#+title: Big List O' Ideas

 #+author: Robert McIntyre

 #+email: rlm@mit.edu

 #+description: list of ideas from the last ~ 7 years

 #+keywords: aurellem ideas half-baked ramdom

 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org

 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org

 #+babel: :mkdirp yes :noweb yes :exports both

 

 * Ideas

 

 This is a list of all the ideas I've had that I felt like writing down

 for the past ~ 7 years. Some of them could be practical inventions and

 are "just" waiting the that 95% persperiation to bring them to

 furition, some are ideas for science fiction, and some are simple

 observations. There are arranged roughly in reverse chronological

 order, with the most recent ideas at the top of the list. The ones at

 the bottom of the list are heavily influenced by my time at MIT.

 

 If you find some of these interesting and would like to collaborate on

 them with me or discuss them in more detail, I'd love to hear from

 you. You can email me at ideas@aurellem.org.

 

 - fixed cryopreservation :: why not use a fixitave to buy enough time

      to ramp up cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room

      temperature? Then, the whole system can be rapidly cooled and

      vitrified. This method "severs the biological link" in that the

      fixitaves are highly toxic, but current vitrification procedures

      do this anyway since there can be a lot of freezing damage.

 

 - bitcoin wallet :: Part of "server culture", this would be something

                     like "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as

                     your personal trusted access to your own bitcoins

                     from anywhere.

 

 - libpay :: this would be a free library which would enable

             micro-donations to software projects and other projects,

             so that you could donate a panny to "emacs" and it would

             be automitacally split up to every person who has ever

             contributed to emacs in proportion to the amount of

             community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the

             community decides. This might make it posibe for

             programmers to live entirely off of free programming.

 

 - Browser based graphics-card accelerated distributed computing API. 

 

 - pronouns :: use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve

               pronoun referents and gender neutrality, are short to

               say, and you can encode useful information into the

               choice of letter. For example, instead of "Meetings

               shall be presided over by the president, unless she is

               absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the

               president, unless P is absent." We already use this a

               little, since I and U are reserved for the subject and

               object respectively.

 

 - phone DSP :: software app that inserts an audio DSP between the

                input to a phone and the output. The DSP is delicious

                and configurable, and can allow men to make their

                voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you to hear

                your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how

                their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to

                immediately change the paramaters of the DSP using good

                presets.

 

 - predestined body learning :: a good example of pre destined learning

      might be the mirror neurons.

 

 - resturant reciept :: use a carbon copy reciept instead of two stupid

      copies. 

 

 - anti google glass :: glasses with mounted lasers and computer vision

      that targets the cameras in google glass and destroy them.

 

 - wearable towel :: towel with clasp, velcro, whatever, that allows

                     one to wear the towel more securely than just

                     wrapping it tightly and hoping for the best.

 

 - Easiest way to disguise onself as a woman is to wear a burka.

 

 - book-mode :: intelligent color highlighting for books and

                articles. It would disambiguate pronouns and involved

                references. For example, if "Rachael" as red, and "the

                blonde haired girl" refers to "Rachael", then "the

                blonde haired girl" would he colored red. Also, you

                could disambiguate multi part runon sentences by

                highlighting each subcomponent. Maybe would also have

                appliations to scientific reading.

 

 - Handheld light Rain measurement :: this would be a clear, teflon

      coated plasic disk with a camera underneath the disk. You would

      be able to hold the device out and it would measure the rate of

      accumulation of water droplets from fine mists and light rain by

      using computer vision to measure the diameters of the drops.

 

 - Big Brother Farming :: This would be a vision system that would

      individually monitor each plant and turn on water, etc to ensure

      maximum/uniform growth for each plant. 

 

 - Discrete Faucet :: A faucet with discrete ticks instead of

      continous. 

 

 - Laser Circle :: take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one

                   end at an oblique angle. It will make a perfect,

                   large circle on the wall, converting a laser beam

                   into a laser cone, perserving most of the energy of

                   the laser.

 

 - Invisible Glass :: Take a container of liquid and embed a

      glass sculpture made out of glass that has exactly the same index

      of refraction and color of the liquid. Then the sculpture will be

      totally invisible in the container, and will only be revealed

      when the liquid is drained. The container might be a fancy

      wine/spirit bottle or an hourglass.

 

 - Caterpillar people :: A race of catepillar like creatures gains

      intelligence after eons of predation by birds, etc. These

      catepillar creatures still undergo metamorphosis into a large

      butterfly-like creature. The metamorphosis process turns the

      caterpillar's brain into mush and reforms it into a minimal,

      dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely destroying the person

      the catepillar was. The society develops all sorts of customs and

      religious interpretations of the metamorphosis. It is viewed as

      good and natural by some since it is part of their life cycle and

      necessary to propogate the species, as only the butterflies can

      mate. Some think that the butterflies are still the same person

      because they have the same soul, even they no longer posess the

      memories or personality of the original catepillar. Some see the

      butterfly form as the "true form" of the species, since the

      butterflies can fly, mate, and are beautiful. Many make a big

      deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the catepillar's mind is

      actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see it as a terrible

      tradgedy and argue that the catepillars should try to stop the

      metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very important

      members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery to

      prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as themselves.

 

      This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being

      something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,

      something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that

      hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains

      now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic

      legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a

      compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second

      gender characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes

      homophobia look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of

      pain and death is made to look like the tradegy it is through the

      lense of the the caterpillar people.

 

 - relationships as a business ::

   http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx

   is an excellent talk about the "culture of quitting," which is about

   better business by letting people go instead of keeping them around

   past their "apex". Focouses on information transfer. Cool idea of an

   alumni network, which for relationships would be a group of

   satisfied ex-lovers, who would recommend new people your way, and

   who might consider coming to you again, refreshed from their time

   away with new stories/experiences. I should look for examples of

   this and how they worked out.

 

 - coffe with tea :: /rlm-tea/ contains 2% sugar, 10% cream, and 20%

                     dylan coffee. /dylan coffee/ contains 5% sugar,

                     20% cream, and 10% rlm-tea. Start your mornings

                     with recursion!

 

 - psychic crystal :: in a science fiction story, this would be an

      object that is very easy to move physically but is extremely

      difficult to move with telekinesis.

 

 - http://betsofbitco.in/ :: what a great place for an AI/person to

      prove themselves as a good predictor. I wish this could be

      automated. 

 

 - don't forget about that mirror in the student center!, it's two

   mirrors at right angles, like staring at a corner of a room. The

   light reflects so that it shows you what you actually look like,

   instead of your mirror image.

 

 - remote control wasp :: use computer to drive wings with remote

   power/logic.

 

 - public (distributed?) database of email->private-key pairs, to

   enable automatic encryption.

 

 - every equivalent creature will see each others' eyes as black --

   it's universal. Even if the creatures see in radio waves, and their

   eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged metal, when those creatures look

   at each other, they will see black, the absence of light and color

   (since it's being absorbed by the sensor array).

 

 - intelligent microwave :: it learns where the hot nodes of its fields

   are, and uses them to evenly heat any food item. It has an infared

   camera or something to keep track of how hot the food is. That way,

   you don't get bowls where the edges are boiling, while the center is

   still frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since

   the exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of

   the food.  Wouldn't need a carasouel, and wouldn't need a timer,

   just a desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automotically

   defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much

   faster since it can aviod overheating; might have problems with

   heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor too.

   

   + Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would

     "sputter" and splash liquid much less.

 

   + Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked foods

     and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have been

     cooked before -- it can get faster the more its used.

 

 - brain-aware image compression algorithm

 

 - Credit card proxy - would be a company which works like paypal

   except for real world transactions

 

 - Flesh pillow :: a pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete

                   with simulated temperature, bones, and heartbeat.

 

 - super screw :: a screw which has only one or two threads and intead

                  uses compresion to fit into a hole (the whole shank

                  of the screw is split into multiple pieces to

                  accomplish this; the tip is a point, then the middle

                  bulges out and gets compressed when screwed in.

 

 - light filter :: (like light tweezers) to mechanically seperate

                   fluids with different index of refraction

 

 - chalk eraser project :: maybe make a directional eraser, for easy

      release of chalk dust, like fur, and how it likes to rest in a

      certain direction.

 

 - silver socks

 

 - UROP: magnet gear/metal teeth tape device to distill urine through

   evaporation and easily dispose of urea crystals for use in desert --

   produce drinkable water.  

 

 - UROP: Make the LED in line with the flow for the microinjector, so

   that it may transmit maximum flow.  Motor that changes distance of

   internal magnet from windings depending on desired speed so as to

   obtain maximum power efficiency.  

 

 - web scraper which monitors various lottries, looking for "special"

   gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x winnings on Wednesdays) and

   computes expected value...  

 

 - Memristiors novel design :: make an evolutionary algorithm to make

   old stuff using all four basic circuit elements.

 

 - Conductive concrete

 

 - little bitty melting pot

 

 - power strip/timer programmable combination

 

 - algorthms which learn what their inputs are and in what order, and

   can adapt to changing circumstances -- they remember previous

   arguments and adapt so as to respond to different connections.

 

 - hear a true pure tone by direct stimultion of the nerves of the ear

   

 - mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp ::  would be an object

      with two levers -- you pull on one lever and the other moves the

      same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is driving. This

      anlogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.

 

 - paper folding device :: make it convienent to fold lots of papers in

      various ways.

 

 - concrete epoxy :: epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.

 

 - light capacator :: suspend some ball of material with a high index

      of refraction and shine light into it so it gets stuck -- would

      the light stay trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited

      quantities of light inside the sphere (which could then be

      released slowly by frustrated internal reflection?

 

 - movie screening :: Movies always are too long at first. One way to

      shorten them ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the

      move and then remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which

      there are a lot of blinking (average this over multiple people)

      better yet, put it online and do it across thousands of people. I

      got this from youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill

      whih is composed entirely of the parts in whihc opeople had their

      eyes closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their

      eyes off of? Just take those parts out!

 

 - capture reading of a scientific atricle via screen capture while

   people read it, then use it to make the article better. like the

   movie-pruning idea.

 

 - super reading program that teaches people the ideal mental mask to

   apply during reading so as to read very fast. 

 

 - explosive thermite epoxy putty (one part would contain the rust, one

   part the alumimum)

 

 - use the above screen capture routine to make a quiz program that

   constructs questions about the content you seemed to gloss over

   while reading. could be easy if the pdf came with embedded

   questions.  Dylan: automatically generate word-cloud about the parts

   you found most interesting; help others who read the same stuff by

   drawing attention to the interesting parts.

 

 - make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of martensite for

   the cutting part; it should be a better sword.

 

 - use the induction technology used to recharge electric toothbrushes

   with no metal links to send data -- without any metal at all!

 

 - reading is a form of synsethesia

 

 - A machine which translates the text eg, "ACTGAC" into actual DNA

 

 - ferro-fluid magnetic field suspended micro generator to make

   electricity

 

 - alcohol/fluid flow powered battery

 

 - folding razor blade sword

 

 - learn perfect pitch using another sense in combination (sight or

   touch)

 

 - kaleidoscope projector

 

 - razor blade de-sharpener (for guilt free disposal)

 

 - bricks filled with luminescent plant material

 

 - metal grids with seeds inside, which grow together and form a

   durable biological matrix. The metal substrate delivers

   water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?)  Dylan: enrich plants

   with inorganic compounds; electrical interfaces in cellular plant

   matter => remote-controlled photosynthetic/bioluminescent

   structures.

 

 - conducting extracellular matrix

 

 - cross-modal memory hashing

 

 - flossing thimble-gaurds (these actually exist)

 

 - integrate lattice learning with rules by generating hypothetical

   examples

 

 - wooden refridgerator to give food a better taste Dylan: like barrels

   for wine, or planks for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor planks" for

   your pre-existing fridge. Need to mitigate effect of temperature on

   volatility?

 

 - radioactive transmutation molecule by molecule :: create precious

      metals or something else economically advantageous.

 

 - innolculate food with tons of harmless bacteria so that there's no

   room for bad bacteria as a method of preservation

 

 - pasteur - style holding jar with siphon as a way to store liquids ar

   room temperature indefinately w/o refridgeration.(7/26/2009)

 

 - Throw rude people out of resturant as a matter of course -- make

   ambiance much better.

 

 - make something that mixes soap with firehydrant water (and reduces

   the pressure a bit) and use it to clean windows of buildings.

 

 - make an ocarina out of pure silver

 

 - fire pen :: pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing

               any ink. Is ther a way to make it runnable from the

               human's energy?

 

 - website to design your own soda, and label, and have it mailed to

   you / sell it from your own online store.

 

 - solar panels that float on the ocean

 

 - handcuffs with more than two cuffs (3?) :: great for daisy chaining

      people, binding them to environment, etc.

 

 - vector based SOUND files :: like the pictures but with SOUND. codify

      sound in a language with enough symbols so that it can describe

      everything and encode it in that. would be like going from speech

      to text or smtg. Could also store sound as an image of the

      wavefront encoded as a vector image.

 

 - Mouse with a horizontal scroll wheel in addition to the vertical

   scroll wheel

 

 - logic maintance system for big institutions to make sure the things

   they are thinking about doing are not retarded

 

 - http://www.regulations.gov/

 

 - genetically engineered glowing fruit -- sell seeds?

 

 - memory slide :: IF memories are encoded using particular sensory

                   impressions, what happens if the sensory organ

                   itself changes? those memories would become

                   unaccessable. maybe this is why we can't remember

                   much from our childhoods. also, could this happen

                   throught life as well? Could S remember stuff from

                   his childhood?

 

 - make a completely indestructable phone :: no moving parts or display

      you should be able to slam it around all you want, and it will

      just work. brutally simple. aerogel around the battery, minimal

      interface - never gets too hot, and can be dropped into water. no

      holes -- uses field effects for everything from the buttons to

      inductive charging and data transfer.

 

 - midi to ocarina "tabs" program (online website? buy ocarinas from it

   too)

 

 - 3d printing with sound pulses (or just patterns) -- like the 8.03

   lecture

 

 - lighter flint on spring :: make hot, throw it at something, and it

      makes sparkles!

 

 - Rebranding New+Clear Energy with informational campaign and

   public debate forum to enforce its transparent and open

   nature. France needn't be the world leader in nuclear

   energy. (Dylan) 

 

 - Engineer a material which has both ductility and high surface

   tension to make the "third" minimal-surface-energy solution to a

   bubble suspended between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are

   cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles, and a

   double-cone)

 

 - Textbook whose content can be varied continuously :: alter level of

      difficulty, rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain

      other discipline, etc. Content generated dynamically from

      knowledge base, along with questions that are moreover altered to

      guide knowledge acquisition. Motivation: One book of

      knowledge. /One./

 

 

 ** From Jacob's idea list

 

 - Roommate-cancelling headphones: uses roommate's laptop mic to seed

   noise cancellation alg in your headphones (would this

   work?). -Update on sound canceling headphones that take feed from

   tv: how about ones that cancel people talking on the phone by

   receiving the phone signals and playing inverse sound

   waves. #signalprocessing ~jcole@mit.edu

 

 - Browser based graphics-card accelerated distributed computing API. 

 

 - ClackerAlert -- tells if you slam the keys too hard using sound data

   (and speed/jerkiness data)!.Prevents RSI ~jcole@mit.e

 

 - Panic Pin :: separate pin that you can tell someone if forced to

                identify your PIN (idea from idea about credit cards)