Mercurial > thoughts
view org/ideas.org @ 137:8bf12217d0fa
immunoincompatibility.
author | Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu> |
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date | Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:03:48 -0700 |
parents | 46bc0f596b91 |
children | 98ba603e251a |
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1 #+title: Big List O' Ideas2 #+author: Robert McIntyre3 #+email: rlm@mit.edu4 #+description: list of ideas from the last ~ 7 years5 #+keywords: aurellem ideas half-baked random6 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org7 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org8 #+babel: :mkdirp yes :noweb yes :exports both10 * Ideas12 This is a list of all the ideas I've had that I felt like writing down13 for the past ~ 8 years. Some of them could be practical inventions and14 are "just" waiting the that 95% perspiration to bring them to15 fruition, some are ideas for science fiction, and some are simple16 observations. Some are really only for my own personal notes and are17 not meant to be comprehensible. They are arranged roughly in reverse18 chronological order, with the most recent ideas at the top of the19 list. The ones at the bottom of the list are heavily influenced by my20 time at MIT.22 If you find some of these interesting and would like to collaborate on23 them with me or discuss them in more detail, I'd love to hear from24 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_quote30 There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about31 getting credit.32 #+end_quote34 - immunoincompatibility :: take the human genome, and refactor it so35 that it doesn't use a particular codon at all. Then remove the36 support from our ribosomes for that codon. What does this do for37 us? It makes us immune to almost all viruses!39 - life cycle :: it's called a cycle, right? So, the thing that repeats40 itself over and over, right? Not much of a cycle if41 you don't come back after you die, if you ask me!43 - car with no blind spots :: use some cameras in the back of the car44 to augment the rear-view mirror so that you never have to turn45 around in order to lane change.47 - partial cell death :: you freeze a set of cells using some cryo48 protocol and 60% survive. How can this be explained? It seems to49 me that if the cells are the same, and the conditions50 homogoneous, then all the cells should either die or51 live. However, suppose that there is a metabolic cycle that needs52 to be in a certain phase for the cell to survive. If the cells53 are asynchronous, then you might end up with some cells dying54 because there were in the wrong part of their cycle. This implies55 that you might be able to cryoprotect cells by causing them to56 enter a certain metabolic mode before freezing.58 - cryonics color appeal :: perfusate used by cryonics companies should59 have red food coloring in it. It's just a nice touch so that the60 cryonics patient looks more life-like than with clear CPAs, and61 hopefully might get treated with more respect.63 - paramagnetic CPA :: you take a CPA that can be influenced by64 magnetic fields so that its degrees of freedom are limited. Then,65 you release the field, instantaly increasing the size of the66 state space of the system and dramatically decreasing the67 temperature enough to plunge the system past homogenous68 nucleation temperature and directly to the glass transition69 temperature, creating a doubly unstable glass at much lower CPA70 concentrations than possible at conventional CPA concentrations.72 - room temp noodles :: how does the physics of cooking noodles work?73 Could you use a vacuum instead of heat to force water into the74 noodle?76 - personal carbon offset :: feel bad about contribuiting to global77 warming by using electricity / driving a car? Forget trying to78 "conserve" or "minimize your carbon footprint". Follow the79 Platinum rule -- make the world BETTER off than you found it!80 This would be a small, self contained system that sucks C02 out81 of the air. It uses electricity, but it's so efficient at82 removing CO2 that it more than offsets the CO2 produced by even a83 coal plant to produce that electricity. This way, you can still84 drive even a gas guzzler, but have a net negative carbon85 footprint! Maybe something cool could be done with the carbon as86 well. Use as much electricity as you want, but negate the damage87 to the enviroment with more technology.89 - undoing spermogenesis :: with enough sperm, you can derive the90 donor's entire genome. You gain more confidence in the alleles91 for a particular gene the more sperm you have. Each additional92 sperm gives you the same sort of information you'd get flipping a93 coin and trying to decide whether the coin is H/T of H/H. Is94 there enough sperm in the the average load for you to be as95 confident as mitosis?97 - mars life :: we could engineer life that could survive on mars98 (probably some non-vascular photosynthetic99 poikilohydric creature like a lichen) by taking an100 extremophile from Antarctica and evolving it in101 increasingly Martian conditions. This could be an easy102 start to a terraforming process.104 - problem with Aubrey de Grey's ideas :: Aubrey de Grey says that we105 might be able to live forever by continually repairing our bodies106 at the cellular level -- he details 7 different mechanisms of107 damage and says that if all of them are dealt with /together/108 that it would stop aging. (You can't miss even one because109 they're all fatal.) However, it doesn't take into account that110 we are also beings of information and that there is a very real111 software component to our existence. Even if our biological112 chassies can be maintained forever, I think it is unlikely that113 our minds will operate well far outside of the design constraints114 that we've evolved to handle. Say I programmed a webserver with115 the express goal of it being able to serve webpages for month on116 some stock server. I'll do fairly rigorous testing to make sure117 that it can handle the expected load then then some. Now say that118 you want to keep a particular instance of this webserver running119 indefinitely. (The program instance is like your mind and the120 computer it's running on is like your body). You might very well121 be able to keep the physical computer infrastructure running for122 forever by replacing hard drives / ram / CPUs, etc. However,123 since I designed the webserver to work for a month, it probably124 has memory leaks, rare stochastic bugs, or other built in limits125 / constraints (think log files or some date rollover shenanigans)126 that will ultimately kill the webserver even with eternally127 perfect hardware. Do you really expect that a webserver128 engineered to work for 1 month will run for 10 years without129 catastrophically crashing? Not even Apache can do this! In fact,130 if I put in the extreme effort to make it that robust, I've131 wasted time that I could have spent on other projects by pursuing132 an unnecessary engineering goal. Likewise, human minds have only133 ever run for at most 122 years before they are destroyed due to134 hardware degradation. Fixing the hardware doesn't change any135 software bugs that are almost certainly present in the human136 mind. Think of all the pathological things that can go wrong with137 a webserver, multiply it by a million, and that likely how138 evolution has designed our minds. For example, consider memory :139 why should you expect that we have evolved the ability to140 coherently organize memories past say 150 years? There's been141 absolutely no selective pressure for this ability, so you can bet142 that if there's any fitness to be gained from not having143 unlimited memory potential (such as better metabolic efficiency),144 we have it! You might think that maybe we would just forget145 things the same way that we sort of forget things that happen146 earlier in our lives, but complicated information processing147 systems don't have to fail gracefully when they're pushed far148 past their design constraints. A 150 year old person is just as149 likely to suffer a catastrophic psychosis due to software150 limitations associated with memory as he is to do something with151 all those memories we might consider reasonable. More likely, in152 fact, since there are so very many ways for a complicated153 software system to break and so few ways for it to run154 successfully. Therefore, I think Aubrey de Grey's "hardware-only"155 approach is missing a very important component of longevity156 science, and any successful effort to make people live orders of157 magnitude longer than they do naturally will need to deal with158 people's software as well as their hardware.160 - validating neurocryopreservation :: Problem : you want to test161 whether a brain is functionally preserved through vitrification,162 but you don't want to figure out how to preserve all the other163 organs in the animal. It might be possible to keep the rest of164 the body at almost 0C and vitrify just the head for only a few165 minutes. Induce hypothermia, then separate out the head's blood166 supply from the rest of the body, then just cryoptotect and167 vitrify the head. Might need some sort of thermal guard to keep168 the outer head / neck from becoming too cold. You leave the169 spinal cord intact! Then you devitrify to 0C, remove170 cryoprotectant, and then reattach the blood supply. You can171 determine brain preservation using behavioral assays!173 - freezing water purifier :: you slowly freeze water, but also run174 liquid water over the frozen mass. This takes away basically all175 impurities and creates "washed ice" then you melt the ice. Maybe176 you could re-use the heat from creating the ice to melt the ice?178 - ultra strength :: allow a person to visualize their muscle179 recruitment patterns. Give them adrenaline and let180 them feel what it's like to have the normal limits181 removed. See if they can replicate the effects.183 - phone names :: make a PX record for domain names that's like the MX184 record, except that it is a phone number instead of185 an IP address. That way, you can use the domain name186 registration system to provide names for phone187 numbers. Then, as long as you control the domain, you188 can point people to your current phone number by189 updating that record.191 - edible flowers :: Edible white flowers that you put in a colored192 solution with flavor. When the flower turns the193 right color, it is also flavored and ready to eat!195 - suicide cryonics :: according to [[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html][this]], people who commit impulsive196 suicides have a newfound sense of the importance of life. Perhaps197 they are good cryonics targets.199 - lead bone :: Could you fill in all the empty spaces in a bone with200 lead? Might be cool.202 - the quest for life :: Every stupid story has the "immortal who203 wants to become mortal" or some other such idea. I want to story204 where the protagonist loses their immortality and feels /angry/205 and ashamed about losing something that's so absolutely crucial206 to their identity. A reverse of "death makes life worth living",207 they feel that living forever is what makes life worth208 living. Now they've "lost their sunrise" or their "connection to209 the timeless universe" or something. So they go on a quest to get210 it back, learning about themselves along the way, and regaining211 the precious thing they lost in the beginning.213 - world-map :: take a small table and paint the continents in214 toothpaste on the table. Make a slightly raised barrier215 around the table. Slowly pour water onto the table, and216 it will form the oceans!218 - stage magic rituals :: rituals should incorporate elements of stage219 magic. Foe example in Teller's tempest, they have a scene where220 they levitate a crown in front of someone, then put it on his221 head. They also have a wedding ceremony where they levitated the222 bride as well. Actual weddings and other ceremonies should223 incorporate stage magic as an enhancement.225 - isotope time dilation :: use a cyclotron to speed up rare isotopes226 developed in nuclear fusion experiments. The relativistic time227 dilation will stop the isotopes from decaying, and allow time to228 study them. This is based on radioactive isotopes that fall229 through the earth's atmosphere that take hundreds of times230 longer to decay than normal.232 - marsupial stimulation :: You take a freshly pouched marsupial baby,233 and show it videos and other interactive things while it matures234 in the pouch. What mental effects would this have?236 - dynamic re-keying :: Some older ways of tuning instruments sound237 better, but we use the even-tempered scale today because it makes238 it easier to switch keys. With electronic music, why not make239 key-annotations and dynamically re-tune the piece to sound good240 in the current key? Could be done as a midi+annotation -> midi241 compiler for experimentation.243 - death always implies damage :: is is possible for a corpse to differ244 from a living person only in the fact that one is dead and the245 other is alive? NO! A corpse must always have some sort of246 molecular damage which causes the loss of function!248 - inner eye :: Surgically install a bunch of tiny cameras inside a249 person. Then, you can activate them all and get a250 picture of your internal organs for diagnostic251 purposes.253 - chaos rails :: should make a visualization of the homoclinic tangle,254 it's truly beautiful.256 - context gobbler :: this would be in "inside-out macro" that takes257 the context (like you use for things like error, continuations,258 and friends) and transforms it to something else. Maybe useful?260 - cryonics middle ages :: some people say that cryonics is an261 experiment and that it is foolish to wait until we have revived a262 human. There is a middle ground where the procedure has a dismal263 success rate on humans, say 1 in 20, so that you'd be a fool to264 try revival. Nonetheless, this very risky procedure could be the265 legal proof of concept needed to create a new class of life266 between "living" and "dead": "stasis".268 - philosophy of the mirror :: neat thought experiment -- if you take a269 mirror of someone by actually reversing a person's chirality270 molecule by molecule, then will the only be able to read mirror271 writing? The answer is yes, by analogy to a purely mechanical272 scan-tron device. This is one of the only interesting transforms I273 know that can take a human brain and change it in subtle,274 non-destructive ways. It's also an argument against dualism.276 - biosphere in a bottle :: There are around 15 million species. 15277 million stem cells will fill only a tiny size, far less than a cubic278 inch. Preserve a single cell from every species on earth in this279 small space, and you will have a record of our current biosphere280 that can be protected. "Hold the genetic data of all species in281 your hand!"283 - chaos lock :: The "arrow of time" points in the direction of284 increasing entropy. The time evolution of chaotic285 systems depend exquisitely on their initial state. If286 you take a measurement of a chaotic system at any287 given point of time, you can evolve that system288 backwards or forwards based on your measurement. So289 let's say you start the chaotic system in a VERY low290 entropy state, then let it run for a while, then take291 a measurement with some uncertainty. Your292 measurement is pretty good, but obviously not293 PERFECT. If you evolve the chaotic system back in294 time, then you will see that you don't really reach295 a state with low entropy an hour before (the entropy296 is easy to measure with surrogates like alignment,297 etc). So use this technique to SEARCH for a more298 accurate measurement! This potentially can give you299 many more orders of magnitude than you could get alone300 just using an instrument. Sometimes it will give you301 bad results, the the odds of it doing that are302 infinitesimal, and you can just measure a couple of303 times.305 - cryo-evolution :: perhaps there would be a way to rapidly evolve a306 symbiotic bacterial organism that could protect307 human tissues from freezing damage.309 - suicide parasite :: sometimes, people kill themselves for no good310 reason. We often explain this with things like "hidden311 depression" or we say that they had something like chronic jaw or312 back pain. I think that smells of rationalization. I don't buy313 it. I propose that in many suicide cases there is a disease that314 causes the suicidal behavior. We already know that certain315 parasites have mind-bending properties in other animals, even316 mammals like mice. It's not much of a stretch to imagine a317 parasite that causes suicides in humans. Some problems:318 - What does the suicide parasite get out of it? :: This might be319 answered by the whole thing being a glitch caused by320 cross-species contamination. Toxoplasma works this way.321 - What predictions does a disease model make :: suicide should322 be more common among people who share a contagion323 vector. There should be suicides that don't make any324 sense : people who weren't really depressed, who had no325 reason to kill themselves. People who have killed themselves326 should have a higher incidence of some unknown parasite in327 their brains.329 - domestic insects :: People should eat more bugs because they're much330 more efficient, so why not do some major domestication research331 to make very appealing bugs? Beetles, in particular, seem to be332 excellent targets for domestication because they have extreme333 levels of genetic malleability.335 - birth-clones :: What if each person was intentionally split at birth336 into a normal embryo and a few "backup" cells which337 is then frozen. The backup cells are created just338 the same way as natural identical twins. The backups339 can be used to regenerate organs. etc. Also, it340 would be a good sci fi concept, because you could341 have a culture where people reward people who were342 especially awesome are "reborn" from their343 backups. Imagine having a young Bach every344 generation, etc.346 - pronunciation guide :: a simple webpage where you type in a word and347 it returns a simple, English sentence describing exactly how to348 pronounce the word. For people who don't want to learn IPA.350 - cortex-search :: use the repertoire of actions learned to limit the351 search space of possible actions.353 - learning to teleport :: scifi idea, this is a story about a person354 who is struggling with his/her society's ideas about355 teleportation. It's considered a fundamental part of being a356 member of that society (after all, the difference between animals357 and humans is that humans are creatures of pure information while358 animals are burdened with base matter, "that's how you travel the359 stars, etc") Humans are born normally, grow up, and then360 eventually transcend via destructive upload. Analogies to jumping361 off a diving board into a pool (which I simply /could not do/ for362 a long time), etc.364 - no-float-ice :: cup that has cross beams at the bottom where ice365 forms. Then when you drink liquid from the glass,366 the ice stays at the bottom and doesn't hit your367 lips. For bars and fancy things.369 - bitcoins for immigrants :: A common case with Mexican immigrants370 (illegal or not) is that they want to send money they've earned371 in the US back to their families in Mexico. They currently do this372 through things like Money Gram or Western Union, and they get373 fleeced in the process with fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce374 the cost of sending money from America to Mexico, but I don't375 believe that it's currently used for that among Mexican376 immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I bet you could377 set up physical locations like those obnoxious Western Union huts378 in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly undercut379 them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin might380 be in order. There's some money to be made there because there is381 great demand, and it's a good thing to boot!383 - reverse eye-tracking :: A painting that is actually a digital screen384 with a camera. It records people's eye tracks permanently. It's385 "artistic" because paintings are normally these things that you386 look at without changing, but this one is changed the second you387 look at it, recording where /you/ looked forever for others to388 see. Make it be a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the389 breasts and groin area light up with interest from all the males390 passing by.392 - smart toilets :: Instead of using indirect measures like infrared393 detectors of the presence of a person, use computer394 vision to directly measure whether the toilet needs395 to be flushed. I think a lot of things will end up396 going this way as we get better computer vision.398 - validate chemopreservation :: chemopreservation is difficult to399 validate because it destroys the functionality of a brain, and400 brain simulation will take a long time to mature as a401 technology. However, one very powerful way to validate402 chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn403 something with high complexity such as a number or the solution404 to a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain405 chemically, slice it up, and read /that specific memory/ from the406 detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable.408 - candy screw :: edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw409 as well.411 - better bibliography :: when writing a thesis or paper, have the412 bibliography not just be an opaque list of resources, but have it413 be a list of /summaries/ and /qualities/ that each paper has in414 the context of the paper being written. When examining a415 bibliography, I want to know if reading the papers in the416 bibliography are worth my time, and I also am probably also417 interested in exactly the things that are being discussed in the418 paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the perfect place to419 provide information about the referenced papers from the420 author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in my own421 thesis.423 - digital inter-library loan :: libraries at universities already do424 inter-library loans for books, so why not do the same for access425 to stupid paywalled digital papers? All the universities could426 allow access to articles for registered students to all the files427 available through any participating university. This could be428 achieved by sending requests through proxies at participating429 universities. Each university would decide who at the university430 can access the proxy network. Access to the proxy network could431 be made easy using something like http://libx.org/.433 - chess visual :: to show the vast size of the game trees considered434 by computers, show two people playing chess in a435 void. They are floating in space, and there is a436 simple chess board between them. Then, as they play,437 the game tree's they are considering are drawn438 behind him. The root of the tree starts centered in439 their heads or whatever they use to think, and the440 tree grows out from behind, never crossing the441 dividing plane between the two players. Each442 player's tree is a different color. As they grow,443 there are animations for pruning, etc. Eventually,444 they look like the hemispheres of a brain, wings,445 etc. A human's tree might occasionally have a long446 chain, while the computer tree would be more447 uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern448 laptop. Use actual data when fighting two computers!450 - time verification :: some standard way to verify that some piece of451 data was recorded at a specific time. Might involve a time452 server, a key for each time period, something like that.454 - tamper proof gold bars :: [[http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html][this site]] offers gold plated tungsten bars455 as "novelty" items. One reason to prefer coins is because they456 are much harder to counterfeit because there is less surface area457 to mass ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design458 because they can hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar459 could be given the same protections (and more) that gold coins460 have to offer by changing it into a "gold book", which would have461 hundreds of "pages" of gold bound together. This could be462 implemented with multiple steel rods going through the book which463 can be removed, or some more classier mechanism for holding the464 pages. The point is that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and465 people would perform this test before buying), thus guaranteeing466 it's authenticity.468 - aurellem shirt :: I should make an aurellem star symbol tee-shirt.470 - touch vision :: inspired by GelSight, I want to reexamine cortex and471 see if I could implement touch as a very low range472 form of vision.474 - high school science :: this is a lesson in scientific ethics. The475 goal is to calculate /g/, the local gravitational476 acceleration. The students are told that the textbook says it's477 /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the experiment. See how they478 doctor their results to get closer to the textbook value. It's479 neat because for any given school, /g/ is probably *not* exactly480 equal to 9.81, because that is just an average!482 - opencourseware subtitles :: there are ladies who type up lectures483 while they are being given. These recordings should be kept and484 given to OCW for subtitles. If the timestamps of keys are485 recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.487 - screen locking timing :: you use your computer camera to see if you488 are sitting in front of the computer. If you are, then the screen489 will never lock. If you are, then the screen will lock with a490 30-40 second timeout. It's an extension of using inactivity to491 initiate the countdown, just with more information.493 - mirror toilet :: a toilet with a square basin made or mirror instead494 or porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a495 wipe job you have done / watch how your excretion496 system works.498 - test dummies :: why don't we clone anencephalic humans and use then to499 test /in vivo/ human organ systems and drugs? It500 would be ethical as long as there are women who are501 willing to host the clones, and it would be a502 tremendous resource for studying the human body. I503 see nothing wrong with it morally, since no one is504 suffering, and it stands to save many lives throughout505 more advanced technology.507 - X-ray telepresence :: given that a doctor is operating on a patient508 via telepresence, one cool things you can do is shine X-rays into509 the patient to view the insides during real time. If the system510 was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure,511 and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the512 model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage513 and surgery risk could be minimized.515 - superfluid vascular system :: I wonder what would happen if you516 replaced the blood in a human with a superfluid. What would the517 physical dynamics be? Would the superfluid flow through the518 vasculature, or would it ignore it and travel through the cells,519 or something else entirely. Since superfluids need to be cold to520 retain their superfluidity, how would the dynamics change during521 perfusion of a superfluid, where the fluid gains and looses522 superfluidity as it goes deeper into the body and is cooled by523 superfluid from upstream. In summary there are two things to524 simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with superfluid525 instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.527 - projective guessing :: I think that we read and see things by528 making a really good guess about what we're expecting to see,529 and then searching for our guess in what we see. If it really530 doesn't match, then we start to make more guesses / analyze the531 image from first principles, but most stuff is projective532 guessing.534 - Intestinal flora maintenance :: why not inoculate babies at birth535 with "ideal" gut flora instead of whatever bullshit they536 naturally get, thus giving them optimal digestive/nutrient537 extraction capabilities. Might also be able to make their farts538 not stink for life, too. MORE IMPORTANTLY, might help to539 preventatively stop some forms of /colic/, which affects 1 in 5540 babies and causes constant screaming and pain for about 5 weeks.542 - server culture : mirrors :: make a distributed system where people543 can mirror the websites of people they like -- essentially cover544 the server costs of favored websites. This could make popular545 websites run at no cost. The system would require that the546 mirrored content be the same as the official source. Sort of like547 bit-torrent for websites.549 - map programming :: one problem with functional programming is that550 in order to remain functional, you have to pass up arguments up551 into each calling function to get the full range of behavior552 from the lower level functions. Normally people come to a553 compromise involving abstraction and sparing use of dynamic554 variables to configure runtime behavior. What would be the555 advantages of making a programming language where every function556 receives one argument, a map, which contains all the symbol557 bindings it would ever need? This map is passed on to all558 subordinate functions. This way, you could replace functions on559 the fly, and arrange for there to be sensible defaults,560 etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an interesting idea.562 - rest nest :: a small EEG device you would attach to your head when563 you go to sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine564 your particular sleep cycles. This would mostly be an565 alarm clock that you could give a time range, say566 7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an567 ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90568 min sleep cycles. You would feel much more rested upon569 waking up, and would wake up faster. There might be570 some other uses for the EEG data as well.572 - image compression :: use a library like gimp or opencv to process an573 image to make it have less entropy, then store the reverse of574 those operations along with the compressed simpler image as a575 super-compressed image file (possibly accepting some576 losses). Trades file size for decompression time, and allows one577 to cheat by using information in gimp/opencv to compress the578 image.580 - fixed cryopreservation :: why not use a fixative to buy enough time581 to ramp up cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room582 temperature? Then, the whole system can be rapidly cooled and583 vitrified. This method "severs the biological link" in that the584 fixatives are highly toxic, but current vitrification procedures585 do this anyway since there can be a lot of freezing damage.587 - dilated security camera :: a security camera that would capture588 full video footage of everything at 60fps but then decide to keep589 only every 1 frame every 5 seconds unless there's something590 "interesting" happening.592 - bitcoin wallet :: Part of "server culture", this would be something593 like "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as594 your personal trusted access to your own bitcoins595 from anywhere.597 - libpay :: this would be a free library which would enable598 micro-donations to software projects and other projects,599 so that you could donate a penny to "emacs" and it would600 be automatically split up to every person who has ever601 contributed to emacs in proportion to the amount of602 community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the603 community decides. This might make it possible for604 programmers to live entirely off of free programming.606 - distributed graphics :: Browser based graphics-card accelerated607 distributed computing API.609 - pronouns :: use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve610 pronoun referents and gender neutrality, are short to611 say, and you can encode useful information into the612 choice of letter. For example, instead of "Meetings613 shall be presided over by the president, unless she is614 absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the615 president, unless P is absent." We already use this a616 little, since I and U are reserved for the subject and617 object respectively.619 - phone DSP :: software app that inserts an audio DSP between the620 input to a phone and the output. The DSP is delicious621 and configurable, and can allow men to make their622 voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you to hear623 your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how624 their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to625 immediately change the parameters of the DSP using good626 presets.628 - predestined body learning :: a good example of predestined learning629 might be the mirror neurons.631 - restaurant receipt :: use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid632 copies.634 - anti google glass :: glasses with mounted lasers and computer vision635 that targets the cameras in google glass and destroy them.637 - wearable towel :: towel with clasp, velcro, whatever, that allows638 one to wear the towel more securely than just639 wrapping it tightly and hoping for the best.641 - crossdressing :: Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to642 wear a burka.644 - book-mode :: intelligent color highlighting for books and645 articles. It would disambiguate pronouns and involved646 references. For example, if "Rachael" was assigned the647 color red, and "the blonde haired girl" refers to648 "Rachael", then "the blonde haired girl" would be649 colored red. Also, you could disambiguate multi part650 run-on sentences by highlighting each651 subcomponent. Maybe would also have applications to652 scientific reading.654 - Handheld light Rain measurement :: this would be a clear, teflon655 coated plastic disk with a camera underneath the disk. You would656 be able to hold the device out and it would measure the rate of657 accumulation of water droplets from fine mists and light rain by658 using computer vision to measure the diameters of the drops.660 - Big Brother Farming :: This would be a vision system that would661 individually monitor each plant and turn on water, etc to ensure662 maximum/uniform growth for each plant.664 - Discrete Faucet :: A faucet with discrete ticks instead of665 continuous.667 - Laser Circle :: take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one668 end at an oblique angle. It will make a perfect,669 large circle on the wall, converting a laser beam670 into a laser cone, preserving most of the energy of671 the laser.673 - Invisible Glass :: Take a container of liquid and embed a674 glass sculpture made out of glass that has exactly the same index675 of refraction and color of the liquid. Then the sculpture will be676 totally invisible in the container, and will only be revealed677 when the liquid is drained. The container might be a fancy678 wine/spirit bottle or an hourglass.680 - Caterpillar people :: A race of caterpillar like creatures gains681 intelligence after eons of predation by birds, etc. These682 caterpillar creatures still undergo metamorphosis into a large683 butterfly-like creature. The metamorphosis process turns the684 caterpillar's brain into mush and reforms it into a minimal,685 dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely destroying the person686 the caterpillar was. The society develops all sorts of customs and687 religious interpretations of the metamorphosis. It is viewed as688 good and natural by some since it is part of their life cycle and689 necessary to propagate the species, as only the butterflies can690 mate. Some think that the butterflies are still the same person691 because they have the same soul, even they no longer posses the692 memories or personality of the original caterpillar. Some see the693 butterfly form as the "true form" of the species, since the694 butterflies can fly, mate, and are beautiful. Many make a big695 deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the caterpillar's mind is696 actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see it as a terrible697 tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try to stop the698 metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very important699 members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery to700 prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as themselves.702 This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being703 something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,704 something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that705 hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains706 now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic707 legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a708 compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second709 gender characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes710 homophobia look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of711 pain and death is made to look like the tragedy it is through the712 lens of the the caterpillar people.714 - relationships as a business :: [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx][Turnover-Crisis]] is an excellent talk715 about the "culture of quitting," which is about better business716 by letting people go instead of keeping them around past their717 "apex". Focuses on information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni718 network, which for relationships would be a group of satisfied719 ex-lovers, who would recommend new people your way, and who might720 consider coming to you again, refreshed from their time away with721 new stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and722 how they worked out.724 - coffee with tea :: /rlm-tea/ contains 2% sugar, 10% cream, and 20%725 dylan coffee. /dylan coffee/ contains 5% sugar,726 20% cream, and 10% rlm-tea. Start your mornings727 with recursion!729 - psychic crystal :: in a science fiction story, this would be an730 object that is very easy to move physically but is extremely731 difficult to move with telekinesis.733 - http://betsofbitco.in/ :: what a great place for an AI/person to734 prove themselves as a good predictor. I wish this could be735 automated.737 - true reflection :: don't forget about that mirror in the student738 center!, it's two mirrors at right angles, like staring at a739 corner of a room. The light reflects so that it shows you what740 you actually look like, instead of your mirror image.742 - remote control wasp :: use computer to drive wings with remote743 power/logic.745 - encrypted email phone book :: public (distributed?) database of746 email->private-key pairs, to enable automatic encryption.748 - universal eye color :: every equivalent creature will see each749 others' eyes as black -- it's universal. Even if the creatures750 see in radio waves, and their eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged751 metal, when those creatures look at each other, they will see752 black, the absence of light and color (since it's being absorbed753 by the sensor array).755 - intelligent microwave :: it learns where the hot nodes of its fields756 are, and uses them to evenly heat any food item. It has an infrared757 camera or something to keep track of how hot the food is. That way,758 you don't get bowls where the edges are boiling, while the center is759 still frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since760 the exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of761 the food. Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer,762 just a desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automatically763 defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much764 faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with765 heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor too.767 + Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would768 "sputter" and splash liquid much less.770 + Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked foods771 and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have been772 cooked before -- it can get faster the more it's used.774 - compression :: brain-aware image compression algorithm776 - Credit card proxy :: would be a company which works like paypal777 except for real world transactions779 - Flesh pillow :: a pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete780 with simulated temperature, bones, and heartbeat.782 - super screw :: a screw which has only one or two threads and instead783 uses compression to fit into a hole (the whole shank784 of the screw is split into multiple pieces to785 accomplish this; the tip is a point, then the middle786 bulges out and gets compressed when screwed in.788 - light filter :: (like light tweezers) to mechanically separate789 fluids with different index of refraction791 - chalk eraser project :: maybe make a directional eraser, for easy792 release of chalk dust, like fur, and how it likes to rest in a793 certain direction.795 - silver socks :: socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial796 properties.798 - UROP :: magnet gear/metal teeth tape800 - Rod of Moses :: device to distill urine through evaporation and801 easily dispose of urea crystals for use in desert --802 produce drinkable water.804 - UROP :: Make the LED in line with the flow for the micro injector, so805 that it may transmit maximum flow. Motor that changes806 distance of internal magnet from windings depending on807 desired speed so as to obtain maximum power efficiency.809 - lottery scraper :: web scraper which monitors various lotteries,810 looking for "special" gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x811 winnings on Wednesdays) and computes expected value...813 - Memristiors novel design :: make an evolutionary algorithm to make814 old stuff using all four basic circuit elements.816 - Conductive concrete :: concrete that has embedded metal fibers so817 that it can conduct electricity.819 - little bitty melting pot :: might be useful for some types of820 manufacturing/3D printing -- how small can an induction melter be821 made, for example.823 - power strip/timer programmable combination :: meh825 - algorithms :: which learn what their inputs are and in what order,826 and can adapt to changing circumstances -- they827 remember previous arguments and adapt so as to respond828 to different connections.830 - true pure tones :: hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the831 nerves of the ear833 - mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp :: would be an object834 with two levers -- you pull on one lever and the other moves the835 same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is driving. This836 analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.838 - paper folding device :: make it convenient to fold lots of papers in839 various ways.841 - concrete epoxy :: epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.843 - light capacitor :: suspend some ball of material with a high index844 of refraction and shine light into it so it gets stuck -- would845 the light stay trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited846 quantities of light inside the sphere (which could then be847 released slowly by frustrated internal reflection?849 - movie screening :: Movies always are too long at first. One way to850 shorten them ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the851 move and then remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which852 there are a lot of blinking (average this over multiple people)853 better yet, put it online and do it across thousands of people. I854 got this from youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill855 which is composed entirely of the parts in which people had their856 eyes closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their857 eyes off of? Just take those parts out!859 - optimize an article :: capture reading of a scientific article via860 screen capture while people read it, then use it to make the861 article better. like the movie-pruning idea.863 - super reading program :: teaches people the ideal mental mask to864 apply during reading so as to read very fast.866 - explosive thermite epoxy putty :: one part would contain the rust,867 one part the aluminum.869 - reading comprehension :: use the above screen capture routine to870 make a quiz program that constructs questions about the content871 you seemed to gloss over while reading. could be easy if the pdf872 came with embedded questions. Dylan: automatically generate873 word-cloud about the parts you found most interesting; help874 others who read the same stuff by drawing attention to the875 interesting parts.877 - hard sword :: make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of878 martensite for the cutting part; it should be a better879 sword.881 - close range wireless :: use the induction technology used to882 recharge electric toothbrushes with no metal links to send data883 without any metal at all!885 - reading :: is a form of synsethesia887 - DNA printer :: A machine which translates the text eg, "ACTGAC" into888 actual DNA890 - black generator :: ferro-fluid magnetic field suspended micro891 generator to make electricity893 - alcohol battery :: alcohol/fluid flow powered battery895 - folding razor blade sword ::897 - perfect pitch :: learn perfect pitch using another sense in898 combination (sight or touch)900 - kaleidoscope projector ::902 - razor blade de-sharpener :: for guilt free disposal904 - bricks :: filled with luminescent plant material906 - bio metallic structure :: metal grids with seeds inside, which grow907 together and form a durable biological matrix. The metal908 substrate delivers water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?)909 Dylan: enrich plants with inorganic compounds; electrical910 interfaces in cellular plant matter => remote-controlled911 photosynthetic/bioluminescent structures.913 - conducting extracellular matrix :: to allow better control of914 organic systems and an enhanced nervous system.916 - cross-modal memory hashing :: a way to retrieve memories more917 robustly.919 - flossing thimble-guards :: (these actually exist)921 - rules + lattice learning :: integrate lattice learning with rules by922 generating hypothetical examples924 - wooden refrigerator :: to give food a better taste Dylan: like925 barrels for wine, or planks for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor926 planks" for your pre-existing fridge. Need to mitigate effect of927 temperature on volatility?929 - radioactive transmutation molecule by molecule :: create precious930 metals or something else economically advantageous.932 - crowd preservation :: inoculate food with tons of harmless933 bacteria so that there's no room for bad bacteria as a method of934 preservation936 - old school preservation :: Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon937 as a way to store liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o938 refrigeration.940 - restaurant policy :: Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter941 of course -- make ambiance much better.943 - clean windows :: make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant944 water (and reduces the pressure a bit) and use it945 to clean windows of buildings.947 - ocarina :: make an ocarina out of pure silver949 - fire pen :: pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing950 any ink. Is there a way to make it runnable from the951 human's energy?953 - website to design your own soda :: and label, and have it mailed to954 you / sell it from your own online store.956 - solar panels :: that float on the ocean958 - handcuffs with more than two cuffs (3?) :: great for daisy chaining959 people, binding them to environment, etc.961 - vector based SOUND files :: like the pictures but with SOUND. codify962 sound in a language with enough symbols so that it can describe963 everything and encode it in that. would be like going from speech964 to text or smtg. Could also store sound as an image of the965 wavefront encoded as a vector image.967 - Mouse :: with a horizontal scroll wheel in addition to the vertical968 scroll wheel970 - logic maintenance system for big institutions :: to make sure the971 things they are thinking about doing are not retarded973 - http://www.regulations.gov/ :: cool site975 - genetically engineered glowing fruit :: sell seeds?977 - memory slide :: IF memories are encoded using particular sensory978 impressions, what happens if the sensory organ979 itself changes? those memories would become980 inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember981 much from our childhoods. also, could this happen982 throughout life as well? Could S remember stuff from983 his childhood?985 - make a completely indestructible phone :: no moving parts or display986 you should be able to slam it around all you want, and it will987 just work. brutally simple. aerogel around the battery, minimal988 interface - never gets too hot, and can be dropped into water. no989 holes -- uses field effects for everything from the buttons to990 inductive charging and data transfer.992 - midi to ocarina "tabs" program :: (online website? buy ocarinas from993 it too)995 - 3d printing with sound pulses (or just patterns) :: like the 8.03996 lecture998 - lighter flint on spring :: make hot, throw it at something, and it999 makes sparkles!1001 - nuclear energy :: Rebranding New+Clear Energy with informational1002 campaign and public debate forum to enforce its1003 transparent and open nature. France needn't be the1004 world leader in nuclear energy. (Dylan)1006 - bubbles :: Engineer a material which has both ductility and high1007 surface tension to make the "third"1008 minimal-surface-energy solution to a bubble suspended1009 between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are1010 cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles,1011 and a double-cone)1013 - Textbook whose content can be varied continuously :: alter level of1014 difficulty, rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain1015 other discipline, etc. Content generated dynamically from1016 knowledge base, along with questions that are moreover altered to1017 guide knowledge acquisition. Motivation: One book of1018 knowledge. /One./1020 ** From Jacob's idea list1022 - Roommate-canceling headphones: uses roommate's laptop mic to seed1023 noise cancellation alg in your headphones (would this1024 work?). -Update on sound canceling headphones that take feed from1025 tv: how about ones that cancel people talking on the phone by1026 receiving the phone signals and playing inverse sound1027 waves. #signalprocessing ~jcole@mit.edu1029 - ClackerAlert -- tells if you slam the keys too hard using sound data1030 (and speed/jerkiness data)!.Prevents RSI ~jcole@mit.e1032 - Panic Pin :: separate pin that you can tell someone if forced to1033 identify your PIN (idea from idea about credit cards)