#+title: Big List O' Ideas

 #+author: Robert McIntyre

 #+email: rlm@mit.edu

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

 #+keywords: aurellem ideas half-baked random

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

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

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

 

 * Ideas

 

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

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

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

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

 observations. Some are really only for my own personal notes and are

 not meant to be comprehensible. They are arranged roughly in reverse

 chronological order, with the most recent ideas at the top of the

 list. The ones at the bottom of the list are heavily influenced by my

 time at MIT.

 

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

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

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

 

 If you want to use one of these ideas as your own and run with it,

 please feel free. I'd love to hear about it if you do.

 

 #+begin_quote

 There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about

 getting credit.

 #+end_quote

 

 - pronuncation guide :: a simple webpage where you type in a word and

      it returns a simpe, English sentence describing exactly how to

      pronounce the word. For people who don't want to learn IPA. 

 

 - touch vision :: inspired by GelSight, I want to reexamine cortex and

                   see if I could implement touch as a very low range

                   form of vision.

 

 - high school science :: this is a lesson in scientific ethics. The

      goal is to calculate /g/, the local gravitational

      acceleration. The students are told that the textbook says it's

      /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the experiment. See how they

      doctor their results to get closer to the textbook value. It's

      neat because for any given school, /g/ is probably *not* exactly

      equal to 9.81, because that is just an average!

 

 - opencourseware subtitles :: there are ladies who type up lectures

      while they are being given. These recordings should be kept and

      given to OCW for subtitles. If the timestamps of keys are

      recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.

 

 - screen locking timing :: you use your computer camera to see if you

      are sitting in front of the computer. If you are, then the screen

      will never lock. If you are, then the screen will lock with a

      30-40 second timeout. It's an extension of using inactivity to

      initiate the countdown, just with more information.

 

 - mirror toilet :: a toilet with a square basin made or mirror instead

                    or porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a

                    wipe job you have done / watch how your excretion

                    system works.

 

 - test dummies :: why don't we clone encephalic humans and use then to

                   test /in vivo/ human organ systems and drugs? It

                   would be ethical as long as there are women who are

                   willing to host the clones, and it would be a

                   tremendous resource for studying the human body. I

                   see nothing wrong with it morally, since no one is

                   suffering, and it stands to save many lives throughout

                   more advanced technology.

 

 - X-ray telepresence :: given that a doctor is operating on a patient

      via telepresence, one cool things you can do is shine X-rays into

      the patient to view the insides during real time. If the system

      was coupled with a Baysean model of the layout of the structure,

      and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the

      model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage

      and surgery risk could be minimized.

 

 - superfluid vascular system :: I wonder what would happen if you

      replaced the blood in a human with a superfluid. What would the

      physical dynamics be? Would the superfluid flow through the

      vasculature, or would it ignore it and travel through the cells,

      or something else entirely. Since superfluids need to be cold to

      retain their superfluidity, how would the dynamics change during

      perfusion of a superfluid, where the fluid gains and looses

      superfluidity as it goes deeper into the body and is cooled by

      superfluid from upstream. In summary there are two things to

      simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with superfluid

      instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.

 

 - projective guessing :: I think that we read and see things by

      making a really good guess about what we're expecting to see,

      and then searching for our guess in what we see. If it really

      doesn't match, then we start to make more guesses / analyze the

      image from first principles, but most stuff is projective

      guessing.

 

 - Intestinal flora maintenance :: why not inoculate babies at birth

      with "ideal" gut flora instead of whatever bullshit they

      naturally get, thus giving them optimal digestive/nutrient

      extraction capabilities. Might also be able to make their farts

      not stink for life, too.

 

 - server culture : mirrors :: make a distributed system where people

      can mirror the websites of people they like -- essentially cover

      the server costs of favored websites. This could make popular

      websites run at no cost. The system would require that the

      mirrored content be the same as the official source. Sort of like

      bit-torrent for websites.

 

 - map programming :: one problem with functional programming is that

      in order to remain functional, you have to pass up arguments up

      into each calling function to get the full range of behavior

      from the lower level functions. Normally people come to a

      compromise involving abstraction and sparing use of dynamic

      variables to configure runtime behavior. What would be the

      advantages of making a programming language where every function

      receives one argument, a map, which contains all the symbol

      bindings it would ever need? This map is passed on to all

      subordinate functions. This way, you could replace functions on

      the fly, and arrange for there to be sensible defaults,

      etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an interesting idea.

 

 - rest nest :: a small EEG device you would attach to your head when

                you go to sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine

                your particular sleep cycles. This would mostly be an

                alarm clock that you could give a time range, say

                7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an

                ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90

                min sleep cycles. You would feel much more rested upon

                waking up, and would wake up faster. There might be

                some other uses for the EEG data as well.

 

 - image compression :: use a library like gimp or opencv to process an

      image to make it have less entropy, then store the reverse of

      those operations along with the compressed simpler image as a

      super-compressed image file (possibly sccapting some

      lesses). Trades file size for decompression time, and allows one

      to cheat by using information in gimp/opencv to compress the

      image. 

 

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

      to ramp up cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room

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

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

      fixatives are highly toxic, but current vitrification procedures

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

 

 - dilated security camera :: a security camera that would capture

      full video footage of everything at 60fps but then decide to keep

      only every 1 frame every 5 seconds unless there's something

      "interesting" happening.

 

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

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

                     your personal trusted access to your own bitcoins

                     from anywhere.

 

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

             micro-donations to software projects and other projects,

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

             be automatically split up to every person who has ever

             contributed to emacs in proportion to the amount of

             community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the

             community decides. This might make it possible for

             programmers to live entirely off of free programming.

 

 - distributed graphics :: Browser based graphics-card accelerated

      distributed computing API.

 

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

               pronoun referents and gender neutrality, are short to

               say, and you can encode useful information into the

               choice of letter. For example, instead of "Meetings

               shall be presided over by the president, unless she is

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

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

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

               object respectively.

 

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

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

                and configurable, and can allow men to make their

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

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

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

                immediately change the parameters of the DSP using good

                presets.

 

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

      might be the mirror neurons.

 

 - restaurant receipt :: use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid

      copies. 

 

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

      that targets the cameras in google glass and destroy them.

 

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

                     one to wear the towel more securely than just

                     wrapping it tightly and hoping for the best.

 

 - crossdressing :: Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to

                    wear a burka.

 

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

                articles. It would disambiguate pronouns and involved

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

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

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

                could disambiguate multi part run-on sentences by

                highlighting each subcomponent. Maybe would also have

                applications to scientific reading.

 

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

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

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

      accumulation of water droplets from fine mists and light rain by

      using computer vision to measure the diameters of the drops.

 

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

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

      maximum/uniform growth for each plant. 

 

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

      continuous. 

 

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

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

                   large circle on the wall, converting a laser beam

                   into a laser cone, preserving most of the energy of

                   the laser.

 

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

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

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

      totally invisible in the container, and will only be revealed

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

      wine/spirit bottle or an hourglass.

 

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

      intelligence after eons of predation by birds, etc. These

      caterpillar creatures still undergo metamorphosis into a large

      butterfly-like creature. The metamorphosis process turns the

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

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

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

      religious interpretations of the metamorphosis. It is viewed as

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

      necessary to propagate the species, as only the butterflies can

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

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

      memories or personality of the original caterpillar. Some see the

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

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

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

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

      tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try to stop the

      metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very important

      members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery to

      prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as themselves.

 

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

      something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,

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

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

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

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

      compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second

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

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

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

      lens of the the caterpillar people.

 

 - relationships as a business :: [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx][Turnover-Crisis]] is an excellent talk

      about the "culture of quitting," which is about better business

      by letting people go instead of keeping them around past their

      "apex". Focuses on information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni

      network, which for relationships would be a group of satisfied

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

      consider coming to you again, refreshed from their time away with

      new stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and

      how they worked out.

 

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

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

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

                     with recursion!

 

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

      object that is very easy to move physically but is extremely

      difficult to move with telekinesis.

 

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

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

      automated. 

 

 - true reflection :: don't forget about that mirror in the student

      center!, it's two mirrors at right angles, like staring at a

      corner of a room. The light reflects so that it shows you what

      you actually look like, instead of your mirror image.

 

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

   power/logic.

 

 - encrypted email phone book :: public (distributed?) database of

      email->private-key pairs, to enable automatic encryption.

 

 - universal eye color :: every equivalent creature will see each

      others' eyes as black -- it's universal. Even if the creatures

      see in radio waves, and their eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged

      metal, when those creatures look at each other, they will see

      black, the absence of light and color (since it's being absorbed

      by the sensor array).

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with

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

   

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

     "sputter" and splash liquid much less.

 

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

     and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have been

     cooked before -- it can get faster the more it's used.

 

 - compression :: brain-aware image compression algorithm

 

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

      except for real world transactions

 

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

                   with simulated temperature, bones, and heartbeat.

 

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

                  uses compression to fit into a hole (the whole shank

                  of the screw is split into multiple pieces to

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

                  bulges out and gets compressed when screwed in.

 

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

                   fluids with different index of refraction

 

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

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

      certain direction.

 

 - silver socks :: socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial

                   properties.

 

 - UROP :: magnet gear/metal teeth tape 

 

 - rod of moses :: device to distill urine through evaporation and

                   easily dispose of urea crystals for use in desert --

                   produce drinkable water.

 

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

           that it may transmit maximum flow.  Motor that changes

           distance of internal magnet from windings depending on

           desired speed so as to obtain maximum power efficiency.

 

 - lottery scraper :: web scraper which monitors various lotteries,

      looking for "special" gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x

      winnings on Wednesdays) and computes expected value...

 

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

   old stuff using all four basic circuit elements.

 

 - Conductive concrete :: concrete that has embedded metal fibers so

      that it can conduct electricity.

 

 - little bitty melting pot :: might be useful for some types of

      manufacturing/3D printing -- how small can an induction melter be

      made, for example.

 

 - power strip/timer programmable combination :: meh

 

 - algorithms :: which learn what their inputs are and in what order,

                and can adapt to changing circumstances -- they

                remember previous arguments and adapt so as to respond

                to different connections.

 

 - true pure tones :: hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the

      nerves of the ear

   

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

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

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

      analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.

 

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

      various ways.

 

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

 

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

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

      the light stay trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited

      quantities of light inside the sphere (which could then be

      released slowly by frustrated internal reflection?

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

      which is composed entirely of the parts in which people had their

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

      eyes off of? Just take those parts out!

 

 - optimize an article :: capture reading of a scientific article via

      screen capture while people read it, then use it to make the

      article better. like the movie-pruning idea.

 

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

      apply during reading so as to read very fast.

 

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

      one part the aluminum.

 

 - reading comprehension :: use the above screen capture routine to

      make a quiz program that constructs questions about the content

      you seemed to gloss over while reading. could be easy if the pdf

      came with embedded questions.  Dylan: automatically generate

      word-cloud about the parts you found most interesting; help

      others who read the same stuff by drawing attention to the

      interesting parts.

 

 - hard sword :: make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of

                 martensite for the cutting part; it should be a better

                 sword.

 

 - close range wireless :: use the induction technology used to

      recharge electric toothbrushes with no metal links to send data

      without any metal at all!

 

 - reading :: is a form of synsethesia

 

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

                   actual DNA

 

 - black generator :: ferro-fluid magnetic field suspended micro

      generator to make electricity

 

 - alcohol battery :: alcohol/fluid flow powered battery

 

 - folding razor blade sword ::

 

 - perfect pitch :: learn perfect pitch using another sense in

                    combination (sight or touch)

 

 - kaleidoscope projector ::

 

 - razor blade de-sharpener :: for guilt free disposal

 

 - bricks :: filled with luminescent plant material

 

 - bio metallic structure :: metal grids with seeds inside, which grow

      together and form a durable biological matrix. The metal

      substrate delivers water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?)

      Dylan: enrich plants with inorganic compounds; electrical

      interfaces in cellular plant matter => remote-controlled

      photosynthetic/bioluminescent structures.

 

 - conducting extracellular matrix :: to allow better control of

      organic systems and an enhanced nervous system.

 

 - cross-modal memory hashing :: a way to retrieve memories more

      robustly. 

 

 - flossing thimble-guards :: (these actually exist)

 

 - rules + lattice learning :: integrate lattice learning with rules by

      generating hypothetical examples

 

 - wooden refrigerator :: to give food a better taste Dylan: like

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

      planks" for your pre-existing fridge. Need to mitigate effect of

      temperature on volatility?

 

 - radioactive transmutation molecule by molecule :: create precious

      metals or something else economically advantageous.

 

 - crowd preservation :: inoculate food with tons of harmless

      bacteria so that there's no room for bad bacteria as a method of

      preservation

 

 - old school preservation :: Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon

      as a way to store liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o

      refrigeration.

 

 - restaurant policy :: Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter

      of course -- make ambiance much better.

 

 - clean windows :: make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant

                    water (and reduces the pressure a bit) and use it

                    to clean windows of buildings.

 

 - ocarina :: make an ocarina out of pure silver

 

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

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

               human's energy?

 

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

      you / sell it from your own online store.

 

 - solar panels :: that float on the ocean

 

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

      people, binding them to environment, etc.

 

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

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

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

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

      wavefront encoded as a vector image.

 

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

            scroll wheel

 

 - logic maintenance system for big institutions :: to make sure the

      things they are thinking about doing are not retarded

 

 - http://www.regulations.gov/ :: cool site

 

 - genetically engineered glowing fruit :: sell seeds?

 

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

                   impressions, what happens if the sensory organ

                   itself changes? those memories would become

                   inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember

                   much from our childhoods. also, could this happen

                   throughout life as well? Could S remember stuff from

                   his childhood?

 

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

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

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

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

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

      inductive charging and data transfer.

 

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

      it too)

 

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

      lecture

 

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

      makes sparkles!

 

 - nuclear energy :: Rebranding New+Clear Energy with informational

                     campaign and public debate forum to enforce its

                     transparent and open nature. France needn't be the

                     world leader in nuclear energy. (Dylan)

 

 - bubbles :: Engineer a material which has both ductility and high

              surface tension to make the "third"

              minimal-surface-energy solution to a bubble suspended

              between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are

              cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles,

              and a double-cone)

 

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

      difficulty, rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain

      other discipline, etc. Content generated dynamically from

      knowledge base, along with questions that are moreover altered to

      guide knowledge acquisition. Motivation: One book of

      knowledge. /One./

 

 

 ** From Jacob's idea list

 

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

   noise cancellation alg in your headphones (would this

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

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

   receiving the phone signals and playing inverse sound

   waves. #signalprocessing ~jcole@mit.edu

 

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

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

 

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

                identify your PIN (idea from idea about credit cards)