rlm@145: #+title: Big List O' Ideas
rlm@145: #+author: Robert McIntyre
rlm@145: #+email: rlm@mit.edu
rlm@145: #+description: list of ideas from Robert McIntyre
rlm@145: #+keywords: aurellem ideas half-baked random
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rlm@145: 
rlm@145: * Ideas
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rlm@145:   # :HTML_CONTAINER_CLASS: ideas
rlm@145:   # :END:
rlm@145: 
rlm@145:   This is a list of all the good ideas I've had that I felt like writing
rlm@145:   down for the past ~ 10 years. Some of them could be practical
rlm@145:   inventions and are "just" waiting for that 95% perspiration to bring
rlm@145:   them to fruition, some are ideas for science fiction, and some are
rlm@145:   simple observations.  They are arranged roughly in reverse
rlm@145:   chronological order, with the most recent ideas at the top of the
rlm@145:   list. The ones at the bottom of the list are heavily influenced by my
rlm@145:   time at MIT, the ones at the top, by my time at 21st Century Medicine.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145:   If you find some of these interesting and would like to collaborate on
rlm@145:   them with me or discuss them in more detail, I'd love to hear from
rlm@145:   you. You can email me at ideas@aurellem.org.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145:   If you want to use one of these ideas as your own and run with it,
rlm@145:   please feel free. I'd love to hear about it if you do.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145:   #+begin_quote
rlm@145:   There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about
rlm@145:   getting credit.
rlm@145:   #+end_quote
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: 
rlm@145:   #+BEGIN_HTML
rlm@145: <hr/>
rlm@145:   #+END_HTML
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** The Ocean Becomes a Drop 
rlm@151:    Upload faces challenges to grow into the type of person that can
rlm@145:    join the greater society -- a god. They have to go though quests
rlm@145:    that replicate all the things that humanity had to accomplish, like
rlm@145:    going to the moon, by themselves.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Butterfly Drone
rlm@145:    If big butterflies used to exist, then maybe we could make
rlm@145:    butterfly-inspired drones!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Methylation Sex-Symmetry Breaking
rlm@145:    Human sex cells have methylation patterns that encode male/female
rlm@145:    origin. If you combine two male patterns, the fetus grows "too
rlm@145:    fast" and dies. Two female patterns causes the fetus to enter a
rlm@145:    "vegatable" state and fail to develop. Evolutionary biologists say
rlm@145:    that this reflects the asymmetry of energy investement for creating
rlm@145:    offspring. If that's true, then species that cast-spawn will lack
rlm@145:    this asymmetry, and give clues about how to remove it in humans. If
rlm@145:    even cast spawners like sea urchins have it, then that means
rlm@145:    there's something deeper going on!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Homosexual Reproduction
rlm@145:    You take genetic material from two males and put it into an egg
rlm@145:    cell that has had all genetic material removed. Or, you take the
rlm@145:    genetic material from one egg and put it in another egg. This would
rlm@145:    allow homosexual couples to genetically reproduce. One technical
rlm@145:    challenge blocking this technique is that human gametes have
rlm@145:    methylation patterns that encode male/female origin, and only a
rlm@145:    male+female pattern gives rise to viable offspring. You could
rlm@145:    "recondition" male / female gametes to give them the opposite
rlm@145:    pattern, perhaps by incubating them in the appropriate
rlm@145:    environment. You also could try taking stem cells and making them
rlm@145:    form the appropriate structures in vitro.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Poly-Vitrification
rlm@145:    Large molecules such as PVP are able to vitrify at around -20C, and
rlm@145:    at farily small concentrations. IF they could be introduced into
rlm@145:    cells, they would be quite useful as vitrification agents. However,
rlm@145:    it's difficult to get them in because they are so big. So instead,
rlm@145:    use smaller agents which combine together into polymers at low
rlm@145:    temperature. In particular, Fructose, trehalose, and glycerol seem
rlm@145:    to have the desired properties (though you need to make versions of
rlm@145:    fructose and trehalose that can penetrate).
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Whole Brain Perfusion Embedding
rlm@145:    Do the standard EM embedding protocol, but skip the osmium step,
rlm@145:    and use the "perfusion pausing" method to prevent overextraction
rlm@145:    during the dehydration and embedding steps. I think that you can
rlm@145:    perfuse resins into the brain, simply because you can perfuse
rlm@145:    viscous rubber when doing vascular casts.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Very Slow Physiological Pressure Perfusion
rlm@145:    Less extreme example of the "perfusion pausing" trick -- just keep
rlm@145:    the perfusion running and don't put the perfusion target into the
rlm@145:    liquid as deep.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Perfusion Pausing
rlm@145:    One problem with doing perfusion of heads / organs where the veins
rlm@145:    freely leak fluid is that if you STOP the perfusion, you rapidly
rlm@145:    loose pressure in the organ as your perfusate leaks out. You can
rlm@145:    prevent this by submerging the organ/head/rat whatever in fluid at
rlm@145:    an appropriate deepness. You would have to slowly decrease the flow
rlm@145:    rate while simultaneously lowering the perfusing object into the
rlm@145:    fluid. To start again, reverse the process -- reengage the
rlm@145:    peristaltic pump slowly while removing the organ from the fluid.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Textbook Mimiricy Evolution
rlm@145:    As surgery becomes more common, there develops a distinct selective
rlm@145:    pressure for individuals' organ layouts to look more like the
rlm@145:    medical textbooks!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Transparent Skin
rlm@145:    Temporary / permament transparent skin. Allows for examination of
rlm@145:    organs / muscles and visual prevention of disease and detection or
rlm@145:    abnormalities / good things eg. excercise optimization.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Sweet Information
rlm@145:    Candy with a whole book written in it. Eat a book!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Targeted Immunosuppressant
rlm@145:    Just kill off the B-cells and friends that would cause problems in
rlm@145:    a organ-transplant / other situation. AIDS is good at killing these
rlm@145:    cells -- maybe make it can be modified to just target the ones that
rlm@145:    will cause problems. Then you can premptively kill off that part of
rlm@145:    someone's immune system before a transplant. ALSO, you can kill off
rlm@145:    everyone's defenses against other blood types and make people
rlm@145:    effectively type AB+ w.r.t blood transfusions. Actually, why not
rlm@145:    give babies this treatment so that they're automatically compatable
rlm@145:    with all blood types?  It would be like a blood transfusion
rlm@145:    vaccine. The immune system does this already when it's first
rlm@145:    growing; maybe it can be "retrained" to accept new things, or the
rlm@145:    mechanism of immune cell death be co-opted for these purposes.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Fuck-you Tetris
rlm@145:    Tetris that actively gives you the worst possible piece.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Pockets
rlm@145:    More things should have them! Chairs, tables, cups, hats,
rlm@145:    trashcans, basically anything is better with a pocket.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Colored Shower Head
rlm@145:    A shower head add-on that measures the temp of the water and
rlm@145:    changes the color of the water streams w/ an LED to show you the
rlm@145:    temperature. That way you can align to the color you want and see
rlm@145:    the temperature without feeling it.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Giant Dragonflies
rlm@145:    We could rapidly MAKE giant dragonflies by evolving modern
rlm@145:    dragonflies in an very oxygen rich environment!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Whirlpool of Light
rlm@145:    Shine a laser out into space. But the planet is spinning! What you
rlm@145:    get is a spiral of light! And as this signal expands, does it
rlm@145:    eventually reveal it's quantized nature?
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Perfusion Cooking
rlm@145:    You do cardiac bypass on an animal like a pig, then pump in tasty,
rlm@145:    tasty perfusate (like marinade) into the animal's
rlm@145:    vasculature. Then, you switch out to saline and increase the
rlm@145:    temperature of the saline to rapidly and uniformly cook the
rlm@145:    animal. It could be the tastiest meat ever!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Timestamp Verification
rlm@145:    You sign your message, and it has a timestamp at the top, with a +-
rlm@145:    percision number.  Then you send it over to the public timestamp
rlm@145:    server, which only signs the message if it gets the message within
rlm@145:    the timestamp window. Or the computer just signs the message but
rlm@145:    puts a timestamp at the beginning. So if everyone trusts the
rlm@145:    timestamp server, you can get reliable timestamps, and prove
rlm@145:    priority on ideas, etc.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** The Great Computing Slow-Down
rlm@145:    In general, our computers are getting faster and faster according
rlm@145:    to Moore's law. However, eventually our brains will be made of the
rlm@145:    same stuff our computers are made of! This has very interesting
rlm@145:    consequences -- I can add 2+2 and get four in about a second. Since
rlm@145:    my neurons actually work at around 10-60 hertz in parallel, this
rlm@145:    means that it takes me around 10-30 operations to do this
rlm@145:    addition. That's actually not bad in terms of computing time. If my
rlm@145:    neurons were as fast as the latest transitors, then most
rlm@145:    calculators (made with earlier transistors) would be SLOWER than me
rlm@145:    at adding numbers. Only the newest, most optimized calculators
rlm@145:    would be faster, and then only about 10 times faster!  This means
rlm@145:    that once we begin to think at the speed of our technology, that
rlm@145:    technology will suddenly seem pitifully slow in comparison to how
rlm@145:    it seems now. And no amount of technical progress will remedy it,
rlm@145:    because that same progress will also make us all think
rlm@145:    faster. We'll either have to settle with living in "slow time" to
rlm@145:    do some computations, or learn to make smarter hardware with
rlm@145:    special optimizations. But this is actually really hard, because
rlm@145:    we'll be working with machines that will appear to us about as fast
rlm@145:    as MECHANICAL computers. So, in the future, all the cool parties
rlm@145:    will be in cyperspace at vastly accelerated speeds compared to how
rlm@145:    we exist now. But at these parties, the computers will SUCK!  Of
rlm@145:    course, this is one of the few things that can save us from AI
rlm@145:    risk, because those AI's won't seem so scary when the're build out
rlm@145:    of rickety old mechanical parts form our perspective.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Unitary Reverse Evolution of Chaos+Minds
rlm@145:    Chaotic systems diverge exponentially in state space. Do you get
rlm@145:    anything interesting when part of the physical system associated
rlm@145:    with the chaotic system is a object that performs some sort of
rlm@145:    computation? Is it possible for the computational system to play a
rlm@145:    percision-enabling role in determining the final/initial conditions
rlm@145:    of the chaotic system, just by tracing out thoughts in its decision
rlm@145:    paths? This is probably too vague of an idea right now, I just
rlm@145:    wanted to write it down.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Microwave-Time
rlm@145:    The cooking time you enter on most microwaves is insane. It's
rlm@145:    expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a combination of base 10
rlm@145:    and base 60. You can get absurd things like 100 < 61, and 120 ==
rlm@145:    80! I wonder if these hybrid base systems could be very useful for
rlm@145:    some purposes!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Three Eyes
rlm@145:    If you had three eyes, would you still draw cubes like we currently
rlm@145:    draw them? Or would all 2D-representations of 3D space always look
rlm@145:    hopelessly fake?
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Digital Taste/Smell Assay
rlm@145:    Get a grid of bacteria, each expressing a human taste/smell
rlm@145:    receptor linked to some sort of fluorscent activity or ion
rlm@145:    pump. Use a camera / electrical grid to transduce the smell / taste
rlm@145:    signal into bits! Inspired by gel-sight from MIT.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Childrens' Tool Shop
rlm@145:    I think that kids should be provided with tool shops -- these would
rlm@145:    be nice sheds with a good collection of tools to do various things
rlm@145:    -- circuit components and soldering irons, wires, a small lathe,
rlm@145:    drill press, belt sander, a centrifuge, microscope, and telescope,
rlm@145:    etc. The idea is that the kid can now think, "I could use X to do
rlm@145:    this thing that I'm thinking about" -- the building becomes an
rlm@145:    extension of the kid's body & mind.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Fluid Display
rlm@145:    Like the previous idea about matching refractances between glass
rlm@145:    and liquid, except you make a lot of switchable glass tubes in
rlm@145:    various patterns in the glass, and actively pump colored liquid
rlm@145:    through the tubes (the tubes have glass-like fluid in them by
rlm@145:    default.) The result is that you can cause the tubes to appear and
rlm@145:    dissappear, and vary their colors as well!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Immunoincompatibility
rlm@145:    Take the human genome, and refactor it so that it doesn't use a
rlm@145:    particular codon at all. Then remove the support from our ribosomes
rlm@145:    for that codon. What does this do for us? It makes us immune to
rlm@145:    almost all viruses! There is at least one bacteria that already
rlm@145:    does this to great effect.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Life Cycle
rlm@145:    It's called a cycle, right? So, the thing that repeats itself over
rlm@145:    and over, right? Not much of a cycle if you don't come back after
rlm@145:    you die, if you ask me!
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Car with no Blind Spots
rlm@145:    Use some cameras in the back of the car to augment the rear-view
rlm@145:    mirror so that you never have to turn around in order to lane
rlm@145:    change.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Metabolic Windows and Freezing
rlm@145:    You freeze a set of cells using some cryo protocol and 60%
rlm@145:    survive. How can this be explained? It seems to me that if the
rlm@145:    cells are the same, and the conditions homogoneous, then all the
rlm@145:    cells should either die or live. However, suppose that there is a
rlm@145:    metabolic cycle that needs to be in a certain phase for the cell to
rlm@145:    survive. If the cells are asynchronous, then you might end up with
rlm@145:    some cells dying because there were in the wrong part of their
rlm@145:    cycle. This implies that you might be able to cryoprotect cells by
rlm@145:    causing them to enter a certain metabolic mode before freezing.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Cryonics Color Appeal
rlm@145:    Perfusate used by cryonics companies could have red food coloring
rlm@145:    in it. It's just a nice touch so that the cryonics patient looks
rlm@145:    more life-like than with clear CPAs, and hopefully might get
rlm@145:    treated with more respect.
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: ** Paramagnetic CPA
rlm@145:    you take a CPA that can be influenced by magnetic fields so that
rlm@145:    its degrees of freedom are limited. Then, you release the field,
rlm@145:    instantaly increasing the size of the state space of the system and
rlm@145:    dramatically decreasing the temperature enough to plunge the system
rlm@145:    past homogenous nucleation temperature and directly to the glass
rlm@145:    transition temperature, creating a doubly unstable glass at much
rlm@145:    lower CPA concentrations than possible at conventional CPA
rlm@145:    concentrations. A major technical limitation facing this technique
rlm@145:    is that it's a very minor effect -- you can only get about 0.1C
rlm@145:    with most systems that have been studied so far.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Room Temp Ramen
rlm@146:    How does the physics of cooking noodles work?  Could you use a
rlm@146:    vacuum instead of heat to force water into the noodle?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Personal Carbon Offset
rlm@146:    Feel bad about contribuiting to global warming by using electricity
rlm@146:    / driving a car? Forget trying to "conserve" or "minimize your
rlm@146:    carbon footprint". Follow the Platinum rule -- make the world
rlm@146:    BETTER off than you found it!  This would be a small, self
rlm@146:    contained system that sucks C02 out of the air. It uses
rlm@146:    electricity, but it's so efficient at removing CO2 that it more
rlm@146:    than offsets the CO2 produced by even a coal plant to produce that
rlm@146:    electricity. This way, you can still drive even a gas guzzler, but
rlm@146:    have a net negative carbon footprint! Maybe something cool could be
rlm@146:    done with the carbon as well. Use as much electricity as you want,
rlm@146:    but negate the damage to the enviroment with more technology.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Undoing Spermogenesis
rlm@146:    With enough sperm, you can derive the donor's entire genome. You
rlm@146:    gain more confidence in the alleles for a particular gene the more
rlm@146:    sperm you have. Each additional sperm gives you the same sort of
rlm@146:    information you'd get flipping a coin and trying to decide whether
rlm@146:    the coin is H/T of H/H. Is there enough sperm in the the average
rlm@146:    load for you to be as confident as mitosis?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Mars Life
rlm@146:    We could engineer life that could survive on mars (probably some
rlm@146:    non-vascular photosynthetic poikilohydric creature like a lichen)
rlm@146:    by taking an extremophile from Antarctica and evolving it in
rlm@146:    increasingly Martian conditions. This could be an easy start to a
rlm@146:    terraforming process.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Problem with Aubrey de Grey's Ideas
rlm@146:    Aubrey de Grey says that we might be able to live forever by
rlm@146:    continually repairing our bodies at the cellular level -- he
rlm@146:    details 7 different mechanisms of damage and says that if all of
rlm@146:    them are dealt with /together/ that it would stop aging. (You can't
rlm@146:    miss even one because they're all fatal.)  However, it doesn't take
rlm@146:    into account that we are also beings of information and that there
rlm@146:    is a very real software component to our existence. Even if our
rlm@146:    biological chassies can be maintained forever, I think it is
rlm@146:    unlikely that our minds will operate well far outside of the design
rlm@146:    constraints that we've evolved to handle. Say I programmed a
rlm@146:    webserver with the express goal of it being able to serve webpages
rlm@146:    for month on some stock server. I'll do fairly rigorous testing to
rlm@146:    make sure that it can handle the expected load then then some. Now
rlm@146:    say that you want to keep a particular instance of this webserver
rlm@146:    running indefinitely. (The program instance is like your mind and
rlm@146:    the computer it's running on is like your body). You might very
rlm@146:    well be able to keep the physical computer infrastructure running
rlm@146:    for forever by replacing hard drives / ram / CPUs, etc. However,
rlm@146:    since I designed the webserver to work for a month, it probably has
rlm@146:    memory leaks, rare stochastic bugs, or other built in limits /
rlm@146:    constraints (think log files or some date rollover shenanigans)
rlm@146:    that will ultimately kill the webserver even with eternally perfect
rlm@146:    hardware. Do you really expect that a webserver engineered to work
rlm@146:    for 1 month will run for 10 years without catastrophically
rlm@146:    crashing? Not even Apache can do this! In fact, if I put in the
rlm@146:    extreme effort to make it that robust, I've wasted time that I
rlm@146:    could have spent on other projects by pursuing an unnecessary
rlm@146:    engineering goal. Likewise, human minds have only ever run for at
rlm@146:    most 122 years before they are destroyed due to hardware
rlm@146:    degradation. Fixing the hardware doesn't change any software bugs
rlm@146:    that are almost certainly present in the human mind. Think of all
rlm@146:    the pathological things that can go wrong with a webserver,
rlm@146:    multiply it by a million, and that likely how evolution has
rlm@146:    designed our minds. For example, consider memory : why should you
rlm@146:    expect that we have evolved the ability to coherently organize
rlm@146:    memories past say 150 years? There's been absolutely no selective
rlm@146:    pressure for this ability, so you can bet that if there's any
rlm@146:    fitness to be gained from not having unlimited memory potential
rlm@146:    (such as better metabolic efficiency), we have it! You might think
rlm@146:    that maybe we would just forget things the same way that we sort of
rlm@146:    forget things that happen earlier in our lives, but complicated
rlm@146:    information processing systems don't have to fail gracefully when
rlm@146:    they're pushed far past their design constraints. A 150 year old
rlm@146:    person is just as likely to suffer a catastrophic psychosis due to
rlm@146:    software limitations associated with memory as he is to do
rlm@146:    something with all those memories we might consider
rlm@146:    reasonable. More likely, in fact, since there are so very many ways
rlm@146:    for a complicated software system to break and so few ways for it
rlm@146:    to run successfully. Therefore, I think Aubrey de Grey's
rlm@146:    "hardware-only" approach is missing a very important component of
rlm@146:    longevity science, and any successful effort to make people live
rlm@146:    orders of magnitude longer than they do naturally will need to deal
rlm@146:    with people's software as well as their hardware.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Validating Neurocryopreservation
rlm@146:    Problem : you want to test whether a brain is functionally
rlm@146:    preserved through vitrification, but you don't want to figure out
rlm@146:    how to preserve all the other organs in the animal. It might be
rlm@146:    possible to keep the rest of the body at almost 0C and vitrify just
rlm@146:    the head for only a few minutes. Induce hypothermia, then separate
rlm@146:    out the head's blood supply from the rest of the body, then just
rlm@146:    cryoptotect and vitrify the head. Might need some sort of thermal
rlm@146:    guard to keep the outer head / neck from becoming too cold. You
rlm@146:    leave the spinal cord intact! Then you devitrify to 0C, remove
rlm@146:    cryoprotectant, and then reattach the blood supply. You can
rlm@146:    determine brain preservation using behavioral assays!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Freezing Water Purifier
rlm@146:    You slowly freeze water, but also run liquid water over the frozen
rlm@146:    mass. This takes away basically all impurities and creates "washed
rlm@146:    ice" then you melt the ice. Maybe you could re-use the heat from
rlm@146:    creating the ice to melt the ice?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Ultra Strength
rlm@146:    Allow a person to visualize their muscle recruitment patterns. Give
rlm@146:    them adrenaline and let them feel what it's like to have the normal
rlm@146:    limits removed. See if they can replicate the effects.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Phone Names
rlm@146:    Make a PX record for domain names that's like the MX record, except
rlm@146:    that it is a phone number instead of an IP address. That way, you
rlm@146:    can use the domain name registration system to provide names for
rlm@146:    phone numbers. Then, as long as you control the domain, you can
rlm@146:    point people to your current phone number by updating that record.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Edible Flowers
rlm@146:    Edible white flowers that you put in a colored solution with
rlm@146:    flavor. When the flower turns the right color, it is also flavored
rlm@146:    and ready to eat!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Lead Bone
rlm@146:    Could you fill in all the empty spaces in a bone with lead? Might
rlm@146:    be cool!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** The Quest for Life 
rlm@146:    Many stories that have immortal characters have the "immortal who
rlm@146:    wants to become mortal" trope. I want to story where the
rlm@146:    protagonist loses their immortality and feels /angry/ and ashamed
rlm@146:    about losing something that's so absolutely crucial to their
rlm@146:    identity. A reverse of "death makes life worth living", they feel
rlm@146:    that living forever is what makes life worth living. Now they've
rlm@146:    "lost their sunrise" or their "connection to the timeless universe"
rlm@146:    or something. So they go on a quest to get it back, learning about
rlm@146:    themselves along the way, and regaining the precious thing they
rlm@146:    lost in the beginning. Which, it they can actually gain their
rlm@146:    immortality back, means that they never lost it in the first place!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** World Map
rlm@146:    Take a small table and paint the continents in toothpaste on the
rlm@146:    table. Make a slightly raised barrier around the table. Slowly pour
rlm@146:    water onto the table, and it will form the oceans!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Stage Magic Rituals
rlm@146:    Rituals should incorporate elements of stage magic. For example in
rlm@146:    Teller's rendition of Shakespeare's Tempest, they have a scene
rlm@146:    where they levitate a crown in front of someone, then put it on his
rlm@146:    head. They also have a wedding ceremony where they levitated the
rlm@146:    bride as well. Actual weddings and other ceremonies should
rlm@146:    incorporate stage magic as an enhancement to the gravitas!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Isotope Time Dilation
rlm@146:    Use a cyclotron to speed up rare isotopes developed in nuclear
rlm@146:    fusion experiments. The relativistic time dilation will stop the
rlm@146:    isotopes from decaying, and allow time to study them. This is based
rlm@146:    on radioactive isotopes that fall through the earth's atmosphere
rlm@146:    that take hundreds of times longer to decay than normal.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Marsupial Stimulation
rlm@146:    You take a freshly pouched marsupial baby, and show it videos and
rlm@146:    other interactive things while it matures in the pouch. What mental
rlm@146:    effects would this have?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** The Dynamically Well-Tempered Clavier
rlm@146:    Some older ways of tuning instruments sound better, but we use the
rlm@146:    even-tempered scale today because it makes it easier to switch
rlm@146:    keys. With electronic music, why not make key-annotations and
rlm@146:    dynamically re-tune the piece to sound good in the current key?
rlm@146:    Could be done as a midi+annotation -> midi compiler for initial
rlm@146:    experimentation.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Death Always Implies Damage
rlm@146:    is is possible for a corpse to differ from a living person only in
rlm@146:    the fact that one is dead and the other is alive? NO! A corpse must
rlm@146:    always have some sort of molecular damage which causes the loss of
rlm@146:    function!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Inner Eye
rlm@146:    Surgically install a bunch of tiny cameras inside a person. Then,
rlm@146:    you can activate them all and get a picture of your internal organs
rlm@146:    for diagnostic purposes.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Chaos Rails
rlm@146:    The homoclinic tangle (which I call the "rails of chaos") is very
rlm@146:    beautiful. We couldn't even visualize it before computers because
rlm@146:    it's so complicated! Someone should make a visualization of
rlm@146:    it. Here's my inital stab at it:  [[../images/rails-of-chaos.png][The Rails of Chaos]]
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Cryonics Middle Ages
rlm@146:    Some people say that cryonics is an experiment and that it is
rlm@146:    foolish to wait until we have revived a human. There is a middle
rlm@146:    ground where the procedure has a dismal success rate on humans, say
rlm@146:    1 in 20, so that you'd be a fool to try revival. Nonetheless, this
rlm@146:    very risky procedure could be the legal proof of concept needed to
rlm@146:    create a new class of life between "living" and "dead": "stasis".
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Minds and Mirrors
rlm@146:    Neat thought experiment -- if you take a mirror of someone by
rlm@146:    actually reversing a person's chirality molecule by molecule, then
rlm@146:    will the only be able to read mirror writing? The answer is yes, by
rlm@146:    analogy to a purely mechanical scan-tron device. This is one of the
rlm@146:    only interesting transforms I know that can take a human brain and
rlm@146:    change it in subtle, non-destructive ways. It's also an argument
rlm@146:    against dualism.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Biosphere in a Bottle
rlm@146:    There are around 15 million species. 15 million stem cells will
rlm@146:    fill only a tiny size, far less than a cubic inch. Preserve a
rlm@146:    single cell from every species on earth in this small space, and
rlm@146:    you will have a record of our current biosphere that can be
rlm@146:    protected. "Hold the genetic data of all species in your hand!"
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Chaos Lock
rlm@146:    The "arrow of time" points in the direction of increasing
rlm@146:    entropy. The time evolution of chaotic systems depend exquisitely
rlm@146:    on their initial state. If you take a measurement of a chaotic
rlm@146:    system at any given point of time, you can evolve that system
rlm@146:    backwards or forwards based on your measurement. So let's say you
rlm@146:    start the chaotic system in a VERY low entropy state, then let it
rlm@146:    run for a while, then take a measurement with some
rlm@146:    uncertainty. Your measurement is pretty good, but obviously not
rlm@146:    PERFECT. If you evolve the chaotic system back in time, then you
rlm@146:    will see that you don't really reach a state with low entropy an
rlm@146:    hour before (the entropy is easy to measure with surrogates like
rlm@146:    alignment, etc). So use this technique to SEARCH for a more
rlm@146:    accurate measurement! This potentially can give you many more
rlm@146:    orders of magnitude than you could get alone just using an
rlm@146:    instrument. Sometimes it will give you bad results, the the odds of
rlm@146:    it doing that are infinitesimal, and you can just measure a couple
rlm@146:    of times.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Cryo Evolution
rlm@146:    Perhaps there would be a way to rapidly evolve a symbiotic
rlm@146:    bacterial organism that could protect human tissues from freezing
rlm@146:    damage.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Suicide Parasite
rlm@146:    Sometimes, people kill themselves for no good reason. We often
rlm@146:    explain this with things like "hidden depression" or we say that
rlm@146:    they had something like chronic jaw or back pain. I think that
rlm@146:    smells of rationalization. I don't buy it. I propose that in many
rlm@146:    suicide cases there is a disease that causes the suicidal
rlm@146:    behavior. We already know that certain parasites have mind-bending
rlm@146:    properties in other animals, even mammals like mice. It's not much
rlm@146:    of a stretch to imagine a parasite that causes suicides in
rlm@146:    humans. Some problems:
rlm@151:  
rlm@146:    *What does the suicide parasite get out of it?* : This might be
rlm@146:    answered by the whole thing being a glitch caused by cross-species
rlm@146:    contamination. Toxoplasma works this way.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146:    *What predictions does a disease model make* : suicide should be
rlm@146:    more common among people who share a contagion vector. There should
rlm@146:    be suicides that don't make any sense : people who weren't really
rlm@146:    depressed, who had no reason to kill themselves. People who have
rlm@146:    killed themselves should have a higher incidence of some unknown
rlm@146:    parasite in their brains.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Domestic Insects
rlm@146:    People should eat more bugs because they're much more efficient, so
rlm@146:    why not do some major domestication research to make very appealing
rlm@146:    bugs? Beetles, in particular, seem to be excellent targets for
rlm@146:    domestication because they have extreme levels of genetic
rlm@146:    malleability. Remember that lobster was once seen as an animal only
rlm@146:    fit for prisoners to consume!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Birth-Clones
rlm@146:    What if each person was intentionally split at birth into a normal
rlm@146:    embryo and a few "backup" cells which are then frozen. The backup
rlm@146:    cells are created just the same way as natural identical twins. The
rlm@146:    backups can be used to regenerate organs. etc. Also, it would be a
rlm@146:    good sci-fi concept, because you could have a culture where people
rlm@146:    reward people who were especially awesome are "reborn" from their
rlm@146:    backups. Imagine having a young Bach every generation, etc.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Pronunciation Guide
rlm@146:    A simple webpage where you type in a word and it returns a simple,
rlm@146:    English sentence describing exactly how to pronounce the word. For
rlm@146:    people who don't want to learn IPA.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Learning to Teleport
rlm@146:    This is a story about a person who is struggling with his/her
rlm@146:    society's ideas about teleportation. It's considered a fundamental
rlm@146:    part of being a member of that society (after all, the difference
rlm@146:    between animals and humans is that humans are creatures of pure
rlm@146:    information while animals are burdened with base matter, "that's
rlm@146:    how you travel the stars, etc") Humans are born normally, grow up,
rlm@146:    and then eventually transcend via destructive upload. Analogies to
rlm@146:    jumping off a diving board into a pool (which I simply /could not
rlm@146:    do/ for a long time), etc.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** No-Float-Ice
rlm@146:    Cup that has cross beams at the bottom where ice forms. Then when
rlm@146:    you drink liquid from the glass, the ice stays at the bottom and
rlm@146:    doesn't hit your lips. For bars and fancy things.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Bitcoins for Immigrants
rlm@146:    A common case with Mexican immigrants (illegal or not) is that they
rlm@146:    want to send money they've earned in the US back to their families
rlm@146:    in Mexico. They currently do this through things like Money Gram or
rlm@146:    Western Union, and they get fleeced in the process with
rlm@146:    fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce the cost of sending money from
rlm@146:    America to Mexico, but I don't believe that it's currently used for
rlm@146:    that among Mexican immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I
rlm@146:    bet you could set up physical locations like those obnoxious
rlm@146:    Western Union huts in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly
rlm@146:    undercut them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin
rlm@146:    might be in order. There's some money to be made there because
rlm@146:    there is great demand, and it's a good thing to boot!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Reverse Eye-Tracking
rlm@146:    A painting that is actually a digital screen with a camera. It
rlm@146:    records people's eye tracks permanently. It's "artistic" because
rlm@146:    paintings are normally these things that you look at without
rlm@146:    changing, but this one is changed the second you look at it,
rlm@146:    recording where /you/ looked forever for others to see. Make it be
rlm@146:    a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the breasts and groin
rlm@146:    area light up with interest from all the males passing by. Then
rlm@146:    watch as the painting turns into a commentary on perception and
rlm@146:    popularity -- a sort of eigenvector of perception! Will all
rlm@146:    paintings turn into the same thing eventually?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Smart Toilets
rlm@146:    Instead of using indirect measures like infrared detectors of the
rlm@146:    presence of a person, use computer vision to directly measure
rlm@146:    whether the toilet needs to be flushed. I think a lot of things
rlm@146:    will end up going this way as we get better computer vision.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Validate Chemopreservation
rlm@146:    Chemopreservation is difficult to validate because it destroys the
rlm@146:    functionality of a brain, and brain simulation will take a long
rlm@146:    time to mature as a technology. However, one very powerful way to
rlm@146:    validate chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn
rlm@146:    something with high complexity such as a number or the solution to
rlm@146:    a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain
rlm@146:    chemically, slice it up, and read /that specific memory/ from the
rlm@146:    detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Candy Screw
rlm@146:    Edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw as well.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Better Bibliography
rlm@146:    When writing a thesis or paper, have the bibliography not just be
rlm@146:    an opaque list of resources, but have it be a list of /summaries/
rlm@146:    and /qualities/ that each paper has in the context of the paper
rlm@146:    being written. When examining a bibliography, I want to know if
rlm@146:    reading the papers in the bibliography are worth my time, and I
rlm@146:    also am probably also interested in exactly the things that are
rlm@146:    being discussed in the paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the
rlm@146:    perfect place to provide information about the referenced papers
rlm@146:    from the author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in
rlm@146:    my own thesis!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Chess Visual
rlm@146:    To show the vast size of the game trees considered by computers,
rlm@146:    show two people playing chess in a void. They are floating in
rlm@146:    space, and there is a simple chess board between them. Then, as
rlm@146:    they play, the game tree's they are considering are drawn behind
rlm@146:    him. The root of the tree starts centered in their heads or
rlm@146:    whatever they use to think, and the tree grows out from behind,
rlm@146:    never crossing the dividing plane between the two players. Each
rlm@146:    player's tree is a different color. As they grow, there are
rlm@146:    animations for pruning, etc. Eventually, they look like the
rlm@146:    hemispheres of a brain, wings, etc. A human's tree might
rlm@146:    occasionally have a long chain, while the computer tree would be
rlm@146:    more uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern laptop. Use
rlm@146:    actual data when fighting two computers!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Tamper Proof Gold Bars
rlm@146:    [[Http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html][This site]] offers gold plated tungsten bars as "novelty" items. One
rlm@146:    reason to prefer coins is because they are much harder to
rlm@146:    counterfeit because there is less surface area to mass
rlm@146:    ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design because they can
rlm@146:    hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar could be given the
rlm@146:    same protections (and more) that gold coins have to offer by
rlm@146:    changing it into a "gold book", which would have hundreds of
rlm@146:    "pages" of gold bound together. This could be implemented with
rlm@146:    multiple steel rods going through the book which can be removed, or
rlm@146:    some more classier mechanism for holding the pages. The point is
rlm@146:    that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and people would perform
rlm@146:    this test before buying), thus guaranteeing it's authenticity.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** High School Science
rlm@146:    This is a lesson in scientific ethics. The goal is to calculate
rlm@146:    /g/, the local gravitational acceleration. The students are told
rlm@146:    that the textbook says it's /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the
rlm@146:    experiment. See how they doctor their results to get closer to the
rlm@146:    textbook value. It's neat because for any given school, /g/ is
rlm@146:    probably *not* exactly equal to 9.81, because that is just an
rlm@146:    average!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Opencourseware Subtitles
rlm@146:    There are people who type up lectures at MIT while they are being
rlm@146:    given, so that hearing impared students can follow along. These
rlm@146:    recordings should be kept and given to OCW for subtitles. If the
rlm@146:    timestamps of keys are recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Screen Locking Timing
rlm@146:    You use your computer camera to see if you are sitting in front of
rlm@146:    the computer. If you are, then the screen will never lock. If you
rlm@146:    are, then the screen will lock with a 30-40 second timeout. It's an
rlm@146:    extension of using inactivity to initiate the countdown, just with
rlm@146:    more information.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Mirror Toilet
rlm@146:    A toilet with a square basin made of mirror instead of
rlm@146:    porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a wipe job you have
rlm@146:    done / watch how your excretion system works.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** X-ray telepresence
rlm@146:    given that a doctor is operating on a patient via telepresence, one
rlm@146:    cool things you can do is shine X-rays into the patient to view the
rlm@146:    insides during real time. (This doesn't expose either the doctor or
rlm@146:    patient to chronically damaging amounts of X-rays) If the system
rlm@146:    was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure,
rlm@146:    and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the
rlm@146:    model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage and
rlm@146:    surgery risk could be minimized.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Superfluid Vascular System
rlm@146:    I wonder what would happen if you replaced the blood in a human
rlm@146:    with a superfluid. What would the physical dynamics be? Would the
rlm@146:    superfluid flow through the vasculature, or would it ignore it and
rlm@146:    travel through the cells, or something else entirely. Since
rlm@146:    superfluids need to be cold to retain their superfluidity, how
rlm@146:    would the dynamics change during perfusion of a superfluid, where
rlm@146:    the fluid gains and looses superfluidity as it goes deeper into the
rlm@146:    body and is cooled by superfluid from upstream. In summary there
rlm@146:    are two things to simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with
rlm@146:    superfluid instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Projective Guessing
rlm@146:    I think that we read and see things by making a really good guess
rlm@146:    about what we're expecting to see, and then searching for our guess
rlm@146:    in what we see. If it really doesn't match, then we start to make
rlm@146:    more guesses / analyze the image from first principles, but most
rlm@146:    stuff is projective guessing.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Intestinal Flora Maintenance
rlm@146:    Why not inoculate babies at birth with "ideal" gut flora instead of
rlm@146:    whatever bullshit they naturally get, thus giving them optimal
rlm@146:    digestive/nutrient extraction capabilities. Might also be able to
rlm@146:    make their farts not stink for life, too. MORE IMPORTANTLY, might
rlm@146:    help to preventatively stop some forms of /colic/, which affects 1
rlm@146:    in 5 babies and causes constant screaming and pain for about 5
rlm@146:    weeks.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Server Culture -- Mirrors
rlm@146:    Make a distributed system where people can mirror the websites of
rlm@146:    people they like -- essentially cover the server costs of favored
rlm@146:    websites. This could make popular websites run at no cost. The
rlm@146:    system would require that the mirrored content be the same as the
rlm@146:    official source. Sort of like bit-torrent for websites.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Map Programming
rlm@146:    One problem with functional programming is that in order to remain
rlm@146:    functional, you have to pass up arguments up into each calling
rlm@146:    function to get the full range of behavior from the lower level
rlm@146:    functions. Normally people come to a compromise involving
rlm@146:    abstraction and sparing use of dynamic variables to configure
rlm@146:    runtime behavior. What would be the advantages of making a
rlm@146:    programming language where every function receives one argument, a
rlm@146:    map, which contains all the symbol bindings it would ever need?
rlm@146:    This map is passed on to all subordinate functions. This way, you
rlm@146:    could replace functions on the fly, and arrange for there to be
rlm@146:    sensible defaults, etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an
rlm@146:    interesting idea.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Rest Nest
rlm@146:    A small EEG device you would attach to your head when you go to
rlm@146:    sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine your particular sleep
rlm@146:    cycles. This would mostly be an alarm clock that you could give a
rlm@146:    time range, say 7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an
rlm@146:    ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90 min sleep
rlm@146:    cycles. You would feel much more rested upon waking up, and would
rlm@146:    wake up faster. There might be some other uses for the EEG data as
rlm@146:    well.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Image Compression
rlm@146:    Use a library like gimp or opencv to process an image to make it
rlm@146:    have less entropy, then store the reverse of those operations along
rlm@146:    with the compressed simpler image as a super-compressed image file
rlm@146:    (possibly accepting some losses). Trades file size for
rlm@146:    decompression time, and allows one to cheat by using information in
rlm@146:    gimp/opencv to compress the image.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Aldehyde-Stabalized Cryopreservation
rlm@146:    Why not use a fixative to buy enough time to ramp up
rlm@146:    cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room temperature? Then,
rlm@146:    the whole system can be rapidly cooled and vitrified. This method
rlm@146:    "severs the biological link" in that the fixatives are highly
rlm@146:    toxic, but current vitrification procedures do this anyway since
rlm@146:    there can be a lot of freezing damage.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Dilated Security Camera
rlm@146:    A security camera that would capture full video footage of
rlm@146:    everything at 60fps but then decide to keep only every 1 frame
rlm@146:    every 5 seconds unless there's something "interesting" happening.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Bitcoin Wallet
rlm@146:    Part of "server culture", this would be something like
rlm@146:    "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as your personal trusted
rlm@146:    access to your own bitcoins from anywhere.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Libpay
rlm@146:    This would be a free library which would enable micro-donations to
rlm@146:    software projects and other projects, so that you could donate a
rlm@146:    penny to "emacs" and it would be automatically split up to every
rlm@146:    person who has ever contributed to emacs in proportion to the
rlm@146:    amount of community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the
rlm@146:    community decides. This might make it possible for programmers to
rlm@146:    live entirely off of free programming.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Pronouns
rlm@146:    Use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve pronoun
rlm@146:    referents and gender neutrality, are short to say, and you can
rlm@146:    encode useful information into the choice of letter. For example,
rlm@146:    instead of "Meetings shall be presided over by the president,
rlm@146:    unless she is absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the
rlm@146:    president, unless P is absent." We already use this a little, since
rlm@146:    I and U are reserved for the subject and object respectively.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Phone DSP
rlm@146:    Software app that inserts an audio DSP between the input to a phone
rlm@146:    and the output. The DSP is delicious and configurable, and can
rlm@146:    allow men to make their voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you
rlm@146:    to hear your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how
rlm@146:    their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to immediately
rlm@146:    change the parameters of the DSP using good presets.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Restaurant Receipts
rlm@146:    Use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid copies.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Crossdressing
rlm@146:    Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to wear a burka.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Book-Mode
rlm@146:    Intelligent color highlighting for books and articles. It would
rlm@146:    disambiguate pronouns and involved references. For example, if
rlm@146:    "Rachael" was assigned the color red, and "the blonde haired girl"
rlm@146:    refers to "Rachael", then "the blonde haired girl" would be colored
rlm@146:    red. Also, you could disambiguate multi part run-on sentences by
rlm@146:    highlighting each subcomponent. Maybe would also have applications
rlm@146:    to scientific reading.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Handheld Light Rain Measurement
rlm@146:    This would be a clear, teflon coated plastic disk with a camera
rlm@146:    underneath the disk. You would be able to hold the device out and
rlm@146:    it would measure the rate of accumulation of water droplets from
rlm@146:    fine mists and light rain by using computer vision to measure the
rlm@146:    diameters of the drops.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Big Brother Farming
rlm@146:    This would be a vision system that would individually monitor each
rlm@146:    plant and turn on water, etc to ensure maximum/uniform growth for
rlm@146:    each plant.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Discrete Faucet
rlm@146:    A faucet with discrete ticks instead of continuous.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Laser Circle
rlm@146:    Take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one end at an
rlm@146:    oblique angle. It will make a perfect, large circle on the wall,
rlm@146:    converting a laser beam into a laser cone, preserving most of the
rlm@146:    energy of the laser.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Invisible Glass
rlm@146:    Take a container of liquid and embed a glass sculpture made out of
rlm@146:    glass that has exactly the same index of refraction and color of
rlm@146:    the liquid. Then the sculpture will be totally invisible in the
rlm@146:    container, and will only be revealed when the liquid is
rlm@146:    drained. The container might be a fancy wine/spirit bottle or an
rlm@146:    hourglass.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Caterpillar people
rlm@146:    A race of caterpillar like creatures gains intelligence after eons
rlm@146:    of predation by birds, etc. These caterpillar creatures still
rlm@146:    undergo metamorphosis into a large butterfly-like creature. The
rlm@146:    metamorphosis process turns the caterpillar's brain into mush and
rlm@146:    reforms it into a minimal, dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely
rlm@146:    destroying the person the caterpillar was. The society develops all
rlm@146:    sorts of customs and religious interpretations of the
rlm@146:    metamorphosis. It is viewed as good and natural by some since it is
rlm@146:    part of their life cycle and necessary to propagate the species, as
rlm@146:    only the butterflies can mate. Some think that the butterflies are
rlm@146:    still the same person because they have the same soul, even they no
rlm@146:    longer posses the memories or personality of the original
rlm@146:    caterpillar. Some see the butterfly form as the "true form" of the
rlm@146:    species, since the butterflies can fly, mate, and are
rlm@146:    beautiful. Many make a big deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the
rlm@146:    caterpillar's mind is actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see
rlm@146:    it as a terrible tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try
rlm@146:    to stop the metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very
rlm@146:    important members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery
rlm@146:    to prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as
rlm@146:    themselves.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146:    This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being
rlm@146:    something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,
rlm@146:    something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that
rlm@146:    hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains
rlm@146:    now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic
rlm@146:    legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a
rlm@146:    compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second gender
rlm@146:    characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes homophobia
rlm@146:    look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of pain and death
rlm@146:    is made to look like the tragedy it is through the lens of the the
rlm@146:    caterpillar people.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Relationships as a Business
rlm@146:    [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx][Turnover-Crisis]] is an excellent talk about the "culture of
rlm@146:    quitting," which is about better business by letting people go
rlm@146:    instead of keeping them around past their "apex". Focuses on
rlm@146:    information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni network, which for
rlm@146:    relationships would be a group of satisfied ex-lovers, who would
rlm@146:    recommend new people your way, and who might consider coming to you
rlm@146:    again, refreshed from their time away with new
rlm@146:    stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and how
rlm@146:    they worked out.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Psychic Crystal
rlm@146:    In a science fiction story, this would be an object that is very
rlm@146:    easy to move physically but is extremely difficult to move with
rlm@146:    telekinesis.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** True Reflection
rlm@146:    There's a "true mirror" in the MIT student center -- it's two
rlm@146:    normal mirrors at right angles, like staring at a corner of a
rlm@146:    room. The light reflects so that it shows you what you actually
rlm@146:    look like, instead of your mirror image.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Remote Control Wasp
rlm@146:    Use computer to drive wings with remote power/logic.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Encrypted Email Phone Book
rlm@146:    Public (distributed?) database of email->private-key pairs, to
rlm@146:    enable automatic encryption.
rlm@146: 
rlm@146: ** Universal Eye Color
rlm@146:    Every equivalent creature will see each others' eyes as black --
rlm@146:    it's universal. Even if the creatures see in radio waves, and their
rlm@146:    eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged metal, when those creatures look
rlm@146:    at each other, they will see black, the absence of light and color
rlm@146:    (since it's being absorbed by the sensor array).
rlm@146: 
rlm@146: ** Intelligent Microwave
rlm@146:    It learns where the hot nodes of its fields are, and uses them to
rlm@146:    evenly heat any food item. It has an infrared camera or something
rlm@146:    to keep track of how hot the food is. That way, you don't get bowls
rlm@146:    where the edges are boiling, while the center is still
rlm@146:    frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since the
rlm@146:    exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of the
rlm@146:    food.  Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer, just a
rlm@146:    desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automatically
rlm@146:    defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much
rlm@146:    faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with
rlm@146:    heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor
rlm@146:    too.
rlm@145:   
rlm@151:    *+* Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would
rlm@151:    "sputter" and splash liquid much less.
rlm@145: 
rlm@151:    *+* Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked
rlm@151:    foods and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have
rlm@151:    been cooked before -- it can get faster the more it's used.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Flesh Pillow
rlm@146:    A pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete with simulated
rlm@146:    temperature, bones, and heartbeat.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Light Filter
rlm@146:    Works like light-tweezers to mechanically separate fluids with
rlm@146:    different indexes of refraction.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Silver Socks
rlm@146:    Socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial properties.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Rod of Moses
rlm@146:    Device to distill urine through evaporation and easily dispose of
rlm@146:    urea crystals for use in desert -- produce drinkable water and live
rlm@146:    an extra few days!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Lottery Scraper
rlm@146:    Web scraper which monitors various lotteries, looking for "special"
rlm@146:    gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x winnings on Wednesdays) and
rlm@146:    computes expected value...
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Memristiors Novel Design
rlm@146:    Make an evolutionary algorithm to make old stuff using all four
rlm@146:    basic circuit elements.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Conductive Concrete
rlm@146:    Concrete that has embedded metal fibers so that it can conduct
rlm@146:    electricity.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Little Bitty Melting Pot
rlm@146:    Might be useful for some types of manufacturing/3D printing -- how
rlm@146:    small can an induction melter be made, for example.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** True Pure Tones
rlm@146:    Hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the nerves of the
rlm@146:    ear. Like when Adelson "saw green".
rlm@145:   
rlm@146: ** Mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp
rlm@146:    would be an object with two levers -- you pull on one lever and the
rlm@146:    other moves the same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is
rlm@146:    driving. This analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Light Capacitor
rlm@146:    Suspend some ball of material with a high index of refraction and
rlm@146:    shine light into it so it gets stuck -- would the light stay
rlm@146:    trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited quantities of light
rlm@146:    inside the sphere (which could then be released slowly by
rlm@146:    frustrated internal reflection?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Reading Comprehension
rlm@146:    use the screen capture routine to make a quiz program that
rlm@146:    constructs questions about the content you seemed to gloss over
rlm@146:    while reading. could be easy if the pdf came with embedded
rlm@146:    questions.  Dylan: automatically generate word-cloud about the
rlm@146:    parts you found most interesting; help others who read the same
rlm@146:    stuff by drawing attention to the interesting parts.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Optimize an Article
rlm@146:    Capture reading of a scientific article via screen capture while
rlm@146:    people read it, then use it to make the article better. like the
rlm@146:    movie-pruning idea.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Movie Pruning
rlm@146:    Movies always are too long at first. One way to shorten them
rlm@146:    ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the move and then
rlm@146:    remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which there are a lot
rlm@146:    of blinking (average this over multiple people) better yet, put it
rlm@146:    online and do it across thousands of people. I got this from
rlm@146:    youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill which is composed
rlm@146:    entirely of the parts in which people had their eyes
rlm@146:    closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their eyes
rlm@146:    off of? Just take those parts out!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Explosive Thermite Epoxy Putty
rlm@146:    One part would contain the rust, one part the aluminum.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Concrete Epoxy
rlm@146:    Epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Hard Sword
rlm@146:    Make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of martensite for
rlm@146:    the cutting part; it should be a better sword.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Close Range Wireless
rlm@146:    use the induction technology used to recharge electric toothbrushes
rlm@146:    with no metal links to send data without any metal at all!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Perfect Pitch
rlm@146:    Learn perfect pitch using another sense in combination (sight or
rlm@146:    touch).
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Bio Metallic Structure
rlm@146:    Metal grids with seeds inside, which grow together and form a
rlm@146:    durable biological matrix. The metal substrate delivers
rlm@146:    water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?)  Dylan: enrich plants
rlm@146:    with inorganic compounds; electrical interfaces in cellular plant
rlm@146:    matter => remote-controlled photosynthetic/bioluminescent
rlm@146:    structures.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Conducting Extracellular Matrix
rlm@146:    To allow better control of organic systems and an enhanced nervous
rlm@146:    system.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Cross-Modal Memory Hashing
rlm@146:    A way to retrieve memories more robustly.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Greener than Green
rlm@146:    If you stare at a red light, then you get a green after-image. If
rlm@146:    you immediately look at something green while still seeing the
rlm@146:    green after-image, you will experience a Green like none you've
rlm@146:    ever seen before -- color so intense it's beyond the range of
rlm@146:    anything that exists in the world.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Wooden Refrigerator
rlm@146:    To give food a better taste Dylan: like barrels for wine, or planks
rlm@146:    for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor planks" for your pre-existing
rlm@146:    fridge. Need to mitigate effect of temperature on volatility?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Radioactive Transmutation Molecule by Molecule
rlm@146:    Create precious metals or something else economically
rlm@146:    advantageous. Best transmutation I can come up with is mercury into
rlm@146:    gold, but it's not economically viable.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Preservation Via Crowding
rlm@146:    Inoculate food with tons of harmless bacteria so that there's no
rlm@146:    room for bad bacteria as a method of preservation
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Old-School Preservation
rlm@146:    Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon as a way to store
rlm@146:    sterilized liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o
rlm@146:    refrigeration.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Restaurant Policy
rlm@146:    Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter of course -- make
rlm@146:    ambiance much better.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Clean Windows
rlm@146:    Make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant water (and reduces
rlm@146:    the pressure a bit) and use it to clean windows of buildings.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Ocarina
rlm@146:    Make an ocarina out of pure silver. Might have really good acoustic
rlm@146:    properties. 
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Fire Pen
rlm@146:    Pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing any
rlm@146:    ink. Is there a way to make it runnable from body heat?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Website to Design Your Own Soda
rlm@146:    and label, and have it mailed to you / sell it from your own online
rlm@146:    store.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Ocean Power
rlm@146:    Solar panels that float on the ocean.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Handcuffs with More Than Two Cuffs (3?)
rlm@146:    Great for daisy chaining people, binding them to environment, etc.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Vector Based SOUND Files
rlm@146:    Like the pictures but with SOUND. codify sound in a language with
rlm@146:    enough symbols so that it can describe everything and encode it in
rlm@146:    that. would be like going from speech to text or smtg. Could also
rlm@146:    store sound as an image of the wavefront encoded as a vector image.
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Genetically Engineered Glowing Fruit
rlm@146:    They have some animals that can glow, but glowing fruit that you
rlm@146:    eat would be AWESOME!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** The Body as a Key to Memory
rlm@146:    IF memories are encoded using particular sensory impressions, what
rlm@146:    happens if the sensory organ itself changes?  those memories would
rlm@146:    become inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember much from
rlm@146:    our childhoods. also, could this happen throughout life as well?
rlm@146:    Could S remember stuff from his childhood?
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Lighter Flint on Spring
rlm@146:    Make hot, throw it at something, and it makes sparkles!
rlm@145: 
rlm@146: ** Rare Bubbles
rlm@146:    Engineer a material which has both ductility and high surface
rlm@146:    tension to make the "third" minimal-surface-energy solution to a
rlm@146:    bubble suspended between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are
rlm@146:    cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles, and a
rlm@146:    double-cone)
rlm@146: 
rlm@146: ** Magic Textbook
rlm@146:    whose content can be varied continuously alter level of difficulty,
rlm@146:    rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain other discipline,
rlm@146:    etc. Content generated dynamically from knowledge base, along with
rlm@146:    questions that are moreover altered to guide knowledge
rlm@146:    acquisition. Motivation: One book of knowledge. /One./
rlm@145: 
rlm@145: 
rlm@145:    #+BEGIN_HTML
rlm@145: <p class="end"> Still want more? Visit the <a href="./ideas.html">Raw
rlm@145: Ideas</a> page, but prepare for extreme half-bakedness. </p>
rlm@145:    #+END_HTML