Mercurial > thoughts
view org/good-ideas.org @ 162:bdeaad2b1507
cryonics links.
author | Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu> |
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date | Sat, 23 Apr 2016 18:01:05 -0700 |
parents | ba80a6a67b55 |
children | 7a6b855cfb99 |
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1 #+title: Big List O' Ideas2 #+author: Robert McIntyre3 #+email: rlm@mit.edu4 #+description: list of ideas from Robert McIntyre5 #+keywords: aurellem ideas half-baked random6 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org7 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org8 #+babel: :mkdirp yes :noweb yes :exports both9 #+HTML_HEAD_EXTRA: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../css/ideas.css" />10 #+OPTIONS: num:nil12 * Ideas13 # :PROPERTIES:14 # :HTML_CONTAINER_CLASS: ideas15 # :END:17 This is a list of all the good ideas I've had that I felt like writing18 down for the past ~ 10 years. Some of them could be practical19 inventions and are "just" waiting for that 95% perspiration to bring20 them to fruition, some are ideas for science fiction, and some are21 simple observations. They are arranged roughly in reverse22 chronological order, with the most recent ideas at the top of the23 list. The ones at the bottom of the list are heavily influenced by my24 time at MIT, the ones at the top, by my time at 21st Century Medicine.26 If you find some of these interesting and would like to collaborate on27 them with me or discuss them in more detail, I'd love to hear from28 you. You can email me at ideas@aurellem.org.30 If you want to use one of these ideas as your own and run with it,31 please feel free. I'd love to hear about it if you do.33 #+begin_quote34 There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about35 getting credit.36 #+end_quote39 #+BEGIN_HTML40 <hr/>41 #+END_HTML45 ** A simple merge procedure for uploads46 Putting aside the philosophical problems around mind-uploading for47 a moment, imagine that you were /already/ a computer program48 running on a suitable robotic body. Let's say that the program is49 based off a detailed emulation of your brain -- no one really50 understands exactly /how/ the program is doing its computations,51 only that it faithfully recreates the original biological52 computations. At this point, you might want to be able to exist in53 multiple places at once while still maintining a coherent unity of54 identity, but how do you do it? You /can't/ modifiy your mind to55 handle multiple bodies at once, because this would require56 extensive understanding of exactly how your program is doing its57 computations in order to scale it to multiple bodies. But you can't58 just copy yourself either, because the copies will eventually59 diverge leading to a loss of unity of identity. You can't easily60 merge copies together after they've "diverged" because again, you'd61 have to come up with a coherent theory of mind to merge the62 datastructures. One simple way to do merges is this: First, you63 need to acchitect the robot bodies to record every single bit64 that's passing through all sensory nerves throughout a small time65 interval that's insufficient to create significant divergence. For66 sake of argument I'll assume that you do this each day. This stream67 of data represents the ultimate "life recording" and can be easily68 accomplished either in simulation of physical reality by using69 custom sensory organs, like in [[http://aurellem.org/#CORTEX][=CORTEX=]]. This set of information,70 if played back to a copy of you in the exact mental state right71 before the start of recording, would perfectaly match with the72 choices of the individual and serve as an adequate replacement for73 the world, even though it contains almost no information compared74 to the world! Once you can do the "full life records," then the75 procedure works like this: At the morning of Day 1 you "checkout"76 the one copy of you from yesterday and make around 10 copies which77 each live out their day. Each copy records a full "life recording"78 for the day. Then one copy is chosen as the "trunk" and the rest as79 branches. The trunk replays the life-recordings of the branches in80 accelerated time over the night, and the branches are then deleted81 leaving only one individual that remembers 10 consecutive days82 spent in different contexts. Then you repeat the process for Day 283 and so on. I'll call this the "small delta-T approximation" method84 for mind-merging. It works as long as the timeframe is not too long85 an is limited by how fast you can faithfully replay life86 recordings. You don't have to be "offline" for any amount of time87 while doing this: You can also alternate two sets of 10, one for88 the day and one for the night, and have the night and day trunks be89 generated from the last day / night group's trunk,90 respectively. This trades having to "sleep" for the day/night crews91 not being able to remember what happened last night/day92 respectively. The more you know about how brains work, the faster93 you can integrate previous experience and the more copies you can94 sustain. This methods means that you never lose any experience, but95 if you're willing to lose some nonessential experiences, a more96 extreme version of this might be to make a copy of yourself that97 accomplishes a task and then reports anything of note in a written98 report.100 ** Earth, Air, Water102 Probably all intelligent species name their planet "dirt" in their103 language, unless the're aquatic or flying, then they'd name it104 "water" and "air" respectively.106 ** Cure for Color Blindness108 Could it be possible to administer some retroviruses via direct109 injection to the retina, to cause some of the cells in the retina110 to begin expressing different color pigments? The brain ought to111 easily sort out the rest and enable color vision. Furthremore,112 could we add some more colors to baesline human eyes? Theory --113 people who are color blind have better color spatial accuity for114 the colors they can see, because this is the tradeoff involved with115 the retrovirus therapy: Re-purposing color detectors to see new116 colors at the expense of spatial acuity for the old set of colors.118 ** Passion of the Christ Missed Opportunity120 In the Passion of the Christ, they do the entire show using Latin,121 Aramaic, etc, with subtitles. They should have had a part where122 Jesus does the sermon on the mount, he turns to the camera, and123 starts speaking in English, with no subtitles. It would have been124 1.) biblically accurate and 2.) awesome. It would have been such a125 powerful example to convey Jesus' divinity, and show off another126 miracle. It felt like they were setting up for it the entire movie,127 and they missed it!129 ** Xenobiotic Chimeric Methalation Rewriting131 You make chimeric sea urchins with human reproductive stem cells,132 so that the sea urchins produce sea urchin-like HUMAN sperm and133 eggs. Then you can have two human males / females reproduce without134 the methylation problem, by using the sea urchins as135 intermediades. And the normal ethical problems of human/animal136 chimeras are avoided because the sea urchins don't have brains to137 begin with.139 ** Physical PGP Signatures141 You punch into your phone "I want to sign a contract" It gives you142 a gensym (or you enter a name) like:143 https://contracts.example.com/car-insurance-2015-09-26145 Then you sign your name, date, and include the link on the contract146 under "PGP sig". Then you take a picture with your phone and enter147 your signing password. It gets uploaded to your website and the148 image gets PGP signed with your key. Now you have a timestamped149 archive of the contract, and anyone can verify it by looking at the150 physical contract itself!152 ** The Digital Third Eye154 You wire in a third optical input to the human brain, but it155 doesn't tranduce light form the real world, bus instead is156 connected to the "internet of things" and shows you metadata about157 things you are looking at // serves as an interface to your own158 mind and body. Then eventually simply real things without metadata159 seem flat and fake compared to the objects in cities and other160 annotated areas. This third eye doesn't occupy any of your normal161 visual field but actually EXPANDS your visual field.163 ** Ultimate Limits of Monogamy165 Let's say that you're immortal and monogamous. The longer you live166 with your partner, the more you build an internal model of them,167 and they you. Eventually these models may become complete, and then168 you two are actually one single recursive entity which references169 itself. As you offload more processing to the other (such as old170 couples actually do -- "remember when we were at that place,171 what-was-his-name honey?"), then computationally you are a single172 mind distributed across two bodies. (There's a reason why old173 couples often die as a pair). You might decide to actually merge174 bodies eventually. But then, you were both monogamous, so the175 combined person will be monogamous (and lonely because it lacks a176 partner). So you get married again, rinse, wash, repeat. All the177 monogamous people within a certain "compatability group" eventually178 become one. Our "social center of mass" doesn't lie within our own179 bodies!181 ** Dream Rewinding183 How to record a complete dream without disturbing it or modifying184 your brain? you need to be an upload: split yourself, and one of185 you stays awake whike the other sleeps. then you detect a dream in186 progress by monotoring rapid eye movememt in your sleeping self,187 and you wake yourself up every few minutes and tell yoursef about188 the dream. Then sleeping-your restarts the dream, continuation189 passing style, forgetting everything that was just said, and you190 repeat this process until the dream is over. Then awake-you and191 sleeping-you merge each other by taking sleeping-you and replaying192 the memories of awake-you, and you write a final report on the193 dream using the "saccade" reports to jog your memory.195 It would really let you directly test theories of memory because196 you can test a person every second if you want to. I see a couple197 ways this could play out: you could report a dream that follows a198 linear narrative, with the story advancing a little bit each time199 (the "storytelling" hypothesis), you might say something totally200 different each time (the "garbage memory access" hypothesis), or201 something even weider like where you report exactly the same thing202 between seconds 0-20, then something totally different during203 seconds 20-40, etc.205 ** Denser than Osmium207 Do the "misicibility" thing with an osmium alloy to get something208 even more dense. Basically osmium + something else might be denser209 then pure osmium.211 ** AI Hypnosis213 Hypnosis might be good for studying AI, becuse it might probide a214 "debugger" for ananlyzing the human mind. I briefly tried this215 while at MIT, but it needs MUCH more work to be properly216 evaulated. Also, things you can do under hypnosis provide217 constraints on what the mind's capabilities are. Also, hypnosis218 iteslf is a worthwhile thing to study in its own right.220 ** The Ocean Becomes a Drop221 Upload faces challenges to grow into the type of person that can222 join the greater society -- a god. They have to go though quests223 that replicate all the things that humanity had to accomplish, like224 going to the moon, by themselves.226 ** Butterfly Drone227 If big butterflies used to exist, then maybe we could make228 butterfly-inspired drones!230 ** Methylation Sex-Symmetry Breaking231 Human sex cells have methylation patterns that encode male/female232 origin. If you combine two male patterns, the fetus grows "too233 fast" and dies. Two female patterns causes the fetus to enter a234 "vegatable" state and fail to develop. Evolutionary biologists say235 that this reflects the asymmetry of energy investement for creating236 offspring. If that's true, then species that cast-spawn will lack237 this asymmetry, and give clues about how to remove it in humans. If238 even cast spawners like sea urchins have it, then that means239 there's something deeper going on!241 ** Homosexual Reproduction242 You take genetic material from two males and put it into an egg243 cell that has had all genetic material removed. Or, you take the244 genetic material from one egg and put it in another egg. This would245 allow homosexual couples to genetically reproduce. One technical246 challenge blocking this technique is that human gametes have247 methylation patterns that encode male/female origin, and only a248 male+female pattern gives rise to viable offspring. You could249 "recondition" male / female gametes to give them the opposite250 pattern, perhaps by incubating them in the appropriate251 environment. You also could try taking stem cells and making them252 form the appropriate structures in vitro.254 ** Poly-Vitrification255 Large molecules such as PVP are able to vitrify at around -20C, and256 at farily small concentrations. IF they could be introduced into257 cells, they would be quite useful as vitrification agents. However,258 it's difficult to get them in because they are so big. So instead,259 use smaller agents which combine together into polymers at low260 temperature. In particular, Fructose, trehalose, and glycerol seem261 to have the desired properties (though you need to make versions of262 fructose and trehalose that can penetrate).264 ** Whole Brain Perfusion Embedding265 Do the standard EM embedding protocol, but skip the osmium step,266 and use the "perfusion pausing" method to prevent overextraction267 during the dehydration and embedding steps. I think that you can268 perfuse resins into the brain, simply because you can perfuse269 viscous rubber when doing vascular casts.271 ** Very Slow Physiological Pressure Perfusion272 Less extreme example of the "perfusion pausing" trick -- just keep273 the perfusion running and don't put the perfusion target into the274 liquid as deep.276 ** Perfusion Pausing277 One problem with doing perfusion of heads / organs where the veins278 freely leak fluid is that if you STOP the perfusion, you rapidly279 loose pressure in the organ as your perfusate leaks out. You can280 prevent this by submerging the organ/head/rat whatever in fluid at281 an appropriate deepness. You would have to slowly decrease the flow282 rate while simultaneously lowering the perfusing object into the283 fluid. To start again, reverse the process -- reengage the284 peristaltic pump slowly while removing the organ from the fluid.286 ** Textbook Mimiricy Evolution287 As surgery becomes more common, there develops a distinct selective288 pressure for individuals' organ layouts to look more like the289 medical textbooks!291 ** Transparent Skin292 Temporary / permament transparent skin. Allows for examination of293 organs / muscles and visual prevention of disease and detection or294 abnormalities / good things eg. excercise optimization.296 ** Sweet Information297 Candy with a whole book written in it. Eat a book!299 ** Targeted Immunosuppressant300 Just kill off the B-cells and friends that would cause problems in301 a organ-transplant / other situation. AIDS is good at killing these302 cells -- maybe make it can be modified to just target the ones that303 will cause problems. Then you can premptively kill off that part of304 someone's immune system before a transplant. ALSO, you can kill off305 everyone's defenses against other blood types and make people306 effectively type AB+ w.r.t blood transfusions. Actually, why not307 give babies this treatment so that they're automatically compatable308 with all blood types? It would be like a blood transfusion309 vaccine. The immune system does this already when it's first310 growing; maybe it can be "retrained" to accept new things, or the311 mechanism of immune cell death be co-opted for these purposes.313 ** Fuck-you Tetris314 Tetris that actively gives you the worst possible315 piece. Implemented! http://fph.altervista.org/prog/bastet.html ,316 https://github.com/johnny-morrice/solumns/releases318 ** Pockets319 More things should have them! Chairs, tables, cups, hats,320 trashcans, basically anything is better with a pocket.322 ** Colored Shower Head323 A shower head add-on that measures the temp of the water and324 changes the color of the water streams w/ an LED to show you the325 temperature. That way you can align to the color you want and see326 the temperature without feeling it.328 ** Giant Dragonflies329 We could rapidly MAKE giant dragonflies by evolving modern330 dragonflies in an very oxygen rich environment!332 ** Whirlpool of Light333 Shine a laser out into space. But the planet is spinning! What you334 get is a spiral of light! And as this signal expands, does it335 eventually reveal it's quantized nature?337 ** Perfusion Cooking338 You do cardiac bypass on an animal like a pig, then pump in tasty,339 tasty perfusate (like marinade) into the animal's340 vasculature. Then, you switch out to saline and increase the341 temperature of the saline to rapidly and uniformly cook the342 animal. It could be the tastiest meat ever!344 ** Timestamp Verification345 You sign your message, and it has a timestamp at the top, with a +-346 percision number. Then you send it over to the public timestamp347 server, which only signs the message if it gets the message within348 the timestamp window. Or the computer just signs the message but349 puts a timestamp at the beginning. So if everyone trusts the350 timestamp server, you can get reliable timestamps, and prove351 priority on ideas, etc.353 ** The Great Computing Slow-Down354 In general, our computers are getting faster and faster according355 to Moore's law. However, eventually our brains will be made of the356 same stuff our computers are made of! This has very interesting357 consequences -- I can add 2+2 and get four in about a second. Since358 my neurons actually work at around 10-60 hertz in parallel, this359 means that it takes me around 10-30 operations to do this360 addition. That's actually not bad in terms of computing time. If my361 neurons were as fast as the latest transitors, then most362 calculators (made with earlier transistors) would be SLOWER than me363 at adding numbers. Only the newest, most optimized calculators364 would be faster, and then only about 10 times faster! This means365 that once we begin to think at the speed of our technology, that366 technology will suddenly seem pitifully slow in comparison to how367 it seems now. And no amount of technical progress will remedy it,368 because that same progress will also make us all think369 faster. We'll either have to settle with living in "slow time" to370 do some computations, or learn to make smarter hardware with371 special optimizations. But this is actually really hard, because372 we'll be working with machines that will appear to us about as fast373 as MECHANICAL computers. So, in the future, all the cool parties374 will be in cyperspace at vastly accelerated speeds compared to how375 we exist now. But at these parties, the computers will SUCK! Of376 course, this is one of the few things that can save us from AI377 risk, because those AI's won't seem so scary when the're build out378 of rickety old mechanical parts form our perspective.380 ** Unitary Reverse Evolution of Chaos+Minds381 Chaotic systems diverge exponentially in state space. Do you get382 anything interesting when part of the physical system associated383 with the chaotic system is a object that performs some sort of384 computation? Is it possible for the computational system to play a385 percision-enabling role in determining the final/initial conditions386 of the chaotic system, just by tracing out thoughts in its decision387 paths? This is probably too vague of an idea right now, I just388 wanted to write it down.390 ** Microwave-Time391 The cooking time you enter on most microwaves is insane. It's392 expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a combination of base 10393 and base 60. You can get absurd things like 100 < 61, and 120 ==394 80! I wonder if these hybrid base systems could be very useful for395 some purposes! Dylan [[http://logical.ai/microwave/org/sawtooth.html][wrote a blog post on this subject!]]397 ** Three Eyes398 If you had three eyes, would you still draw cubes like we currently399 draw them? Or would all 2D-representations of 3D space always look400 hopelessly fake?402 ** Digital Taste/Smell Assay403 Get a grid of bacteria, each expressing a human taste/smell404 receptor linked to some sort of fluorscent activity or ion405 pump. Use a camera / electrical grid to transduce the smell / taste406 signal into bits! Inspired by gel-sight from MIT.408 ** Childrens' Tool Shop409 I think that kids should be provided with tool shops -- these would410 be nice sheds with a good collection of tools to do various things411 -- circuit components and soldering irons, wires, a small lathe,412 drill press, belt sander, a centrifuge, microscope, and telescope,413 etc. The idea is that the kid can now think, "I could use X to do414 this thing that I'm thinking about" -- the building becomes an415 extension of the kid's body & mind.417 ** Fluid Display418 Like the previous idea about matching refractances between glass419 and liquid, except you make a lot of switchable glass tubes in420 various patterns in the glass, and actively pump colored liquid421 through the tubes (the tubes have glass-like fluid in them by422 default.) The result is that you can cause the tubes to appear and423 dissappear, and vary their colors as well!425 ** Immunoincompatibility426 Take the human genome, and refactor it so that it doesn't use a427 particular codon at all. Then remove the support from our ribosomes428 for that codon. What does this do for us? It makes us immune to429 almost all viruses! There is at least one bacteria that already430 does this to great effect.432 ** Life Cycle433 It's called a cycle, right? So, the thing that repeats itself over434 and over, right? Not much of a cycle if you don't come back after435 you die, if you ask me!437 ** Car with no Blind Spots438 Use some cameras in the back of the car to augment the rear-view439 mirror so that you never have to turn around in order to lane440 change.442 ** Metabolic Windows and Freezing443 You freeze a set of cells using some cryo protocol and 60%444 survive. How can this be explained? It seems to me that if the445 cells are the same, and the conditions homogoneous, then all the446 cells should either die or live. However, suppose that there is a447 metabolic cycle that needs to be in a certain phase for the cell to448 survive. If the cells are asynchronous, then you might end up with449 some cells dying because there were in the wrong part of their450 cycle. This implies that you might be able to cryoprotect cells by451 causing them to enter a certain metabolic mode before freezing.453 ** Cryonics Color Appeal454 Perfusate used by cryonics companies could have red food coloring455 in it. It's just a nice touch so that the cryonics patient looks456 more life-like than with clear CPAs, and hopefully might get457 treated with more respect.459 ** Paramagnetic CPA460 you take a CPA that can be influenced by magnetic fields so that461 its degrees of freedom are limited. Then, you release the field,462 instantaly increasing the size of the state space of the system and463 dramatically decreasing the temperature enough to plunge the system464 past homogenous nucleation temperature and directly to the glass465 transition temperature, creating a doubly unstable glass at much466 lower CPA concentrations than possible at conventional CPA467 concentrations. A major technical limitation facing this technique468 is that it's a very minor effect -- you can only get about 0.1C469 with most systems that have been studied so far.471 ** Room Temp Ramen472 How does the physics of cooking noodles work? Could you use a473 vacuum instead of heat to force water into the noodle?475 ** Personal Carbon Offset476 Feel bad about contribuiting to global warming by using electricity477 / driving a car? Forget trying to "conserve" or "minimize your478 carbon footprint". Follow the Platinum rule -- make the world479 BETTER off than you found it! This would be a small, self480 contained system that sucks C02 out of the air. It uses481 electricity, but it's so efficient at removing CO2 that it more482 than offsets the CO2 produced by even a coal plant to produce that483 electricity. This way, you can still drive even a gas guzzler, but484 have a net negative carbon footprint! Maybe something cool could be485 done with the carbon as well. Use as much electricity as you want,486 but negate the damage to the enviroment with more technology.488 ** Undoing Spermogenesis489 With enough sperm, you can derive the donor's entire genome. You490 gain more confidence in the alleles for a particular gene the more491 sperm you have. Each additional sperm gives you the same sort of492 information you'd get flipping a coin and trying to decide whether493 the coin is H/T of H/H. Is there enough sperm in the the average494 load for you to be as confident as mitosis?496 ** Mars Life497 We could engineer life that could survive on mars (probably some498 non-vascular photosynthetic poikilohydric creature like a lichen)499 by taking an extremophile from Antarctica and evolving it in500 increasingly Martian conditions. This could be an easy start to a501 terraforming process.503 ** Problem with Aubrey de Grey's Ideas504 Aubrey de Grey says that we might be able to live forever by505 continually repairing our bodies at the cellular level -- he506 details 7 different mechanisms of damage and says that if all of507 them are dealt with /together/ that it would stop aging. (You can't508 miss even one because they're all fatal.) However, it doesn't take509 into account that we are also beings of information and that there510 is a very real software component to our existence. Even if our511 biological chassies can be maintained forever, I think it is512 unlikely that our minds will operate well far outside of the design513 constraints that we've evolved to handle. Say I programmed a514 webserver with the express goal of it being able to serve webpages515 for month on some stock server. I'll do fairly rigorous testing to516 make sure that it can handle the expected load then then some. Now517 say that you want to keep a particular instance of this webserver518 running indefinitely. (The program instance is like your mind and519 the computer it's running on is like your body). You might very520 well be able to keep the physical computer infrastructure running521 for forever by replacing hard drives / ram / CPUs, etc. However,522 since I designed the webserver to work for a month, it probably has523 memory leaks, rare stochastic bugs, or other built in limits /524 constraints (think log files or some date rollover shenanigans)525 that will ultimately kill the webserver even with eternally perfect526 hardware. Do you really expect that a webserver engineered to work527 for 1 month will run for 10 years without catastrophically528 crashing? Not even Apache can do this! In fact, if I put in the529 extreme effort to make it that robust, I've wasted time that I530 could have spent on other projects by pursuing an unnecessary531 engineering goal. Likewise, human minds have only ever run for at532 most 122 years before they are destroyed due to hardware533 degradation. Fixing the hardware doesn't change any software bugs534 that are almost certainly present in the human mind. Think of all535 the pathological things that can go wrong with a webserver,536 multiply it by a million, and that likely how evolution has537 designed our minds. For example, consider memory : why should you538 expect that we have evolved the ability to coherently organize539 memories past say 150 years? There's been absolutely no selective540 pressure for this ability, so you can bet that if there's any541 fitness to be gained from not having unlimited memory potential542 (such as better metabolic efficiency), we have it! You might think543 that maybe we would just forget things the same way that we sort of544 forget things that happen earlier in our lives, but complicated545 information processing systems don't have to fail gracefully when546 they're pushed far past their design constraints. A 150 year old547 person is just as likely to suffer a catastrophic psychosis due to548 software limitations associated with memory as he is to do549 something with all those memories we might consider550 reasonable. More likely, in fact, since there are so very many ways551 for a complicated software system to break and so few ways for it552 to run successfully. Therefore, I think Aubrey de Grey's553 "hardware-only" approach is missing a very important component of554 longevity science, and any successful effort to make people live555 orders of magnitude longer than they do naturally will need to deal556 with people's software as well as their hardware.558 ** Validating Neurocryopreservation559 Problem : you want to test whether a brain is functionally560 preserved through vitrification, but you don't want to figure out561 how to preserve all the other organs in the animal. It might be562 possible to keep the rest of the body at almost 0C and vitrify just563 the head for only a few minutes. Induce hypothermia, then separate564 out the head's blood supply from the rest of the body, then just565 cryoptotect and vitrify the head. Might need some sort of thermal566 guard to keep the outer head / neck from becoming too cold. You567 leave the spinal cord intact! Then you devitrify to 0C, remove568 cryoprotectant, and then reattach the blood supply. You can569 determine brain preservation using behavioral assays!571 ** Freezing Water Purifier572 You slowly freeze water, but also run liquid water over the frozen573 mass. This takes away basically all impurities and creates "washed574 ice" then you melt the ice. Maybe you could re-use the heat from575 creating the ice to melt the ice?577 ** Ultra Strength578 Allow a person to visualize their muscle recruitment patterns. Give579 them adrenaline and let them feel what it's like to have the normal580 limits removed. See if they can replicate the effects.582 ** Phone Names583 Make a PX record for domain names that's like the MX record, except584 that it is a phone number instead of an IP address. That way, you585 can use the domain name registration system to provide names for586 phone numbers. Then, as long as you control the domain, you can587 point people to your current phone number by updating that record.589 ** Edible Flowers590 Edible white flowers that you put in a colored solution with591 flavor. When the flower turns the right color, it is also flavored592 and ready to eat!594 ** Lead Bone595 Could you fill in all the empty spaces in a bone with lead? Might596 be cool!598 ** The Quest for Life599 Many stories that have immortal characters have the "immortal who600 wants to become mortal" trope. I want to story where the601 protagonist loses their immortality and feels /angry/ and ashamed602 about losing something that's so absolutely crucial to their603 identity. A reverse of "death makes life worth living", they feel604 that living forever is what makes life worth living. Now they've605 "lost their sunrise" or their "connection to the timeless universe"606 or something. So they go on a quest to get it back, learning about607 themselves along the way, and regaining the precious thing they608 lost in the beginning. Which, it they can actually gain their609 immortality back, means that they never lost it in the first place!611 ** World Map612 Take a small table and paint the continents in toothpaste on the613 table. Make a slightly raised barrier around the table. Slowly pour614 water onto the table, and it will form the oceans!616 ** Stage Magic Rituals617 Rituals should incorporate elements of stage magic. For example in618 Teller's rendition of Shakespeare's Tempest, they have a scene619 where they levitate a crown in front of someone, then put it on his620 head. They also have a wedding ceremony where they levitated the621 bride as well. Actual weddings and other ceremonies should622 incorporate stage magic as an enhancement to the gravitas!624 ** Isotope Time Dilation625 Use a cyclotron to speed up rare isotopes developed in nuclear626 fusion experiments. The relativistic time dilation will stop the627 isotopes from decaying, and allow time to study them. This is based628 on radioactive isotopes that fall through the earth's atmosphere629 that take hundreds of times longer to decay than normal.631 ** Marsupial Stimulation632 You take a freshly pouched marsupial baby, and show it videos and633 other interactive things while it matures in the pouch. What mental634 effects would this have?636 ** The Dynamically Well-Tempered Clavier637 Some older ways of tuning instruments sound better, but we use the638 even-tempered scale today because it makes it easier to switch639 keys. With electronic music, why not make key-annotations and640 dynamically re-tune the piece to sound good in the current key?641 Could be done as a midi+annotation -> midi compiler for initial642 experimentation.644 ** Death Always Implies Damage645 is is possible for a corpse to differ from a living person only in646 the fact that one is dead and the other is alive? NO! A corpse must647 always have some sort of molecular damage which causes the loss of648 function!650 ** Inner Eye651 Surgically install a bunch of tiny cameras inside a person. Then,652 you can activate them all and get a picture of your internal organs653 for diagnostic purposes.655 ** Chaos Rails656 The homoclinic tangle (which I call the "rails of chaos") is very657 beautiful. We couldn't even visualize it before computers because658 it's so complicated! Someone should make a visualization of659 it. Here's my inital stab at it: [[../images/rails-of-chaos.png][The Rails of Chaos]]661 ** Cryonics Middle Ages662 Some people say that cryonics is an experiment and that it is663 foolish to wait until we have revived a human. There is a middle664 ground where the procedure has a dismal success rate on humans, say665 1 in 20, so that you'd be a fool to try revival. Nonetheless, this666 very risky procedure could be the legal proof of concept needed to667 create a new class of life between "living" and "dead": "stasis".669 ** Minds and Mirrors670 Neat thought experiment -- if you take a mirror of someone by671 actually reversing a person's chirality molecule by molecule, then672 will the only be able to read mirror writing? The answer is yes, by673 analogy to a purely mechanical scan-tron device. This is one of the674 only interesting transforms I know that can take a human brain and675 change it in subtle, non-destructive ways. It's also an argument676 against dualism.678 ** Biosphere in a Bottle679 There are around 15 million species. 15 million stem cells will680 fill only a tiny size, far less than a cubic inch. Preserve a681 single cell from every species on earth in this small space, and682 you will have a record of our current biosphere that can be683 protected. "Hold the genetic data of all species in your hand!"685 ** Chaos Lock686 The "arrow of time" points in the direction of increasing687 entropy. The time evolution of chaotic systems depend exquisitely688 on their initial state. If you take a measurement of a chaotic689 system at any given point of time, you can evolve that system690 backwards or forwards based on your measurement. So let's say you691 start the chaotic system in a VERY low entropy state, then let it692 run for a while, then take a measurement with some693 uncertainty. Your measurement is pretty good, but obviously not694 PERFECT. If you evolve the chaotic system back in time, then you695 will see that you don't really reach a state with low entropy an696 hour before (the entropy is easy to measure with surrogates like697 alignment, etc). So use this technique to SEARCH for a more698 accurate measurement! This potentially can give you many more699 orders of magnitude than you could get alone just using an700 instrument. Sometimes it will give you bad results, the the odds of701 it doing that are infinitesimal, and you can just measure a couple702 of times.704 ** Cryo Evolution705 Perhaps there would be a way to rapidly evolve a symbiotic706 bacterial organism that could protect human tissues from freezing707 damage.709 ** Suicide Parasite710 Sometimes, people kill themselves for no good reason. We often711 explain this with things like "hidden depression" or we say that712 they had something like chronic jaw or back pain. I think that713 smells of rationalization. I don't buy it. I propose that in many714 suicide cases there is a disease that causes the suicidal715 behavior. We already know that certain parasites have mind-bending716 properties in other animals, even mammals like mice. It's not much717 of a stretch to imagine a parasite that causes suicides in718 humans. Some problems:720 *What does the suicide parasite get out of it?* : This might be721 answered by the whole thing being a glitch caused by cross-species722 contamination. Toxoplasma works this way.724 *What predictions does a disease model make* : suicide should be725 more common among people who share a contagion vector. There should726 be suicides that don't make any sense : people who weren't really727 depressed, who had no reason to kill themselves. People who have728 killed themselves should have a higher incidence of some unknown729 parasite in their brains.731 ** Domestic Insects732 People should eat more bugs because they're much more efficient, so733 why not do some major domestication research to make very appealing734 bugs? Beetles, in particular, seem to be excellent targets for735 domestication because they have extreme levels of genetic736 malleability. Remember that lobster was once seen as an animal only737 fit for prisoners to consume!739 ** Birth-Clones740 What if each person was intentionally split at birth into a normal741 embryo and a few "backup" cells which are then frozen. The backup742 cells are created just the same way as natural identical twins. The743 backups can be used to regenerate organs. etc. Also, it would be a744 good sci-fi concept, because you could have a culture where people745 reward people who were especially awesome are "reborn" from their746 backups. Imagine having a young Bach every generation, etc.748 ** Pronunciation Guide749 A simple webpage where you type in a word and it returns a simple,750 English sentence describing exactly how to pronounce the word. For751 people who don't want to learn IPA.753 ** Learning to Teleport754 This is a story about a person who is struggling with his/her755 society's ideas about teleportation. It's considered a fundamental756 part of being a member of that society (after all, the difference757 between animals and humans is that humans are creatures of pure758 information while animals are burdened with base matter, "that's759 how you travel the stars, etc") Humans are born normally, grow up,760 and then eventually transcend via destructive upload. Analogies to761 jumping off a diving board into a pool (which I simply /could not762 do/ for a long time), etc.764 ** No-Float-Ice765 Cup that has cross beams at the bottom where ice forms. Then when766 you drink liquid from the glass, the ice stays at the bottom and767 doesn't hit your lips. For bars and fancy things.769 ** Bitcoins for Immigrants770 A common case with Mexican immigrants (illegal or not) is that they771 want to send money they've earned in the US back to their families772 in Mexico. They currently do this through things like Money Gram or773 Western Union, and they get fleeced in the process with774 fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce the cost of sending money from775 America to Mexico, but I don't believe that it's currently used for776 that among Mexican immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I777 bet you could set up physical locations like those obnoxious778 Western Union huts in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly779 undercut them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin780 might be in order. There's some money to be made there because781 there is great demand, and it's a good thing to boot!783 ** Reverse Eye-Tracking784 A painting that is actually a digital screen with a camera. It785 records people's eye tracks permanently. It's "artistic" because786 paintings are normally these things that you look at without787 changing, but this one is changed the second you look at it,788 recording where /you/ looked forever for others to see. Make it be789 a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the breasts and groin790 area light up with interest from all the males passing by. Then791 watch as the painting turns into a commentary on perception and792 popularity -- a sort of eigenvector of perception! Will all793 paintings turn into the same thing eventually?795 ** Smart Toilets796 Instead of using indirect measures like infrared detectors of the797 presence of a person, use computer vision to directly measure798 whether the toilet needs to be flushed. I think a lot of things799 will end up going this way as we get better computer vision.801 ** Validate Chemopreservation802 Chemopreservation is difficult to validate because it destroys the803 functionality of a brain, and brain simulation will take a long804 time to mature as a technology. However, one very powerful way to805 validate chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn806 something with high complexity such as a number or the solution to807 a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain808 chemically, slice it up, and read /that specific memory/ from the809 detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable.811 ** Candy Screw812 Edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw as well.814 ** Better Bibliography815 When writing a thesis or paper, have the bibliography not just be816 an opaque list of resources, but have it be a list of /summaries/817 and /qualities/ that each paper has in the context of the paper818 being written. When examining a bibliography, I want to know if819 reading the papers in the bibliography are worth my time, and I820 also am probably also interested in exactly the things that are821 being discussed in the paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the822 perfect place to provide information about the referenced papers823 from the author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in824 my own thesis!826 ** Chess Visual827 To show the vast size of the game trees considered by computers,828 show two people playing chess in a void. They are floating in829 space, and there is a simple chess board between them. Then, as830 they play, the game tree's they are considering are drawn behind831 him. The root of the tree starts centered in their heads or832 whatever they use to think, and the tree grows out from behind,833 never crossing the dividing plane between the two players. Each834 player's tree is a different color. As they grow, there are835 animations for pruning, etc. Eventually, they look like the836 hemispheres of a brain, wings, etc. A human's tree might837 occasionally have a long chain, while the computer tree would be838 more uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern laptop. Use839 actual data when fighting two computers!841 ** Tamper Proof Gold Bars842 [[Http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html][This site]] offers gold plated tungsten bars as "novelty" items. One843 reason to prefer coins is because they are much harder to844 counterfeit because there is less surface area to mass845 ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design because they can846 hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar could be given the847 same protections (and more) that gold coins have to offer by848 changing it into a "gold book", which would have hundreds of849 "pages" of gold bound together. This could be implemented with850 multiple steel rods going through the book which can be removed, or851 some more classier mechanism for holding the pages. The point is852 that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and people would perform853 this test before buying), thus guaranteeing it's authenticity.855 ** High School Science856 This is a lesson in scientific ethics. The goal is to calculate857 /g/, the local gravitational acceleration. The students are told858 that the textbook says it's /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the859 experiment. See how they doctor their results to get closer to the860 textbook value. It's neat because for any given school, /g/ is861 probably *not* exactly equal to 9.81, because that is just an862 average!864 ** Opencourseware Subtitles865 There are people who type up lectures at MIT while they are being866 given, so that hearing impared students can follow along. These867 recordings should be kept and given to OCW for subtitles. If the868 timestamps of keys are recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.870 ** Screen Locking Timing871 You use your computer camera to see if you are sitting in front of872 the computer. If you are, then the screen will never lock. If you873 are, then the screen will lock with a 30-40 second timeout. It's an874 extension of using inactivity to initiate the countdown, just with875 more information.877 ** Mirror Toilet878 A toilet with a square basin made of mirror instead of879 porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a wipe job you have880 done / watch how your excretion system works.882 ** X-ray telepresence883 given that a doctor is operating on a patient via telepresence, one884 cool things you can do is shine X-rays into the patient to view the885 insides during real time. (This doesn't expose either the doctor or886 patient to chronically damaging amounts of X-rays) If the system887 was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure,888 and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the889 model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage and890 surgery risk could be minimized.892 ** Superfluid Vascular System893 I wonder what would happen if you replaced the blood in a human894 with a superfluid. What would the physical dynamics be? Would the895 superfluid flow through the vasculature, or would it ignore it and896 travel through the cells, or something else entirely. Since897 superfluids need to be cold to retain their superfluidity, how898 would the dynamics change during perfusion of a superfluid, where899 the fluid gains and looses superfluidity as it goes deeper into the900 body and is cooled by superfluid from upstream. In summary there901 are two things to simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with902 superfluid instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.904 ** Projective Guessing905 I think that we read and see things by making a really good guess906 about what we're expecting to see, and then searching for our guess907 in what we see. If it really doesn't match, then we start to make908 more guesses / analyze the image from first principles, but most909 stuff is projective guessing.911 ** Intestinal Flora Maintenance912 Why not inoculate babies at birth with "ideal" gut flora instead of913 whatever bullshit they naturally get, thus giving them optimal914 digestive/nutrient extraction capabilities. Might also be able to915 make their farts not stink for life, too. MORE IMPORTANTLY, might916 help to preventatively stop some forms of /colic/, which affects 1917 in 5 babies and causes constant screaming and pain for about 5918 weeks.920 ** Server Culture -- Mirrors921 Make a distributed system where people can mirror the websites of922 people they like -- essentially cover the server costs of favored923 websites. This could make popular websites run at no cost. The924 system would require that the mirrored content be the same as the925 official source. Sort of like bit-torrent for websites.927 ** Map Programming928 One problem with functional programming is that in order to remain929 functional, you have to pass up arguments up into each calling930 function to get the full range of behavior from the lower level931 functions. Normally people come to a compromise involving932 abstraction and sparing use of dynamic variables to configure933 runtime behavior. What would be the advantages of making a934 programming language where every function receives one argument, a935 map, which contains all the symbol bindings it would ever need?936 This map is passed on to all subordinate functions. This way, you937 could replace functions on the fly, and arrange for there to be938 sensible defaults, etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an939 interesting idea.941 ** Rest Nest942 A small EEG device you would attach to your head when you go to943 sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine your particular sleep944 cycles. This would mostly be an alarm clock that you could give a945 time range, say 7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an946 ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90 min sleep947 cycles. You would feel much more rested upon waking up, and would948 wake up faster. There might be some other uses for the EEG data as949 well.951 ** Image Compression952 Use a library like gimp or opencv to process an image to make it953 have less entropy, then store the reverse of those operations along954 with the compressed simpler image as a super-compressed image file955 (possibly accepting some losses). Trades file size for956 decompression time, and allows one to cheat by using information in957 gimp/opencv to compress the image.959 ** Aldehyde-Stabalized Cryopreservation960 Why not use a fixative to buy enough time to ramp up961 cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room temperature? Then,962 the whole system can be rapidly cooled and vitrified. This method963 "severs the biological link" in that the fixatives are highly964 toxic, but current vitrification procedures do this anyway since965 there can be a lot of freezing damage.967 ** Dilated Security Camera968 A security camera that would capture full video footage of969 everything at 60fps but then decide to keep only every 1 frame970 every 5 seconds unless there's something "interesting" happening.972 ** Bitcoin Wallet973 Part of "server culture", this would be something like974 "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as your personal trusted975 access to your own bitcoins from anywhere.977 ** Libpay978 This would be a free library which would enable micro-donations to979 software projects and other projects, so that you could donate a980 penny to "emacs" and it would be automatically split up to every981 person who has ever contributed to emacs in proportion to the982 amount of community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the983 community decides. This might make it possible for programmers to984 live entirely off of free programming.986 ** Pronouns987 Use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve pronoun988 referents and gender neutrality, are short to say, and you can989 encode useful information into the choice of letter. For example,990 instead of "Meetings shall be presided over by the president,991 unless she is absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the992 president, unless P is absent." We already use this a little, since993 I and U are reserved for the subject and object respectively.995 ** Phone DSP996 Software app that inserts an audio DSP between the input to a phone997 and the output. The DSP is delicious and configurable, and can998 allow men to make their voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you999 to hear your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how1000 their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to immediately1001 change the parameters of the DSP using good presets.1003 ** Restaurant Receipts1004 Use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid copies.1006 ** Crossdressing1007 Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to wear a burka.1009 ** Book-Mode1010 Intelligent color highlighting for books and articles. It would1011 disambiguate pronouns and involved references. For example, if1012 "Rachael" was assigned the color red, and "the blonde haired girl"1013 refers to "Rachael", then "the blonde haired girl" would be colored1014 red. Also, you could disambiguate multi part run-on sentences by1015 highlighting each subcomponent. Maybe would also have applications1016 to scientific reading.1018 ** Handheld Light Rain Measurement1019 This would be a clear, teflon coated plastic disk with a camera1020 underneath the disk. You would be able to hold the device out and1021 it would measure the rate of accumulation of water droplets from1022 fine mists and light rain by using computer vision to measure the1023 diameters of the drops.1025 ** Big Brother Farming1026 This would be a vision system that would individually monitor each1027 plant and turn on water, etc to ensure maximum/uniform growth for1028 each plant.1030 ** Discrete Faucet1031 A faucet with discrete ticks instead of continuous.1033 ** Laser Circle1034 Take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one end at an1035 oblique angle. It will make a perfect, large circle on the wall,1036 converting a laser beam into a laser cone, preserving most of the1037 energy of the laser.1039 ** Invisible Glass1040 Take a container of liquid and embed a glass sculpture made out of1041 glass that has exactly the same index of refraction and color of1042 the liquid. Then the sculpture will be totally invisible in the1043 container, and will only be revealed when the liquid is1044 drained. The container might be a fancy wine/spirit bottle or an1045 hourglass.1047 ** Caterpillar people1048 A race of caterpillar like creatures gains intelligence after eons1049 of predation by birds, etc. These caterpillar creatures still1050 undergo metamorphosis into a large butterfly-like creature. The1051 metamorphosis process turns the caterpillar's brain into mush and1052 reforms it into a minimal, dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely1053 destroying the person the caterpillar was. The society develops all1054 sorts of customs and religious interpretations of the1055 metamorphosis. It is viewed as good and natural by some since it is1056 part of their life cycle and necessary to propagate the species, as1057 only the butterflies can mate. Some think that the butterflies are1058 still the same person because they have the same soul, even they no1059 longer posses the memories or personality of the original1060 caterpillar. Some see the butterfly form as the "true form" of the1061 species, since the butterflies can fly, mate, and are1062 beautiful. Many make a big deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the1063 caterpillar's mind is actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see1064 it as a terrible tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try1065 to stop the metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very1066 important members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery1067 to prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as1068 themselves.1070 This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being1071 something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,1072 something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that1073 hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains1074 now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic1075 legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a1076 compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second gender1077 characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes homophobia1078 look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of pain and death1079 is made to look like the tragedy it is through the lens of the the1080 caterpillar people.1082 ** Relationships as a Business1083 [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx][Turnover-Crisis]] is an excellent talk about the "culture of1084 quitting," which is about better business by letting people go1085 instead of keeping them around past their "apex". Focuses on1086 information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni network, which for1087 relationships would be a group of satisfied ex-lovers, who would1088 recommend new people your way, and who might consider coming to you1089 again, refreshed from their time away with new1090 stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and how1091 they worked out.1093 ** Psychic Crystal1094 In a science fiction story, this would be an object that is very1095 easy to move physically but is extremely difficult to move with1096 telekinesis.1098 ** True Reflection1099 There's a "true mirror" in the MIT student center -- it's two1100 normal mirrors at right angles, like staring at a corner of a1101 room. The light reflects so that it shows you what you actually1102 look like, instead of your mirror image.1104 ** Remote Control Wasp1105 Use computer to drive wings with remote power/logic.1107 ** Encrypted Email Phone Book1108 Public (distributed?) database of email->private-key pairs, to1109 enable automatic encryption.1111 ** Universal Eye Color1112 Every equivalent creature will see each others' eyes as black --1113 it's universal. Even if the creatures see in radio waves, and their1114 eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged metal, when those creatures look1115 at each other, they will see black, the absence of light and color1116 (since it's being absorbed by the sensor array).1118 ** Intelligent Microwave1119 It learns where the hot nodes of its fields are, and uses them to1120 evenly heat any food item. It has an infrared camera or something1121 to keep track of how hot the food is. That way, you don't get bowls1122 where the edges are boiling, while the center is still1123 frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since the1124 exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of the1125 food. Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer, just a1126 desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automatically1127 defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much1128 faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with1129 heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor1130 too.1132 *+* Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would1133 "sputter" and splash liquid much less.1135 *+* Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked1136 foods and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have1137 been cooked before -- it can get faster the more it's used.1139 ** Flesh Pillow1140 A pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete with simulated1141 temperature, bones, and heartbeat.1143 ** Light Filter1144 Works like light-tweezers to mechanically separate fluids with1145 different indexes of refraction.1147 ** Silver Socks1148 Socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial properties.1150 ** Rod of Moses1151 Device to distill urine through evaporation and easily dispose of1152 urea crystals for use in desert -- produce drinkable water and live1153 an extra few days!1155 ** Lottery Scraper1156 Web scraper which monitors various lotteries, looking for "special"1157 gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x winnings on Wednesdays) and1158 computes expected value...1160 ** Memristiors Novel Design1161 Make an evolutionary algorithm to make old stuff using all four1162 basic circuit elements.1164 ** Conductive Concrete1165 Concrete that has embedded metal fibers so that it can conduct1166 electricity.1168 ** Little Bitty Melting Pot1169 Might be useful for some types of manufacturing/3D printing -- how1170 small can an induction melter be made, for example.1172 ** True Pure Tones1173 Hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the nerves of the1174 ear. Like when Adelson "saw green".1176 ** Mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp1177 would be an object with two levers -- you pull on one lever and the1178 other moves the same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is1179 driving. This analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.1181 ** Light Capacitor1182 Suspend some ball of material with a high index of refraction and1183 shine light into it so it gets stuck -- would the light stay1184 trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited quantities of light1185 inside the sphere (which could then be released slowly by1186 frustrated internal reflection?1188 ** Reading Comprehension1189 use the screen capture routine to make a quiz program that1190 constructs questions about the content you seemed to gloss over1191 while reading. could be easy if the pdf came with embedded1192 questions. Dylan: automatically generate word-cloud about the1193 parts you found most interesting; help others who read the same1194 stuff by drawing attention to the interesting parts.1196 ** Optimize an Article1197 Capture reading of a scientific article via screen capture while1198 people read it, then use it to make the article better. like the1199 movie-pruning idea.1201 ** Movie Pruning1202 Movies always are too long at first. One way to shorten them1203 ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the move and then1204 remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which there are a lot1205 of blinking (average this over multiple people) better yet, put it1206 online and do it across thousands of people. I got this from1207 youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill which is composed1208 entirely of the parts in which people had their eyes1209 closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their eyes1210 off of? Just take those parts out!1212 ** Explosive Thermite Epoxy Putty1213 One part would contain the rust, one part the aluminum.1215 ** Concrete Epoxy1216 Epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.1218 ** Hard Sword1219 Make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of martensite for1220 the cutting part; it should be a better sword.1222 ** Close Range Wireless1223 use the induction technology used to recharge electric toothbrushes1224 with no metal links to send data without any metal at all!1226 ** Perfect Pitch1227 Learn perfect pitch using another sense in combination (sight or1228 touch).1230 ** Bio Metallic Structure1231 Metal grids with seeds inside, which grow together and form a1232 durable biological matrix. The metal substrate delivers1233 water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?) Dylan: enrich plants1234 with inorganic compounds; electrical interfaces in cellular plant1235 matter => remote-controlled photosynthetic/bioluminescent1236 structures.1238 ** Conducting Extracellular Matrix1239 To allow better control of organic systems and an enhanced nervous1240 system.1242 ** Cross-Modal Memory Hashing1243 A way to retrieve memories more robustly.1245 ** Greener than Green1246 If you stare at a red light, then you get a green after-image. If1247 you immediately look at something green while still seeing the1248 green after-image, you will experience a Green like none you've1249 ever seen before -- color so intense it's beyond the range of1250 anything that exists in the world.1252 ** Wooden Refrigerator1253 To give food a better taste Dylan: like barrels for wine, or planks1254 for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor planks" for your pre-existing1255 fridge. Need to mitigate effect of temperature on volatility?1257 ** Radioactive Transmutation Molecule by Molecule1258 Create precious metals or something else economically1259 advantageous. Best transmutation I can come up with is mercury into1260 gold, but it's not economically viable.1262 ** Preservation Via Crowding1263 Inoculate food with tons of harmless bacteria so that there's no1264 room for bad bacteria as a method of preservation1266 ** Old-School Preservation1267 Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon as a way to store1268 sterilized liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o1269 refrigeration.1271 ** Restaurant Policy1272 Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter of course -- make1273 ambiance much better.1275 ** Clean Windows1276 Make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant water (and reduces1277 the pressure a bit) and use it to clean windows of buildings.1279 ** Ocarina1280 Make an ocarina out of pure silver. Might have really good acoustic1281 properties.1283 ** Fire Pen1284 Pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing any1285 ink. Is there a way to make it runnable from body heat?1287 ** Website to Design Your Own Soda1288 and label, and have it mailed to you / sell it from your own online1289 store.1291 ** Ocean Power1292 Solar panels that float on the ocean.1294 ** Handcuffs with More Than Two Cuffs (3?)1295 Great for daisy chaining people, binding them to environment, etc.1297 ** Vector Based SOUND Files1298 Like the pictures but with SOUND. codify sound in a language with1299 enough symbols so that it can describe everything and encode it in1300 that. would be like going from speech to text or smtg. Could also1301 store sound as an image of the wavefront encoded as a vector image.1303 ** Genetically Engineered Glowing Fruit1304 They have some animals that can glow, but glowing fruit that you1305 eat would be AWESOME!1307 ** The Body as a Key to Memory1308 IF memories are encoded using particular sensory impressions, what1309 happens if the sensory organ itself changes? those memories would1310 become inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember much from1311 our childhoods. also, could this happen throughout life as well?1312 Could S remember stuff from his childhood?1314 ** Lighter Flint on Spring1315 Make hot, throw it at something, and it makes sparkles!1317 ** Rare Bubbles1318 Engineer a material which has both ductility and high surface1319 tension to make the "third" minimal-surface-energy solution to a1320 bubble suspended between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are1321 cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles, and a1322 double-cone)1324 ** Magic Textbook1325 whose content can be varied continuously alter level of difficulty,1326 rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain other discipline,1327 etc. Content generated dynamically from knowledge base, along with1328 questions that are moreover altered to guide knowledge1329 acquisition. Motivation: One book of knowledge. /One./1332 #+BEGIN_HTML1333 <p class="end"> Still want more? Visit the <a href="./ideas.html">Raw1334 Ideas</a> page, but prepare for extreme half-bakedness. </p>1335 #+END_HTML