rlm@43: #+title: Big List O' Ideas
rlm@43: #+author: Robert McIntyre
rlm@43: #+email: rlm@mit.edu
rlm@43: #+description: list of ideas from the last ~ 7 years
rlm@47: #+keywords: aurellem ideas half-baked random
rlm@43: #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org
rlm@43: #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org
rlm@43: #+babel: :mkdirp yes :noweb yes :exports both
rlm@43: 
rlm@42: * Ideas
rlm@143: # :PROPERTIES:
rlm@143: # :HTML_CONTAINER_CLASS: ideas
rlm@143: # :END:
rlm@42: 
rlm@145: This is a list of *Every* idea I've written down
rlm@52: 
rlm@62: #+begin_quote
rlm@62: There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about
rlm@62: getting credit.
rlm@62: #+end_quote
rlm@62: 
rlm@164:  - I just had sex spinal tap <<2016-07-12 Tue>> :: measure signals
rlm@164:       coming from your spinal cord to detect orgasm w/ machine
rlm@164:       learning. Then your fucking app can post to facebook
rlm@164:       automatically saying "I just had sex".
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - a billion years of suffering, finally quieted by a noble oil spill <<2016-07-11 Mon>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - pig egg extraction  <<2016-07-10 Sun>> :: put human stem cells into
rlm@164:       a pig embryo, get the pig to grow human eggs / human
rlm@164:       reproductive systems, use the pig as an artificial womb. Also
rlm@164:       can get high quality <5 year old eggs from post memopausal women
rlm@164:       bu making their stem cells grow new eggs. In general, we should
rlm@164:       do a lot more transgenic xenobiologu!
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - cortex-doubling <<2016-06-26 Sun>> :: could we do something like
rlm@164:       the cortex-transplanting experiments except with an aim to
rlm@164:       greatly increase the size of the brain's cortex-- take a whole
rlm@164:       cortex from one embryo and just "shove it in" to the other
rlm@164:       animal? 
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - use optical methods to scan in a vynl recored <<2016-06-26 Sun>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - chilled cubes of quartz instead of ice to cool down a drink
rlm@164:       <<2016-06-22 Wed>> :: or troll people with lukewarm "ice"
rlm@164:    water. Aristotle said that quartz was permementaly frozen ice, why
rlm@164:    not take advantage. And why didn't Aristotle invent child
rlm@164:    psychology? 
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - seedless fruits <<2016-06-22 Wed>> :: could we make sedless fruits
rlm@164:       by breeding for increasingly /asymettric/ seed distribution?
rlm@164:       That way, we could breed until the seeds are on the surface of
rlm@164:       the fruit, then untill they're at the stem, then until they're
rlm@164:       off on their own branch near the fruit. could be cool!
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - can dogs hear our muscles contracting? <<2016-06-22 Wed>> ::
rlm@164:       muscles make an infrasonice sound when they contarct. In
rlm@164:       general, might this be an unintended side channel when it comes
rlm@164:       to animal experiments.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - authenticity and responsibility display similar mental glitches
rlm@164:       <<2016-06-21 Tue>> :: oh, you mirdered someone by presing a
rlm@164:    button-- then you're not repossible. If you print out an artwork,
rlm@164:    then it's not "authentic". In both cases we take the requirement
rlm@164:    for hands to be involved too far and cant't see through a layer of
rlm@164:    indirection 
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - better fixatives with aldehyde dehydrogenaze inhibitors?
rlm@164:       <<2016-06-20 Mon>> :: the idea is to disable the aldehyde
rlm@164:    dehydrogenaze enzymes that might react with aldehydes and retart
rlm@164:    progress. This might be irrelevant given how many fixative
rlm@164:    molucules might be used during fixation, but these systems might be
rlm@164:    coupled with negative downstream effects? See
rlm@164:    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldehyde_dehydrogenase for more details.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - batch multiple credit card transactions for a coffee shop
rlm@164:       <<2016-06-19 Sun>> :: if you get a foffee, then get another
rlm@164:    thing later on the same credit card, then the coffee shop should
rlm@164:    batch these transactions together at the end of the day to avoid
rlm@164:    multiple fees.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - a man has to have balls to cut off his own balls <<2016-06-17 Fri>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - kerning art <<2016-06-16 Thu>> :: an extention to LaTeX that puts
rlm@164:       really subtle smiley facse and shit into the whitespacing of a document
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - glare analysis <<2016-06-15 Wed>> :: take a computer model of a
rlm@164:       building, use ray-tracing to simulate there light goes during
rlm@164:       different times of the day, and see if the light will bother
rlm@164:       anyone in "standard" positions, such as desks, counters, etc.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - almost-silent whispers in the brain  <<2016-06-14 Tue>> :: a set of
rlm@164:       silent synapses are triggered in such a way to create a wealth
rlm@164:       of important memories, none of which are accessable to the person!
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - jumping forward in time, by changing your brain
rlm@164:       <<2016-06-11 Sat>> :: and also, the state-space evolution of a
rlm@164:    brain has loops, etc
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - "draw your own computer" -- an MIT IAP class <<2016-06-11 Sat>> ::
rlm@164:       you take an 8.5x11 sheet of paper and draw out a simple CPU on
rlm@164:       it (with connections for a decent RAM chip, and two serial
rlm@164:       ports). You'd use a fine pen and a magnifying glass, draw from a
rlm@164:       template, and the class would go over the circuits you're
rlm@164:       drawing as you draw them. Then you do some VERY BASIC
rlm@164:       photolithography to make it real! Then you write in a nice game
rlm@164:       of ZORK or something! Possibly this could be a two-three day
rlm@164:       class depending on how complicated the drawing has to be. 
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - knife with gallium core and M&M resin on the outside
rlm@164:       <<2016-06-10 Fri>> :: "melts in your enemies' guts, not your
rlm@164:    scabbard" 
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - pizza lathe printer <<2016-06-09 Thu>> :: spin pizza, apply
rlm@164:       toppings. make it be intriciate. like a tomato sauce
rlm@164:       spirograph. "spirograph pizza"
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - "conception" of memory <<2016-06-09 Thu>> :: this is almost a
rlm@164:       kabbalistic mystery, that the molecules used in conception might
rlm@164:       be the same used to conceive a memory: from Kadell: In Xenopus oocytes, maternal RNA is silent until activated by the
rlm@164: cytoplas- mic polyadenylation element binding protein (CPEB) (Richter
rlm@164: 1999). In Aplysia a new iso- form of CPEB (ApCPEB) with novel
rlm@164: properties was found in neurons. Blocking this isoform at a marked
rlm@164: (active) synapse prevented the main- tenance but not the initiation of
rlm@164: long-term syn- aptic facilitation (Si et al. 2003a,b).
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - mind erasure, all cells live <<2016-06-09 Thu>> :: trypsin in the
rlm@164:       brain -- dissociate neurons without killing them. 
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - delicate flavors pumped through your blood and into your tounge and
rlm@164:       organs <<2016-06-08 Wed>> :: the infinite snack pump
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - imagemagick converter for ffmpeg <<2016-06-07 Tue>> :: make it so
rlm@164:       that you can execute any imagemagick command on every frame of a
rlm@164:       video by using ffmpeg.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - dyln duel decks -- elbows vs. NO <<2016-06-04 Sat>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - knife garnish <<2016-06-04 Sat>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - the "easy" and "hard" problems of mathematics <<2016-06-02 Thu>> ::
rlm@164:       the "easy" problem is to jsut do things like prove the rieman
rlm@164:       hypothesis. The "hard" problem is to show why 2 /is/ 2 and not
rlm@164:       some other number, and what makes /this/ 2 different form
rlm@164:       /that/ 2. You know, to really /explain/ it.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - naming convention for marriage <<2016-05-25 Wed>> :: hyphenate your
rlm@164:       names with a new family last name, then the kids just get the
rlm@164:       family name. Then other people can call you "Mr. family-name",
rlm@164:       etc. By Dylan Holmes.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - light of the mind <<2016-05-23 Mon>> :: a researcher is
rlm@164:       experimenting with transgenic viruses to do optogenetic
rlm@164:       experiments, accidentally infects himself. Then from then on,
rlm@164:       his neurons actually glow with light inside his skull. 
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - microwaves to accelerate cryoprotectant uptake
rlm@164:   <<2016-05-21 Sat>> :: works for osmium during embedding, so why not
rlm@164:   for cryoprotectants?
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - breed very small dogs, bats, mice, etc <<2016-05-21 Sat>> :: for
rlm@164:       neuroscience research. I wonder how many generations it would
rlm@164:       take to surpass the 2g limit of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitti's_hog-nosed_bat][bumblebe bats]]? Then the
rlm@164:       reduced species would be ideal for whole-brain scanning.
rlm@164:       Depending on the tech curves, it may indeed be more feasible to
rlm@164:       start with something like an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_shrew][Etruscan shrew]], bred it for 100
rlm@164:       generations to be a quarter of the size, and then proceed with
rlm@164:       brain scanning, rather than starting directly!
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - sun dogs at the final stand <<2016-05-21 Sat>> :: "It was always a
rlm@164:       one way trip," said the Hero of the Sun. The rest of the heros
rlm@164:       could only watch as he made his final stand. Amidst the dark,
rlm@164:       icy gloom, he summoned one last powerful bit of sun-magic,
rlm@164:       sacrificing himself to hold back the forces of darkness. From
rlm@164:       hundreds of miles away, the sky brightened with an artificial
rlm@164:       dawn, and the sky shown with the hero's name:
rlm@164:       [[../images/star-artic.jpg]].
rlm@164:  
rlm@164:       With [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g53zcpaXT8o&t=21m23s][this]] playing in the background.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - space elevator based on string <<2016-05-20 Fri>> :: You have a
rlm@164:       small dumb robot that walks up and down strings while carrying
rlm@164:       something. You launch a "spider" robot from a satelite with a
rlm@164:       bunch of string, tethering one end on earth and one end in
rlm@164:       grosynchronus orbit. Then you successively make the string
rlm@164:       bigger. 
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - lavender oats -- oatmeal w/ tea -- turns out it doesn't work all that well <<2016-05-17 Tue>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - all the atoms in a head, all the stories that can be <<2016-05-17 Tue>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - boltzman brain april fools <<2016-05-17 Tue>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - exochemotherapy <<2016-05-16 Mon>> :: let's say you have lung
rlm@164:       cancer, or some other cancer you might need to treat with
rlm@164:       radiation. Perhaps it could be good to remove the organ from the
rlm@164:       body (while still having it attached), and apply radiatio, etc.
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - glutaraldehyde as biological glue to bind implants <<2016-04-28 Thu>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - the blank lonliness of singularity <<2016-04-28 Thu>> :: I think
rlm@164:       that at least for me, I've always been missing the important
rlm@164:       spiritual aspect of /duality/. /Duality/ here means that you
rlm@164:       exist as two or more copies at the same time. There so much I
rlm@164:       want to focus on, especilly the orthogonal worlds of science and
rlm@164:       society, that my natural state of orginazation would be to
rlm@164:       /both/ hole myself up in a lab and work on discovering truth,
rlm@164:       AND work on talking with peopls and making a great network of
rlm@164:       friends. I want to be able to really talk with myself!
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - low voltage em imaging + fib sem directly of ASC brains <<2016-04-25 Mon>> ::
rlm@164: 
rlm@164:  - dildo-shaped earplugs <<2016-04-25 Mon>> :: just put dicks in both
rlm@164:       your ears. Make them double ended. In general, use earplugs as a
rlm@164:       platform for making neat things mounted to your ears, like foam
rlm@164:       flowers or ribbons or whatever. 
rlm@164: 
rlm@162:  - ASC as a police evidence preservation technique <<2016-04-18 Mon>> ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - multi metal fixation w/ formamide <<2016-04-18 Mon>> :: osmium
rlm@162:       copper zinc uranium formamide
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - blood like cars that knows where to go <<2016-04-18 Mon>> :: maybe
rlm@162:       with flagellas
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - post antibiotic recolonization from preserved blood <<2016-04-18 Mon>> ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - application of poly magnet for perfusion connections <<2016-04-18 Mon>> ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - explicit lobbying and influences from companies --- helps make behaviour more predictable and can help to paradoxcically make the lobbying money stronger <<2016-04-18 Mon>> ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - glutaraldehyde as a callous hardener <<2016-04-18 Mon>> ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - twit-shank-select <<2016-04-17 Sun>> :: and if you actually had a
rlm@162:       really cool day, then you request that you become the
rlm@162:       trunk. Gaurantees that you have much more statistically
rlm@162:       interesting days, every day!
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - twit-shank <<2016-04-17 Sun>> :: much easer, ""minimum viable
rlm@162:       product"-style mind-merge. Just tweet any significant shit you
rlm@162:       did that day, then kill yourself. Trunk-you reads the tweet and
rlm@162:       continues with his day.
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - names that sound stupid today but would be good ancient Greek names <<2016-04-16 Sat>> :: "telethon",
rlm@162:       "mentos", "mentor". Behold TELETHON, he was a great warrior and
rlm@162:       runner!
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-12 Tue>> if only we had gold much more abundant than lead ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-12 Tue>> wood engineered to contain a lot of gold sequestered in the tissues ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-12 Tue>> mtg life counter app that's more like paper ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-11 Mon>> good word for a prostitute : conslutant ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-11 Mon>> old paper book on acid paper preserved in SPURS resin ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-11 Mon>> blood ink :: you can just buy a bottle of
rlm@162:       hemoglobin and make ink. maybe linseed oil and hemoglobin would
rlm@162:       work? throw in some sort of crosslinker or something to keep the
rlm@162:       hemoglobin red? 
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-08 Fri>> trash horse ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-08 Fri>> soul of the day :: a full life recording
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-07 Thu>> omega the forsaken :: grade so bad you fail that
rlm@162:       class and all its prerequisites
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-05 Tue>> eye ring right angle mirror :: creatures with
rlm@162:       say six eyes shaped in a ring on their head. They mentallly
rlm@162:       shift their attention from one pair of eyes to another to really
rlm@162:       preceive 3D shapes. However, if you pit a right angle mirrr in
rlm@162:       the back of their head, they can sudetnly incorporate two pairs
rlm@162:       of eyes simultaneously, perceiving the world in 3.XD, where they
rlm@162:       see what they call "true depth", where 2D representations of 3D
rlm@162:       space look hopelessly fake and the coeld has a sort of profound
rlm@162:       depth to it.
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-05 Tue>> antibiotic multiplicity :: we shouldn't use use
rlm@162:       one antibiotic, or cycle them or any of that nonsense. If
rlm@162:       someone has a problem, give them ALL the antibiotics at once,
rlm@162:       getting exponentially better chances of killing everything. Say
rlm@162:       you have two antibiotics with a 0.1 chance of becomming useless
rlm@162:       everytime you use it to cure someone. The antibiotics are
rlm@162:       independent molecular mechanisms so it takes two chance
rlm@162:       mutations to confer immunity. If you use one till it's useless,
rlm@162:       then the other one, then it takes around 20 times before you're
rlm@162:       out of antibiotics. If you use both its more like 200 times!
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-05 Tue>> are animals chronically tired :: I wonder if
rlm@162:       animals get enough sleep? Maybe not -- after all, they wouldn't
rlm@162:       necesairly be able to go for 8 hours even if they needed it. And
rlm@162:       the quality of sleep would be very bad if you're always on
rlm@162:       edge. I think that a lot of animals look tired a lot of the
rlm@162:       time. Perhaps in addition to our ability to cook food as a
rlm@162:       surrogate for our digestive system, our ability to sleep in a
rlm@162:       confortable, safe place for 8+ hours enabled similar economies
rlm@162:       for our mental systems! The "comfy" theory of human
rlm@162:       intelligence/evolution.
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-02 Sat>> live to a billion seconds :: it's 31 years, 251
rlm@162:       days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, 54.7843 seconds or something
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-02 Sat>> hyperlinked physical writing :: you scan in some
rlm@162:       (handwritten) text and make some of the words hyperlinks. looks
rlm@162:       incongrous. or an old newspaper clipping from like the 1930's as
rlm@162:       a pdf, and it has a random hyperlink in it!
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-01 Fri>> super emulsified transparent manyonase ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-01 Fri>> osmium as a EM catalyst :: cause you can recover
rlm@162:       it see 1978
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-04-01 Fri>> the mind sword of osmium :: uploading, use
rlm@162:       osmium as a catalyst, make cool sword that's processed a billion
rlm@162:       human minds
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-27 Sun>> hay fever straws :: normally you call them
rlm@162:       "sneezes" but if you have hay fever then you should call them
rlm@162:       "straws." :P
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-27 Sun>> the same blue sky :: when I look at the sky, and
rlm@162:       there's no clouds, then I'm connected the eternity of all the
rlm@162:       creatures who looked up and saw the same sky. I wonder if you
rlm@162:       could look up at the sky, then look back down and be in a
rlm@162:       different time, a different place. 
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-25 Fri>> fear of number quantity :: people can be scared
rlm@162:       of one thing, two things, etc, but what about 51 things. this
rlm@162:       might reveal the limits of object counting. How do there numbers
rlm@162:       distribute around the population? Is there a spike at numbers
rlm@162:       like 13?
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-24 Thu>> water-resistant suit and CPA tube :: so classy,
rlm@162:       to pop out of a cryo chamber and have the water fall off your
rlm@162:       suit like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Udw0RriGrI
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-24 Thu>> perfuse cryoprotectants into hibernating ground squirrell ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-24 Thu>> active biological camaflogue :: inspired by the
rlm@162:       mormyrid electric fish paper by *mumble*. What if you were an
rlm@162:       octopus that could change skin color, and then you combine your
rlm@162:       vision, skin, and motor outputs to compute what the skin should
rlm@162:       look like as you move your arms around; you could be perfectaly
rlm@162:       invisible, and wouldn't have to have the skin be "dumb". Very
rlm@162:       fast changes in light with no pattern would reveal this
rlm@162:       "bio-computed camaflogue", though, because the skin wouldn't be
rlm@162:       able to predict things as well.
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-24 Thu>> vitrified lab :: imagine a lab contained
rlm@162:       entirely in the glass from which fibre optic cables are
rlm@162:       made. It's be neat! there'd be no air!
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-20 Sun>> curare in a fixative :: might stop fixation
rlm@162:       tremors. 
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-20 Sun>> hidden eyes of god :: it's the year 2020 and the
rlm@162:       first human brains are beginning to be preserved and scanned as
rlm@162:       part of the human connectome project. As scientists look at
rlm@162:       electron micrographs of preserved human brain tissue, they see
rlm@162:       all the expected brain structures: neurons, synapses,
rlm@162:       mitochnodria, myelin.... and something that's never been seen
rlm@162:       before: an intiricate filigree of strutures like the neural
rlm@162:       weaves from Banks' culture series. Human brain tissue from even
rlm@162:       50 years ago like Einsteins' does not have the weave, and he
rlm@162:       weave is only in around 30% of the population. Obviously
rlm@162:       computational in nature and way advanced beyond anything
rlm@162:       humanity can build, these secret structures reveal an unsettling
rlm@162:       truth: something is watching us, from within our own minds...
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-20 Sun>> encrypted priority server ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-19 Sat>> neuro-speakers  :: speakers are the ultimate
rlm@162:       insturment, most like the human voice. submime. attach to brain
rlm@162:       and then we can finally sing. 
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-19 Sat>> book with meanings to onlky one person at one time :: like
rlm@162:       adam kraft's thing about neural nets with images that look
rlm@162:       nothing like the object but get classified as that object
rlm@162:       anyway. You could possibly do the same with a human visual
rlm@162:       system -- imagine a book that looks nothing like static. You
rlm@162:       look at the pages, and they seem like nonsense, but you also get
rlm@162:       a /strong/ impression of a scene and meaning, possibly stronger
rlm@162:       and more direct than a really good painting. And no one else can
rlm@162:       see it, and you sleep a night, and can't see it yourself in the
rlm@162:       morning. Like the "communicating with LSD people" thing as well.
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-17 Thu>> ligand nonpolar osmium lipid stain for perfuse EM ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-15 Tue>> classified documents and mind uploading :: an
rlm@162:       important value for forgetting!
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-15 Tue>> furnace random number generator ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - <<2016-03-14 Mon>> how does a lobotomy not cause fatal brain embolisms!? ::
rlm@162: 
rlm@161:  - spinal cord made of light; moon :: transit time of light from moon to
rlm@161:       earth is same as transit time of signals through spinal cord. So
rlm@161:       you could have your mind on the moon and your body on earth and
rlm@161:       it would feel the same!
rlm@161: 
rlm@161:  - semantic darkmode browser extension :: some websites are naturally
rlm@161:       dark themed (like aurellem.org) while others are light themed
rlm@161:       (like google). At night I like dark themes and during daylight I
rlm@161:       like light themes. You can just invert your screen to convert
rlm@161:       light to dark, but when tabbing through multiple browser tabs
rlm@161:       you end up occasionally spraying your screen with bright
rlm@161:       colors. So, have a little button that inverts a single web page
rlm@161:       for firefox! Or, you can have a tiny bit of preprocessing (you
rlm@161:       just measure the overall white vs dark pixels) and then invert
rlm@161:       the page depending on that.
rlm@161: 
rlm@161:  - optogenetic readout during cruoprotection :: basically a "lightbulb
rlm@161:       above the head" to measure activity of selected neurons.
rlm@161: 
rlm@161:  - carbon dating and immortality :: if you've been /alive/ for a
rlm@161:       million years, you'll carbon-dat as being as old as yesterday. 
rlm@161: 
rlm@161:  - gas tenderization :: use high pressure and gas diffusion to both
rlm@161:       denature proteins and infiltrate lots of gas into a piece of
rlm@161:       meat. Then rapidly decrease the pressure, and the meat will
rlm@161:       experience air bubbles similarly to bread rising, and might
rlm@161:       become tender and tasty!
rlm@161: 
rlm@161:  - learning damage from mind uploading :: a person might be uploaded
rlm@161:       so that they can answer every question about their life and be
rlm@161:       able to perform actions they had previously learned, but due to
rlm@161:       incomplete simulation of long term chemical and structural
rlm@161:       dynamics, they might have a severe learning disability!
rlm@161: 
rlm@161:  - holy "spirit" :: most blasphemous liquor
rlm@161: 
rlm@161:  - truck blindspot lights :: lights that shine on the road and show
rlm@161:       where your vehicle's blind spots are.
rlm@161: 
rlm@161:  - eyelid screen :: you can just close you eyes, but you're reading a
rlm@161:       book. it would be really cool and look like rapid eye
rlm@161:       movement. In this tech, the screen would replace your eyelid
rlm@161:       entirely. The other really neat thing about this concept is that
rlm@161:       your eyelid screen is a part of you. You might have some
rlm@161:       smooth muscles in it that works like a selection or cursor, and
rlm@161:       the scren can feel your eye rolling underneath and tell where
rlm@161:       you're looking, allowing for a very immersive experience. It's
rlm@161:       like an "all-in" virtual mode, still cleanly separating the real
rlm@161:       from the digital, telling others you're in your "virtual space",
rlm@161:       and still looking entirely human. 
rlm@161: 
rlm@160:  - blockchain based experential memory ::
rlm@160: 
rlm@160:  - a hidden world of early life :: I imagine that the bridge form the
rlm@160:       first life forms to even very simple single celled organisms was
rlm@160:       probably very interesting and a lot more diverse than we give it
rlm@160:       credit for. Unfortunately, I doubt that we're going to find any
rlm@160:       good evidence for such creatures, since they don't seem like the
rlm@160:       type of organisms that would preserve well. All sorts of really
rlm@160:       neat delf replicating molecules and assemblies of molecules, and
rlm@160:       we'd have no record of any of them. The only way to get an idea
rlm@160:       of these types of life will be to make them again in the lab.
rlm@160: 
rlm@160:  - brain insurance :: for the preserved brain
rlm@160: 
rlm@160:  - remote control ants / pidgeons :: train/evolve them to want to
rlm@160:       follow an EM gradient or magnetic field. put a camera on.
rlm@160: 
rlm@160:  - musical neural inversion :: get a simple model of emotional and
rlm@160:       auditory circuits, "invert" the model based on sound input, and
rlm@160:       generate music with constrating satisfaction. Might find some
rlm@160:       music that's simultaneously "alien" (lacking a top-down design)
rlm@160:       yet still deeply emotionally coherent and satisfying.
rlm@160: 
rlm@160:  - simulated fire :: for those who say that simulated water can't get
rlm@160:       you wet, just see what happens if you attach your nerves to
rlm@160:       simulated output of FIRE. I gaurantee you're going to have a bad
rlm@160:       time. 
rlm@160: 
rlm@160:  - use lasers to cut large plasticized brains ::
rlm@160: 
rlm@160:  - gravity telescope the size of the solar system ::
rlm@160: 
rlm@160:  - information bearing layer :: to find the spatial / logical scale of
rlm@160:       the main information containing layer of an information storage
rlm@160:       device, look at where correlated change happens, and then to see
rlm@160:       if it's digital, look beyond that and see if the changes are
rlm@160:       uncorrelated. 
rlm@160: 
rlm@159:  - sperm fitness correlation :: it's evolutionary advantageous for a
rlm@159:       species' sperm to fail to function exactly when the fetus they
rlm@159:       would create would fail. But it's really hard to make this
rlm@159:       functoinal correlation happen because the sperm cell only
rlm@159:       expresses a small subset of the genome. To the extent that thei
rlm@159:       correlation effect exists, we can reverse it to find
rlm@159:       "interesting" genes. My guess --- look for genes physiccally
rlm@159:       next to sperm coding genes.
rlm@159: 
rlm@159:  - spinal repeater/relay :: a VERY fine mesh of directional paths,
rlm@159:       much finer than the width of a spinal axon, which can connect a
rlm@159:       bundle of nerves that has been cut together.
rlm@159: 
rlm@155:  - auto book ::handwritten by machine; illuminated. Like old medieval
rlm@155:    books. Use a model of handwriting so the letters are different. 
rlm@154: 
rlm@155:  - url resolver :: pick the longest vaid url that's a rooted substring
rlm@155:       of the requested URL. unambigupously corrects for links that
rlm@155:       have things like periods and ending parens at the end of a link.
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - soul black marble :: for existential threats, what if solu magic
rlm@155:       was true, and undertale whatever, destroy the world
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - heart preservation + heart bypass to allow time for healing :: you
rlm@155:       cryopreserve a heart, then "recondition" it inside the patient
rlm@155:       while under bypass to allow time for it to heal. 
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - intelligent microwave osmium perfusion w/ CAT scan ::
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - assembling new word-sounding words by concatenation and random deletion ::
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - amber brain preservation? :: would this work, without having to do
rlm@155:       the heavy metal bits? Maybe chemical fixation with aldehydes
rlm@155:       followed by hot amber and then high pressure for several months?
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - zappy fat ::
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - electrocaloric effect :: see
rlm@155:       https://dx.doi.org/10.1146%2Fannurev-matsci-062910-100341,
rlm@155:       [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrocaloric_effect][wikipedia article]]
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - albino fruit ::
rlm@155: 
rlm@162:  - cryoprotectant that increases the nutritional value of food ::
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - faucet enerty :: how much power do you get from an average faucet
rlm@155:       compared to the wall socket?
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - high pressure fixation :: could this defeat the "myelin unraveling"
rlm@155:       problem? Maybe -- if the "unraveling" is actually BUBBLES like
rlm@155:       you might get during the bends, caused by the fixation reaction!
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - eat fixed tissue :: can you EAT glutaraldehyde preserved tissue, if
rlm@155:       you wash away all the free aldehydes and make sure that the
rlm@155:       reaction is complete? Can you also cook the tissue? Maybe it
rlm@162:       would be good! it would certainly be a very powerful
rlm@162:       preservative! maybe see
rlm@162:       http://www.aapd.org/assets/1/25/Karp-09-04.pdf
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - intelligence sorting ::
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - hyperbaric fixation :: apparently with divers with the "bends", you
rlm@155:       get bubbles in the myelin in particular. Maybe hyperbaric
rlm@155:       fixation would be able to eliminate these bubbles!
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - blood + cryoprotectant :: might be more gentle than normal things?
rlm@155:       Why not use it? (b/c you might need extracellular ion
rlm@155:       concentrations), also zeta potentials! But you could filter the
rlm@155:       blood, and get a lot from a slaughterhouse perhaps.
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - the matrix has a "lord of space" and a "muse of time" ::
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - ultra fast fluorocarbon cooling :: perfuse brain w/ cryoprotectant,
rlm@155:       cool to -20°C. Then clear out everything w/ fluorocarbon (or
rlm@155:       something else that doesn't interact w/ cells and has very low
rlm@155:       viscosoty at low temperatures), and then immediately switch to
rlm@155:       fluorocarbon at around -135°C. Should very quickly cool the
rlm@155:       brain (even faster than persufflation!) and would also avoid the
rlm@155:       dehydration problems associated w/ persufflation. Even better,
rlm@155:       you have a mechanism for rapidly warming the brain --
rlm@155:       immediately switch to warm fluorocarbon. Everything is always
rlm@155:       still liquid and pressurized. Should buy you a couple % decrease
rlm@155:       in CPA toxicity.
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - gameboy IR link over wifi through emilation ::
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - living memory is the start of history :: the natural dividing line
rlm@155:       is between living and dead history, and is created retroactively
rlm@155:       with the advent of brain preservation technology and then
rlm@155:       realized by mind uploading. It can still creep forward from
rlm@155:       death of individuals. We're still living in pre-history!
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - the memory of God is the soul :: mind-uploading + christian
rlm@155:       theology ==> the soul falls out nicely from omniscience. 
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - alternating stir plate :: a magnetic stir bar that alternates back
rlm@155:       and forth. Is it more efficient?
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - rsync with md5 (or whatever) database :: Now if you're rsync'ing
rlm@155:       something over to the server, if the file matches something
rlm@155:       already on the server, then it gets copied over from wherever it
rlm@155:       is on the server (then each block's signature is checked like
rlm@155:       with normal rsync, so that you get exactly the same behaviour).
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - mvln :: uses a backing database to gaurantee that when you move a
rlm@155:       folder, that all the links that point to it can remain
rlm@155:       consistent across your system.
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - centrifugal drinking :: spin the bottle around and tubes from the
rlm@155:       bottom convey drink up to the top. (don't know why I came up
rlm@155:       with this one...)
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - DRACOS at single cell stage :: you splice the genes for DRACOS into
rlm@155:       a single human cell at the first stage of development. Then all
rlm@155:       the cells of the person that cell will eventually become will
rlm@155:       automatically produce DRACOS (and the DRACOS will be recognized
rlm@155:       as "self" by the immune system. This creates a powerful
rlm@155:       secondary immune system which will make the person immune to
rlm@155:       almost all viruses. 
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - toilet + fume hood :: because it's dumb to have the entire bathroom
rlm@155:       be a sort of fume hood.
rlm@155: 
rlm@155:  - wind speed force :: two wind socks one weighted. The angle between
rlm@155:       them tells you the force of the wind.
rlm@154: 
rlm@154:  - sshfs to mount root :: you can mount your own root filesystem
rlm@154:       somewhere else using sshfs. Sort of "normalizes" file
rlm@154:       permissions without having to use root, and is weird. Could also
rlm@154:       bypass rm =--preserve-root= restrictions and delete entire
rlm@154:       filesystem.
rlm@154:       
rlm@154:       #+BEGIN_SRC sh
rlm@154:       sshfs root@localhost:/ my-root
rlm@154:       #+END_SRC
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - not even a nop of damage :: nop == no-op
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - twittwe vibratoe ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - value of cancer :: what of value is lost with an easy cancer-cure?
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - blood :: blood is the "wires" that connect organs to each other and
rlm@162:       impedance match the services that organs provide to other
rlm@162:       organs. A heart, per se, does not need blood but instead access
rlm@162:       to the filtering powers of a kidney; blood just connects the
rlm@162:       kidney cells to the heart cells. That's why "perfusing w/ blood"
rlm@162:       is entirely missing the point.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - armored helmet :: use fiber-optics to re-route vision and get better
rlm@162:       shield for eyes. curved plates, kozilek style.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - open source contributions :: way to make them public on your website easily.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - active opto-glove :: for ENHANCED touch! It's a magnyfing glass for
rlm@162:       your fingers!
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - glove screen :: for driving directions, etc. Better than a watch!
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - osmium + sugar as a histo stain :: the suger interacts with the
rlm@162:       osmium and retards its progress. you can see details on slices in
rlm@162:       a light microscope without any more staining, and the EMs are not
rlm@162:       adversely affected. 
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - encryption camera :: use public key on memory card. The camera
rlm@162:       writes files encrypted with this public key.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - immaculate AIDS acquisition ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - minds and lightspeed :: fastern minds have to deal with lightspeed
rlm@162:       limitations in their own cognitive architectures.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - kill with fire :: guy A fires fire blast, with a spell circle to
rlm@162:       maintain the magic. Opponent B just GRABS the magic and pulls MORE
rlm@162:       fire. Guy A's circle goes out of control and all his life force
rlm@162:       gets sucked out to supply more fire. B grabs the magic, crushes
rlm@162:       it, fires a concentrated red lightning bolt, and eats the
rlm@162:       rest. "You think that you can kill me, WITH FIRE!?"
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - magic ekiga ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - edible crayons ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - library chaining ::
rlm@155:  
rlm@162:  - hypnosis + that drug that makes you loose continuity :: can the
rlm@162:       hypnosos plant things during this time?
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - forgotten services :: use "ovbilion" somehow. Some sleeping drugs
rlm@162:       make you forget the hour or so before you go to bed. Use this to
rlm@162:       create forgotten services. 
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - dibenzelene -- mike darwin ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - sleepy perfusion :: if brains naturally expand / contract depending
rlm@162:       on resting / awake state, we should investigate the EMs of brains
rlm@162:       fixed during "sleep" mode  and those fixed during "awake"
rlm@162:       mode. (while still using anesthetic of course).
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - shit flavored dog treats :: because dogs would probably like them. 
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - fume hood incense :: so make sure the fume hood is working
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - infinity coin :: s.f. concept -- billions are uploaded by using
rlm@162:       osmium as a "mind uploading catalyst". osmium is put ino the
rlm@162:       brain, they brain is scanned, and the osmium is recycled. Then
rlm@162:       you make coins out of the osmium that has gone through billions
rlm@162:       of these cycles.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - mamilian dive reflex as a method of preparing organs for cryopreservation ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - spinal encryption :: like an X server, except your body parts each
rlm@162:       run these servers. You all have clocks, and you have to sign your
rlm@162:       muscle commands with your private key in order to control your
rlm@162:       body. 
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - suicide note as a mental excercise :: from NPR, ted talk, teenagers, etc.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - microscope clamp magnet ring thing ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - cup that fills from the bottom :: (you put it on a thing and it starts filling
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - pronouncaeble liscense plates :: (just avoid certain unpronounceable combinations of letters/numbers. It doesn't even change the search space much!)
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - instant-awake vs natural awakening :: cognitive behavioural
rlm@162:       difference tells you important things about the waking process.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - asethetics and personal identity :: if you go to germany, you're not
rlm@162:       the same person anymore.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - arch linux diff cache :: should only download differences between
rlm@162:       the new package and the most rcent archive file. Can
rlm@162:       precalculate. Would make mirrors/upgrading so much faster.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - low gravity perfusion :: then you can use cappaliary action. From
rlm@162:       this: http://www.wired.com/2015/01/coffee-cup-designed-let-astronauts-sip-espresso-space/
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - rational advertiting :: a new criteria for advertisting -- given
rlm@162:       same ad structure for two different produces, what structure
rlm@162:       leads to the most people picking the "optimal" choice.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - autoclone bootstrapping :: to breed male with self: you make a clone
rlm@162:       of the male that's broken, male and female, the bootstrap with
rlm@162:       those gametes
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - position independent numbers :: like latin for numbers. You'd use
rlm@162:       color, endings, relative size, etc to determine what place the
rlm@162:       number has. Very convientnt for order or magnitude calculations.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - dead man switch activated linux user account ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - embowlement :: condencending reference to embodiment
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - water staff  :: drinksy walking staff w/ water
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - melanin transfection ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - retention of neurotransmitters / other small molecules during fixation by use of an extracellular polymer such as PVP ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - machines :: Knowing we are machines does not diminish us; instead it
rlm@162:       opens our minds to the awe-inspiring complexity that is the human
rlm@162:       mind. Those who prefer to attribute consciousness to a "soul" or
rlm@162:       other metaphysical process are the ones who diminish man to a
rlm@162:       mere cartoon caricature.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - why does glut change osmotic setpoints in cells :: perhaps either 1)
rlm@162:       It makes the membrane permeable to small molecules or 2)
rlm@162:       crosslinking proteins means less colagative effects.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - Hemocyanin based blood washout solution :: for artificial blood, it
rlm@162:       can be hard to carry enough oxygen because haemoglobin needs to
rlm@162:       be in RBCs in order to effectively carry oxygen. However,
rlm@162:       hemocyanin, a copper based oxygen carrying protein, doesn't have
rlm@162:       this restriction, so it might make particurally good artificial
rlm@162:       blood. Might also be great for making oxygenated fixative
rlm@162:       solutions!  In fact, hemocyanin is more efficient than hemoglobin
rlm@162:       for carrying oxygen at low temperatures, perfect for
rlm@162:       cooling/blood washout! Hemocyanin could also serve to establish
rlm@162:       oncotic pressure in a blood washout solution since it weighs 75
rlm@162:       kilodaltons.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - osmotic buffer :: polymer which polymerizes / splits apart in order
rlm@162:       to maintain the osmolality of a solution.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - shoes w/ embedded computers :: and have little clickey things you
rlm@162:       operate with your big toe.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - gb codec ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - ultrasonic cell disruptor to make foor ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - particle accelarator asd an awesome electron microscop ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - tolouadine blue pen :: use biological stains as dyes for ink pens?
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - clock stop explination :: you have a "visual buffer" which needs to
rlm@162:       fill up whenever you switch out from one scene to another. This
rlm@162:       is the clock stop illusion.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - coffee ad space :: Your coffee stock was brought to you by google,
rlm@162:       the only company that brings you comfort and love in your harsh
rlm@162:       and heartless corporate world. This is majestic guerrila
rlm@162:       marketing. 
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - geo-synchro browsing :: you get a bunch of proxy servers, and then
rlm@162:       you visit websites and synchronize the views from each of these
rlm@162:       proxies into one view. Then you can see the differences by
rlm@162:       conutry/region. This is a way to experience the "neutral"
rlm@162:       internet by averging the effects of ip-tracing.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - periodic table of genders :: arrange people by bahaviour, particular
rlm@162:       what sort of bonds they can form with other people.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - ice cream protein synthesis ::
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - colored EM :: different heavy metals might possibly have different
rlm@162:       intensities for different electron acceleration voltages. So this
rlm@162:       could be the basis for colored EM images!
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - expansion microscopy dual :: this would be a process where you
rlm@162:       define a molecular scale object using larger microscopic
rlm@162:       components. Then nanotechnology goes through and replaces each
rlm@162:       "atomic macro block" with the appropriate atomic construct. That
rlm@162:       way you can use microscopic 3D printing and a special purpose
rlm@162:       form of nanotechnolical assembler to create any molecular
rlm@162:       arrangement. 
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - anoxic glut :: what happens when you try to fix tissues in an
rlm@162:       environment completely devoid of oxygen?
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - copper+EG :: if RBCs are rendered impermeabale to EG when Cu is
rlm@162:       present, then maybe you can destroy RBCs by a mixture of EG and
rlm@162:       Cu? 
rlm@154: 
rlm@164:  - *##### ENTRIES PAST THIS LINE HAVE BEEN PROCESSED FOR GOOD IDEAS #####*
rlm@164: 
rlm@162:  - qualia intuition explained :: let's say that you lacked the sense of
rlm@162:       smell. How could you learn what "acrid" means without it. How
rlm@162:       could you explain it to someone, without analogy to other
rlm@162:       smells. We mind-project this real linguistic separation into
rlm@162:       reality and get qualia.
rlm@154: 
rlm@162:  - spinal relay :: you have a small air-gapped repeater built into your
rlm@162:       spine in order to help with spinal injury, connect with
rlm@162:       prosthetics, and to monitor/control your body. Also, you could
rlm@162:       add the ability to save "macros"!
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - human cysts :: there should be communities of people with varying
rlm@162:       enforced separations from the rest of society in order to gaurd
rlm@162:       against various catastrophies.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - bioelectric synthesis :: have a device which stores a lot of energy,
rlm@162:       and processes blood by creating sugar from waste produces over
rlm@162:       the day. You still need water, vitamins, minerals, etc, but this
rlm@162:       can handle the bulk of your energy demands and be recharged from
rlm@162:       the wall.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - chelation as a method to improve cryoprotectant permeability ::
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - transgender fruit analogy :: like tomatoes
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - video game controllers as actual controllers :: console controlers
rlm@162:       like the n64 trident are excellent, durable tools for fine
rlm@162:       control. We should use them to control all sorts of things like
rlm@162:       robots by default. You should use it for your projects, since
rlm@162:       it's unlikely you'll be able to come up with something
rlm@162:       better. Compared to console controllers, the ones we use for
rlm@162:       robots/RC stuff are hopelessly clunky.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - bubble computers :: bubble duality, bubble computing
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - dark blood bag :: blood bags in hospitals should be dark colored to
rlm@162:       protect the blood from damage from light.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - chimeric homozygous sex chromosomes :: chimeric organism with XX and
rlm@162:       XX patterns from two males and two females. On average, it has
rlm@162:       the correct methylation pattern. Would it work?
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - horseshoe blood fixative :: would it work as a washout?
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - fixed protein packets :: group of fixed proteins in a network which
rlm@162:       is used as medicine. Hemoglovin, maybe?
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - prove hauntings :: website where you enter your pgp signed encrypted
rlm@162:       file and swear by all the gods that you'll haunt me with the
rlm@162:       password when you die, along with whatever other messages you
rlm@162:       have. protocol -- I video, throw rock, get password.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - earth air water :: probably all intelligent species name their
rlm@162:       planet "dirt" in their language, unless the're aquatic or flying,
rlm@162:       then they'd name it "water" and "air" respectively.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - ethylene glycol alt name :: icebane
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - overflow hiaku :: a hiku about buffer overflos, with garbage C code
rlm@162:       inside.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - white knight :: his sword is named "Privledge" (an inherited family
rlm@162:       sword) he rides along the land, defending the code of
rlm@162:       chivralirary and keeping the orthodozy of society from fading
rlm@162:       from the realm.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - technological deflation :: even the richest robber baron from the
rlm@162:       1920's could not afford a cardiac bypass surgery, even with
rlm@162:       literally all the money they had. As technology advances, the
rlm@162:       price of bread may go up, but the capabilities which money gives
rlm@162:       you also dramatically increase.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - mental integrity test :: if your brain starts to decay, you might
rlm@162:       not notice the damage until it's too late. This would be a mental
rlm@162:       integrity test that you take every few weeks that measures your
rlm@162:       performance and compares it to a baseline. The tests are all
rlm@162:       designed to catch the early signs of degenerative brain
rlm@162:       diseases. For example, you might use performamce on a
rlm@162:       smell-memory assoaction test to detect early-onset Alzheimer's.
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - mind bank :: (in contrast to "brain bank")
rlm@153: 
rlm@162:  - scientist online paper reviews ::
rlm@152: 
rlm@164:  - binary feedback :: like with the soda machine
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - trolley cryonics :: change the cryonics protocol around so that the
rlm@162:       death occurs in a non-primary action loop.
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - binary metric :: you make up new unit names for "2 centimeters", "4
rlm@162:       centimeters", "16 centimeters", etc. Then no one will be happy!
rlm@162:       BUT, it helps solve metric's problem of intermediate units. (a
rlm@162:       centimeter is too small, a meter is too large!)
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - do it once -- upload ::
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - a simple merge procedure for uploads ::
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - cure for color blindness :: could it be possible to administer some
rlm@162:       retroviruses via direct injection to the retina, to cause some of
rlm@162:       the cells in the retina to begin expressing different color
rlm@162:       pigments? The brain ought to easily sort out the rest and enable
rlm@162:       color vision. Furthremore, could we add some more colors to
rlm@162:       baesline human eyes? Theory -- people who are color blind have
rlm@162:       better color spatial accuity for the colors they can see, because
rlm@162:       this it the tradeoff here involved with the retrovirus
rlm@162:       therapy. Re-purposing color detectors to see new colors at the
rlm@162:       expense of spatial acuity for the old set of colors.
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - Passion of the Christ missed opportunity :: in the Passion of the
rlm@162:       Christ, they do the entire show using Latin, Aramaic, etc, with
rlm@162:       subtitles. They should have had a part where Jesus does the
rlm@162:       sermon on the mount, he turns to the camera, and starts speaking
rlm@162:       in English, with no subtitles. It would have been 1.) biblically
rlm@162:       accurate and 2.) awesome. It would have been such a powerful
rlm@162:       example of Jesus' divinity, and it felt like they were setting up
rlm@162:       for it the entire movie, and they missed it!
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - xenobiotic methalation rewriting ::
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - physical pgp signatures :: someone should put together the
rlm@162:       technologies so that you can digitally sign actual pieces of
rlm@162:       paper -- some combination of signing a photograph of the
rlm@162:       contract using pgp, printing a barcode or OR code on the page
rlm@162:       which links to a website with the signed image, and a web of
rlm@162:       trust model so that people can authenticate as themselves. All
rlm@162:       this totally exists already, it's just not convienent. 
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - meta eye :: you wire in a third optical input to the human brain,
rlm@162:       but it doesn't tranduce light form the real world, bus instead is
rlm@162:       connected to the "internet of things" and shows you metadata
rlm@162:       about things you are looking at // serves as an interface to your
rlm@162:       own mind and body. Then eventually simply real things without
rlm@162:       metadata seem flat and fake compared to the objects in cities and
rlm@162:       other annotated areas. This third eye doesn't occupy any of your
rlm@162:       normal visual field but actually EXPANDS your visual field.
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - limits of monogamy ::
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - dream rewinding :: how to record a complete dream without disturbing
rlm@162:       it or modifying your brain? you need to be an upload: split
rlm@162:       yourself, and one of you stays awake whike the other sleeps. then
rlm@162:       you detect a dream in progress by monotoring rapid eye movememt
rlm@162:       in your sleeping self, and you wake yourself up every few minutes
rlm@162:       and tell yoursef about the dream. Then sleeping-your restarts the
rlm@162:       dream, continuation passing style, forgetting everything that was
rlm@162:       just said, and you repeat this process until the dream is
rlm@162:       over. Then awake-you and sleeping-you merge each other by taking
rlm@162:       sleeping-you and replaying the memories of awake-you, and you
rlm@162:       write a final report on the dream using the "saccade" reports to
rlm@162:       jog your memory. 
rlm@152: 
rlm@162:  - denser than osmium :: do the "misicibility" thing with an osmium
rlm@162:       alloy to get something even more dense.
rlm@147: 
rlm@162:  - AI hypnosis :: hypnosis might be good for studying AI, becuse it
rlm@162:       might probide a "debugger" for ananlyzing the human mind. I
rlm@162:       briefly tried this while at MIT, but it needs MUCH more work to
rlm@162:       be properly evaulated.
rlm@145: 
rlm@162:  - becomming alive :: upload faces challenges to grow into they type of
rlm@162:       person that can join the greater society -- a god. They have to
rlm@162:       go though quests that replicate all the things that humanity had
rlm@162:       to accomplish, like going to the moon, by themselves, in a
rlm@162:       virtual world where they cannot die and never get tired.
rlm@145: 
rlm@162:  - population distorted map of USA :: to see states sizes in terms of #
rlm@162:       of people. (already exists!
rlm@162:       http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/cart/doc/) 
rlm@145: 
rlm@162:  - butterfly drone :: if big butterflies used to exist, then maybe we
rlm@162:       could make butterfly-inspired drones!
rlm@145: 
rlm@162:  - methylation sex symmetry breaking :: So, human cells have
rlm@162:       methylation patterns that encode male/female origin. If you
rlm@162:       combine two male patterns, the fetus grows "too fast" and
rlm@162:       dies. Two female patterns causes the fetus to enter a "vegatable"
rlm@162:       state and fail to develop. Evolutionary biologists will say that
rlm@162:       this reflects the asymmetry of energy investement for creating
rlm@162:       offspring. If that's true, then species that cast-spawn will lack
rlm@162:       this symmetry, and give clues about how to remove it in
rlm@162:       humans. If even cast spawners like sea urchins have it, then that
rlm@162:       means there's something deeper going on!
rlm@145: 
rlm@162:  - reverse cannulation perfusion :: you put the organ you want to
rlm@162:       perfuse in an airtight chamber with a pool of the stuff you want
rlm@162:       to perfuse. You cannulate some veins and lead tubes form to
rlm@162:       outside of the chamber. You pump in air and perfusate, and the
rlm@162:       increasing air pressure in the chamber forces perfusate through
rlm@162:       the organ. For times when you don't want to cannulate the inputs
rlm@162:       -- they can be ragged, or there can be many of them. You still
rlm@162:       have to guide the veins to the outside of the chamber, but
rlm@162:       depending on the use case this might be far easier than
rlm@162:       tradational cannulation. 
rlm@145: 
rlm@162:  - very slow physiological pressure perfusion :: less extreme example
rlm@162:       of the "pausing" trick -- just keep the perfusion running and
rlm@162:       don't put the perfusion target into the liquid as deep.
rlm@141: 
rlm@162:  - whole brain perfusion embedding :: Do the standard EM embedding
rlm@162:       protocol, but skip the osmium step, and use the "perfusion
rlm@162:       pausing" method to prevent overextraction during the dehydration
rlm@162:       and embedding steps. I think that you CAN perfuse resins into the
rlm@162:       brain, simply because you CAN perfuse viscous rubber when doing
rlm@162:       vascular casts.
rlm@141: 
rlm@162:  - perfusion pausing :: (Turns out this won't actually work!) One
rlm@162:       problem with doing perfusion is that if you STOP the perfusion,
rlm@162:       you rapidly loose pressure in the organ as your perfusate leaks
rlm@162:       out. You can prevent this by submerging the organ/head/rat
rlm@162:       whatever in FLUID at the appropriate level. Use something inert
rlm@162:       like flurocarbon to avoid problems. You would have to slowly
rlm@162:       decrease the flow rate while simultaneously lowering the
rlm@162:       perfusing object into the fluid. To start again, reverse the
rlm@162:       process -- reengage the peristaltic pump slowly while removing
rlm@162:       the organ from the fluid.
rlm@141: 
rlm@162:  - evoultionary textbook mimiricy :: as surgery becomes more common,
rlm@162:       there develops a distinct selective pressure for individuals
rlm@162:       organ layout to look more like the medical textbooks! :P
rlm@141: 
rlm@162:  - transparent skin :: temporary / permament transparent skin. Allows
rlm@162:       for examination of organs / muscles and visual prevention of
rlm@162:       disease and detection or abnormalities / good things
rlm@162:       eg. excercise. 
rlm@141: 
rlm@162:  - sweet information :: candy with a whole book written in it. Eat a
rlm@162:       book! 
rlm@141: 
rlm@162:  - targeted immunosuppressant :: just kill off the B-cells and friends
rlm@162:       that would cause problems in a organ-transplant / other
rlm@162:       situation. AIDS is good at killing these cells -- maybe make it
rlm@162:       just target the ones that will cause problems. Then you can
rlm@162:       premptively kill off that part of someone's immune system before
rlm@162:       a transplant. ALSO, you can kill off everyone's defenses against
rlm@162:       other blood types and make people effectively type AB+ w.r.t
rlm@162:       blood transfusions. Actually, why not give babies this treatment
rlm@162:       so that they're automatically compatable with all blood types?
rlm@162:       The immune system has this already when it's first growing; maybe
rlm@162:       it can be "retrained" to accept new things, or the mechanism of
rlm@162:       immune cell death be co-opted for these purposes.
rlm@141: 
rlm@162:  - fuck you tetris :: tetris that actively gives you the worst possible piece.
rlm@140: 
rlm@162:  - pockets :: more things should have them!
rlm@140: 
rlm@162:  - colored shower head :: a shower head add on that measures the temp
rlm@162:       of the water and changes the color of the water streams w/ an LED
rlm@162:       to show you the temperature. That way you can align to the color
rlm@162:       you want and see the temperature without feeling it. 
rlm@140: 
rlm@162:  - giant dragonflies :: we could rapidly MAKE giant dragonflies by
rlm@162:       evolving modern dragonflies in an very oxygen rich environment! 
rlm@140: 
rlm@162:  - anesthetic surgery courtesty video :: as a matter of courtesy,
rlm@162:       whenever you go under anesthetic, the doctors should provide you
rlm@162:       with a video of the surgery / recovery after you are concious
rlm@162:       again. The recording should begin about 3 minutes before
rlm@162:       anesthetic, and continue until both you and the docor agree to
rlm@162:       stop recording, or you leave the hospital.
rlm@140: 
rlm@162:  - whirlpool of light :: shine a laser out into space. But the planet
rlm@162:       is spinning! What you get is a spiral or light! And as this
rlm@162:       signal expands, does it eventually reveal it's wuantized nature?
rlm@140: 
rlm@162:  - perfusion coking :: EOM
rlm@140: 
rlm@162:  - timestamp verification :: you sign your message, and it has a
rlm@162:       timestamp at the top, with a +- percision number.  Then you send
rlm@162:       it over to the public timestamp server, which only signs the
rlm@162:       message if it gets the message within the timestamp window. Or
rlm@162:       the computer just signs the message but puts a timestamp at the
rlm@162:       beginning. So if everyone trusts the timestamp server, you can
rlm@162:       get reliable timestamps, and prove priority on ideas, etc.
rlm@139: 
rlm@162:  - the great computing slow-down :: in general, our computers are
rlm@162:       getting faster and faster. However, eventually our brains will be
rlm@162:       made of the same stuff our computers are made of! This has very
rlm@162:       interesting consequences -- I can add 2+2 and get four in about a
rlm@162:       second. Since my neurons actually work at around 10-60 hertz in
rlm@162:       parallel, this means that it takes me around 10-30 operations to
rlm@162:       do this addition. That's actually not bad in terms of computing
rlm@162:       time. If my neurons were as fast as the latest transitors, then
rlm@162:       most calculators would be SLOWER than me at adding numbers. Only
rlm@162:       the newest, most optimized calculators would be faster, and then
rlm@162:       only about 10 times faster! This means that once we begin to
rlm@162:       think at the speed of our technology, that technology will
rlm@162:       suddenly seem pitifully slow in comparison to how it seems
rlm@162:       now. And no amount of technical progress will remedy it, because
rlm@162:       that same progress will also make us all think faster. We'll
rlm@162:       either have to settle with living in "slow time" to do some
rlm@162:       computations, or learn to make smarter hardware with special
rlm@162:       optimizations. But this is actually really hard, because we'll be
rlm@162:       working with machines that will appear to us about as fast as
rlm@162:       MECHANICAL computers. So, in the future, all the cool parties
rlm@162:       will be in cyperspace at vastly accelerated speeds compared to
rlm@162:       how we exist now. But at these parties, the computers will SUCK!
rlm@162:       Of course, this is one of the few things that can save us from AI
rlm@162:       risk, because those AI's won't seem so scary when the're build
rlm@162:       out of rickety mechanical parts form our perspective. 
rlm@139: 
rlm@162:  - unitary reverse evolution of chaos+minds :: Chaotic systems diverge
rlm@162:       exponentially in state space. Do you get anything interesting
rlm@162:       when part of the physical system associated with the chaotic
rlm@162:       system is a object that performs some sort of computation? Is it
rlm@162:       possible for the computational system to play a
rlm@162:       percision-enabling role in determining the final/initial
rlm@162:       conditions of the chaotic system, just by tracing out thoughts in
rlm@162:       its decision paths? This is probably too vague of an idea right
rlm@162:       now, I just wanted to write it down.
rlm@138: 
rlm@162:  - microwave time :: the cooking time you enter on most microwaves is
rlm@162:       insane. It's expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a
rlm@162:       combination of base 10 and base 60. You can get absurd things
rlm@162:       like 100 < 61, and 120 == 80! I wonder if these hybrid base
rlm@162:       systems could be very useful for some purposes!
rlm@138: 
rlm@162:  - three-eyes :: if you had three eyes, would you still draw cubes like
rlm@162:       we currently draw them? Or would all 2D-representations of 3D
rlm@162:       space always look hopelessly fake?
rlm@138: 
rlm@162:  - visual taste/smell assay :: get a grid of bacteria, each expressing
rlm@162:       a human taste/smell receptor linked to some sort of fluorscent
rlm@162:       activity or ion pump. Use a camera / electrical grid to transduce
rlm@162:       the smell / taste signal into bits!
rlm@138: 
rlm@162:  - carabiner mushroom lock :: you can take a trapazodial carabiner and
rlm@162:       make it so that a chain link is caught between the wide end of
rlm@162:       the carabiner and another chain attached to the carabiner. 
rlm@138: 
rlm@162:  - children's tool shop :: I think that kids should be provided with
rlm@162:       tool shops -- these would be nice sheds with a good collection of
rlm@162:       tools to do various things -- circuit components and soldering
rlm@162:       irons, wires, a small lathe, drill press, belt sander, a
rlm@162:       centrifuge, microscope, and telescope, etc. The idea is that the
rlm@162:       kid can now think, "I could use X to do this thing that I'm
rlm@162:       thinking about" -- the building becomes an extension of the kid's
rlm@162:       body & mind.
rlm@138: 
rlm@162:  - fluid display :: like the previous idea about matching refractances
rlm@162:                     between glass and liquid, except you make a lot of
rlm@162:                     switchable glass tubes in various patterns in the
rlm@162:                     glass, and actively pump colored liquid through the
rlm@162:                     tubes (the tubes have glass-like fluid in them by
rlm@162:                     default.) The result is that you can cause the
rlm@162:                     tubes to appear and dissappear, and vary their
rlm@162:                     colors as well!
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - immunoincompatibility :: take the human genome, and refactor it so
rlm@162:       that it doesn't use a particular codon at all. Then remove the
rlm@162:       support from our ribosomes for that codon. What does this do for
rlm@162:       us? It makes us immune to almost all viruses!
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - life cycle :: it's called a cycle, right? So, the thing that repeats
rlm@162:                  itself over and over, right? Not much of a cycle if
rlm@162:                  you don't come back after you die, if you ask me!
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - car with no blind spots :: use some cameras in the back of the car
rlm@162:       to augment the rear-view mirror so that you never have to turn
rlm@162:       around in order to lane change.
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - partial cell death :: you freeze a set of cells using some cryo
rlm@162:       protocol and 60% survive. How can this be explained? It seems to
rlm@162:       me that if the cells are the same, and the conditions
rlm@162:       homogoneous, then all the cells should either die or
rlm@162:       live. However, suppose that there is a metabolic cycle that needs
rlm@162:       to be in a certain phase for the cell to survive. If the cells
rlm@162:       are asynchronous, then you might end up with some cells dying
rlm@162:       because there were in the wrong part of their cycle. This implies
rlm@162:       that you might be able to cryoprotect cells by causing them to
rlm@162:       enter a certain metabolic mode before freezing.
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - cryonics color appeal :: perfusate used by cryonics companies should
rlm@162:       have red food coloring in it. It's just a nice touch so that the
rlm@162:       cryonics patient looks more life-like than with clear CPAs, and
rlm@162:       hopefully might get treated with more respect.
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - paramagnetic CPA :: you take a CPA that can be influenced by
rlm@162:       magnetic fields so that its degrees of freedom are limited. Then,
rlm@162:       you release the field, instantaly increasing the size of the
rlm@162:       state space of the system and dramatically decreasing the
rlm@162:       temperature enough to plunge the system past homogenous
rlm@162:       nucleation temperature and directly to the glass transition
rlm@162:       temperature, creating a doubly unstable glass at much lower CPA
rlm@162:       concentrations than possible at conventional CPA concentrations. 
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - room temp noodles :: how does the physics of cooking noodles work?
rlm@162:       Could you use a vacuum instead of heat to force water into the
rlm@162:       noodle?
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - personal carbon offset :: feel bad about contribuiting to global
rlm@162:       warming by using electricity / driving a car? Forget trying to
rlm@162:       "conserve" or "minimize your carbon footprint". Follow the
rlm@162:       Platinum rule -- make the world BETTER off than you found it!
rlm@162:       This would be a small, self contained system that sucks C02 out
rlm@162:       of the air. It uses electricity, but it's so efficient at
rlm@162:       removing CO2 that it more than offsets the CO2 produced by even a
rlm@162:       coal plant to produce that electricity. This way, you can still
rlm@162:       drive even a gas guzzler, but have a net negative carbon
rlm@162:       footprint! Maybe something cool could be done with the carbon as
rlm@162:       well. Use as much electricity as you want, but negate the damage
rlm@162:       to the enviroment with more technology. 
rlm@137: 
rlm@162:  - undoing spermogenesis :: with enough sperm, you can derive the
rlm@162:       donor's entire genome. You gain more confidence in the alleles
rlm@162:       for a particular gene the more sperm you have. Each additional
rlm@162:       sperm gives you the same sort of information you'd get flipping a
rlm@162:       coin and trying to decide whether the coin is H/T of H/H. Is
rlm@162:       there enough sperm in the the average load for you to be as
rlm@162:       confident as mitosis?
rlm@136: 
rlm@162:  - mars life :: we could engineer life that could survive on mars
rlm@162: 		(probably some non-vascular photosynthetic
rlm@162: 		poikilohydric creature like a lichen) by taking an
rlm@162: 		extremophile from Antarctica and evolving it in
rlm@162: 		increasingly Martian conditions. This could be an easy
rlm@162: 		start to a terraforming process. 
rlm@134: 
rlm@162:  - problem with Aubrey de Grey's ideas :: Aubrey de Grey says that we
rlm@162:       might be able to live forever by continually repairing our bodies
rlm@162:       at the cellular level -- he details 7 different mechanisms of
rlm@162:       damage and says that if all of them are dealt with /together/
rlm@162:       that it would stop aging. (You can't miss even one because
rlm@162:       they're all fatal.)  However, it doesn't take into account that
rlm@162:       we are also beings of information and that there is a very real
rlm@162:       software component to our existence. Even if our biological
rlm@162:       chassies can be maintained forever, I think it is unlikely that
rlm@162:       our minds will operate well far outside of the design constraints
rlm@162:       that we've evolved to handle. Say I programmed a webserver with
rlm@162:       the express goal of it being able to serve webpages for month on
rlm@162:       some stock server. I'll do fairly rigorous testing to make sure
rlm@162:       that it can handle the expected load then then some. Now say that
rlm@162:       you want to keep a particular instance of this webserver running
rlm@162:       indefinitely. (The program instance is like your mind and the
rlm@162:       computer it's running on is like your body). You might very well
rlm@162:       be able to keep the physical computer infrastructure running for
rlm@162:       forever by replacing hard drives / ram / CPUs, etc. However,
rlm@162:       since I designed the webserver to work for a month, it probably
rlm@162:       has memory leaks, rare stochastic bugs, or other built in limits
rlm@162:       / constraints (think log files or some date rollover shenanigans)
rlm@162:       that will ultimately kill the webserver even with eternally
rlm@162:       perfect hardware. Do you really expect that a webserver
rlm@162:       engineered to work for 1 month will run for 10 years without
rlm@162:       catastrophically crashing? Not even Apache can do this! In fact,
rlm@162:       if I put in the extreme effort to make it that robust, I've
rlm@162:       wasted time that I could have spent on other projects by pursuing
rlm@162:       an unnecessary engineering goal. Likewise, human minds have only
rlm@162:       ever run for at most 122 years before they are destroyed due to
rlm@162:       hardware degradation. Fixing the hardware doesn't change any
rlm@162:       software bugs that are almost certainly present in the human
rlm@162:       mind. Think of all the pathological things that can go wrong with
rlm@162:       a webserver, multiply it by a million, and that likely how
rlm@162:       evolution has designed our minds. For example, consider memory :
rlm@162:       why should you expect that we have evolved the ability to
rlm@162:       coherently organize memories past say 150 years? There's been
rlm@162:       absolutely no selective pressure for this ability, so you can bet
rlm@162:       that if there's any fitness to be gained from not having
rlm@162:       unlimited memory potential (such as better metabolic efficiency),
rlm@162:       we have it! You might think that maybe we would just forget
rlm@162:       things the same way that we sort of forget things that happen
rlm@162:       earlier in our lives, but complicated information processing
rlm@162:       systems don't have to fail gracefully when they're pushed far
rlm@162:       past their design constraints. A 150 year old person is just as
rlm@162:       likely to suffer a catastrophic psychosis due to software
rlm@162:       limitations associated with memory as he is to do something with
rlm@162:       all those memories we might consider reasonable. More likely, in
rlm@162:       fact, since there are so very many ways for a complicated
rlm@162:       software system to break and so few ways for it to run
rlm@162:       successfully. Therefore, I think Aubrey de Grey's "hardware-only"
rlm@162:       approach is missing a very important component of longevity
rlm@162:       science, and any successful effort to make people live orders of
rlm@162:       magnitude longer than they do naturally will need to deal with
rlm@162:       people's software as well as their hardware.
rlm@133: 
rlm@162:  - validating neurocryopreservation :: Problem : you want to test
rlm@162:       whether a brain is functionally preserved through vitrification,
rlm@162:       but you don't want to figure out how to preserve all the other
rlm@162:       organs in the animal. It might be possible to keep the rest of
rlm@162:       the body at almost 0C and vitrify just the head for only a few
rlm@162:       minutes. Induce hypothermia, then separate out the head's blood
rlm@162:       supply from the rest of the body, then just cryoptotect and
rlm@162:       vitrify the head. Might need some sort of thermal guard to keep
rlm@162:       the outer head / neck from becoming too cold. You leave the
rlm@162:       spinal cord intact! Then you devitrify to 0C, remove
rlm@162:       cryoprotectant, and then reattach the blood supply. You can
rlm@162:       determine brain preservation using behavioral assays!
rlm@133: 
rlm@162:  - freezing water purifier :: you slowly freeze water, but also run
rlm@162:       liquid water over the frozen mass. This takes away basically all
rlm@162:       impurities and creates "washed ice" then you melt the ice. Maybe
rlm@162:       you could re-use the heat from creating the ice to melt the ice?
rlm@133: 
rlm@162:  - ultra strength :: allow a person to visualize their muscle
rlm@164:       recruitment patterns. Give them adrenaline and let them feel
rlm@164:       what it's like to have the normal limits removed. See if they
rlm@164:       can replicate the effects. Evidence that this might be possible:
rlm@164:       http://science.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1413.long
rlm@133: 
rlm@162:  - phone names :: make a PX record for domain names that's like the MX
rlm@164:       record, except that it is a phone number instead of an IP
rlm@164:       address. That way, you can use the domain name registration
rlm@164:       system to provide names for phone numbers. Then, as long as you
rlm@164:       control the domain, you can point people to your current phone
rlm@164:       number by updating that record.
rlm@133: 
rlm@162:  - edible flowers :: Edible white flowers that you put in a colored
rlm@164:       solution with flavor. When the flower turns the right color, it
rlm@164:       is also flavored and ready to eat!
rlm@131: 
rlm@162:  - suicide cryonics :: according to [[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html][this]], people who commit impulsive
rlm@162:       suicides have a newfound sense of the importance of life. Perhaps
rlm@162:       they are good cryonics targets.
rlm@131: 
rlm@162:  - lead bone :: Could you fill in all the empty spaces in a bone with
rlm@162: 		lead? Might be cool.
rlm@131: 
rlm@162:  - the quest for life  :: Every stupid story has the "immortal who
rlm@162:       wants to become mortal" or some other such idea. I want to story
rlm@162:       where the protagonist loses their immortality and feels /angry/
rlm@162:       and ashamed about losing something that's so absolutely crucial
rlm@162:       to their identity. A reverse of "death makes life worth living",
rlm@162:       they feel that living forever is what makes life worth
rlm@162:       living. Now they've "lost their sunrise" or their "connection to
rlm@162:       the timeless universe" or something. So they go on a quest to get
rlm@162:       it back, learning about themselves along the way, and regaining
rlm@162:       the precious thing they lost in the beginning.
rlm@130: 
rlm@162:  - world-map :: take a small table and paint the continents in
rlm@162: 		toothpaste on the table. Make a slightly raised barrier
rlm@162: 		around the table. Slowly pour water onto the table, and
rlm@162: 		it will form the oceans!
rlm@95: 
rlm@162:  - stage magic rituals :: rituals should incorporate elements of stage
rlm@162:       magic. Foe example in Teller's tempest, they have a scene where
rlm@162:       they levitate a crown in front of someone, then put it on his
rlm@162:       head. They also have a wedding ceremony where they levitated the
rlm@162:       bride as well. Actual weddings and other ceremonies should
rlm@162:       incorporate stage magic as an enhancement. 
rlm@95: 
rlm@162:  - isotope time dilation :: use a cyclotron to speed up rare isotopes
rlm@162:       developed in nuclear fusion experiments. The relativistic time
rlm@162:       dilation will stop the isotopes from decaying, and allow time to
rlm@162:       study them. This is based on radioactive isotopes that fall
rlm@162:       through the earth's atmosphere that take hundreds of times
rlm@162:       longer to decay than normal.
rlm@95: 
rlm@162:  - marsupial stimulation :: You take a freshly pouched marsupial baby,
rlm@162:       and show it videos and other interactive things while it matures
rlm@162:       in the pouch. What mental effects would this have?
rlm@95: 
rlm@162:  - dynamic re-keying :: Some older ways of tuning instruments sound
rlm@162:       better, but we use the even-tempered scale today because it makes
rlm@162:       it easier to switch keys. With electronic music, why not make
rlm@162:       key-annotations and dynamically re-tune the piece to sound good
rlm@162:       in the current key? Could be done as a midi+annotation -> midi
rlm@162:       compiler for experimentation.
rlm@95: 
rlm@162:  - death always implies damage :: is is possible for a corpse to differ
rlm@162:       from a living person only in the fact that one is dead and the
rlm@162:       other is alive? NO! A corpse must always have some sort of
rlm@162:       molecular damage which causes the loss of function!
rlm@95: 
rlm@162:  - inner eye :: Surgically install a bunch of tiny cameras inside a
rlm@162: 		person. Then, you can activate them all and get a
rlm@162: 		picture of your internal organs for diagnostic
rlm@162: 		purposes. 
rlm@95: 
rlm@162:  - chaos rails :: should make a visualization of the homoclinic tangle,
rlm@162:                   it's truly beautiful.
rlm@95: 
rlm@162:  - context gobbler :: this would be in "inside-out macro" that takes
rlm@162:       the context (like you use for things like error, continuations,
rlm@162:       and friends) and transforms it to something else. Maybe useful?
rlm@91: 
rlm@162:  - cryonics middle ages :: some people say that cryonics is an
rlm@162:       experiment and that it is foolish to wait until we have revived a
rlm@162:       human. There is a middle ground where the procedure has a dismal
rlm@162:       success rate on humans, say 1 in 20, so that you'd be a fool to
rlm@162:       try revival. Nonetheless, this very risky procedure could be the
rlm@162:       legal proof of concept needed to create a new class of life
rlm@162:       between "living" and "dead": "stasis".
rlm@91: 
rlm@162:  - philosophy of the mirror :: neat thought experiment -- if you take a
rlm@162:       mirror of someone by actually reversing a person's chirality
rlm@162:       molecule by molecule, then will the only be able to read mirror
rlm@162:       writing? The answer is yes, by analogy to a purely mechanical
rlm@162:       scan-tron device. This is one of the only interesting transforms I
rlm@162:       know that can take a human brain and change it in subtle,
rlm@162:       non-destructive ways. It's also an argument against dualism.
rlm@91: 
rlm@162:  - biosphere in a bottle :: There are around 15 million species. 15
rlm@162:       million stem cells will fill only a tiny size, far less than a cubic
rlm@162:       inch. Preserve a single cell from every species on earth in this
rlm@162:       small space, and you will have a record of our current biosphere
rlm@162:       that can be protected. "Hold the genetic data of all species in
rlm@162:       your hand!"
rlm@90: 
rlm@162:  - chaos lock :: The "arrow of time" points in the direction of
rlm@162:                  increasing entropy. The time evolution of chaotic
rlm@162:                  systems depend exquisitely on their initial state. If
rlm@162:                  you take a measurement of a chaotic system at any
rlm@162:                  given point of time, you can evolve that system
rlm@162:                  backwards or forwards based on your measurement. So
rlm@162:                  let's say you start the chaotic system in a VERY low
rlm@162:                  entropy state, then let it run for a while, then take
rlm@162:                  a measurement with some uncertainty. Your
rlm@162:                  measurement is pretty good, but obviously not
rlm@162:                  PERFECT. If you evolve the chaotic system back in
rlm@162:                  time, then you will see that you don't really reach
rlm@162:                  a state with low entropy an hour before (the entropy
rlm@162:                  is easy to measure with surrogates like alignment,
rlm@162:                  etc). So use this technique to SEARCH for a more
rlm@162:                  accurate measurement! This potentially can give you
rlm@162:                  many more orders of magnitude than you could get alone
rlm@162:                  just using an instrument. Sometimes it will give you
rlm@162:                  bad results, the the odds of it doing that are
rlm@162:                  infinitesimal, and you can just measure a couple of
rlm@162:                  times. 
rlm@90: 
rlm@162:  - cryo-evolution :: perhaps there would be a way to rapidly evolve a
rlm@162:                      symbiotic bacterial organism that could protect
rlm@162:                      human tissues from freezing damage.
rlm@86: 
rlm@162:  - suicide parasite :: sometimes, people kill themselves for no good
rlm@162:       reason. We often explain this with things like "hidden
rlm@162:       depression" or we say that they had something like chronic jaw or
rlm@162:       back pain. I think that smells of rationalization. I don't buy
rlm@162:       it. I propose that in many suicide cases there is a disease that
rlm@162:       causes the suicidal behavior. We already know that certain
rlm@162:       parasites have mind-bending properties in other animals, even
rlm@162:       mammals like mice. It's not much of a stretch to imagine a
rlm@162:       parasite that causes suicides in humans. Some problems:
rlm@162:    - What does the suicide parasite get out of it? :: This might be
rlm@162:         answered by the whole thing being a glitch caused by
rlm@162:         cross-species contamination. Toxoplasma works this way.
rlm@162:    - What predictions does a disease model make :: suicide should
rlm@162:         be more common among people who share a contagion
rlm@162:         vector. There should be suicides that don't make any
rlm@162:         sense : people who weren't really depressed, who had no
rlm@162:         reason to kill themselves. People who have killed themselves
rlm@162:         should have a higher incidence of some unknown parasite in
rlm@162:         their brains. 
rlm@87: 
rlm@162:  - domestic insects :: People should eat more bugs because they're much
rlm@162:       more efficient, so why not do some major domestication research
rlm@162:       to make very appealing bugs? Beetles, in particular, seem to be
rlm@162:       excellent targets for domestication because they have extreme
rlm@162:       levels of genetic malleability.
rlm@86: 
rlm@162:  - birth-clones :: What if each person was intentionally split at birth
rlm@162:                    into a normal embryo and a few "backup" cells which
rlm@162:                    is then frozen. The backup cells are created just
rlm@162:                    the same way as natural identical twins. The backups
rlm@162:                    can be used to regenerate organs. etc. Also, it
rlm@162:                    would be a good sci fi concept, because you could
rlm@162:                    have a culture where people reward people who were
rlm@162:                    especially awesome are "reborn" from their
rlm@162:                    backups. Imagine having a young Bach every
rlm@162:                    generation, etc.
rlm@86: 
rlm@162:  - pronunciation guide :: a simple webpage where you type in a word and
rlm@162:       it returns a simple, English sentence describing exactly how to
rlm@162:       pronounce the word. For people who don't want to learn IPA. 
rlm@87: 
rlm@162:  - cortex-search :: use the repertoire of actions learned to limit the
rlm@162:                     search space of possible actions.
rlm@83: 
rlm@162:  - learning to teleport :: scifi idea, this is a story about a person
rlm@162:       who is struggling with his/her society's ideas about
rlm@162:       teleportation. It's considered a fundamental part of being a
rlm@162:       member of that society (after all, the difference between animals
rlm@162:       and humans is that humans are creatures of pure information while
rlm@162:       animals are burdened with base matter, "that's how you travel the
rlm@162:       stars, etc") Humans are born normally, grow up, and then
rlm@162:       eventually transcend via destructive upload. Analogies to jumping
rlm@162:       off a diving board into a pool (which I simply /could not do/ for
rlm@162:       a long time), etc.     
rlm@87: 
rlm@162:  - no-float-ice :: cup that has cross beams at the bottom where ice
rlm@162:                    forms. Then when you drink liquid from the glass,
rlm@162:                    the ice stays at the bottom and doesn't hit your
rlm@162:                    lips. For bars and fancy things.
rlm@82: 
rlm@162:  - bitcoins for immigrants :: A common case with Mexican immigrants
rlm@162:       (illegal or not) is that they want to send money they've earned
rlm@162:       in the US back to their families in Mexico. They currently do this
rlm@162:       through things like Money Gram or Western Union, and they get
rlm@162:       fleeced in the process with fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce
rlm@162:       the cost of sending money from America to Mexico, but I don't
rlm@162:       believe that it's currently used for that among Mexican
rlm@162:       immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I bet you could
rlm@162:       set up physical locations like those obnoxious Western Union huts
rlm@162:       in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly undercut
rlm@162:       them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin might
rlm@162:       be in order. There's some money to be made there because there is
rlm@162:       great demand, and it's a good thing to boot!
rlm@81: 
rlm@162:  - reverse eye-tracking :: A painting that is actually a digital screen
rlm@162:       with a camera. It records people's eye tracks permanently. It's
rlm@162:       "artistic" because paintings are normally these things that you
rlm@162:       look at without changing, but this one is changed the second you
rlm@162:       look at it, recording where /you/ looked forever for others to
rlm@162:       see. Make it be a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the
rlm@162:       breasts and groin area light up with interest from all the males
rlm@162:       passing by.
rlm@80: 
rlm@162:  - smart toilets :: Instead of using indirect measures like infrared
rlm@162:                     detectors of the presence of a person, use computer
rlm@162:                     vision to directly measure whether the toilet needs
rlm@162:                     to be flushed. I think a lot of things will end up
rlm@162:                     going this way as we get better computer vision.
rlm@77: 
rlm@162:  - validate chemopreservation :: chemopreservation is difficult to
rlm@162:       validate because it destroys the functionality of a brain, and
rlm@162:       brain simulation will take a long time to mature as a
rlm@162:       technology. However, one very powerful way to validate
rlm@162:       chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn
rlm@162:       something with high complexity such as a number or the solution
rlm@162:       to a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain
rlm@162:       chemically, slice it up, and read /that specific memory/ from the
rlm@162:       detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable.
rlm@76: 
rlm@162:  - candy screw :: edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw
rlm@162:                   as well. 
rlm@74: 
rlm@162:  - better bibliography :: when writing a thesis or paper, have the
rlm@162:       bibliography not just be an opaque list of resources, but have it
rlm@162:       be a list of /summaries/ and /qualities/ that each paper has in
rlm@162:       the context of the paper being written. When examining a
rlm@162:       bibliography, I want to know if reading the papers in the
rlm@162:       bibliography are worth my time, and I also am probably also
rlm@162:       interested in exactly the things that are being discussed in the
rlm@162:       paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the perfect place to
rlm@162:       provide information about the referenced papers from the
rlm@162:       author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in my own
rlm@162:       thesis. 
rlm@73: 
rlm@162:  - digital inter-library loan :: libraries at universities already do
rlm@162:       inter-library loans for books, so why not do the same for access
rlm@162:       to stupid paywalled digital papers? All the universities could
rlm@162:       allow access to articles for registered students to all the files
rlm@162:       available through any participating university. This could be
rlm@162:       achieved by sending requests through proxies at participating
rlm@162:       universities. Each university would decide who at the university
rlm@162:       can access the proxy network. Access to the proxy network could
rlm@162:       be made easy using something like http://libx.org/.
rlm@72: 
rlm@162:  - chess visual :: to show the vast size of the game trees considered
rlm@162:                    by computers, show two people playing chess in a
rlm@162:                    void. They are floating in space, and there is a
rlm@162:                    simple chess board between them. Then, as they play,
rlm@162:                    the game tree's they are considering are drawn
rlm@162:                    behind him. The root of the tree starts centered in
rlm@162:                    their heads or whatever they use to think, and the
rlm@162:                    tree grows out from behind, never crossing the
rlm@162:                    dividing plane between the two players. Each
rlm@162:                    player's tree is a different color. As they grow,
rlm@162:                    there are animations for pruning, etc. Eventually,
rlm@162:                    they look like the hemispheres of a brain, wings,
rlm@162:                    etc. A human's tree might occasionally have a long
rlm@162:                    chain, while the computer tree would be more
rlm@162:                    uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern
rlm@162:                    laptop. Use actual data when fighting two computers! 
rlm@71: 
rlm@162:  - time verification :: some standard way to verify that some piece of
rlm@162:       data was recorded at a specific time. Might involve a time
rlm@162:       server, a key for each time period, something like that.
rlm@70: 
rlm@162:  - tamper proof gold bars :: [[http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html][this site]] offers gold plated tungsten bars
rlm@162:       as "novelty" items. One reason to prefer coins is because they
rlm@162:       are much harder to counterfeit because there is less surface area
rlm@162:       to mass ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design
rlm@162:       because they can hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar
rlm@162:       could be given the same protections (and more) that gold coins
rlm@162:       have to offer by changing it into a "gold book", which would have
rlm@162:       hundreds of "pages" of gold bound together. This could be
rlm@162:       implemented with multiple steel rods going through the book which
rlm@162:       can be removed, or some more classier mechanism for holding the
rlm@162:       pages. The point is that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and
rlm@162:       people would perform this test before buying), thus guaranteeing
rlm@162:       it's authenticity.
rlm@68: 
rlm@162:  - aurellem shirt :: I should make an aurellem star symbol tee-shirt. 
rlm@86: 
rlm@162:  - touch vision :: inspired by GelSight, I want to reexamine cortex and
rlm@162:                    see if I could implement touch as a very low range
rlm@162:                    form of vision.
rlm@67: 
rlm@162:  - high school science :: this is a lesson in scientific ethics. The
rlm@162:       goal is to calculate /g/, the local gravitational
rlm@162:       acceleration. The students are told that the textbook says it's
rlm@162:       /exactly/ 9.81 before they start the experiment. See how they
rlm@162:       doctor their results to get closer to the textbook value. It's
rlm@162:       neat because for any given school, /g/ is probably *not* exactly
rlm@162:       equal to 9.81, because that is just an average!
rlm@67: 
rlm@162:  - opencourseware subtitles :: there are ladies who type up lectures
rlm@162:       while they are being given. These recordings should be kept and
rlm@162:       given to OCW for subtitles. If the timestamps of keys are
rlm@162:       recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.
rlm@66: 
rlm@162:  - screen locking timing :: you use your computer camera to see if you
rlm@162:       are sitting in front of the computer. If you are, then the screen
rlm@162:       will never lock. If you are, then the screen will lock with a
rlm@162:       30-40 second timeout. It's an extension of using inactivity to
rlm@162:       initiate the countdown, just with more information.
rlm@66: 
rlm@162:  - mirror toilet :: a toilet with a square basin made or mirror instead
rlm@162:                     or porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a
rlm@162:                     wipe job you have done / watch how your excretion
rlm@162:                     system works.
rlm@62: 
rlm@162:  - test dummies :: why don't we clone anencephalic humans and use then to
rlm@162:                    test /in vivo/ human organ systems and drugs? It
rlm@162:                    would be ethical as long as there are women who are
rlm@162:                    willing to host the clones, and it would be a
rlm@162:                    tremendous resource for studying the human body. I
rlm@162:                    see nothing wrong with it morally, since no one is
rlm@162:                    suffering, and it stands to save many lives throughout
rlm@162:                    more advanced technology.
rlm@62: 
rlm@162:  - X-ray telepresence :: given that a doctor is operating on a patient
rlm@162:       via telepresence, one cool things you can do is shine X-rays into
rlm@162:       the patient to view the insides during real time. If the system
rlm@162:       was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure,
rlm@162:       and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the
rlm@162:       model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage
rlm@162:       and surgery risk could be minimized.
rlm@51: 
rlm@162:  - superfluid vascular system :: I wonder what would happen if you
rlm@162:       replaced the blood in a human with a superfluid. What would the
rlm@162:       physical dynamics be? Would the superfluid flow through the
rlm@162:       vasculature, or would it ignore it and travel through the cells,
rlm@162:       or something else entirely. Since superfluids need to be cold to
rlm@162:       retain their superfluidity, how would the dynamics change during
rlm@162:       perfusion of a superfluid, where the fluid gains and looses
rlm@162:       superfluidity as it goes deeper into the body and is cooled by
rlm@162:       superfluid from upstream. In summary there are two things to
rlm@162:       simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with superfluid
rlm@162:       instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.
rlm@59: 
rlm@162:  - projective guessing :: I think that we read and see things by
rlm@162:       making a really good guess about what we're expecting to see,
rlm@162:       and then searching for our guess in what we see. If it really
rlm@162:       doesn't match, then we start to make more guesses / analyze the
rlm@162:       image from first principles, but most stuff is projective
rlm@162:       guessing.
rlm@59: 
rlm@162:  - Intestinal flora maintenance :: why not inoculate babies at birth
rlm@162:       with "ideal" gut flora instead of whatever bullshit they
rlm@162:       naturally get, thus giving them optimal digestive/nutrient
rlm@162:       extraction capabilities. Might also be able to make their farts
rlm@162:       not stink for life, too. MORE IMPORTANTLY, might help to
rlm@162:       preventatively stop some forms of /colic/, which affects 1 in 5
rlm@162:       babies and causes constant screaming and pain for about 5 weeks.
rlm@56: 
rlm@162:  - server culture : mirrors :: make a distributed system where people
rlm@162:       can mirror the websites of people they like -- essentially cover
rlm@162:       the server costs of favored websites. This could make popular
rlm@162:       websites run at no cost. The system would require that the
rlm@162:       mirrored content be the same as the official source. Sort of like
rlm@162:       bit-torrent for websites.
rlm@56: 
rlm@162:  - map programming :: one problem with functional programming is that
rlm@162:       in order to remain functional, you have to pass up arguments up
rlm@162:       into each calling function to get the full range of behavior
rlm@162:       from the lower level functions. Normally people come to a
rlm@162:       compromise involving abstraction and sparing use of dynamic
rlm@162:       variables to configure runtime behavior. What would be the
rlm@162:       advantages of making a programming language where every function
rlm@162:       receives one argument, a map, which contains all the symbol
rlm@162:       bindings it would ever need? This map is passed on to all
rlm@162:       subordinate functions. This way, you could replace functions on
rlm@162:       the fly, and arrange for there to be sensible defaults,
rlm@162:       etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an interesting idea.
rlm@55: 
rlm@162:  - rest nest :: a small EEG device you would attach to your head when
rlm@162: 		you go to sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine
rlm@162: 		your particular sleep cycles. This would mostly be an
rlm@162: 		alarm clock that you could give a time range, say
rlm@162: 		7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an
rlm@162: 		ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90
rlm@162: 		min sleep cycles. You would feel much more rested upon
rlm@162: 		waking up, and would wake up faster. There might be
rlm@162: 		some other uses for the EEG data as well.
rlm@50: 
rlm@162:  - image compression :: use a library like gimp or opencv to process an
rlm@162:       image to make it have less entropy, then store the reverse of
rlm@162:       those operations along with the compressed simpler image as a
rlm@162:       super-compressed image file (possibly accepting some
rlm@162:       losses). Trades file size for decompression time, and allows one
rlm@162:       to cheat by using information in gimp/opencv to compress the
rlm@162:       image. 
rlm@38: 
rlm@162:  - fixed cryopreservation :: why not use a fixative to buy enough time
rlm@162:       to ramp up cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room
rlm@162:       temperature? Then, the whole system can be rapidly cooled and
rlm@162:       vitrified. This method "severs the biological link" in that the
rlm@162:       fixatives are highly toxic, but current vitrification procedures
rlm@162:       do this anyway since there can be a lot of freezing damage.
rlm@58: 
rlm@162:  - dilated security camera :: a security camera that would capture
rlm@162:       full video footage of everything at 60fps but then decide to keep
rlm@162:       only every 1 frame every 5 seconds unless there's something
rlm@162:       "interesting" happening.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - bitcoin wallet :: Part of "server culture", this would be something
rlm@162:                      like "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as
rlm@162:                      your personal trusted access to your own bitcoins
rlm@162:                      from anywhere.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - libpay :: this would be a free library which would enable
rlm@162:              micro-donations to software projects and other projects,
rlm@162:              so that you could donate a penny to "emacs" and it would
rlm@162:              be automatically split up to every person who has ever
rlm@162:              contributed to emacs in proportion to the amount of
rlm@162:              community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the
rlm@162:              community decides. This might make it possible for
rlm@162:              programmers to live entirely off of free programming.
rlm@41: 
rlm@162:  - distributed graphics :: Browser based graphics-card accelerated
rlm@162:       distributed computing API.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - pronouns :: use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve
rlm@162:                pronoun referents and gender neutrality, are short to
rlm@162:                say, and you can encode useful information into the
rlm@162:                choice of letter. For example, instead of "Meetings
rlm@162:                shall be presided over by the president, unless she is
rlm@162:                absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the
rlm@162:                president, unless P is absent." We already use this a
rlm@162:                little, since I and U are reserved for the subject and
rlm@162:                object respectively.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - phone DSP :: software app that inserts an audio DSP between the
rlm@162: 		input to a phone and the output. The DSP is delicious
rlm@162: 		and configurable, and can allow men to make their
rlm@162: 		voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you to hear
rlm@162: 		your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how
rlm@162: 		their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to
rlm@162: 		immediately change the parameters of the DSP using good
rlm@162: 		presets.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - predestined body learning :: a good example of predestined learning
rlm@162:       might be the mirror neurons.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - restaurant receipt :: use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid
rlm@162:       copies. 
rlm@41: 
rlm@162:  - anti google glass :: glasses with mounted lasers and computer vision
rlm@162:       that targets the cameras in google glass and destroy them.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - wearable towel :: towel with clasp, velcro, whatever, that allows
rlm@162:                      one to wear the towel more securely than just
rlm@162:                      wrapping it tightly and hoping for the best.
rlm@41: 
rlm@162:  - crossdressing :: Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to
rlm@162:                     wear a burka.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - book-mode :: intelligent color highlighting for books and
rlm@162: 		articles. It would disambiguate pronouns and involved
rlm@162: 		references. For example, if "Rachael" was assigned the
rlm@162: 		color red, and "the blonde haired girl" refers to
rlm@162: 		"Rachael", then "the blonde haired girl" would be
rlm@162: 		colored red. Also, you could disambiguate multi part
rlm@162: 		run-on sentences by highlighting each
rlm@162: 		subcomponent. Maybe would also have applications to
rlm@162: 		scientific reading.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - Handheld light Rain measurement :: this would be a clear, teflon
rlm@162:       coated plastic disk with a camera underneath the disk. You would
rlm@162:       be able to hold the device out and it would measure the rate of
rlm@162:       accumulation of water droplets from fine mists and light rain by
rlm@162:       using computer vision to measure the diameters of the drops.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - Big Brother Farming :: This would be a vision system that would
rlm@162:       individually monitor each plant and turn on water, etc to ensure
rlm@162:       maximum/uniform growth for each plant. 
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - Discrete Faucet :: A faucet with discrete ticks instead of
rlm@162:       continuous. 
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - Laser Circle :: take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one
rlm@162:                    end at an oblique angle. It will make a perfect,
rlm@162:                    large circle on the wall, converting a laser beam
rlm@162:                    into a laser cone, preserving most of the energy of
rlm@162:                    the laser.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - Invisible Glass :: Take a container of liquid and embed a
rlm@162:       glass sculpture made out of glass that has exactly the same index
rlm@162:       of refraction and color of the liquid. Then the sculpture will be
rlm@162:       totally invisible in the container, and will only be revealed
rlm@162:       when the liquid is drained. The container might be a fancy
rlm@162:       wine/spirit bottle or an hourglass.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - Caterpillar people :: A race of caterpillar like creatures gains
rlm@162:       intelligence after eons of predation by birds, etc. These
rlm@162:       caterpillar creatures still undergo metamorphosis into a large
rlm@162:       butterfly-like creature. The metamorphosis process turns the
rlm@162:       caterpillar's brain into mush and reforms it into a minimal,
rlm@162:       dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely destroying the person
rlm@162:       the caterpillar was. The society develops all sorts of customs and
rlm@162:       religious interpretations of the metamorphosis. It is viewed as
rlm@162:       good and natural by some since it is part of their life cycle and
rlm@162:       necessary to propagate the species, as only the butterflies can
rlm@162:       mate. Some think that the butterflies are still the same person
rlm@162:       because they have the same soul, even they no longer posses the
rlm@162:       memories or personality of the original caterpillar. Some see the
rlm@162:       butterfly form as the "true form" of the species, since the
rlm@162:       butterflies can fly, mate, and are beautiful. Many make a big
rlm@162:       deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the caterpillar's mind is
rlm@162:       actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see it as a terrible
rlm@162:       tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try to stop the
rlm@162:       metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very important
rlm@162:       members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery to
rlm@162:       prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as themselves.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:       This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being
rlm@162:       something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,
rlm@162:       something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that
rlm@162:       hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains
rlm@162:       now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic
rlm@162:       legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a
rlm@162:       compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second
rlm@162:       gender characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes
rlm@162:       homophobia look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of
rlm@162:       pain and death is made to look like the tragedy it is through the
rlm@162:       lens of the the caterpillar people.
rlm@43: 
rlm@162:  - relationships as a business :: [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx][Turnover-Crisis]] is an excellent talk
rlm@162:       about the "culture of quitting," which is about better business
rlm@162:       by letting people go instead of keeping them around past their
rlm@162:       "apex". Focuses on information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni
rlm@162:       network, which for relationships would be a group of satisfied
rlm@162:       ex-lovers, who would recommend new people your way, and who might
rlm@162:       consider coming to you again, refreshed from their time away with
rlm@162:       new stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and
rlm@162:       how they worked out.
rlm@43: 
rlm@162:  - coffee with tea :: /rlm-tea/ contains 2% sugar, 10% cream, and 20%
rlm@162:                      dylan coffee. /dylan coffee/ contains 5% sugar,
rlm@162:                      20% cream, and 10% rlm-tea. Start your mornings
rlm@162:                      with recursion!
rlm@43: 
rlm@162:  - psychic crystal :: in a science fiction story, this would be an
rlm@162:       object that is very easy to move physically but is extremely
rlm@162:       difficult to move with telekinesis.
rlm@40: 
rlm@162:  - http://betsofbitco.in/ :: what a great place for an AI/person to
rlm@162:       prove themselves as a good predictor. I wish this could be
rlm@162:       automated. 
rlm@33: 
rlm@162:  - true reflection :: don't forget about that mirror in the student
rlm@162:       center!, it's two mirrors at right angles, like staring at a
rlm@162:       corner of a room. The light reflects so that it shows you what
rlm@162:       you actually look like, instead of your mirror image.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - remote control wasp :: use computer to drive wings with remote
rlm@162:    power/logic.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - encrypted email phone book :: public (distributed?) database of
rlm@162:       email->private-key pairs, to enable automatic encryption.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - universal eye color :: every equivalent creature will see each
rlm@162:       others' eyes as black -- it's universal. Even if the creatures
rlm@162:       see in radio waves, and their eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged
rlm@162:       metal, when those creatures look at each other, they will see
rlm@162:       black, the absence of light and color (since it's being absorbed
rlm@162:       by the sensor array).
rlm@162: 
rlm@162:  - intelligent microwave :: it learns where the hot nodes of its fields
rlm@162:    are, and uses them to evenly heat any food item. It has an infrared
rlm@162:    camera or something to keep track of how hot the food is. That way,
rlm@162:    you don't get bowls where the edges are boiling, while the center is
rlm@162:    still frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since
rlm@162:    the exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of
rlm@162:    the food.  Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer,
rlm@162:    just a desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automatically
rlm@162:    defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much
rlm@162:    faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with
rlm@162:    heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor too.
rlm@32:   
rlm@162:    + Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would
rlm@162:      "sputter" and splash liquid much less.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:    + Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked foods
rlm@162:      and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have been
rlm@162:      cooked before -- it can get faster the more it's used.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - compression :: brain-aware image compression algorithm
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - Credit card proxy :: would be a company which works like paypal
rlm@162:       except for real world transactions
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - Flesh pillow :: a pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete
rlm@162:                    with simulated temperature, bones, and heartbeat.
rlm@33: 
rlm@162:  - super screw :: a screw which has only one or two threads and instead
rlm@162:                   uses compression to fit into a hole (the whole shank
rlm@162:                   of the screw is split into multiple pieces to
rlm@162:                   accomplish this; the tip is a point, then the middle
rlm@162:                   bulges out and gets compressed when screwed in.
rlm@33: 
rlm@162:  - light filter :: (like light tweezers) to mechanically separate
rlm@162:                    fluids with different index of refraction
rlm@33: 
rlm@162:  - chalk eraser project :: maybe make a directional eraser, for easy
rlm@162:       release of chalk dust, like fur, and how it likes to rest in a
rlm@162:       certain direction.
rlm@33: 
rlm@162:  - silver socks :: socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial
rlm@162:                    properties.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - UROP :: magnet gear/metal teeth tape 
rlm@53: 
rlm@162:  - Rod of Moses :: device to distill urine through evaporation and
rlm@162:                    easily dispose of urea crystals for use in desert --
rlm@162:                    produce drinkable water.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - UROP :: Make the LED in line with the flow for the micro injector, so
rlm@162:            that it may transmit maximum flow.  Motor that changes
rlm@162:            distance of internal magnet from windings depending on
rlm@162:            desired speed so as to obtain maximum power efficiency.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - lottery scraper :: web scraper which monitors various lotteries,
rlm@162:       looking for "special" gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x
rlm@162:       winnings on Wednesdays) and computes expected value...
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - Memristiors novel design :: make an evolutionary algorithm to make
rlm@162:    old stuff using all four basic circuit elements.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - Conductive concrete :: concrete that has embedded metal fibers so
rlm@162:       that it can conduct electricity.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - little bitty melting pot :: might be useful for some types of
rlm@162:       manufacturing/3D printing -- how small can an induction melter be
rlm@162:       made, for example.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - power strip/timer programmable combination :: meh
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - algorithms :: which learn what their inputs are and in what order,
rlm@162: 		and can adapt to changing circumstances -- they
rlm@162: 		remember previous arguments and adapt so as to respond
rlm@162: 		to different connections.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - true pure tones :: hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the
rlm@162:       nerves of the ear
rlm@43:   
rlm@162:  - mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp ::  would be an object
rlm@162:       with two levers -- you pull on one lever and the other moves the
rlm@162:       same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is driving. This
rlm@162:       analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - paper folding device :: make it convenient to fold lots of papers in
rlm@162:       various ways.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - concrete epoxy :: epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - light capacitor :: suspend some ball of material with a high index
rlm@162:       of refraction and shine light into it so it gets stuck -- would
rlm@162:       the light stay trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited
rlm@162:       quantities of light inside the sphere (which could then be
rlm@162:       released slowly by frustrated internal reflection?
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - movie screening :: Movies always are too long at first. One way to
rlm@162:       shorten them ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the
rlm@162:       move and then remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which
rlm@162:       there are a lot of blinking (average this over multiple people)
rlm@162:       better yet, put it online and do it across thousands of people. I
rlm@162:       got this from youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill
rlm@162:       which is composed entirely of the parts in which people had their
rlm@162:       eyes closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their
rlm@162:       eyes off of? Just take those parts out!
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - optimize an article :: capture reading of a scientific article via
rlm@162:       screen capture while people read it, then use it to make the
rlm@162:       article better. like the movie-pruning idea.
rlm@35: 
rlm@162:  - super reading program :: teaches people the ideal mental mask to
rlm@162:       apply during reading so as to read very fast.
rlm@35: 
rlm@162:  - explosive thermite epoxy putty :: one part would contain the rust,
rlm@162:       one part the aluminum.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - reading comprehension :: use the above screen capture routine to
rlm@162:       make a quiz program that constructs questions about the content
rlm@162:       you seemed to gloss over while reading. could be easy if the pdf
rlm@162:       came with embedded questions.  Dylan: automatically generate
rlm@162:       word-cloud about the parts you found most interesting; help
rlm@162:       others who read the same stuff by drawing attention to the
rlm@162:       interesting parts.
rlm@34: 
rlm@162:  - hard sword :: make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of
rlm@162:                  martensite for the cutting part; it should be a better
rlm@162:                  sword.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - close range wireless :: use the induction technology used to
rlm@162:       recharge electric toothbrushes with no metal links to send data
rlm@162:       without any metal at all!
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - reading :: is a form of synsethesia
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - DNA printer :: A machine which translates the text eg, "ACTGAC" into
rlm@162:                    actual DNA
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - black generator :: ferro-fluid magnetic field suspended micro
rlm@162:       generator to make electricity
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - alcohol battery :: alcohol/fluid flow powered battery
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - folding razor blade sword ::
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - perfect pitch :: learn perfect pitch using another sense in
rlm@162:                     combination (sight or touch)
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - kaleidoscope projector ::
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - razor blade de-sharpener :: for guilt free disposal
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - bricks :: filled with luminescent plant material
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - bio metallic structure :: metal grids with seeds inside, which grow
rlm@162:       together and form a durable biological matrix. The metal
rlm@162:       substrate delivers water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?)
rlm@162:       Dylan: enrich plants with inorganic compounds; electrical
rlm@162:       interfaces in cellular plant matter => remote-controlled
rlm@162:       photosynthetic/bioluminescent structures.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - conducting extracellular matrix :: to allow better control of
rlm@162:       organic systems and an enhanced nervous system.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - cross-modal memory hashing :: a way to retrieve memories more
rlm@162:       robustly. 
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - flossing thimble-guards :: (these actually exist)
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - rules + lattice learning :: integrate lattice learning with rules by
rlm@162:       generating hypothetical examples
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - wooden refrigerator :: to give food a better taste Dylan: like
rlm@162:       barrels for wine, or planks for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor
rlm@162:       planks" for your pre-existing fridge. Need to mitigate effect of
rlm@162:       temperature on volatility?
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - radioactive transmutation molecule by molecule :: create precious
rlm@162:       metals or something else economically advantageous.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - crowd preservation :: inoculate food with tons of harmless
rlm@162:       bacteria so that there's no room for bad bacteria as a method of
rlm@162:       preservation
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - old school preservation :: Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon
rlm@162:       as a way to store liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o
rlm@162:       refrigeration.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - restaurant policy :: Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter
rlm@162:       of course -- make ambiance much better.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - clean windows :: make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant
rlm@162:                     water (and reduces the pressure a bit) and use it
rlm@162:                     to clean windows of buildings.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - ocarina :: make an ocarina out of pure silver
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - fire pen :: pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing
rlm@162:                any ink. Is there a way to make it runnable from the
rlm@162:                human's energy?
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - website to design your own soda :: and label, and have it mailed to
rlm@162:       you / sell it from your own online store.
rlm@35: 
rlm@162:  - solar panels :: that float on the ocean
rlm@43: 
rlm@162:  - handcuffs with more than two cuffs (3?) :: great for daisy chaining
rlm@162:       people, binding them to environment, etc.
rlm@35: 
rlm@162:  - vector based SOUND files :: like the pictures but with SOUND. codify
rlm@162:       sound in a language with enough symbols so that it can describe
rlm@162:       everything and encode it in that. would be like going from speech
rlm@162:       to text or smtg. Could also store sound as an image of the
rlm@162:       wavefront encoded as a vector image.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - Mouse :: with a horizontal scroll wheel in addition to the vertical
rlm@162:             scroll wheel
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - logic maintenance system for big institutions :: to make sure the
rlm@162:       things they are thinking about doing are not retarded
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - http://www.regulations.gov/ :: cool site
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - genetically engineered glowing fruit :: sell seeds?
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - memory slide :: IF memories are encoded using particular sensory
rlm@162:                    impressions, what happens if the sensory organ
rlm@162:                    itself changes? those memories would become
rlm@162:                    inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember
rlm@162:                    much from our childhoods. also, could this happen
rlm@162:                    throughout life as well? Could S remember stuff from
rlm@162:                    his childhood?
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - make a completely indestructible phone :: no moving parts or display
rlm@162:       you should be able to slam it around all you want, and it will
rlm@162:       just work. brutally simple. aerogel around the battery, minimal
rlm@162:       interface - never gets too hot, and can be dropped into water. no
rlm@162:       holes -- uses field effects for everything from the buttons to
rlm@162:       inductive charging and data transfer.
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - midi to ocarina "tabs" program :: (online website? buy ocarinas from
rlm@162:       it too)
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - 3d printing with sound pulses (or just patterns) :: like the 8.03
rlm@162:       lecture
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - lighter flint on spring :: make hot, throw it at something, and it
rlm@162:       makes sparkles!
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - nuclear energy :: Rebranding New+Clear Energy with informational
rlm@162:                      campaign and public debate forum to enforce its
rlm@162:                      transparent and open nature. France needn't be the
rlm@162:                      world leader in nuclear energy. (Dylan)
rlm@32: 
rlm@162:  - bubbles :: Engineer a material which has both ductility and high
rlm@162:               surface tension to make the "third"
rlm@162:               minimal-surface-energy solution to a bubble suspended
rlm@162:               between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are
rlm@162:               cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles,
rlm@162:               and a double-cone)
rlm@38: 
rlm@162:  - Textbook whose content can be varied continuously :: alter level of
rlm@162:       difficulty, rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain
rlm@162:       other discipline, etc. Content generated dynamically from
rlm@162:       knowledge base, along with questions that are moreover altered to
rlm@162:       guide knowledge acquisition. Motivation: One book of
rlm@162:       knowledge. /One./
rlm@40: 
rlm@40: ** From Jacob's idea list
rlm@40: 
rlm@47: - Roommate-canceling headphones: uses roommate's laptop mic to seed
rlm@43:   noise cancellation alg in your headphones (would this
rlm@40:   work?). -Update on sound canceling headphones that take feed from
rlm@40:   tv: how about ones that cancel people talking on the phone by
rlm@40:   receiving the phone signals and playing inverse sound
rlm@40:   waves. #signalprocessing ~jcole@mit.edu
rlm@40: 
rlm@40: - ClackerAlert -- tells if you slam the keys too hard using sound data
rlm@40:   (and speed/jerkiness data)!.Prevents RSI ~jcole@mit.e
rlm@40: 
rlm@40: - Panic Pin :: separate pin that you can tell someone if forced to
rlm@41:                identify your PIN (idea from idea about credit cards)