view org/ideas.org @ 87:79d17299ada0

misc ideas.
author Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu>
date Mon, 10 Mar 2014 12:58:36 -0400
parents 1904bdd70254
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1 #+title: Big List O' Ideas
2 #+author: Robert McIntyre
3 #+email: rlm@mit.edu
4 #+description: list of ideas from the last ~ 7 years
5 #+keywords: aurellem ideas half-baked random
6 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org
7 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org
8 #+babel: :mkdirp yes :noweb yes :exports both
10 * Ideas
12 This is a list of all the ideas I've had that I felt like writing down
13 for the past ~ 7 years. Some of them could be practical inventions and
14 are "just" waiting the that 95% perspiration to bring them to
15 fruition, some are ideas for science fiction, and some are simple
16 observations. Some are really only for my own personal notes and are
17 not meant to be comprehensible. They are arranged roughly in reverse
18 chronological order, with the most recent ideas at the top of the
19 list. The ones at the bottom of the list are heavily influenced by my
20 time at MIT.
22 If you find some of these interesting and would like to collaborate on
23 them with me or discuss them in more detail, I'd love to hear from
24 you. You can email me at ideas@aurellem.org.
26 If you want to use one of these ideas as your own and run with it,
27 please feel free. I'd love to hear about it if you do.
29 #+begin_quote
30 There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about
31 getting credit.
32 #+end_quote
34 - suicide parasite :: sometimes, people kill themselves for no good
35 reason. We often explain this with things like "hidden
36 depression" or we say that they had something like chronic jaw or
37 back pain. I think that smells of rationalization. I don't buy
38 it. I propose that in many suicide cases there is a disease that
39 causes the suicidal behaviour. We already know that certain
40 parasites have mind-bending properties in other animals, even
41 mammals like mice. It's not much of a stretch to imagine a
42 parasite that causes suicuides in humans. Some problems:
43 - What does the suicide parasite get out of it? :: This might be
44 answered by the whole thing being a glitch caused by
45 cross-species contamination. Toxoplasma works this way.
46 - What predictions does a disease model make :: suicuide should
47 be more common amone people who share a contaion
48 vector. There should be suicuides that don't make any
49 sense : people who weren't really depressed, who had no
50 reason to kill themselves. People who have killed themselves
51 should have a higher incidence of some unknown parasite in
52 their brains.
54 - domestic insects :: People should eat more bugs, but why not do some
55 major domestication research to make very appealing bugs?
57 - birth-clones :: What if each person was intentionally split at birth
58 into a normal embryo and a few "backup" cells which
59 is then frozen. The backup cells are created just
60 the same way as natural identical twins. The backups
61 can be used to regenerate organs. ect. Also, it
62 would be a good sci fi concept, because you could
63 have a culture where people reward people who were
64 especially awesome are "reborn" from their
65 backups. Imagine having a young bach every
66 generation, etc.
68 - cortex-search :: use the repertoire of actions learned to limit the
69 search space of possible actions.
71 - no-float-ice :: cup that has cross beams at the bottom where ice
72 forms. Then when you drink liquid from the glass,
73 the ice stays at the bottom and doesn't hit your
74 lips. For bars and fancy things.
76 - bitcoins for immigrants :: A common case with Mexican immigrants
77 (illegal or not) is that they want to send money they've earned
78 in the US back to their families in Mexico. They currently do this
79 through things like Money Gram or Western Union, and they get
80 fleeced in the process with fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce
81 the cost of sending money from America to Mexico, but I don't
82 believe that it's currently used for that among Mexican
83 immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I bet you could
84 set up physical locations like those obnoxious Western Union huts
85 in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly undercut
86 them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin might
87 be in order. There's some money to be made there because there is
88 great demand, and it's a good thing to boot!
90 - reverse eye-tracking :: A painting that is actually a digital screen
91 with a camera. It records people's eye tracks permanently. It's
92 "artistic" because paintings are normally these things that you
93 look at without changing, but this one is changed the second you
94 look at it, recording where /you/ looked forever for others to
95 see. Make it be a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the
96 breasts and groin area light up with interest from all the males
97 passing by.
99 - smart toilets :: Instead of using indirect measures like infrared
100 detectors of the presence of a person, use computer
101 vision to directly measure whether the toilet needs
102 to be flushed. I think a lot of things will end up
103 going this way as we get better computer vision.
105 - validate chemopreservation :: chemopreservation is difficult to
106 validate because it destroys the functionality of a brain, and
107 brain simulation will take a long time to mature as a
108 technology. However, one very powerful way to validate
109 chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn
110 something with high complexity such as a number or the solution
111 to a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain
112 chemically, slice it up, and read /that specific memory/ from the
113 detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable.
115 - candy screw :: edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw
116 as well.
118 - better bibliography :: when writing a thesis or paper, have the
119 bibliography not just be an opaque list of resources, but have it
120 be a list of /summaries/ and /qualities/ that each paper has in
121 the context of the paper being written. When examining a
122 bibliography, I want to know if reading the papers in the
123 bibliography are worth my time, and I also am probably also
124 interested in exactly the things that are being discussed in the
125 paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the perfect place to
126 provide information about the referenced papers from the
127 author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in my own
128 thesis.
130 - digital inter-library loan :: libraries at universities already do
131 inter-library loans for books, so why not do the same for access
132 to stupid paywalled digital papers? All the universities could
133 allow access to articles for registered students to all the files
134 available through any participating university. This could be
135 achieved by sending requests through proxies at participating
136 universities. Each university would decide who at the university
137 can access the proxy network. Access to the proxy network could
138 be made easy using something like http://libx.org/.
140 - chess visual :: to show the vast size of the game trees considered
141 by computers, show two people playing chess in a
142 void. They are floating in space, and there is a
143 simple chess board between them. Then, as they play,
144 the game tree's they are considering are drawn
145 behind him. The root of the tree starts centered in
146 their heads or whatever they use to think, and the
147 tree grows out from behind, never crossing the
148 dividing plane between the two players. Each
149 player's tree is a different color. As they grow,
150 there are animations for pruning, etc. Eventually,
151 they look like the hemispheres of a brain, wings,
152 etc. A human's tree might occasionally have a long
153 chain, while the computer tree would be more
154 uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern
155 laptop. Use actual data when fighting two computers!
157 - time verification :: some standard way to verify that some piece of
158 data was recorded at a specific time. Might involve a time
159 server, a key for each time period, something like that.
161 - tamper proof gold bars :: [[http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html][this site]] offers gold plated tungsten bars
162 as "novelty" items. One reason to prefer coins is because they
163 are much harder to counterfeit because there is less surface area
164 to mass ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design
165 because they can hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar
166 could be given the same protections (and more) that gold coins
167 have to offer by changing it into a "gold book", which would have
168 hundreds of "pages" of gold bound together. This could be
169 implemented with multiple steel rods going through the book which
170 can be removed, or some more classier mechanism for holding the
171 pages. The point is that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and
172 people would perform this test before buying), thus guaranteeing
173 it's authenticity.
175 - aurellem shirt :: I should make an aurellem star symbol tee-shirt.
177 - high school science :: this is a lesson in scientific ethics. The
178 goal is to calculate /g/, the local gravitational
179 acceleration. The students are told that the textbook says it's
180 /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the experiment. See how they
181 doctor their results to get closer to the textbook value. It's
182 neat because for any given school, /g/ is probably *not* exactly
183 equal to 9.81, because that is just an average!
185 - opencourseware subtitles :: there are ladies who type up lectures
186 while they are being given. These recordings should be kept and
187 given to OCW for subtitles. If the timestamps of keys are
188 recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.
190 - screen locking timing :: you use your computer camera to see if you
191 are sitting in front of the computer. If you are, then the screen
192 will never lock. If you are, then the screen will lock with a
193 30-40 second timeout. It's an extension of using inactivity to
194 initiate the countdown, just with more information.
196 - mirror toilet :: a toilet with a square basin made or mirror instead
197 or porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a
198 wipe job you have done / watch how your excretion
199 system works.
201 - test dummies :: why don't we clone anencephalic humans and use then to
202 test /in vivo/ human organ systems and drugs? It
203 would be ethical as long as there are women who are
204 willing to host the clones, and it would be a
205 tremendous resource for studying the human body. I
206 see nothing wrong with it morally, since no one is
207 suffering, and it stands to save many lives throughout
208 more advanced technology.
210 - X-ray telepresence :: given that a doctor is operating on a patient
211 via telepresence, one cool things you can do is shine X-rays into
212 the patient to view the insides during real time. If the system
213 was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure,
214 and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the
215 model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage
216 and surgery risk could be minimized.
218 - superfluid vascular system :: I wonder what would happen if you
219 replaced the blood in a human with a superfluid. What would the
220 physical dynamics be? Would the superfluid flow through the
221 vasculature, or would it ignore it and travel through the cells,
222 or something else entirely. Since superfluids need to be cold to
223 retain their superfluidity, how would the dynamics change during
224 perfusion of a superfluid, where the fluid gains and looses
225 superfluidity as it goes deeper into the body and is cooled by
226 superfluid from upstream. In summary there are two things to
227 simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with superfluid
228 instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.
230 - projective guessing :: I think that we read and see things by
231 making a really good guess about what we're expecting to see,
232 and then searching for our guess in what we see. If it really
233 doesn't match, then we start to make more guesses / analyze the
234 image from first principles, but most stuff is projective
235 guessing.
237 - Intestinal flora maintenance :: why not inoculate babies at birth
238 with "ideal" gut flora instead of whatever bullshit they
239 naturally get, thus giving them optimal digestive/nutrient
240 extraction capabilities. Might also be able to make their farts
241 not stink for life, too.
243 - server culture : mirrors :: make a distributed system where people
244 can mirror the websites of people they like -- essentially cover
245 the server costs of favored websites. This could make popular
246 websites run at no cost. The system would require that the
247 mirrored content be the same as the official source. Sort of like
248 bit-torrent for websites.
250 - map programming :: one problem with functional programming is that
251 in order to remain functional, you have to pass up arguments up
252 into each calling function to get the full range of behavior
253 from the lower level functions. Normally people come to a
254 compromise involving abstraction and sparing use of dynamic
255 variables to configure runtime behavior. What would be the
256 advantages of making a programming language where every function
257 receives one argument, a map, which contains all the symbol
258 bindings it would ever need? This map is passed on to all
259 subordinate functions. This way, you could replace functions on
260 the fly, and arrange for there to be sensible defaults,
261 etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an interesting idea.
263 - rest nest :: a small EEG device you would attach to your head when
264 you go to sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine
265 your particular sleep cycles. This would mostly be an
266 alarm clock that you could give a time range, say
267 7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an
268 ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90
269 min sleep cycles. You would feel much more rested upon
270 waking up, and would wake up faster. There might be
271 some other uses for the EEG data as well.
273 - image compression :: use a library like gimp or opencv to process an
274 image to make it have less entropy, then store the reverse of
275 those operations along with the compressed simpler image as a
276 super-compressed image file (possibly accepting some
277 losses). Trades file size for decompression time, and allows one
278 to cheat by using information in gimp/opencv to compress the
279 image.
281 - fixed cryopreservation :: why not use a fixative to buy enough time
282 to ramp up cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room
283 temperature? Then, the whole system can be rapidly cooled and
284 vitrified. This method "severs the biological link" in that the
285 fixatives are highly toxic, but current vitrification procedures
286 do this anyway since there can be a lot of freezing damage.
288 - dilated security camera :: a security camera that would capture
289 full video footage of everything at 60fps but then decide to keep
290 only every 1 frame every 5 seconds unless there's something
291 "interesting" happening.
293 - bitcoin wallet :: Part of "server culture", this would be something
294 like "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as
295 your personal trusted access to your own bitcoins
296 from anywhere.
298 - libpay :: this would be a free library which would enable
299 micro-donations to software projects and other projects,
300 so that you could donate a penny to "emacs" and it would
301 be automatically split up to every person who has ever
302 contributed to emacs in proportion to the amount of
303 community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the
304 community decides. This might make it possible for
305 programmers to live entirely off of free programming.
307 - distributed graphics :: Browser based graphics-card accelerated
308 distributed computing API.
310 - pronouns :: use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve
311 pronoun referents and gender neutrality, are short to
312 say, and you can encode useful information into the
313 choice of letter. For example, instead of "Meetings
314 shall be presided over by the president, unless she is
315 absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the
316 president, unless P is absent." We already use this a
317 little, since I and U are reserved for the subject and
318 object respectively.
320 - phone DSP :: software app that inserts an audio DSP between the
321 input to a phone and the output. The DSP is delicious
322 and configurable, and can allow men to make their
323 voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you to hear
324 your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how
325 their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to
326 immediately change the parameters of the DSP using good
327 presets.
329 - predestined body learning :: a good example of predestined learning
330 might be the mirror neurons.
332 - restaurant receipt :: use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid
333 copies.
335 - anti google glass :: glasses with mounted lasers and computer vision
336 that targets the cameras in google glass and destroy them.
338 - wearable towel :: towel with clasp, velcro, whatever, that allows
339 one to wear the towel more securely than just
340 wrapping it tightly and hoping for the best.
342 - crossdressing :: Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to
343 wear a burka.
345 - book-mode :: intelligent color highlighting for books and
346 articles. It would disambiguate pronouns and involved
347 references. For example, if "Rachael" as red, and "the
348 blonde haired girl" refers to "Rachael", then "the
349 blonde haired girl" would he colored red. Also, you
350 could disambiguate multi part run-on sentences by
351 highlighting each subcomponent. Maybe would also have
352 applications to scientific reading.
354 - Handheld light Rain measurement :: this would be a clear, teflon
355 coated plastic disk with a camera underneath the disk. You would
356 be able to hold the device out and it would measure the rate of
357 accumulation of water droplets from fine mists and light rain by
358 using computer vision to measure the diameters of the drops.
360 - Big Brother Farming :: This would be a vision system that would
361 individually monitor each plant and turn on water, etc to ensure
362 maximum/uniform growth for each plant.
364 - Discrete Faucet :: A faucet with discrete ticks instead of
365 continuous.
367 - Laser Circle :: take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one
368 end at an oblique angle. It will make a perfect,
369 large circle on the wall, converting a laser beam
370 into a laser cone, preserving most of the energy of
371 the laser.
373 - Invisible Glass :: Take a container of liquid and embed a
374 glass sculpture made out of glass that has exactly the same index
375 of refraction and color of the liquid. Then the sculpture will be
376 totally invisible in the container, and will only be revealed
377 when the liquid is drained. The container might be a fancy
378 wine/spirit bottle or an hourglass.
380 - Caterpillar people :: A race of caterpillar like creatures gains
381 intelligence after eons of predation by birds, etc. These
382 caterpillar creatures still undergo metamorphosis into a large
383 butterfly-like creature. The metamorphosis process turns the
384 caterpillar's brain into mush and reforms it into a minimal,
385 dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely destroying the person
386 the caterpillar was. The society develops all sorts of customs and
387 religious interpretations of the metamorphosis. It is viewed as
388 good and natural by some since it is part of their life cycle and
389 necessary to propagate the species, as only the butterflies can
390 mate. Some think that the butterflies are still the same person
391 because they have the same soul, even they no longer posses the
392 memories or personality of the original caterpillar. Some see the
393 butterfly form as the "true form" of the species, since the
394 butterflies can fly, mate, and are beautiful. Many make a big
395 deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the caterpillar's mind is
396 actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see it as a terrible
397 tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try to stop the
398 metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very important
399 members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery to
400 prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as themselves.
402 This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being
403 something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,
404 something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that
405 hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains
406 now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic
407 legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a
408 compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second
409 gender characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes
410 homophobia look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of
411 pain and death is made to look like the tragedy it is through the
412 lens of the the caterpillar people.
414 - relationships as a business :: [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx][Turnover-Crisis]] is an excellent talk
415 about the "culture of quitting," which is about better business
416 by letting people go instead of keeping them around past their
417 "apex". Focuses on information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni
418 network, which for relationships would be a group of satisfied
419 ex-lovers, who would recommend new people your way, and who might
420 consider coming to you again, refreshed from their time away with
421 new stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and
422 how they worked out.
424 - coffee with tea :: /rlm-tea/ contains 2% sugar, 10% cream, and 20%
425 dylan coffee. /dylan coffee/ contains 5% sugar,
426 20% cream, and 10% rlm-tea. Start your mornings
427 with recursion!
429 - psychic crystal :: in a science fiction story, this would be an
430 object that is very easy to move physically but is extremely
431 difficult to move with telekinesis.
433 - http://betsofbitco.in/ :: what a great place for an AI/person to
434 prove themselves as a good predictor. I wish this could be
435 automated.
437 - true reflection :: don't forget about that mirror in the student
438 center!, it's two mirrors at right angles, like staring at a
439 corner of a room. The light reflects so that it shows you what
440 you actually look like, instead of your mirror image.
442 - remote control wasp :: use computer to drive wings with remote
443 power/logic.
445 - encrypted email phone book :: public (distributed?) database of
446 email->private-key pairs, to enable automatic encryption.
448 - universal eye color :: every equivalent creature will see each
449 others' eyes as black -- it's universal. Even if the creatures
450 see in radio waves, and their eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged
451 metal, when those creatures look at each other, they will see
452 black, the absence of light and color (since it's being absorbed
453 by the sensor array).
455 - intelligent microwave :: it learns where the hot nodes of its fields
456 are, and uses them to evenly heat any food item. It has an infared
457 camera or something to keep track of how hot the food is. That way,
458 you don't get bowls where the edges are boiling, while the center is
459 still frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since
460 the exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of
461 the food. Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer,
462 just a desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automatically
463 defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much
464 faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with
465 heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor too.
467 + Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would
468 "sputter" and splash liquid much less.
470 + Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked foods
471 and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have been
472 cooked before -- it can get faster the more it's used.
474 - compression :: brain-aware image compression algorithm
476 - Credit card proxy :: would be a company which works like paypal
477 except for real world transactions
479 - Flesh pillow :: a pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete
480 with simulated temperature, bones, and heartbeat.
482 - super screw :: a screw which has only one or two threads and instead
483 uses compression to fit into a hole (the whole shank
484 of the screw is split into multiple pieces to
485 accomplish this; the tip is a point, then the middle
486 bulges out and gets compressed when screwed in.
488 - light filter :: (like light tweezers) to mechanically separate
489 fluids with different index of refraction
491 - chalk eraser project :: maybe make a directional eraser, for easy
492 release of chalk dust, like fur, and how it likes to rest in a
493 certain direction.
495 - silver socks :: socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial
496 properties.
498 - UROP :: magnet gear/metal teeth tape
500 - Rod of Moses :: device to distill urine through evaporation and
501 easily dispose of urea crystals for use in desert --
502 produce drinkable water.
504 - UROP :: Make the LED in line with the flow for the micro injector, so
505 that it may transmit maximum flow. Motor that changes
506 distance of internal magnet from windings depending on
507 desired speed so as to obtain maximum power efficiency.
509 - lottery scraper :: web scraper which monitors various lotteries,
510 looking for "special" gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x
511 winnings on Wednesdays) and computes expected value...
513 - Memristiors novel design :: make an evolutionary algorithm to make
514 old stuff using all four basic circuit elements.
516 - Conductive concrete :: concrete that has embedded metal fibers so
517 that it can conduct electricity.
519 - little bitty melting pot :: might be useful for some types of
520 manufacturing/3D printing -- how small can an induction melter be
521 made, for example.
523 - power strip/timer programmable combination :: meh
525 - algorithms :: which learn what their inputs are and in what order,
526 and can adapt to changing circumstances -- they
527 remember previous arguments and adapt so as to respond
528 to different connections.
530 - true pure tones :: hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the
531 nerves of the ear
533 - mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp :: would be an object
534 with two levers -- you pull on one lever and the other moves the
535 same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is driving. This
536 analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.
538 - paper folding device :: make it convenient to fold lots of papers in
539 various ways.
541 - concrete epoxy :: epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.
543 - light capacitor :: suspend some ball of material with a high index
544 of refraction and shine light into it so it gets stuck -- would
545 the light stay trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited
546 quantities of light inside the sphere (which could then be
547 released slowly by frustrated internal reflection?
549 - movie screening :: Movies always are too long at first. One way to
550 shorten them ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the
551 move and then remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which
552 there are a lot of blinking (average this over multiple people)
553 better yet, put it online and do it across thousands of people. I
554 got this from youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill
555 which is composed entirely of the parts in which people had their
556 eyes closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their
557 eyes off of? Just take those parts out!
559 - optimize an article :: capture reading of a scientific article via
560 screen capture while people read it, then use it to make the
561 article better. like the movie-pruning idea.
563 - super reading program :: teaches people the ideal mental mask to
564 apply during reading so as to read very fast.
566 - explosive thermite epoxy putty :: one part would contain the rust,
567 one part the aluminum.
569 - reading comprehension :: use the above screen capture routine to
570 make a quiz program that constructs questions about the content
571 you seemed to gloss over while reading. could be easy if the pdf
572 came with embedded questions. Dylan: automatically generate
573 word-cloud about the parts you found most interesting; help
574 others who read the same stuff by drawing attention to the
575 interesting parts.
577 - hard sword :: make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of
578 martensite for the cutting part; it should be a better
579 sword.
581 - close range wireless :: use the induction technology used to
582 recharge electric toothbrushes with no metal links to send data
583 without any metal at all!
585 - reading :: is a form of synsethesia
587 - DNA printer :: A machine which translates the text eg, "ACTGAC" into
588 actual DNA
590 - black generator :: ferro-fluid magnetic field suspended micro
591 generator to make electricity
593 - alcohol battery :: alcohol/fluid flow powered battery
595 - folding razor blade sword ::
597 - perfect pitch :: learn perfect pitch using another sense in
598 combination (sight or touch)
600 - kaleidoscope projector ::
602 - razor blade de-sharpener :: for guilt free disposal
604 - bricks :: filled with luminescent plant material
606 - bio metallic structure :: metal grids with seeds inside, which grow
607 together and form a durable biological matrix. The metal
608 substrate delivers water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?)
609 Dylan: enrich plants with inorganic compounds; electrical
610 interfaces in cellular plant matter => remote-controlled
611 photosynthetic/bioluminescent structures.
613 - conducting extracellular matrix :: to allow better control of
614 organic systems and an enhanced nervous system.
616 - cross-modal memory hashing :: a way to retrieve memories more
617 robustly.
619 - flossing thimble-guards :: (these actually exist)
621 - rules + lattice learning :: integrate lattice learning with rules by
622 generating hypothetical examples
624 - wooden refrigerator :: to give food a better taste Dylan: like
625 barrels for wine, or planks for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor
626 planks" for your pre-existing fridge. Need to mitigate effect of
627 temperature on volatility?
629 - radioactive transmutation molecule by molecule :: create precious
630 metals or something else economically advantageous.
632 - crowd preservation :: inoculate food with tons of harmless
633 bacteria so that there's no room for bad bacteria as a method of
634 preservation
636 - old school preservation :: Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon
637 as a way to store liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o
638 refrigeration.
640 - restaurant policy :: Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter
641 of course -- make ambiance much better.
643 - clean windows :: make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant
644 water (and reduces the pressure a bit) and use it
645 to clean windows of buildings.
647 - ocarina :: make an ocarina out of pure silver
649 - fire pen :: pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing
650 any ink. Is there a way to make it runnable from the
651 human's energy?
653 - website to design your own soda :: and label, and have it mailed to
654 you / sell it from your own online store.
656 - solar panels :: that float on the ocean
658 - handcuffs with more than two cuffs (3?) :: great for daisy chaining
659 people, binding them to environment, etc.
661 - vector based SOUND files :: like the pictures but with SOUND. codify
662 sound in a language with enough symbols so that it can describe
663 everything and encode it in that. would be like going from speech
664 to text or smtg. Could also store sound as an image of the
665 wavefront encoded as a vector image.
667 - Mouse :: with a horizontal scroll wheel in addition to the vertical
668 scroll wheel
670 - logic maintenance system for big institutions :: to make sure the
671 things they are thinking about doing are not retarded
673 - http://www.regulations.gov/ :: cool site
675 - genetically engineered glowing fruit :: sell seeds?
677 - memory slide :: IF memories are encoded using particular sensory
678 impressions, what happens if the sensory organ
679 itself changes? those memories would become
680 inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember
681 much from our childhoods. also, could this happen
682 throughout life as well? Could S remember stuff from
683 his childhood?
685 - make a completely indestructible phone :: no moving parts or display
686 you should be able to slam it around all you want, and it will
687 just work. brutally simple. aerogel around the battery, minimal
688 interface - never gets too hot, and can be dropped into water. no
689 holes -- uses field effects for everything from the buttons to
690 inductive charging and data transfer.
692 - midi to ocarina "tabs" program :: (online website? buy ocarinas from
693 it too)
695 - 3d printing with sound pulses (or just patterns) :: like the 8.03
696 lecture
698 - lighter flint on spring :: make hot, throw it at something, and it
699 makes sparkles!
701 - nuclear energy :: Rebranding New+Clear Energy with informational
702 campaign and public debate forum to enforce its
703 transparent and open nature. France needn't be the
704 world leader in nuclear energy. (Dylan)
706 - bubbles :: Engineer a material which has both ductility and high
707 surface tension to make the "third"
708 minimal-surface-energy solution to a bubble suspended
709 between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are
710 cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles,
711 and a double-cone)
713 - Textbook whose content can be varied continuously :: alter level of
714 difficulty, rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain
715 other discipline, etc. Content generated dynamically from
716 knowledge base, along with questions that are moreover altered to
717 guide knowledge acquisition. Motivation: One book of
718 knowledge. /One./
719 - * Invalid capture template
721 ** From Jacob's idea list
723 - Roommate-canceling headphones: uses roommate's laptop mic to seed
724 noise cancellation alg in your headphones (would this
725 work?). -Update on sound canceling headphones that take feed from
726 tv: how about ones that cancel people talking on the phone by
727 receiving the phone signals and playing inverse sound
728 waves. #signalprocessing ~jcole@mit.edu
730 - ClackerAlert -- tells if you slam the keys too hard using sound data
731 (and speed/jerkiness data)!.Prevents RSI ~jcole@mit.e
733 - Panic Pin :: separate pin that you can tell someone if forced to
734 identify your PIN (idea from idea about credit cards)