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more ideas.
author Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu>
date Sun, 30 Nov 2014 12:40:33 -0800
parents 8bf12217d0fa
children 695c5f257d37
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137:8bf12217d0fa 138:98ba603e251a
28 28
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
34 - microwave time :: the cooking time you enter on most microwaves is
35 insane. It's expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a
36 combination of base 10 and base 60. You can get absurd things
37 like 100 < 61, and 120 == 80! I wonder if these hybrid base
38 systems could be very useful for some purposes!
39
40 - three-eyes :: if you had three eyes, would you still draw cubes like
41 we currently draw them? Or would all 2D-representations of 3D
42 space always look hopelessly fake?
43
44 - visual taste/smell assay :: get a grid of bacteria, each expressing
45 a human taste/smell receptor linked to some sort of fluorscent
46 activity or ion pump. Use a camera / electrical grid to transduce
47 the smell / taste signal into bits!
48
49 - carabiner mushroom lock :: you can take a trapazodial carabiner and
50 make it so that a chain link is caught between the wide end of
51 the carabiner and another chain attached to the carabiner.
52
53 - children's tool shop :: I think that kids should be provided with
54 tool shops -- these would be nice sheds with a good collection of
55 tools to do various things -- circuit components and soldering
56 irons, wires, a small lathe, drill press, belt sander, a
57 centrifuge, microscope, and telescope, etc. The idea is that the
58 kid can now think, "I could use X to do this thing that I'm
59 thinking about" -- the building becomes an extension of the kid's
60 body & mind.
61
62 - fluid display :: like the previous idea about matching refractances
63 between glass and liquid, except you make a lot of
64 switchable glass tubes in various patterns in the
65 glass, and actively pump colored liquid through the
66 tubes (the tubes have glass-like fluid in them by
67 default.) The result is that you can cause the
68 tubes to appear and dissappear, and vary their
69 colors as well!
33 70
34 - immunoincompatibility :: take the human genome, and refactor it so 71 - immunoincompatibility :: take the human genome, and refactor it so
35 that it doesn't use a particular codon at all. Then remove the 72 that it doesn't use a particular codon at all. Then remove the
36 support from our ribosomes for that codon. What does this do for 73 support from our ribosomes for that codon. What does this do for
37 us? It makes us immune to almost all viruses! 74 us? It makes us immune to almost all viruses!