145 133 growing; maybe it can be "retrained" to accept new things, or the
rlm@145 134 mechanism of immune cell death be co-opted for these purposes.
rlm@145 135
rlm@145 136 ** Fuck-you Tetris
rlm@145 137 Tetris that actively gives you the worst possible piece.
rlm@145 138
rlm@145 139 ** Pockets
rlm@145 140 More things should have them! Chairs, tables, cups, hats,
rlm@145 141 trashcans, basically anything is better with a pocket.
rlm@145 142
rlm@145 143 ** Colored Shower Head
rlm@145 144 A shower head add-on that measures the temp of the water and
rlm@145 145 changes the color of the water streams w/ an LED to show you the
rlm@145 146 temperature. That way you can align to the color you want and see
rlm@145 147 the temperature without feeling it.
rlm@145 148
rlm@145 149 ** Giant Dragonflies
rlm@145 150 We could rapidly MAKE giant dragonflies by evolving modern
rlm@145 151 dragonflies in an very oxygen rich environment!
rlm@145 152
rlm@145 153 ** Whirlpool of Light
rlm@145 154 Shine a laser out into space. But the planet is spinning! What you
rlm@145 155 get is a spiral of light! And as this signal expands, does it
rlm@145 156 eventually reveal it's quantized nature?
rlm@145 157
rlm@145 158 ** Perfusion Cooking
rlm@145 159 You do cardiac bypass on an animal like a pig, then pump in tasty,
rlm@145 160 tasty perfusate (like marinade) into the animal's
rlm@145 161 vasculature. Then, you switch out to saline and increase the
rlm@145 162 temperature of the saline to rapidly and uniformly cook the
rlm@145 163 animal. It could be the tastiest meat ever!
rlm@145 164
rlm@145 165 ** Timestamp Verification
rlm@145 166 You sign your message, and it has a timestamp at the top, with a +-
rlm@145 167 percision number. Then you send it over to the public timestamp
rlm@145 168 server, which only signs the message if it gets the message within
rlm@145 169 the timestamp window. Or the computer just signs the message but
rlm@145 170 puts a timestamp at the beginning. So if everyone trusts the
rlm@145 171 timestamp server, you can get reliable timestamps, and prove
rlm@145 172 priority on ideas, etc.
rlm@145 173
rlm@145 174 ** The Great Computing Slow-Down
rlm@145 175 In general, our computers are getting faster and faster according
rlm@145 176 to Moore's law. However, eventually our brains will be made of the
rlm@145 177 same stuff our computers are made of! This has very interesting
rlm@145 178 consequences -- I can add 2+2 and get four in about a second. Since
rlm@145 179 my neurons actually work at around 10-60 hertz in parallel, this
rlm@145 180 means that it takes me around 10-30 operations to do this
rlm@145 181 addition. That's actually not bad in terms of computing time. If my
rlm@145 182 neurons were as fast as the latest transitors, then most
rlm@145 183 calculators (made with earlier transistors) would be SLOWER than me
rlm@145 184 at adding numbers. Only the newest, most optimized calculators
rlm@145 185 would be faster, and then only about 10 times faster! This means
rlm@145 186 that once we begin to think at the speed of our technology, that
rlm@145 187 technology will suddenly seem pitifully slow in comparison to how
rlm@145 188 it seems now. And no amount of technical progress will remedy it,
rlm@145 189 because that same progress will also make us all think
rlm@145 190 faster. We'll either have to settle with living in "slow time" to
rlm@145 191 do some computations, or learn to make smarter hardware with
rlm@145 192 special optimizations. But this is actually really hard, because
rlm@145 193 we'll be working with machines that will appear to us about as fast
rlm@145 194 as MECHANICAL computers. So, in the future, all the cool parties
rlm@145 195 will be in cyperspace at vastly accelerated speeds compared to how
rlm@145 196 we exist now. But at these parties, the computers will SUCK! Of
rlm@145 197 course, this is one of the few things that can save us from AI
rlm@145 198 risk, because those AI's won't seem so scary when the're build out
rlm@145 199 of rickety old mechanical parts form our perspective.
rlm@145 200
rlm@145 201 ** Unitary Reverse Evolution of Chaos+Minds
rlm@145 202 Chaotic systems diverge exponentially in state space. Do you get
rlm@145 203 anything interesting when part of the physical system associated
rlm@145 204 with the chaotic system is a object that performs some sort of
rlm@145 205 computation? Is it possible for the computational system to play a
rlm@145 206 percision-enabling role in determining the final/initial conditions
rlm@145 207 of the chaotic system, just by tracing out thoughts in its decision
rlm@145 208 paths? This is probably too vague of an idea right now, I just
rlm@145 209 wanted to write it down.
rlm@145 210
rlm@145 211 ** Microwave-Time
rlm@145 212 The cooking time you enter on most microwaves is insane. It's
rlm@145 213 expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a combination of base 10
rlm@145 214 and base 60. You can get absurd things like 100 < 61, and 120 ==
rlm@145 215 80! I wonder if these hybrid base systems could be very useful for
rlm@145 216 some purposes!
rlm@145 217
rlm@145 218 ** Three Eyes
rlm@145 219 If you had three eyes, would you still draw cubes like we currently
rlm@145 220 draw them? Or would all 2D-representations of 3D space always look
rlm@145 221 hopelessly fake?
rlm@145 222
rlm@145 223 ** Digital Taste/Smell Assay
rlm@145 224 Get a grid of bacteria, each expressing a human taste/smell
rlm@145 225 receptor linked to some sort of fluorscent activity or ion
rlm@145 226 pump. Use a camera / electrical grid to transduce the smell / taste
rlm@145 227 signal into bits! Inspired by gel-sight from MIT.
rlm@145 228
rlm@145 229 ** Childrens' Tool Shop
rlm@145 230 I think that kids should be provided with tool shops -- these would
rlm@145 231 be nice sheds with a good collection of tools to do various things
rlm@145 232 -- circuit components and soldering irons, wires, a small lathe,
rlm@145 233 drill press, belt sander, a centrifuge, microscope, and telescope,
rlm@145 234 etc. The idea is that the kid can now think, "I could use X to do
rlm@145 235 this thing that I'm thinking about" -- the building becomes an
rlm@145 236 extension of the kid's body & mind.
rlm@145 237
rlm@145 238 ** Fluid Display
rlm@145 239 Like the previous idea about matching refractances between glass
rlm@145 240 and liquid, except you make a lot of switchable glass tubes in
rlm@145 241 various patterns in the glass, and actively pump colored liquid
rlm@145 242 through the tubes (the tubes have glass-like fluid in them by
rlm@145 243 default.) The result is that you can cause the tubes to appear and
rlm@145 244 dissappear, and vary their colors as well!
rlm@145 245
rlm@145 246 ** Immunoincompatibility
rlm@145 247 Take the human genome, and refactor it so that it doesn't use a
rlm@145 248 particular codon at all. Then remove the support from our ribosomes
rlm@145 249 for that codon. What does this do for us? It makes us immune to
rlm@145 250 almost all viruses! There is at least one bacteria that already
rlm@145 251 does this to great effect.
rlm@145 252
rlm@145 253 ** Life Cycle
rlm@145 254 It's called a cycle, right? So, the thing that repeats itself over
rlm@145 255 and over, right? Not much of a cycle if you don't come back after
rlm@145 256 you die, if you ask me!
rlm@145 257
rlm@145 258 ** Car with no Blind Spots
rlm@145 259 Use some cameras in the back of the car to augment the rear-view
rlm@145 260 mirror so that you never have to turn around in order to lane
rlm@145 261 change.
rlm@145 262
rlm@145 263 ** Metabolic Windows and Freezing
rlm@145 264 You freeze a set of cells using some cryo protocol and 60%
rlm@145 265 survive. How can this be explained? It seems to me that if the
rlm@145 266 cells are the same, and the conditions homogoneous, then all the
rlm@145 267 cells should either die or live. However, suppose that there is a
rlm@145 268 metabolic cycle that needs to be in a certain phase for the cell to
rlm@145 269 survive. If the cells are asynchronous, then you might end up with
rlm@145 270 some cells dying because there were in the wrong part of their
rlm@145 271 cycle. This implies that you might be able to cryoprotect cells by
rlm@145 272 causing them to enter a certain metabolic mode before freezing.
rlm@145 273
rlm@145 274 ** Cryonics Color Appeal
rlm@145 275 Perfusate used by cryonics companies could have red food coloring
rlm@145 276 in it. It's just a nice touch so that the cryonics patient looks
rlm@145 277 more life-like than with clear CPAs, and hopefully might get
rlm@145 278 treated with more respect.
rlm@145 279
rlm@145 280 ** Paramagnetic CPA
rlm@145 281 you take a CPA that can be influenced by magnetic fields so that
rlm@145 282 its degrees of freedom are limited. Then, you release the field,
rlm@145 283 instantaly increasing the size of the state space of the system and
rlm@145 284 dramatically decreasing the temperature enough to plunge the system
rlm@145 285 past homogenous nucleation temperature and directly to the glass
rlm@145 286 transition temperature, creating a doubly unstable glass at much
rlm@145 287 lower CPA concentrations than possible at conventional CPA
rlm@145 288 concentrations. A major technical limitation facing this technique
rlm@145 289 is that it's a very minor effect -- you can only get about 0.1C
rlm@145 290 with most systems that have been studied so far.
rlm@145 291
rlm@146 292 ** Room Temp Ramen
rlm@146 293 How does the physics of cooking noodles work? Could you use a
rlm@146 294 vacuum instead of heat to force water into the noodle?
rlm@145 295
rlm@146 296 ** Personal Carbon Offset
rlm@146 297 Feel bad about contribuiting to global warming by using electricity
rlm@146 298 / driving a car? Forget trying to "conserve" or "minimize your
rlm@146 299 carbon footprint". Follow the Platinum rule -- make the world
rlm@146 300 BETTER off than you found it! This would be a small, self
rlm@146 301 contained system that sucks C02 out of the air. It uses
rlm@146 302 electricity, but it's so efficient at removing CO2 that it more
rlm@146 303 than offsets the CO2 produced by even a coal plant to produce that
rlm@146 304 electricity. This way, you can still drive even a gas guzzler, but
rlm@146 305 have a net negative carbon footprint! Maybe something cool could be
rlm@146 306 done with the carbon as well. Use as much electricity as you want,
rlm@146 307 but negate the damage to the enviroment with more technology.
rlm@145 308
rlm@146 309 ** Undoing Spermogenesis
rlm@146 310 With enough sperm, you can derive the donor's entire genome. You
rlm@146 311 gain more confidence in the alleles for a particular gene the more
rlm@146 312 sperm you have. Each additional sperm gives you the same sort of
rlm@146 313 information you'd get flipping a coin and trying to decide whether
rlm@146 314 the coin is H/T of H/H. Is there enough sperm in the the average
rlm@146 315 load for you to be as confident as mitosis?
rlm@145 316
rlm@146 317 ** Mars Life
rlm@146 318 We could engineer life that could survive on mars (probably some
rlm@146 319 non-vascular photosynthetic poikilohydric creature like a lichen)
rlm@146 320 by taking an extremophile from Antarctica and evolving it in
rlm@146 321 increasingly Martian conditions. This could be an easy start to a
rlm@146 322 terraforming process.
rlm@145 323
rlm@146 324 ** Problem with Aubrey de Grey's Ideas
rlm@146 325 Aubrey de Grey says that we might be able to live forever by
rlm@146 326 continually repairing our bodies at the cellular level -- he
rlm@146 327 details 7 different mechanisms of damage and says that if all of
rlm@146 328 them are dealt with /together/ that it would stop aging. (You can't
rlm@146 329 miss even one because they're all fatal.) However, it doesn't take
rlm@146 330 into account that we are also beings of information and that there
rlm@146 331 is a very real software component to our existence. Even if our
rlm@146 332 biological chassies can be maintained forever, I think it is
rlm@146 333 unlikely that our minds will operate well far outside of the design
rlm@146 334 constraints that we've evolved to handle. Say I programmed a
rlm@146 335 webserver with the express goal of it being able to serve webpages
rlm@146 336 for month on some stock server. I'll do fairly rigorous testing to
rlm@146 337 make sure that it can handle the expected load then then some. Now
rlm@146 338 say that you want to keep a particular instance of this webserver
rlm@146 339 running indefinitely. (The program instance is like your mind and
rlm@146 340 the computer it's running on is like your body). You might very
rlm@146 341 well be able to keep the physical computer infrastructure running
rlm@146 342 for forever by replacing hard drives / ram / CPUs, etc. However,
rlm@146 343 since I designed the webserver to work for a month, it probably has
rlm@146 344 memory leaks, rare stochastic bugs, or other built in limits /
rlm@146 345 constraints (think log files or some date rollover shenanigans)
rlm@146 346 that will ultimately kill the webserver even with eternally perfect
rlm@146 347 hardware. Do you really expect that a webserver engineered to work
rlm@146 348 for 1 month will run for 10 years without catastrophically
rlm@146 349 crashing? Not even Apache can do this! In fact, if I put in the
rlm@146 350 extreme effort to make it that robust, I've wasted time that I
rlm@146 351 could have spent on other projects by pursuing an unnecessary
rlm@146 352 engineering goal. Likewise, human minds have only ever run for at
rlm@146 353 most 122 years before they are destroyed due to hardware
rlm@146 354 degradation. Fixing the hardware doesn't change any software bugs
rlm@146 355 that are almost certainly present in the human mind. Think of all
rlm@146 356 the pathological things that can go wrong with a webserver,
rlm@146 357 multiply it by a million, and that likely how evolution has
rlm@146 358 designed our minds. For example, consider memory : why should you
rlm@146 359 expect that we have evolved the ability to coherently organize
rlm@146 360 memories past say 150 years? There's been absolutely no selective
rlm@146 361 pressure for this ability, so you can bet that if there's any
rlm@146 362 fitness to be gained from not having unlimited memory potential
rlm@146 363 (such as better metabolic efficiency), we have it! You might think
rlm@146 364 that maybe we would just forget things the same way that we sort of
rlm@146 365 forget things that happen earlier in our lives, but complicated
rlm@146 366 information processing systems don't have to fail gracefully when
rlm@146 367 they're pushed far past their design constraints. A 150 year old
rlm@146 368 person is just as likely to suffer a catastrophic psychosis due to
rlm@146 369 software limitations associated with memory as he is to do
rlm@146 370 something with all those memories we might consider
rlm@146 371 reasonable. More likely, in fact, since there are so very many ways
rlm@146 372 for a complicated software system to break and so few ways for it
rlm@146 373 to run successfully. Therefore, I think Aubrey de Grey's
rlm@146 374 "hardware-only" approach is missing a very important component of
rlm@146 375 longevity science, and any successful effort to make people live
rlm@146 376 orders of magnitude longer than they do naturally will need to deal
rlm@146 377 with people's software as well as their hardware.
rlm@145 378
rlm@146 379 ** Validating Neurocryopreservation
rlm@146 380 Problem : you want to test whether a brain is functionally
rlm@146 381 preserved through vitrification, but you don't want to figure out
rlm@146 382 how to preserve all the other organs in the animal. It might be
rlm@146 383 possible to keep the rest of the body at almost 0C and vitrify just
rlm@146 384 the head for only a few minutes. Induce hypothermia, then separate
rlm@146 385 out the head's blood supply from the rest of the body, then just
rlm@146 386 cryoptotect and vitrify the head. Might need some sort of thermal
rlm@146 387 guard to keep the outer head / neck from becoming too cold. You
rlm@146 388 leave the spinal cord intact! Then you devitrify to 0C, remove
rlm@146 389 cryoprotectant, and then reattach the blood supply. You can
rlm@146 390 determine brain preservation using behavioral assays!
rlm@145 391
rlm@146 392 ** Freezing Water Purifier
rlm@146 393 You slowly freeze water, but also run liquid water over the frozen
rlm@146 394 mass. This takes away basically all impurities and creates "washed
rlm@146 395 ice" then you melt the ice. Maybe you could re-use the heat from
rlm@146 396 creating the ice to melt the ice?
rlm@145 397
rlm@146 398 ** Ultra Strength
rlm@146 399 Allow a person to visualize their muscle recruitment patterns. Give
rlm@146 400 them adrenaline and let them feel what it's like to have the normal
rlm@146 401 limits removed. See if they can replicate the effects.
rlm@145 402
rlm@146 403 ** Phone Names
rlm@146 404 Make a PX record for domain names that's like the MX record, except
rlm@146 405 that it is a phone number instead of an IP address. That way, you
rlm@146 406 can use the domain name registration system to provide names for
rlm@146 407 phone numbers. Then, as long as you control the domain, you can
rlm@146 408 point people to your current phone number by updating that record.
rlm@145 409
rlm@146 410 ** Edible Flowers
rlm@146 411 Edible white flowers that you put in a colored solution with
rlm@146 412 flavor. When the flower turns the right color, it is also flavored
rlm@146 413 and ready to eat!
rlm@145 414
rlm@146 415 ** Lead Bone
rlm@146 416 Could you fill in all the empty spaces in a bone with lead? Might
rlm@146 417 be cool!
rlm@145 418
rlm@146 419 ** The Quest for Life
rlm@146 420 Many stories that have immortal characters have the "immortal who
rlm@146 421 wants to become mortal" trope. I want to story where the
rlm@146 422 protagonist loses their immortality and feels /angry/ and ashamed
rlm@146 423 about losing something that's so absolutely crucial to their
rlm@146 424 identity. A reverse of "death makes life worth living", they feel
rlm@146 425 that living forever is what makes life worth living. Now they've
rlm@146 426 "lost their sunrise" or their "connection to the timeless universe"
rlm@146 427 or something. So they go on a quest to get it back, learning about
rlm@146 428 themselves along the way, and regaining the precious thing they
rlm@146 429 lost in the beginning. Which, it they can actually gain their
rlm@146 430 immortality back, means that they never lost it in the first place!
rlm@145 431
rlm@146 432 ** World Map
rlm@146 433 Take a small table and paint the continents in toothpaste on the
rlm@146 434 table. Make a slightly raised barrier around the table. Slowly pour
rlm@146 435 water onto the table, and it will form the oceans!
rlm@145 436
rlm@146 437 ** Stage Magic Rituals
rlm@146 438 Rituals should incorporate elements of stage magic. For example in
rlm@146 439 Teller's rendition of Shakespeare's Tempest, they have a scene
rlm@146 440 where they levitate a crown in front of someone, then put it on his
rlm@146 441 head. They also have a wedding ceremony where they levitated the
rlm@146 442 bride as well. Actual weddings and other ceremonies should
rlm@146 443 incorporate stage magic as an enhancement to the gravitas!
rlm@145 444
rlm@146 445 ** Isotope Time Dilation
rlm@146 446 Use a cyclotron to speed up rare isotopes developed in nuclear
rlm@146 447 fusion experiments. The relativistic time dilation will stop the
rlm@146 448 isotopes from decaying, and allow time to study them. This is based
rlm@146 449 on radioactive isotopes that fall through the earth's atmosphere
rlm@146 450 that take hundreds of times longer to decay than normal.
rlm@145 451
rlm@146 452 ** Marsupial Stimulation
rlm@146 453 You take a freshly pouched marsupial baby, and show it videos and
rlm@146 454 other interactive things while it matures in the pouch. What mental
rlm@146 455 effects would this have?
rlm@145 456
rlm@146 457 ** The Dynamically Well-Tempered Clavier
rlm@146 458 Some older ways of tuning instruments sound better, but we use the
rlm@146 459 even-tempered scale today because it makes it easier to switch
rlm@146 460 keys. With electronic music, why not make key-annotations and
rlm@146 461 dynamically re-tune the piece to sound good in the current key?
rlm@146 462 Could be done as a midi+annotation -> midi compiler for initial
rlm@146 463 experimentation.
rlm@145 464
rlm@146 465 ** Death Always Implies Damage
rlm@146 466 is is possible for a corpse to differ from a living person only in
rlm@146 467 the fact that one is dead and the other is alive? NO! A corpse must
rlm@146 468 always have some sort of molecular damage which causes the loss of
rlm@146 469 function!
rlm@145 470
rlm@146 471 ** Inner Eye
rlm@146 472 Surgically install a bunch of tiny cameras inside a person. Then,
rlm@146 473 you can activate them all and get a picture of your internal organs
rlm@146 474 for diagnostic purposes.
rlm@145 475
rlm@146 476 ** Chaos Rails
rlm@146 477 The homoclinic tangle (which I call the "rails of chaos") is very
rlm@146 478 beautiful. We couldn't even visualize it before computers because
rlm@146 479 it's so complicated! Someone should make a visualization of
rlm@146 480 it. Here's my inital stab at it: [[../images/rails-of-chaos.png][The Rails of Chaos]]
rlm@145 481
rlm@146 482 ** Cryonics Middle Ages
rlm@146 483 Some people say that cryonics is an experiment and that it is
rlm@146 484 foolish to wait until we have revived a human. There is a middle
rlm@146 485 ground where the procedure has a dismal success rate on humans, say
rlm@146 486 1 in 20, so that you'd be a fool to try revival. Nonetheless, this
rlm@146 487 very risky procedure could be the legal proof of concept needed to
rlm@146 488 create a new class of life between "living" and "dead": "stasis".
rlm@145 489
rlm@146 490 ** Minds and Mirrors
rlm@146 491 Neat thought experiment -- if you take a mirror of someone by
rlm@146 492 actually reversing a person's chirality molecule by molecule, then
rlm@146 493 will the only be able to read mirror writing? The answer is yes, by
rlm@146 494 analogy to a purely mechanical scan-tron device. This is one of the
rlm@146 495 only interesting transforms I know that can take a human brain and
rlm@146 496 change it in subtle, non-destructive ways. It's also an argument
rlm@146 497 against dualism.
rlm@145 498
rlm@146 499 ** Biosphere in a Bottle
rlm@146 500 There are around 15 million species. 15 million stem cells will
rlm@146 501 fill only a tiny size, far less than a cubic inch. Preserve a
rlm@146 502 single cell from every species on earth in this small space, and
rlm@146 503 you will have a record of our current biosphere that can be
rlm@146 504 protected. "Hold the genetic data of all species in your hand!"
rlm@145 505
rlm@146 506 ** Chaos Lock
rlm@146 507 The "arrow of time" points in the direction of increasing
rlm@146 508 entropy. The time evolution of chaotic systems depend exquisitely
rlm@146 509 on their initial state. If you take a measurement of a chaotic
rlm@146 510 system at any given point of time, you can evolve that system
rlm@146 511 backwards or forwards based on your measurement. So let's say you
rlm@146 512 start the chaotic system in a VERY low entropy state, then let it
rlm@146 513 run for a while, then take a measurement with some
rlm@146 514 uncertainty. Your measurement is pretty good, but obviously not
rlm@146 515 PERFECT. If you evolve the chaotic system back in time, then you
rlm@146 516 will see that you don't really reach a state with low entropy an
rlm@146 517 hour before (the entropy is easy to measure with surrogates like
rlm@146 518 alignment, etc). So use this technique to SEARCH for a more
rlm@146 519 accurate measurement! This potentially can give you many more
rlm@146 520 orders of magnitude than you could get alone just using an
rlm@146 521 instrument. Sometimes it will give you bad results, the the odds of
rlm@146 522 it doing that are infinitesimal, and you can just measure a couple
rlm@146 523 of times.
rlm@145 524
rlm@146 525 ** Cryo Evolution
rlm@146 526 Perhaps there would be a way to rapidly evolve a symbiotic
rlm@146 527 bacterial organism that could protect human tissues from freezing
rlm@146 528 damage.
rlm@145 529
rlm@146 530 ** Suicide Parasite
rlm@146 531 Sometimes, people kill themselves for no good reason. We often
rlm@146 532 explain this with things like "hidden depression" or we say that
rlm@146 533 they had something like chronic jaw or back pain. I think that
rlm@146 534 smells of rationalization. I don't buy it. I propose that in many
rlm@146 535 suicide cases there is a disease that causes the suicidal
rlm@146 536 behavior. We already know that certain parasites have mind-bending
rlm@146 537 properties in other animals, even mammals like mice. It's not much
rlm@146 538 of a stretch to imagine a parasite that causes suicides in
rlm@146 539 humans. Some problems:
rlm@145 540
rlm@146 541 *What does the suicide parasite get out of it?* : This might be
rlm@146 542 answered by the whole thing being a glitch caused by cross-species
rlm@146 543 contamination. Toxoplasma works this way.
rlm@145 544
rlm@146 545 *What predictions does a disease model make* : suicide should be
rlm@146 546 more common among people who share a contagion vector. There should
rlm@146 547 be suicides that don't make any sense : people who weren't really
rlm@146 548 depressed, who had no reason to kill themselves. People who have
rlm@146 549 killed themselves should have a higher incidence of some unknown
rlm@146 550 parasite in their brains.
rlm@145 551
rlm@146 552 ** Domestic Insects
rlm@146 553 People should eat more bugs because they're much more efficient, so
rlm@146 554 why not do some major domestication research to make very appealing
rlm@146 555 bugs? Beetles, in particular, seem to be excellent targets for
rlm@146 556 domestication because they have extreme levels of genetic
rlm@146 557 malleability. Remember that lobster was once seen as an animal only
rlm@146 558 fit for prisoners to consume!
rlm@145 559
rlm@146 560 ** Birth-Clones
rlm@146 561 What if each person was intentionally split at birth into a normal
rlm@146 562 embryo and a few "backup" cells which are then frozen. The backup
rlm@146 563 cells are created just the same way as natural identical twins. The
rlm@146 564 backups can be used to regenerate organs. etc. Also, it would be a
rlm@146 565 good sci-fi concept, because you could have a culture where people
rlm@146 566 reward people who were especially awesome are "reborn" from their
rlm@146 567 backups. Imagine having a young Bach every generation, etc.
rlm@145 568
rlm@146 569 ** Pronunciation Guide
rlm@146 570 A simple webpage where you type in a word and it returns a simple,
rlm@146 571 English sentence describing exactly how to pronounce the word. For
rlm@146 572 people who don't want to learn IPA.
rlm@145 573
rlm@146 574 ** Learning to Teleport
rlm@146 575 This is a story about a person who is struggling with his/her
rlm@146 576 society's ideas about teleportation. It's considered a fundamental
rlm@146 577 part of being a member of that society (after all, the difference
rlm@146 578 between animals and humans is that humans are creatures of pure
rlm@146 579 information while animals are burdened with base matter, "that's
rlm@146 580 how you travel the stars, etc") Humans are born normally, grow up,
rlm@146 581 and then eventually transcend via destructive upload. Analogies to
rlm@146 582 jumping off a diving board into a pool (which I simply /could not
rlm@146 583 do/ for a long time), etc.
rlm@145 584
rlm@146 585 ** No-Float-Ice
rlm@146 586 Cup that has cross beams at the bottom where ice forms. Then when
rlm@146 587 you drink liquid from the glass, the ice stays at the bottom and
rlm@146 588 doesn't hit your lips. For bars and fancy things.
rlm@145 589
rlm@146 590 ** Bitcoins for Immigrants
rlm@146 591 A common case with Mexican immigrants (illegal or not) is that they
rlm@146 592 want to send money they've earned in the US back to their families
rlm@146 593 in Mexico. They currently do this through things like Money Gram or
rlm@146 594 Western Union, and they get fleeced in the process with
rlm@146 595 fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce the cost of sending money from
rlm@146 596 America to Mexico, but I don't believe that it's currently used for
rlm@146 597 that among Mexican immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I
rlm@146 598 bet you could set up physical locations like those obnoxious
rlm@146 599 Western Union huts in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly
rlm@146 600 undercut them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin
rlm@146 601 might be in order. There's some money to be made there because
rlm@146 602 there is great demand, and it's a good thing to boot!
rlm@145 603
rlm@146 604 ** Reverse Eye-Tracking
rlm@146 605 A painting that is actually a digital screen with a camera. It
rlm@146 606 records people's eye tracks permanently. It's "artistic" because
rlm@146 607 paintings are normally these things that you look at without
rlm@146 608 changing, but this one is changed the second you look at it,
rlm@146 609 recording where /you/ looked forever for others to see. Make it be
rlm@146 610 a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the breasts and groin
rlm@146 611 area light up with interest from all the males passing by. Then
rlm@146 612 watch as the painting turns into a commentary on perception and
rlm@146 613 popularity -- a sort of eigenvector of perception! Will all
rlm@146 614 paintings turn into the same thing eventually?
rlm@145 615
rlm@146 616 ** Smart Toilets
rlm@146 617 Instead of using indirect measures like infrared detectors of the
rlm@146 618 presence of a person, use computer vision to directly measure
rlm@146 619 whether the toilet needs to be flushed. I think a lot of things
rlm@146 620 will end up going this way as we get better computer vision.
rlm@145 621
rlm@146 622 ** Validate Chemopreservation
rlm@146 623 Chemopreservation is difficult to validate because it destroys the
rlm@146 624 functionality of a brain, and brain simulation will take a long
rlm@146 625 time to mature as a technology. However, one very powerful way to
rlm@146 626 validate chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn
rlm@146 627 something with high complexity such as a number or the solution to
rlm@146 628 a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain
rlm@146 629 chemically, slice it up, and read /that specific memory/ from the
rlm@146 630 detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable.
rlm@145 631
rlm@146 632 ** Candy Screw
rlm@146 633 Edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw as well.
rlm@145 634
rlm@146 635 ** Better Bibliography
rlm@146 636 When writing a thesis or paper, have the bibliography not just be
rlm@146 637 an opaque list of resources, but have it be a list of /summaries/
rlm@146 638 and /qualities/ that each paper has in the context of the paper
rlm@146 639 being written. When examining a bibliography, I want to know if
rlm@146 640 reading the papers in the bibliography are worth my time, and I
rlm@146 641 also am probably also interested in exactly the things that are
rlm@146 642 being discussed in the paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the
rlm@146 643 perfect place to provide information about the referenced papers
rlm@146 644 from the author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in
rlm@146 645 my own thesis!
rlm@145 646
rlm@146 647 ** Chess Visual
rlm@146 648 To show the vast size of the game trees considered by computers,
rlm@146 649 show two people playing chess in a void. They are floating in
rlm@146 650 space, and there is a simple chess board between them. Then, as
rlm@146 651 they play, the game tree's they are considering are drawn behind
rlm@146 652 him. The root of the tree starts centered in their heads or
rlm@146 653 whatever they use to think, and the tree grows out from behind,
rlm@146 654 never crossing the dividing plane between the two players. Each
rlm@146 655 player's tree is a different color. As they grow, there are
rlm@146 656 animations for pruning, etc. Eventually, they look like the
rlm@146 657 hemispheres of a brain, wings, etc. A human's tree might
rlm@146 658 occasionally have a long chain, while the computer tree would be
rlm@146 659 more uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern laptop. Use
rlm@146 660 actual data when fighting two computers!
rlm@145 661
rlm@146 662 ** Tamper Proof Gold Bars
rlm@146 663 [[Http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html][This site]] offers gold plated tungsten bars as "novelty" items. One
rlm@146 664 reason to prefer coins is because they are much harder to
rlm@146 665 counterfeit because there is less surface area to mass
rlm@146 666 ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design because they can
rlm@146 667 hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar could be given the
rlm@146 668 same protections (and more) that gold coins have to offer by
rlm@146 669 changing it into a "gold book", which would have hundreds of
rlm@146 670 "pages" of gold bound together. This could be implemented with
rlm@146 671 multiple steel rods going through the book which can be removed, or
rlm@146 672 some more classier mechanism for holding the pages. The point is
rlm@146 673 that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and people would perform
rlm@146 674 this test before buying), thus guaranteeing it's authenticity.
rlm@145 675
rlm@146 676 ** High School Science
rlm@146 677 This is a lesson in scientific ethics. The goal is to calculate
rlm@146 678 /g/, the local gravitational acceleration. The students are told
rlm@146 679 that the textbook says it's /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the
rlm@146 680 experiment. See how they doctor their results to get closer to the
rlm@146 681 textbook value. It's neat because for any given school, /g/ is
rlm@146 682 probably *not* exactly equal to 9.81, because that is just an
rlm@146 683 average!
rlm@145 684
rlm@146 685 ** Opencourseware Subtitles
rlm@146 686 There are people who type up lectures at MIT while they are being
rlm@146 687 given, so that hearing impared students can follow along. These
rlm@146 688 recordings should be kept and given to OCW for subtitles. If the
rlm@146 689 timestamps of keys are recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.
rlm@145 690
rlm@146 691 ** Screen Locking Timing
rlm@146 692 You use your computer camera to see if you are sitting in front of
rlm@146 693 the computer. If you are, then the screen will never lock. If you
rlm@146 694 are, then the screen will lock with a 30-40 second timeout. It's an
rlm@146 695 extension of using inactivity to initiate the countdown, just with
rlm@146 696 more information.
rlm@145 697
rlm@146 698 ** Mirror Toilet
rlm@146 699 A toilet with a square basin made of mirror instead of
rlm@146 700 porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a wipe job you have
rlm@146 701 done / watch how your excretion system works.
rlm@145 702
rlm@146 703 ** X-ray telepresence
rlm@146 704 given that a doctor is operating on a patient via telepresence, one
rlm@146 705 cool things you can do is shine X-rays into the patient to view the
rlm@146 706 insides during real time. (This doesn't expose either the doctor or
rlm@146 707 patient to chronically damaging amounts of X-rays) If the system
rlm@146 708 was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure,
rlm@146 709 and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the
rlm@146 710 model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage and
rlm@146 711 surgery risk could be minimized.
rlm@145 712
rlm@146 713 ** Superfluid Vascular System
rlm@146 714 I wonder what would happen if you replaced the blood in a human
rlm@146 715 with a superfluid. What would the physical dynamics be? Would the
rlm@146 716 superfluid flow through the vasculature, or would it ignore it and
rlm@146 717 travel through the cells, or something else entirely. Since
rlm@146 718 superfluids need to be cold to retain their superfluidity, how
rlm@146 719 would the dynamics change during perfusion of a superfluid, where
rlm@146 720 the fluid gains and looses superfluidity as it goes deeper into the
rlm@146 721 body and is cooled by superfluid from upstream. In summary there
rlm@146 722 are two things to simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with
rlm@146 723 superfluid instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.
rlm@145 724
rlm@146 725 ** Projective Guessing
rlm@146 726 I think that we read and see things by making a really good guess
rlm@146 727 about what we're expecting to see, and then searching for our guess
rlm@146 728 in what we see. If it really doesn't match, then we start to make
rlm@146 729 more guesses / analyze the image from first principles, but most
rlm@146 730 stuff is projective guessing.
rlm@145 731
rlm@146 732 ** Intestinal Flora Maintenance
rlm@146 733 Why not inoculate babies at birth with "ideal" gut flora instead of
rlm@146 734 whatever bullshit they naturally get, thus giving them optimal
rlm@146 735 digestive/nutrient extraction capabilities. Might also be able to
rlm@146 736 make their farts not stink for life, too. MORE IMPORTANTLY, might
rlm@146 737 help to preventatively stop some forms of /colic/, which affects 1
rlm@146 738 in 5 babies and causes constant screaming and pain for about 5
rlm@146 739 weeks.
rlm@145 740
rlm@146 741 ** Server Culture -- Mirrors
rlm@146 742 Make a distributed system where people can mirror the websites of
rlm@146 743 people they like -- essentially cover the server costs of favored
rlm@146 744 websites. This could make popular websites run at no cost. The
rlm@146 745 system would require that the mirrored content be the same as the
rlm@146 746 official source. Sort of like bit-torrent for websites.
rlm@145 747
rlm@146 748 ** Map Programming
rlm@146 749 One problem with functional programming is that in order to remain
rlm@146 750 functional, you have to pass up arguments up into each calling
rlm@146 751 function to get the full range of behavior from the lower level
rlm@146 752 functions. Normally people come to a compromise involving
rlm@146 753 abstraction and sparing use of dynamic variables to configure
rlm@146 754 runtime behavior. What would be the advantages of making a
rlm@146 755 programming language where every function receives one argument, a
rlm@146 756 map, which contains all the symbol bindings it would ever need?
rlm@146 757 This map is passed on to all subordinate functions. This way, you
rlm@146 758 could replace functions on the fly, and arrange for there to be
rlm@146 759 sensible defaults, etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an
rlm@146 760 interesting idea.
rlm@145 761
rlm@146 762 ** Rest Nest
rlm@146 763 A small EEG device you would attach to your head when you go to
rlm@146 764 sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine your particular sleep
rlm@146 765 cycles. This would mostly be an alarm clock that you could give a
rlm@146 766 time range, say 7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an
rlm@146 767 ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90 min sleep
rlm@146 768 cycles. You would feel much more rested upon waking up, and would
rlm@146 769 wake up faster. There might be some other uses for the EEG data as
rlm@146 770 well.
rlm@145 771
rlm@146 772 ** Image Compression
rlm@146 773 Use a library like gimp or opencv to process an image to make it
rlm@146 774 have less entropy, then store the reverse of those operations along
rlm@146 775 with the compressed simpler image as a super-compressed image file
rlm@146 776 (possibly accepting some losses). Trades file size for
rlm@146 777 decompression time, and allows one to cheat by using information in
rlm@146 778 gimp/opencv to compress the image.
rlm@145 779
rlm@146 780 ** Aldehyde-Stabalized Cryopreservation
rlm@146 781 Why not use a fixative to buy enough time to ramp up
rlm@146 782 cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room temperature? Then,
rlm@146 783 the whole system can be rapidly cooled and vitrified. This method
rlm@146 784 "severs the biological link" in that the fixatives are highly
rlm@146 785 toxic, but current vitrification procedures do this anyway since
rlm@146 786 there can be a lot of freezing damage.
rlm@145 787
rlm@146 788 ** Dilated Security Camera
rlm@146 789 A security camera that would capture full video footage of
rlm@146 790 everything at 60fps but then decide to keep only every 1 frame
rlm@146 791 every 5 seconds unless there's something "interesting" happening.
rlm@145 792
rlm@146 793 ** Bitcoin Wallet
rlm@146 794 Part of "server culture", this would be something like
rlm@146 795 "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as your personal trusted
rlm@146 796 access to your own bitcoins from anywhere.
rlm@145 797
rlm@146 798 ** Libpay
rlm@146 799 This would be a free library which would enable micro-donations to
rlm@146 800 software projects and other projects, so that you could donate a
rlm@146 801 penny to "emacs" and it would be automatically split up to every
rlm@146 802 person who has ever contributed to emacs in proportion to the
rlm@146 803 amount of community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the
rlm@146 804 community decides. This might make it possible for programmers to
rlm@146 805 live entirely off of free programming.
rlm@145 806
rlm@146 807 ** Pronouns
rlm@146 808 Use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve pronoun
rlm@146 809 referents and gender neutrality, are short to say, and you can
rlm@146 810 encode useful information into the choice of letter. For example,
rlm@146 811 instead of "Meetings shall be presided over by the president,
rlm@146 812 unless she is absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the
rlm@146 813 president, unless P is absent." We already use this a little, since
rlm@146 814 I and U are reserved for the subject and object respectively.
rlm@145 815
rlm@146 816 ** Phone DSP
rlm@146 817 Software app that inserts an audio DSP between the input to a phone
rlm@146 818 and the output. The DSP is delicious and configurable, and can
rlm@146 819 allow men to make their voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you
rlm@146 820 to hear your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how
rlm@146 821 their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to immediately
rlm@146 822 change the parameters of the DSP using good presets.
rlm@145 823
rlm@146 824 ** Restaurant Receipts
rlm@146 825 Use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid copies.
rlm@145 826
rlm@146 827 ** Crossdressing
rlm@146 828 Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to wear a burka.
rlm@145 829
rlm@146 830 ** Book-Mode
rlm@146 831 Intelligent color highlighting for books and articles. It would
rlm@146 832 disambiguate pronouns and involved references. For example, if
rlm@146 833 "Rachael" was assigned the color red, and "the blonde haired girl"
rlm@146 834 refers to "Rachael", then "the blonde haired girl" would be colored
rlm@146 835 red. Also, you could disambiguate multi part run-on sentences by
rlm@146 836 highlighting each subcomponent. Maybe would also have applications
rlm@146 837 to scientific reading.
rlm@145 838
rlm@146 839 ** Handheld Light Rain Measurement
rlm@146 840 This would be a clear, teflon coated plastic disk with a camera
rlm@146 841 underneath the disk. You would be able to hold the device out and
rlm@146 842 it would measure the rate of accumulation of water droplets from
rlm@146 843 fine mists and light rain by using computer vision to measure the
rlm@146 844 diameters of the drops.
rlm@145 845
rlm@146 846 ** Big Brother Farming
rlm@146 847 This would be a vision system that would individually monitor each
rlm@146 848 plant and turn on water, etc to ensure maximum/uniform growth for
rlm@146 849 each plant.
rlm@145 850
rlm@146 851 ** Discrete Faucet
rlm@146 852 A faucet with discrete ticks instead of continuous.
rlm@145 853
rlm@146 854 ** Laser Circle
rlm@146 855 Take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one end at an
rlm@146 856 oblique angle. It will make a perfect, large circle on the wall,
rlm@146 857 converting a laser beam into a laser cone, preserving most of the
rlm@146 858 energy of the laser.
rlm@145 859
rlm@146 860 ** Invisible Glass
rlm@146 861 Take a container of liquid and embed a glass sculpture made out of
rlm@146 862 glass that has exactly the same index of refraction and color of
rlm@146 863 the liquid. Then the sculpture will be totally invisible in the
rlm@146 864 container, and will only be revealed when the liquid is
rlm@146 865 drained. The container might be a fancy wine/spirit bottle or an
rlm@146 866 hourglass.
rlm@145 867
rlm@146 868 ** Caterpillar people
rlm@146 869 A race of caterpillar like creatures gains intelligence after eons
rlm@146 870 of predation by birds, etc. These caterpillar creatures still
rlm@146 871 undergo metamorphosis into a large butterfly-like creature. The
rlm@146 872 metamorphosis process turns the caterpillar's brain into mush and
rlm@146 873 reforms it into a minimal, dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely
rlm@146 874 destroying the person the caterpillar was. The society develops all
rlm@146 875 sorts of customs and religious interpretations of the
rlm@146 876 metamorphosis. It is viewed as good and natural by some since it is
rlm@146 877 part of their life cycle and necessary to propagate the species, as
rlm@146 878 only the butterflies can mate. Some think that the butterflies are
rlm@146 879 still the same person because they have the same soul, even they no
rlm@146 880 longer posses the memories or personality of the original
rlm@146 881 caterpillar. Some see the butterfly form as the "true form" of the
rlm@146 882 species, since the butterflies can fly, mate, and are
rlm@146 883 beautiful. Many make a big deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the
rlm@146 884 caterpillar's mind is actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see
rlm@146 885 it as a terrible tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try
rlm@146 886 to stop the metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very
rlm@146 887 important members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery
rlm@146 888 to prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as
rlm@146 889 themselves.
rlm@145 890
rlm@146 891 This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being
rlm@146 892 something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,
rlm@146 893 something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that
rlm@146 894 hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains
rlm@146 895 now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic
rlm@146 896 legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a
rlm@146 897 compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second gender
rlm@146 898 characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes homophobia
rlm@146 899 look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of pain and death
rlm@146 900 is made to look like the tragedy it is through the lens of the the
rlm@146 901 caterpillar people.
rlm@145 902
rlm@146 903 ** Relationships as a Business
rlm@146 904 [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx][Turnover-Crisis]] is an excellent talk about the "culture of
rlm@146 905 quitting," which is about better business by letting people go
rlm@146 906 instead of keeping them around past their "apex". Focuses on
rlm@146 907 information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni network, which for
rlm@146 908 relationships would be a group of satisfied ex-lovers, who would
rlm@146 909 recommend new people your way, and who might consider coming to you
rlm@146 910 again, refreshed from their time away with new
rlm@146 911 stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and how
rlm@146 912 they worked out.
rlm@145 913
rlm@146 914 ** Psychic Crystal
rlm@146 915 In a science fiction story, this would be an object that is very
rlm@146 916 easy to move physically but is extremely difficult to move with
rlm@146 917 telekinesis.
rlm@145 918
rlm@146 919 ** True Reflection
rlm@146 920 There's a "true mirror" in the MIT student center -- it's two
rlm@146 921 normal mirrors at right angles, like staring at a corner of a
rlm@146 922 room. The light reflects so that it shows you what you actually
rlm@146 923 look like, instead of your mirror image.
rlm@145 924
rlm@146 925 ** Remote Control Wasp
rlm@146 926 Use computer to drive wings with remote power/logic.
rlm@145 927
rlm@146 928 ** Encrypted Email Phone Book
rlm@146 929 Public (distributed?) database of email->private-key pairs, to
rlm@146 930 enable automatic encryption.
rlm@146 931
rlm@146 932 ** Universal Eye Color
rlm@146 933 Every equivalent creature will see each others' eyes as black --
rlm@146 934 it's universal. Even if the creatures see in radio waves, and their
rlm@146 935 eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged metal, when those creatures look
rlm@146 936 at each other, they will see black, the absence of light and color
rlm@146 937 (since it's being absorbed by the sensor array).
rlm@146 938
rlm@146 939 ** Intelligent Microwave
rlm@146 940 It learns where the hot nodes of its fields are, and uses them to
rlm@146 941 evenly heat any food item. It has an infrared camera or something
rlm@146 942 to keep track of how hot the food is. That way, you don't get bowls
rlm@146 943 where the edges are boiling, while the center is still
rlm@146 944 frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since the
rlm@146 945 exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of the
rlm@146 946 food. Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer, just a
rlm@146 947 desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automatically
rlm@146 948 defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much
rlm@146 949 faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with
rlm@146 950 heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor
rlm@146 951 too.
rlm@145 952
rlm@146 953 + Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would
rlm@146 954 "sputter" and splash liquid much less.
rlm@145 955
rlm@146 956 + Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked foods
rlm@146 957 and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have been
rlm@146 958 cooked before -- it can get faster the more it's used.
rlm@145 959
rlm@146 960 ** Flesh Pillow
rlm@146 961 A pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete with simulated
rlm@146 962 temperature, bones, and heartbeat.
rlm@145 963
rlm@146 964 ** Light Filter
rlm@146 965 Works like light-tweezers to mechanically separate fluids with
rlm@146 966 different indexes of refraction.
rlm@145 967
rlm@146 968 ** Silver Socks
rlm@146 969 Socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial properties.
rlm@145 970
rlm@146 971 ** Rod of Moses
rlm@146 972 Device to distill urine through evaporation and easily dispose of
rlm@146 973 urea crystals for use in desert -- produce drinkable water and live
rlm@146 974 an extra few days!
rlm@145 975
rlm@146 976 ** Lottery Scraper
rlm@146 977 Web scraper which monitors various lotteries, looking for "special"
rlm@146 978 gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x winnings on Wednesdays) and
rlm@146 979 computes expected value...
rlm@145 980
rlm@146 981 ** Memristiors Novel Design
rlm@146 982 Make an evolutionary algorithm to make old stuff using all four
rlm@146 983 basic circuit elements.
rlm@145 984
rlm@146 985 ** Conductive Concrete
rlm@146 986 Concrete that has embedded metal fibers so that it can conduct
rlm@146 987 electricity.
rlm@145 988
rlm@146 989 ** Little Bitty Melting Pot
rlm@146 990 Might be useful for some types of manufacturing/3D printing -- how
rlm@146 991 small can an induction melter be made, for example.
rlm@145 992
rlm@146 993 ** True Pure Tones
rlm@146 994 Hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the nerves of the
rlm@146 995 ear. Like when Adelson "saw green".
rlm@145 996
rlm@146 997 ** Mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp
rlm@146 998 would be an object with two levers -- you pull on one lever and the
rlm@146 999 other moves the same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is
rlm@146 1000 driving. This analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.
rlm@145 1001
rlm@146 1002 ** Light Capacitor
rlm@146 1003 Suspend some ball of material with a high index of refraction and
rlm@146 1004 shine light into it so it gets stuck -- would the light stay
rlm@146 1005 trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited quantities of light
rlm@146 1006 inside the sphere (which could then be released slowly by
rlm@146 1007 frustrated internal reflection?
rlm@145 1008
rlm@146 1009 ** Reading Comprehension
rlm@146 1010 use the screen capture routine to make a quiz program that
rlm@146 1011 constructs questions about the content you seemed to gloss over
rlm@146 1012 while reading. could be easy if the pdf came with embedded
rlm@146 1013 questions. Dylan: automatically generate word-cloud about the
rlm@146 1014 parts you found most interesting; help others who read the same
rlm@146 1015 stuff by drawing attention to the interesting parts.
rlm@145 1016
rlm@146 1017 ** Optimize an Article
rlm@146 1018 Capture reading of a scientific article via screen capture while
rlm@146 1019 people read it, then use it to make the article better. like the
rlm@146 1020 movie-pruning idea.
rlm@145 1021
rlm@146 1022 ** Movie Pruning
rlm@146 1023 Movies always are too long at first. One way to shorten them
rlm@146 1024 ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the move and then
rlm@146 1025 remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which there are a lot
rlm@146 1026 of blinking (average this over multiple people) better yet, put it
rlm@146 1027 online and do it across thousands of people. I got this from
rlm@146 1028 youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill which is composed
rlm@146 1029 entirely of the parts in which people had their eyes
rlm@146 1030 closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their eyes
rlm@146 1031 off of? Just take those parts out!
rlm@145 1032
rlm@146 1033 ** Explosive Thermite Epoxy Putty
rlm@146 1034 One part would contain the rust, one part the aluminum.
rlm@145 1035
rlm@146 1036 ** Concrete Epoxy
rlm@146 1037 Epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.
rlm@145 1038
rlm@146 1039 ** Hard Sword
rlm@146 1040 Make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of martensite for
rlm@146 1041 the cutting part; it should be a better sword.
rlm@145 1042
rlm@146 1043 ** Close Range Wireless
rlm@146 1044 use the induction technology used to recharge electric toothbrushes
rlm@146 1045 with no metal links to send data without any metal at all!
rlm@145 1046
rlm@146 1047 ** Perfect Pitch
rlm@146 1048 Learn perfect pitch using another sense in combination (sight or
rlm@146 1049 touch).
rlm@145 1050
rlm@146 1051 ** Bio Metallic Structure
rlm@146 1052 Metal grids with seeds inside, which grow together and form a
rlm@146 1053 durable biological matrix. The metal substrate delivers
rlm@146 1054 water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?) Dylan: enrich plants
rlm@146 1055 with inorganic compounds; electrical interfaces in cellular plant
rlm@146 1056 matter => remote-controlled photosynthetic/bioluminescent
rlm@146 1057 structures.
rlm@145 1058
rlm@146 1059 ** Conducting Extracellular Matrix
rlm@146 1060 To allow better control of organic systems and an enhanced nervous
rlm@146 1061 system.
rlm@145 1062
rlm@146 1063 ** Cross-Modal Memory Hashing
rlm@146 1064 A way to retrieve memories more robustly.
rlm@145 1065
rlm@146 1066 ** Greener than Green
rlm@146 1067 If you stare at a red light, then you get a green after-image. If
rlm@146 1068 you immediately look at something green while still seeing the
rlm@146 1069 green after-image, you will experience a Green like none you've
rlm@146 1070 ever seen before -- color so intense it's beyond the range of
rlm@146 1071 anything that exists in the world.
rlm@145 1072
rlm@146 1073 ** Wooden Refrigerator
rlm@146 1074 To give food a better taste Dylan: like barrels for wine, or planks
rlm@146 1075 for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor planks" for your pre-existing
rlm@146 1076 fridge. Need to mitigate effect of temperature on volatility?
rlm@145 1077
rlm@146 1078 ** Radioactive Transmutation Molecule by Molecule
rlm@146 1079 Create precious metals or something else economically
rlm@146 1080 advantageous. Best transmutation I can come up with is mercury into
rlm@146 1081 gold, but it's not economically viable.
rlm@145 1082
rlm@146 1083 ** Preservation Via Crowding
rlm@146 1084 Inoculate food with tons of harmless bacteria so that there's no
rlm@146 1085 room for bad bacteria as a method of preservation
rlm@145 1086
rlm@146 1087 ** Old-School Preservation
rlm@146 1088 Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon as a way to store
rlm@146 1089 sterilized liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o
rlm@146 1090 refrigeration.
rlm@145 1091
rlm@146 1092 ** Restaurant Policy
rlm@146 1093 Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter of course -- make
rlm@146 1094 ambiance much better.
rlm@145 1095
rlm@146 1096 ** Clean Windows
rlm@146 1097 Make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant water (and reduces
rlm@146 1098 the pressure a bit) and use it to clean windows of buildings.
rlm@145 1099
rlm@146 1100 ** Ocarina
rlm@146 1101 Make an ocarina out of pure silver. Might have really good acoustic
rlm@146 1102 properties.
rlm@145 1103
rlm@146 1104 ** Fire Pen
rlm@146 1105 Pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing any
rlm@146 1106 ink. Is there a way to make it runnable from body heat?
rlm@145 1107
rlm@146 1108 ** Website to Design Your Own Soda
rlm@146 1109 and label, and have it mailed to you / sell it from your own online
rlm@146 1110 store.
rlm@145 1111
rlm@146 1112 ** Ocean Power
rlm@146 1113 Solar panels that float on the ocean.
rlm@145 1114
rlm@146 1115 ** Handcuffs with More Than Two Cuffs (3?)
rlm@146 1116 Great for daisy chaining people, binding them to environment, etc.
rlm@145 1117
rlm@146 1118 ** Vector Based SOUND Files
rlm@146 1119 Like the pictures but with SOUND. codify sound in a language with
rlm@146 1120 enough symbols so that it can describe everything and encode it in
rlm@146 1121 that. would be like going from speech to text or smtg. Could also
rlm@146 1122 store sound as an image of the wavefront encoded as a vector image.
rlm@145 1123
rlm@146 1124 ** Genetically Engineered Glowing Fruit
rlm@146 1125 They have some animals that can glow, but glowing fruit that you
rlm@146 1126 eat would be AWESOME!
rlm@145 1127
rlm@146 1128 ** The Body as a Key to Memory
rlm@146 1129 IF memories are encoded using particular sensory impressions, what
rlm@146 1130 happens if the sensory organ itself changes? those memories would
rlm@146 1131 become inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember much from
rlm@146 1132 our childhoods. also, could this happen throughout life as well?
rlm@146 1133 Could S remember stuff from his childhood?
rlm@145 1134
rlm@146 1135 ** Lighter Flint on Spring
rlm@146 1136 Make hot, throw it at something, and it makes sparkles!
rlm@145 1137
rlm@146 1138 ** Rare Bubbles
rlm@146 1139 Engineer a material which has both ductility and high surface
rlm@146 1140 tension to make the "third" minimal-surface-energy solution to a
rlm@146 1141 bubble suspended between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are
rlm@146 1142 cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles, and a
rlm@146 1143 double-cone)
rlm@146 1144
rlm@146 1145 ** Magic Textbook
rlm@146 1146 whose content can be varied continuously alter level of difficulty,
rlm@146 1147 rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain other discipline,
rlm@146 1148 etc. Content generated dynamically from knowledge base, along with
rlm@146 1149 questions that are moreover altered to guide knowledge
rlm@146 1150 acquisition. Motivation: One book of knowledge. /One./
rlm@145 1151
rlm@145 1152
rlm@145 1153 #+BEGIN_HTML
rlm@145 1154 <p class="end"> Still want more? Visit the <a href="./ideas.html">Raw
rlm@145 1155 Ideas</a> page, but prepare for extreme half-bakedness. </p>
rlm@145 1156 #+END_HTML