Mercurial > thoughts
comparison org/ideas.org @ 85:41741f76b567
merge, and an idea about the power of ice.
author | Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu> |
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date | Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:37:11 -0500 |
parents | dfcbbb3d4b9a 0653ed4b00a3 |
children | 8bd81d22ae93 |
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84:dfcbbb3d4b9a | 85:41741f76b567 |
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29 #+begin_quote | 29 #+begin_quote |
30 There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about | 30 There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about |
31 getting credit. | 31 getting credit. |
32 #+end_quote | 32 #+end_quote |
33 | 33 |
34 <<<<<<< local | |
34 - pronuncation guide :: a simple webpage where you type in a word and | 35 - pronuncation guide :: a simple webpage where you type in a word and |
35 it returns a simpe, English sentence describing exactly how to | 36 it returns a simpe, English sentence describing exactly how to |
36 pronounce the word. For people who don't want to learn IPA. | 37 pronounce the word. For people who don't want to learn IPA. |
37 | 38 ======= |
39 - learning to teleport :: scifi idea, this is a story about a person | |
40 who is struggling with his/her society's ideas about | |
41 teleportation. It's considered a fundamental part of being a | |
42 member of that society (after all, the difference between animals | |
43 and humans is that humans are creatures of pure information while | |
44 animals are burdened with base matter, "that's how you travel the | |
45 stars, etc") Humans are born normally, grow up, and then | |
46 eventually transcend via destructive upload. Analogies to jumping | |
47 off a diving board into a pool (which I simply /could not do/ for | |
48 a long time), etc. | |
49 >>>>>>> other | |
50 | |
51 <<<<<<< local | |
38 - touch vision :: inspired by GelSight, I want to reexamine cortex and | 52 - touch vision :: inspired by GelSight, I want to reexamine cortex and |
39 see if I could implement touch as a very low range | 53 see if I could implement touch as a very low range |
40 form of vision. | 54 form of vision. |
41 | 55 ======= |
56 - bitcoins for immigrants :: A common case with Mexican immigrants | |
57 (illegal or not) is that they want to send money they've earned | |
58 in the US back to their families in Mexico. They currently do this | |
59 through things like Money Gram or Western Union, and they get | |
60 fleeced in the process with fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce | |
61 the cost of sending money from America to Mexico, but I don't | |
62 believe that it's currently used for that among Mexican | |
63 immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I bet you could | |
64 set up physical locations like those obnoxious Western Union huts | |
65 in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly undercut | |
66 them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin might | |
67 be in order. There's some money to be made there because there is | |
68 great demand, and it's a good thing to boot! | |
69 >>>>>>> other | |
70 | |
71 <<<<<<< local | |
72 ======= | |
73 - reverse eye-tracking :: A painting that is actually a digital screen | |
74 with a camera. It records people's eye tracks permanently. It's | |
75 "artistic" because paintings are normally these things that you | |
76 look at without changing, but this one is changed the second you | |
77 look at it, recording where /you/ looked forever for others to | |
78 see. Make it be a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the | |
79 breasts and groin area light up with interest from all the males | |
80 passing by. | |
81 | |
82 - smart toilets :: Instead of using indirect measures like infrared | |
83 detectors of the presence of a person, use computer | |
84 vision to directly measure whether the toilet needs | |
85 to be flushed. I think a lot of things will end up | |
86 going this way as we get better computer vision. | |
87 | |
88 - validate chemopreservation :: chemopreservation is difficult to | |
89 validate because it destroys the functionality of a brain, and | |
90 brain simulation will take a long time to mature as a | |
91 technology. However, one very powerful way to validate | |
92 chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn | |
93 something with high complexity such as a number or the solution | |
94 to a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain | |
95 chemically, slice it up, and read /that specific memory/ from the | |
96 detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable. | |
97 | |
98 - candy screw :: edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw | |
99 as well. | |
100 | |
101 - better bibliography :: when writing a thesis or paper, have the | |
102 bibliography not just be an opaque list of resources, but have it | |
103 be a list of /summaries/ and /qualities/ that each paper has in | |
104 the context of the paper being written. When examining a | |
105 bibliography, I want to know if reading the papers in the | |
106 bibliography are worth my time, and I also am probably also | |
107 interested in exactly the things that are being discussed in the | |
108 paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the perfect place to | |
109 provide information about the referenced papers from the | |
110 author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in my own | |
111 thesis. | |
112 | |
113 - digital inter-library loan :: libraries at universities already do | |
114 inter-library loans for books, so why not do the same for access | |
115 to stupid paywalled digital papers? All the universities could | |
116 allow access to articles for registered students to all the files | |
117 available through any participating university. This could be | |
118 achieved by sending requests through proxies at participating | |
119 universities. Each university would decide who at the university | |
120 can access the proxy network. Access to the proxy network could | |
121 be made easy using something like http://libx.org/. | |
122 | |
123 - chess visual :: to show the vast size of the game trees considered | |
124 by computers, show two people playing chess in a | |
125 void. They are floating in space, and there is a | |
126 simple chess board between them. Then, as they play, | |
127 the game tree's they are considering are drawn | |
128 behind him. The root of the tree starts centered in | |
129 their heads or whatever they use to think, and the | |
130 tree grows out from behind, never crossing the | |
131 dividing plane between the two players. Each | |
132 player's tree is a different color. As they grow, | |
133 there are animations for pruning, etc. Eventually, | |
134 they look like the hemispheres of a brain, wings, | |
135 etc. A human's tree might occasionally have a long | |
136 chain, while the computer tree would be more | |
137 uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern | |
138 laptop. Use actual data when fighting two computers! | |
139 | |
140 - time verification :: some standard way to verify that some piece of | |
141 data was recorded at a specific time. Might involve a time | |
142 server, a key for each time period, something like that. | |
143 | |
144 - tamper proof gold bars :: [[http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html][this site]] offers gold plated tungsten bars | |
145 as "novelty" items. One reason to prefer coins is because they | |
146 are much harder to counterfeit because there is less surface area | |
147 to mass ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design | |
148 because they can hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar | |
149 could be given the same protections (and more) that gold coins | |
150 have to offer by changing it into a "gold book", which would have | |
151 hundreds of "pages" of gold bound together. This could be | |
152 implemented with multiple steel rods going through the book which | |
153 can be removed, or some more classier mechanism for holding the | |
154 pages. The point is that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and | |
155 people would perform this test before buying), thus guaranteeing | |
156 it's authenticity. | |
157 | |
158 - aurellem shirt :: I should make an aurellem star symbol tee-shirt. | |
159 | |
160 >>>>>>> other | |
42 - high school science :: this is a lesson in scientific ethics. The | 161 - high school science :: this is a lesson in scientific ethics. The |
43 goal is to calculate /g/, the local gravitational | 162 goal is to calculate /g/, the local gravitational |
44 acceleration. The students are told that the textbook says it's | 163 acceleration. The students are told that the textbook says it's |
45 /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the experiment. See how they | 164 /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the experiment. See how they |
46 doctor their results to get closer to the textbook value. It's | 165 doctor their results to get closer to the textbook value. It's |
61 - mirror toilet :: a toilet with a square basin made or mirror instead | 180 - mirror toilet :: a toilet with a square basin made or mirror instead |
62 or porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a | 181 or porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a |
63 wipe job you have done / watch how your excretion | 182 wipe job you have done / watch how your excretion |
64 system works. | 183 system works. |
65 | 184 |
66 - test dummies :: why don't we clone encephalic humans and use then to | 185 - test dummies :: why don't we clone anencephalic humans and use then to |
67 test /in vivo/ human organ systems and drugs? It | 186 test /in vivo/ human organ systems and drugs? It |
68 would be ethical as long as there are women who are | 187 would be ethical as long as there are women who are |
69 willing to host the clones, and it would be a | 188 willing to host the clones, and it would be a |
70 tremendous resource for studying the human body. I | 189 tremendous resource for studying the human body. I |
71 see nothing wrong with it morally, since no one is | 190 see nothing wrong with it morally, since no one is |
73 more advanced technology. | 192 more advanced technology. |
74 | 193 |
75 - X-ray telepresence :: given that a doctor is operating on a patient | 194 - X-ray telepresence :: given that a doctor is operating on a patient |
76 via telepresence, one cool things you can do is shine X-rays into | 195 via telepresence, one cool things you can do is shine X-rays into |
77 the patient to view the insides during real time. If the system | 196 the patient to view the insides during real time. If the system |
78 was coupled with a Baysean model of the layout of the structure, | 197 was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure, |
79 and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the | 198 and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the |
80 model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage | 199 model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage |
81 and surgery risk could be minimized. | 200 and surgery risk could be minimized. |
82 | 201 |
83 - superfluid vascular system :: I wonder what would happen if you | 202 - superfluid vascular system :: I wonder what would happen if you |
136 some other uses for the EEG data as well. | 255 some other uses for the EEG data as well. |
137 | 256 |
138 - image compression :: use a library like gimp or opencv to process an | 257 - image compression :: use a library like gimp or opencv to process an |
139 image to make it have less entropy, then store the reverse of | 258 image to make it have less entropy, then store the reverse of |
140 those operations along with the compressed simpler image as a | 259 those operations along with the compressed simpler image as a |
141 super-compressed image file (possibly sccapting some | 260 super-compressed image file (possibly accepting some |
142 lesses). Trades file size for decompression time, and allows one | 261 losses). Trades file size for decompression time, and allows one |
143 to cheat by using information in gimp/opencv to compress the | 262 to cheat by using information in gimp/opencv to compress the |
144 image. | 263 image. |
145 | 264 |
146 - fixed cryopreservation :: why not use a fixative to buy enough time | 265 - fixed cryopreservation :: why not use a fixative to buy enough time |
147 to ramp up cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room | 266 to ramp up cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room |
316 metal, when those creatures look at each other, they will see | 435 metal, when those creatures look at each other, they will see |
317 black, the absence of light and color (since it's being absorbed | 436 black, the absence of light and color (since it's being absorbed |
318 by the sensor array). | 437 by the sensor array). |
319 | 438 |
320 - intelligent microwave :: it learns where the hot nodes of its fields | 439 - intelligent microwave :: it learns where the hot nodes of its fields |
321 are, and uses them to evenly heat any food item. It has an infared | 440 are, and uses them to evenly heat any food item. It has an infrared |
322 camera or something to keep track of how hot the food is. That way, | 441 camera or something to keep track of how hot the food is. That way, |
323 you don't get bowls where the edges are boiling, while the center is | 442 you don't get bowls where the edges are boiling, while the center is |
324 still frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since | 443 still frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since |
325 the exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of | 444 the exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of |
326 the food. Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer, | 445 the food. Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer, |
360 - silver socks :: socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial | 479 - silver socks :: socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial |
361 properties. | 480 properties. |
362 | 481 |
363 - UROP :: magnet gear/metal teeth tape | 482 - UROP :: magnet gear/metal teeth tape |
364 | 483 |
365 - rod of moses :: device to distill urine through evaporation and | 484 - Rod of Moses :: device to distill urine through evaporation and |
366 easily dispose of urea crystals for use in desert -- | 485 easily dispose of urea crystals for use in desert -- |
367 produce drinkable water. | 486 produce drinkable water. |
368 | 487 |
369 - UROP :: Make the LED in line with the flow for the micro injector, so | 488 - UROP :: Make the LED in line with the flow for the micro injector, so |
370 that it may transmit maximum flow. Motor that changes | 489 that it may transmit maximum flow. Motor that changes |