changeset 141:94e03d638078

new ideas.
author Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu>
date Thu, 26 Feb 2015 17:56:46 -0800
parents 208424fee6f9
children f40992b38f51
files newideas.html org/ideas.org
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    1.98 +<div class="header">
    1.99 +<h1><em>aurellem</em>.org</h1>
   1.100 +</div>
   1.101 +
   1.102 +
   1.103 +<h1 class="title">Ideas</h1>
   1.104 +<p>
   1.105 +This is a list of all the ideas I've had that I felt like writing down
   1.106 +for the past ~ 8 years. Some of them could be practical inventions and
   1.107 +are "just" waiting the that 95% perspiration to bring them to
   1.108 +fruition, some are ideas for science fiction, and some are simple
   1.109 +observations. Some are really only for my own personal notes and are
   1.110 +not meant to be comprehensible. They are arranged roughly in reverse
   1.111 +chronological order, with the most recent ideas at the top of the
   1.112 +list. The ones at the bottom of the list are heavily influenced by my
   1.113 +time at MIT.
   1.114 +</p>
   1.115 +<p>
   1.116 +If you find some of these interesting and would like to collaborate on
   1.117 +them with me or discuss them in more detail, I'd love to hear from
   1.118 +you. You can email me at <a href="mailto:ideas@aurellem.org">ideas@aurellem.org</a>.
   1.119 +</p>
   1.120 +<p>
   1.121 +If you want to use one of these ideas as your own and run with it,
   1.122 +please feel free. I'd love
   1.123 +to <a href="mailto:ideas@aurellem.org">hear about it</a> if you do.
   1.124 +</p>
   1.125 +<blockquote>
   1.126 +
   1.127 +<p>There's no end to what a man can accomplish if he doesn't care about
   1.128 +getting credit.
   1.129 +</p>
   1.130 +</blockquote>
   1.131 +
   1.132 +<hr/>
   1.133 +
   1.134 +<div class="ideas">
   1.135 +<div class="project"><h2>the great computing slow-down</h2><div class="description">In general, our computers are
   1.136 +     getting faster and faster. However, eventually our brains will be
   1.137 +     made of the same stuff our computers are made of! This has very
   1.138 +     interesting consequences &ndash; I can add 2+2 and get four in about a
   1.139 +     second. Since my neurons actually work at around 10-60 hertz in
   1.140 +     parallel, this means that it takes me around 10-30 operations to
   1.141 +     do this addition. That's actually not bad in terms of computing
   1.142 +     time. If my neurons were as fast as the latest transitors, then
   1.143 +     most calculators would be SLOWER than me at adding numbers. Only
   1.144 +     the newest, most optimized calculators would be faster, and then
   1.145 +     only about 10 times faster! This means that once we begin to
   1.146 +     think at the speed of our technology, that technology will
   1.147 +     suddenly seem pitifully slow in comparison to how it seems
   1.148 +     now. And no amount of technical progress will remedy it, because
   1.149 +     that same progress will also make us all think faster. We'll
   1.150 +     either have to settle with living in "slow time" to do some
   1.151 +     computations, or learn to make smarter hardware with special
   1.152 +     optimizations. But this is actually really hard, because we'll be
   1.153 +     working with machines that will appear to us about as fast as
   1.154 +     MECHANICAL computers. So, in the future, all the cool parties
   1.155 +     will be in cyperspace at vastly accelerated speeds compared to
   1.156 +     how we exist now. But at these parties, the computers will SUCK!
   1.157 +     Of course, this is one of the few things that can save us from AI
   1.158 +     risk, because those AI's won't seem so scary when the're build
   1.159 +     out of rickety mechanical parts form our perspective. 
   1.160 +
   1.161 +</div></div>
   1.162 +<div class="project"><h2>unitary reverse evolution of chaos+minds</h2><div class="description">Chaotic systems diverge
   1.163 +     exponentially in state space. Do you get anything interesting
   1.164 +     when part of the physical system associated with the chaotic
   1.165 +     system is a object that performs some sort of computation? Is it
   1.166 +     possible for the computational system to play a
   1.167 +     percision-enabling role in determining the final/initial
   1.168 +     conditions of the chaotic system, just by tracing out thoughts in
   1.169 +     its decision paths? This is probably too vague of an idea right
   1.170 +     now, I just wanted to write it down.
   1.171 +
   1.172 +</div></div>
   1.173 +<div class="project"><h2>microwave time</h2><div class="description">the cooking time you enter on most microwaves is
   1.174 +     insane. It's expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a
   1.175 +     combination of base 10 and base 60. You can get absurd things
   1.176 +     like 100 &lt; 61, and 120 == 80! I wonder if these hybrid base
   1.177 +     systems could be very useful for some purposes!
   1.178 +
   1.179 +</div></div>
   1.180 +<div class="project"><h2>three-eyes</h2><div class="description">if you had three eyes, would you still draw cubes like
   1.181 +     we currently draw them? Or would all 2D-representations of 3D
   1.182 +     space always look hopelessly fake?
   1.183 +
   1.184 +</div></div>
   1.185 +<div class="project"><h2>visual taste/smell assay</h2><div class="description">get a grid of bacteria, each expressing
   1.186 +     a human taste/smell receptor linked to some sort of fluorscent
   1.187 +     activity or ion pump. Use a camera / electrical grid to transduce
   1.188 +     the smell / taste signal into bits!
   1.189 +
   1.190 +</div></div>
   1.191 +<div class="project"><h2>carabiner mushroom lock</h2><div class="description">you can take a trapazodial carabiner and
   1.192 +     make it so that a chain link is caught between the wide end of
   1.193 +     the carabiner and another chain attached to the carabiner. 
   1.194 +
   1.195 +</div></div>
   1.196 +<div class="project"><h2>children's tool shop</h2><div class="description">I think that kids should be provided with
   1.197 +     tool shops &ndash; these would be nice sheds with a good collection of
   1.198 +     tools to do various things &ndash; circuit components and soldering
   1.199 +     irons, wires, a small lathe, drill press, belt sander, a
   1.200 +     centrifuge, microscope, and telescope, etc. The idea is that the
   1.201 +     kid can now think, "I could use X to do this thing that I'm
   1.202 +     thinking about" &ndash; the building becomes an extension of the kid's
   1.203 +     body &amp; mind.
   1.204 +
   1.205 +</div></div>
   1.206 +<div class="project"><h2>fluid display</h2><div class="description">like the previous idea about matching refractances
   1.207 +                   between glass and liquid, except you make a lot of
   1.208 +                   switchable glass tubes in various patterns in the
   1.209 +                   glass, and actively pump colored liquid through the
   1.210 +                   tubes (the tubes have glass-like fluid in them by
   1.211 +                   default.) The result is that you can cause the
   1.212 +                   tubes to appear and dissappear, and vary their
   1.213 +                   colors as well!
   1.214 +
   1.215 +</div></div>
   1.216 +<div class="project"><h2>immunoincompatibility</h2><div class="description">take the human genome, and refactor it so
   1.217 +     that it doesn't use a particular codon at all. Then remove the
   1.218 +     support from our ribosomes for that codon. What does this do for
   1.219 +     us? It makes us immune to almost all viruses!
   1.220 +
   1.221 +</div></div>
   1.222 +<div class="project"><h2>life cycle</h2><div class="description">it's called a cycle, right? So, the thing that repeats
   1.223 +                itself over and over, right? Not much of a cycle if
   1.224 +                you don't come back after you die, if you ask me!
   1.225 +
   1.226 +</div></div>
   1.227 +<div class="project"><h2>car with no blind spots</h2><div class="description">use some cameras in the back of the car
   1.228 +     to augment the rear-view mirror so that you never have to turn
   1.229 +     around in order to lane change.
   1.230 +
   1.231 +</div></div>
   1.232 +<div class="project"><h2>partial cell death</h2><div class="description">you freeze a set of cells using some cryo
   1.233 +     protocol and 60% survive. How can this be explained? It seems to
   1.234 +     me that if the cells are the same, and the conditions
   1.235 +     homogoneous, then all the cells should either die or
   1.236 +     live. However, suppose that there is a metabolic cycle that needs
   1.237 +     to be in a certain phase for the cell to survive. If the cells
   1.238 +     are asynchronous, then you might end up with some cells dying
   1.239 +     because there were in the wrong part of their cycle. This implies
   1.240 +     that you might be able to cryoprotect cells by causing them to
   1.241 +     enter a certain metabolic mode before freezing.
   1.242 +
   1.243 +</div></div>
   1.244 +<div class="project"><h2>cryonics color appeal</h2><div class="description">perfusate used by cryonics companies should
   1.245 +     have red food coloring in it. It's just a nice touch so that the
   1.246 +     cryonics patient looks more life-like than with clear CPAs, and
   1.247 +     hopefully might get treated with more respect.
   1.248 +
   1.249 +</div></div>
   1.250 +<div class="project"><h2>paramagnetic CPA</h2><div class="description">you take a CPA that can be influenced by
   1.251 +     magnetic fields so that its degrees of freedom are limited. Then,
   1.252 +     you release the field, instantaly increasing the size of the
   1.253 +     state space of the system and dramatically decreasing the
   1.254 +     temperature enough to plunge the system past homogenous
   1.255 +     nucleation temperature and directly to the glass transition
   1.256 +     temperature, creating a doubly unstable glass at much lower CPA
   1.257 +     concentrations than possible at conventional CPA concentrations. 
   1.258 +
   1.259 +</div></div>
   1.260 +<div class="project"><h2>room temp noodles</h2><div class="description">how does the physics of cooking noodles work?
   1.261 +     Could you use a vacuum instead of heat to force water into the
   1.262 +     noodle?
   1.263 +
   1.264 +</div></div>
   1.265 +<div class="project"><h2>personal carbon offset</h2><div class="description">feel bad about contribuiting to global
   1.266 +     warming by using electricity / driving a car? Forget trying to
   1.267 +     "conserve" or "minimize your carbon footprint". Follow the
   1.268 +     Platinum rule &ndash; make the world BETTER off than you found it!
   1.269 +     This would be a small, self contained system that sucks C02 out
   1.270 +     of the air. It uses electricity, but it's so efficient at
   1.271 +     removing CO2 that it more than offsets the CO2 produced by even a
   1.272 +     coal plant to produce that electricity. This way, you can still
   1.273 +     drive even a gas guzzler, but have a net negative carbon
   1.274 +     footprint! Maybe something cool could be done with the carbon as
   1.275 +     well. Use as much electricity as you want, but negate the damage
   1.276 +     to the enviroment with more technology. 
   1.277 +
   1.278 +</div></div>
   1.279 +<div class="project"><h2>undoing spermogenesis</h2><div class="description">with enough sperm, you can derive the
   1.280 +     donor's entire genome. You gain more confidence in the alleles
   1.281 +     for a particular gene the more sperm you have. Each additional
   1.282 +     sperm gives you the same sort of information you'd get flipping a
   1.283 +     coin and trying to decide whether the coin is H/T of H/H. Is
   1.284 +     there enough sperm in the the average load for you to be as
   1.285 +     confident as mitosis?
   1.286 +
   1.287 +</div></div>
   1.288 +<div class="project"><h2>mars life</h2><div class="description">we could engineer life that could survive on mars
   1.289 +               (probably some non-vascular photosynthetic
   1.290 +               poikilohydric creature like a lichen) by taking an
   1.291 +               extremophile from Antarctica and evolving it in
   1.292 +               increasingly Martian conditions. This could be an easy
   1.293 +               start to a terraforming process. 
   1.294 +
   1.295 +</div></div>
   1.296 +<div class="project"><h2>problem with Aubrey de Grey's ideas</h2><div class="description">Aubrey de Grey says that we
   1.297 +     might be able to live forever by continually repairing our bodies
   1.298 +     at the cellular level &ndash; he details 7 different mechanisms of
   1.299 +     damage and says that if all of them are dealt with <i>together</i>
   1.300 +     that it would stop aging. (You can't miss even one because
   1.301 +     they're all fatal.)  However, it doesn't take into account that
   1.302 +     we are also beings of information and that there is a very real
   1.303 +     software component to our existence. Even if our biological
   1.304 +     chassies can be maintained forever, I think it is unlikely that
   1.305 +     our minds will operate well far outside of the design constraints
   1.306 +     that we've evolved to handle. Say I programmed a webserver with
   1.307 +     the express goal of it being able to serve webpages for month on
   1.308 +     some stock server. I'll do fairly rigorous testing to make sure
   1.309 +     that it can handle the expected load then then some. Now say that
   1.310 +     you want to keep a particular instance of this webserver running
   1.311 +     indefinitely. (The program instance is like your mind and the
   1.312 +     computer it's running on is like your body). You might very well
   1.313 +     be able to keep the physical computer infrastructure running for
   1.314 +     forever by replacing hard drives / ram / CPUs, etc. However,
   1.315 +     since I designed the webserver to work for a month, it probably
   1.316 +     has memory leaks, rare stochastic bugs, or other built in limits
   1.317 +     / constraints (think log files or some date rollover shenanigans)
   1.318 +     that will ultimately kill the webserver even with eternally
   1.319 +     perfect hardware. Do you really expect that a webserver
   1.320 +     engineered to work for 1 month will run for 10 years without
   1.321 +     catastrophically crashing? Not even Apache can do this! In fact,
   1.322 +     if I put in the extreme effort to make it that robust, I've
   1.323 +     wasted time that I could have spent on other projects by pursuing
   1.324 +     an unnecessary engineering goal. Likewise, human minds have only
   1.325 +     ever run for at most 122 years before they are destroyed due to
   1.326 +     hardware degradation. Fixing the hardware doesn't change any
   1.327 +     software bugs that are almost certainly present in the human
   1.328 +     mind. Think of all the pathological things that can go wrong with
   1.329 +     a webserver, multiply it by a million, and that likely how
   1.330 +     evolution has designed our minds. For example, consider memory :
   1.331 +     why should you expect that we have evolved the ability to
   1.332 +     coherently organize memories past say 150 years? There's been
   1.333 +     absolutely no selective pressure for this ability, so you can bet
   1.334 +     that if there's any fitness to be gained from not having
   1.335 +     unlimited memory potential (such as better metabolic efficiency),
   1.336 +     we have it! You might think that maybe we would just forget
   1.337 +     things the same way that we sort of forget things that happen
   1.338 +     earlier in our lives, but complicated information processing
   1.339 +     systems don't have to fail gracefully when they're pushed far
   1.340 +     past their design constraints. A 150 year old person is just as
   1.341 +     likely to suffer a catastrophic psychosis due to software
   1.342 +     limitations associated with memory as he is to do something with
   1.343 +     all those memories we might consider reasonable. More likely, in
   1.344 +     fact, since there are so very many ways for a complicated
   1.345 +     software system to break and so few ways for it to run
   1.346 +     successfully. Therefore, I think Aubrey de Grey's "hardware-only"
   1.347 +     approach is missing a very important component of longevity
   1.348 +     science, and any successful effort to make people live orders of
   1.349 +     magnitude longer than they do naturally will need to deal with
   1.350 +     people's software as well as their hardware.
   1.351 +
   1.352 +</div></div>
   1.353 +<div class="project"><h2>validating neurocryopreservation</h2><div class="description">Problem : you want to test
   1.354 +     whether a brain is functionally preserved through vitrification,
   1.355 +     but you don't want to figure out how to preserve all the other
   1.356 +     organs in the animal. It might be possible to keep the rest of
   1.357 +     the body at almost 0C and vitrify just the head for only a few
   1.358 +     minutes. Induce hypothermia, then separate out the head's blood
   1.359 +     supply from the rest of the body, then just cryoptotect and
   1.360 +     vitrify the head. Might need some sort of thermal guard to keep
   1.361 +     the outer head / neck from becoming too cold. You leave the
   1.362 +     spinal cord intact! Then you devitrify to 0C, remove
   1.363 +     cryoprotectant, and then reattach the blood supply. You can
   1.364 +     determine brain preservation using behavioral assays!
   1.365 +
   1.366 +</div></div>
   1.367 +<div class="project"><h2>freezing water purifier</h2><div class="description">you slowly freeze water, but also run
   1.368 +     liquid water over the frozen mass. This takes away basically all
   1.369 +     impurities and creates "washed ice" then you melt the ice. Maybe
   1.370 +     you could re-use the heat from creating the ice to melt the ice?
   1.371 +
   1.372 +</div></div>
   1.373 +<div class="project"><h2>ultra strength</h2><div class="description">allow a person to visualize their muscle
   1.374 +                    recruitment patterns. Give them adrenaline and let
   1.375 +                    them feel what it's like to have the normal limits
   1.376 +                    removed. See if they can replicate the effects.
   1.377 +
   1.378 +</div></div>
   1.379 +<div class="project"><h2>phone names</h2><div class="description">make a PX record for domain names that's like the MX
   1.380 +                 record, except that it is a phone number instead of
   1.381 +                 an IP address. That way, you can use the domain name
   1.382 +                 registration system to provide names for phone
   1.383 +                 numbers. Then, as long as you control the domain, you
   1.384 +                 can point people to your current phone number by
   1.385 +                 updating that record. 
   1.386 +
   1.387 +</div></div>
   1.388 +<div class="project"><h2>edible flowers</h2><div class="description">Edible white flowers that you put in a colored
   1.389 +                    solution with flavor. When the flower turns the
   1.390 +                    right color, it is also flavored and ready to eat! 
   1.391 +
   1.392 +</div></div>
   1.393 +<div class="project"><h2>suicide cryonics</h2><div class="description">according to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html">this</a>, people who commit impulsive
   1.394 +     suicides have a newfound sense of the importance of life. Perhaps
   1.395 +     they are good cryonics targets.
   1.396 +
   1.397 +</div></div>
   1.398 +<div class="project"><h2>lead bone</h2><div class="description">Could you fill in all the empty spaces in a bone with
   1.399 +               lead? Might be cool.
   1.400 +
   1.401 +</div></div>
   1.402 +<div class="project"><h2>the quest for life </h2><div class="description">Every stupid story has the "immortal who
   1.403 +     wants to become mortal" or some other such idea. I want to story
   1.404 +     where the protagonist loses their immortality and feels <i>angry</i>
   1.405 +     and ashamed about losing something that's so absolutely crucial
   1.406 +     to their identity. A reverse of "death makes life worth living",
   1.407 +     they feel that living forever is what makes life worth
   1.408 +     living. Now they've "lost their sunrise" or their "connection to
   1.409 +     the timeless universe" or something. So they go on a quest to get
   1.410 +     it back, learning about themselves along the way, and regaining
   1.411 +     the precious thing they lost in the beginning.
   1.412 +
   1.413 +</div></div>
   1.414 +<div class="project"><h2>world-map</h2><div class="description">take a small table and paint the continents in
   1.415 +               toothpaste on the table. Make a slightly raised barrier
   1.416 +               around the table. Slowly pour water onto the table, and
   1.417 +               it will form the oceans!
   1.418 +
   1.419 +</div></div>
   1.420 +<div class="project"><h2>stage magic rituals</h2><div class="description">rituals should incorporate elements of stage
   1.421 +     magic. Foe example in Teller's tempest, they have a scene where
   1.422 +     they levitate a crown in front of someone, then put it on his
   1.423 +     head. They also have a wedding ceremony where they levitated the
   1.424 +     bride as well. Actual weddings and other ceremonies should
   1.425 +     incorporate stage magic as an enhancement. 
   1.426 +
   1.427 +</div></div>
   1.428 +<div class="project"><h2>isotope time dilation</h2><div class="description">use a cyclotron to speed up rare isotopes
   1.429 +     developed in nuclear fusion experiments. The relativistic time
   1.430 +     dilation will stop the isotopes from decaying, and allow time to
   1.431 +     study them. This is based on radioactive isotopes that fall
   1.432 +     through the earth's atmosphere that take hundreds of times
   1.433 +     longer to decay than normal.
   1.434 +
   1.435 +</div></div>
   1.436 +<div class="project"><h2>marsupial stimulation</h2><div class="description">You take a freshly pouched marsupial baby,
   1.437 +     and show it videos and other interactive things while it matures
   1.438 +     in the pouch. What mental effects would this have?
   1.439 +
   1.440 +</div></div>
   1.441 +<div class="project"><h2>dynamic re-keying</h2><div class="description">Some older ways of tuning instruments sound
   1.442 +     better, but we use the even-tempered scale today because it makes
   1.443 +     it easier to switch keys. With electronic music, why not make
   1.444 +     key-annotations and dynamically re-tune the piece to sound good
   1.445 +     in the current key? Could be done as a midi+annotation -&gt; midi
   1.446 +     compiler for experimentation.
   1.447 +
   1.448 +</div></div>
   1.449 +<div class="project"><h2>death always implies damage</h2><div class="description">is is possible for a corpse to differ
   1.450 +     from a living person only in the fact that one is dead and the
   1.451 +     other is alive? NO! A corpse must always have some sort of
   1.452 +     molecular damage which causes the loss of function!
   1.453 +
   1.454 +</div></div>
   1.455 +<div class="project"><h2>inner eye</h2><div class="description">Surgically install a bunch of tiny cameras inside a
   1.456 +               person. Then, you can activate them all and get a
   1.457 +               picture of your internal organs for diagnostic
   1.458 +               purposes. 
   1.459 +
   1.460 +</div></div>
   1.461 +<div class="project"><h2>chaos rails</h2><div class="description">should make a visualization of the homoclinic tangle,
   1.462 +                 it's truly beautiful.
   1.463 +
   1.464 +</div></div>
   1.465 +<div class="project"><h2>context gobbler</h2><div class="description">this would be in "inside-out macro" that takes
   1.466 +     the context (like you use for things like error, continuations,
   1.467 +     and friends) and transforms it to something else. Maybe useful?
   1.468 +
   1.469 +</div></div>
   1.470 +<div class="project"><h2>cryonics middle ages</h2><div class="description">some people say that cryonics is an
   1.471 +     experiment and that it is foolish to wait until we have revived a
   1.472 +     human. There is a middle ground where the procedure has a dismal
   1.473 +     success rate on humans, say 1 in 20, so that you'd be a fool to
   1.474 +     try revival. Nonetheless, this very risky procedure could be the
   1.475 +     legal proof of concept needed to create a new class of life
   1.476 +     between "living" and "dead": "stasis".
   1.477 +
   1.478 +</div></div>
   1.479 +<div class="project"><h2>philosophy of the mirror</h2><div class="description">neat thought experiment &ndash; if you take a
   1.480 +     mirror of someone by actually reversing a person's chirality
   1.481 +     molecule by molecule, then will the only be able to read mirror
   1.482 +     writing? The answer is yes, by analogy to a purely mechanical
   1.483 +     scan-tron device. This is one of the only interesting transforms I
   1.484 +     know that can take a human brain and change it in subtle,
   1.485 +     non-destructive ways. It's also an argument against dualism.
   1.486 +
   1.487 +</div></div>
   1.488 +<div class="project"><h2>biosphere in a bottle</h2><div class="description">There are around 15 million species. 15
   1.489 +     million stem cells will fill only a tiny size, far less than a cubic
   1.490 +     inch. Preserve a single cell from every species on earth in this
   1.491 +     small space, and you will have a record of our current biosphere
   1.492 +     that can be protected. "Hold the genetic data of all species in
   1.493 +     your hand!"
   1.494 +
   1.495 +</div></div>
   1.496 +<div class="project"><h2>chaos lock</h2><div class="description">The "arrow of time" points in the direction of
   1.497 +                increasing entropy. The time evolution of chaotic
   1.498 +                systems depend exquisitely on their initial state. If
   1.499 +                you take a measurement of a chaotic system at any
   1.500 +                given point of time, you can evolve that system
   1.501 +                backwards or forwards based on your measurement. So
   1.502 +                let's say you start the chaotic system in a VERY low
   1.503 +                entropy state, then let it run for a while, then take
   1.504 +                a measurement with some uncertainty. Your
   1.505 +                measurement is pretty good, but obviously not
   1.506 +                PERFECT. If you evolve the chaotic system back in
   1.507 +                time, then you will see that you don't really reach
   1.508 +                a state with low entropy an hour before (the entropy
   1.509 +                is easy to measure with surrogates like alignment,
   1.510 +                etc). So use this technique to SEARCH for a more
   1.511 +                accurate measurement! This potentially can give you
   1.512 +                many more orders of magnitude than you could get alone
   1.513 +                just using an instrument. Sometimes it will give you
   1.514 +                bad results, the the odds of it doing that are
   1.515 +                infinitesimal, and you can just measure a couple of
   1.516 +                times. 
   1.517 +
   1.518 +</div></div>
   1.519 +<div class="project"><h2>cryo-evolution</h2><div class="description">perhaps there would be a way to rapidly evolve a
   1.520 +                    symbiotic bacterial organism that could protect
   1.521 +                    human tissues from freezing damage.
   1.522 +
   1.523 +</div></div>
   1.524 +<div class="project"><h2>suicide parasite</h2><div class="description">sometimes, people kill themselves for no good
   1.525 +     reason. We often explain this with things like "hidden
   1.526 +     depression" or we say that they had something like chronic jaw or
   1.527 +     back pain. I think that smells of rationalization. I don't buy
   1.528 +     it. I propose that in many suicide cases there is a disease that
   1.529 +     causes the suicidal behavior. We already know that certain
   1.530 +     parasites have mind-bending properties in other animals, even
   1.531 +     mammals like mice. It's not much of a stretch to imagine a
   1.532 +     parasite that causes suicides in humans. Some problems:
   1.533 +
   1.534 +<dl><dt>What does the suicide parasite get out of it?</dt>
   1.535 +<dd>This might be answered by the whole thing being a glitch caused by cross-species contamination. Toxoplasma works this way.
   1.536 +</dd>
   1.537 +<dt>What predictions does a disease model make</dt><dd>suicide should
   1.538 +          be more common among people who share a contagion
   1.539 +          vector. There should be suicides that don't make any
   1.540 +          sense : people who weren't really depressed, who had no
   1.541 +          reason to kill themselves. People who have killed themselves
   1.542 +          should have a higher incidence of some unknown parasite in
   1.543 +          their brains. 
   1.544 +
   1.545 +</dd>
   1.546 +</dl>
   1.547 +</div>
   1.548 +
   1.549 +</div></div>
   1.550 +<div class="project"><h2>domestic insects</h2><div class="description">People should eat more bugs because they're much
   1.551 +     more efficient, so why not do some major domestication research
   1.552 +     to make very appealing bugs? Beetles, in particular, seem to be
   1.553 +     excellent targets for domestication because they have extreme
   1.554 +     levels of genetic malleability.
   1.555 +
   1.556 +</div></div>
   1.557 +<div class="project"><h2>birth-clones</h2><div class="description">What if each person was intentionally split at birth
   1.558 +                  into a normal embryo and a few "backup" cells which
   1.559 +                  is then frozen. The backup cells are created just
   1.560 +                  the same way as natural identical twins. The backups
   1.561 +                  can be used to regenerate organs. etc. Also, it
   1.562 +                  would be a good sci fi concept, because you could
   1.563 +                  have a culture where people reward people who were
   1.564 +                  especially awesome are "reborn" from their
   1.565 +                  backups. Imagine having a young Bach every
   1.566 +                  generation, etc.
   1.567 +
   1.568 +</div></div>
   1.569 +<div class="project"><h2>pronunciation guide</h2><div class="description">a simple webpage where you type in a word and
   1.570 +     it returns a simple, English sentence describing exactly how to
   1.571 +     pronounce the word. For people who don't want to learn IPA. 
   1.572 +
   1.573 +</div></div>
   1.574 +<div class="project"><h2>cortex-search</h2><div class="description">use the repertoire of actions learned to limit the
   1.575 +                   search space of possible actions.
   1.576 +
   1.577 +</div></div>
   1.578 +<div class="project"><h2>learning to teleport</h2><div class="description">scifi idea, this is a story about a person
   1.579 +     who is struggling with his/her society's ideas about
   1.580 +     teleportation. It's considered a fundamental part of being a
   1.581 +     member of that society (after all, the difference between animals
   1.582 +     and humans is that humans are creatures of pure information while
   1.583 +     animals are burdened with base matter, "that's how you travel the
   1.584 +     stars, etc") Humans are born normally, grow up, and then
   1.585 +     eventually transcend via destructive upload. Analogies to jumping
   1.586 +     off a diving board into a pool (which I simply <i>could not do</i> for
   1.587 +     a long time), etc.     
   1.588 +
   1.589 +</div></div>
   1.590 +<div class="project"><h2>no-float-ice</h2><div class="description">cup that has cross beams at the bottom where ice
   1.591 +                  forms. Then when you drink liquid from the glass,
   1.592 +                  the ice stays at the bottom and doesn't hit your
   1.593 +                  lips. For bars and fancy things.
   1.594 +
   1.595 +</div></div>
   1.596 +<div class="project"><h2>bitcoins for immigrants</h2><div class="description">A common case with Mexican immigrants
   1.597 +     (illegal or not) is that they want to send money they've earned
   1.598 +     in the US back to their families in Mexico. They currently do this
   1.599 +     through things like Money Gram or Western Union, and they get
   1.600 +     fleeced in the process with fees. Bitcoin could greatly reduce
   1.601 +     the cost of sending money from America to Mexico, but I don't
   1.602 +     believe that it's currently used for that among Mexican
   1.603 +     immigrants currently due to lack of knowledge. I bet you could
   1.604 +     set up physical locations like those obnoxious Western Union huts
   1.605 +     in places like Texas, Arizona, etc, and greatly undercut
   1.606 +     them. Or, perhaps some educational seminars about bitcoin might
   1.607 +     be in order. There's some money to be made there because there is
   1.608 +     great demand, and it's a good thing to boot!
   1.609 +
   1.610 +</div></div>
   1.611 +<div class="project"><h2>reverse eye-tracking</h2><div class="description">A painting that is actually a digital screen
   1.612 +     with a camera. It records people's eye tracks permanently. It's
   1.613 +     "artistic" because paintings are normally these things that you
   1.614 +     look at without changing, but this one is changed the second you
   1.615 +     look at it, recording where <i>you</i> looked forever for others to
   1.616 +     see. Make it be a painting of a woman and see the trolling as the
   1.617 +     breasts and groin area light up with interest from all the males
   1.618 +     passing by.
   1.619 +
   1.620 +</div></div>
   1.621 +<div class="project"><h2>smart toilets</h2><div class="description">Instead of using indirect measures like infrared
   1.622 +                   detectors of the presence of a person, use computer
   1.623 +                   vision to directly measure whether the toilet needs
   1.624 +                   to be flushed. I think a lot of things will end up
   1.625 +                   going this way as we get better computer vision.
   1.626 +
   1.627 +</div></div>
   1.628 +<div class="project"><h2>validate chemopreservation</h2><div class="description">chemopreservation is difficult to
   1.629 +     validate because it destroys the functionality of a brain, and
   1.630 +     brain simulation will take a long time to mature as a
   1.631 +     technology. However, one very powerful way to validate
   1.632 +     chemopreservation would be to have a person/animal learn
   1.633 +     something with high complexity such as a number or the solution
   1.634 +     to a maze, or a flashbulb memory. Then you preserve their brain
   1.635 +     chemically, slice it up, and read <i>that specific memory</i> from the
   1.636 +     detailed brain scan. Much more difficult, but much more doable.
   1.637 +
   1.638 +</div></div>
   1.639 +<div class="project"><h2>candy screw</h2><div class="description">edible candy screw with candy nuts that you can screw
   1.640 +                 as well. 
   1.641 +
   1.642 +</div></div>
   1.643 +<div class="project"><h2>better bibliography</h2><div class="description">when writing a thesis or paper, have the
   1.644 +     bibliography not just be an opaque list of resources, but have it
   1.645 +     be a list of <i>summaries</i> and <i>qualities</i> that each paper has in
   1.646 +     the context of the paper being written. When examining a
   1.647 +     bibliography, I want to know if reading the papers in the
   1.648 +     bibliography are worth my time, and I also am probably also
   1.649 +     interested in exactly the things that are being discussed in the
   1.650 +     paper I'm reading. The bibliography is the perfect place to
   1.651 +     provide information about the referenced papers from the
   1.652 +     author's perspective. I will use this biographic form in my own
   1.653 +     thesis. 
   1.654 +
   1.655 +</div></div>
   1.656 +<div class="project"><h2>digital inter-library loan</h2><div class="description">libraries at universities already do
   1.657 +     inter-library loans for books, so why not do the same for access
   1.658 +     to stupid paywalled digital papers? All the universities could
   1.659 +     allow access to articles for registered students to all the files
   1.660 +     available through any participating university. This could be
   1.661 +     achieved by sending requests through proxies at participating
   1.662 +     universities. Each university would decide who at the university
   1.663 +     can access the proxy network. Access to the proxy network could
   1.664 +     be made easy using something like <a href="http://libx.org/">http://libx.org/</a>.
   1.665 +
   1.666 +</div></div>
   1.667 +<div class="project"><h2>chess visual</h2><div class="description">to show the vast size of the game trees considered
   1.668 +                  by computers, show two people playing chess in a
   1.669 +                  void. They are floating in space, and there is a
   1.670 +                  simple chess board between them. Then, as they play,
   1.671 +                  the game tree's they are considering are drawn
   1.672 +                  behind him. The root of the tree starts centered in
   1.673 +                  their heads or whatever they use to think, and the
   1.674 +                  tree grows out from behind, never crossing the
   1.675 +                  dividing plane between the two players. Each
   1.676 +                  player's tree is a different color. As they grow,
   1.677 +                  there are animations for pruning, etc. Eventually,
   1.678 +                  they look like the hemispheres of a brain, wings,
   1.679 +                  etc. A human's tree might occasionally have a long
   1.680 +                  chain, while the computer tree would be more
   1.681 +                  uniform. You could compare deep blue and a modern
   1.682 +                  laptop. Use actual data when fighting two computers! 
   1.683 +
   1.684 +</div></div>
   1.685 +<div class="project"><h2>time verification</h2><div class="description">some standard way to verify that some piece of
   1.686 +     data was recorded at a specific time. Might involve a time
   1.687 +     server, a key for each time period, something like that.
   1.688 +
   1.689 +</div></div>
   1.690 +<div class="project"><h2>tamper proof gold bars</h2><div class="description"><a href="http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/gold-plated-tungsten-alloy-bar.html">this site</a> offers gold plated tungsten bars
   1.691 +     as "novelty" items. One reason to prefer coins is because they
   1.692 +     are much harder to counterfeit because there is less surface area
   1.693 +     to mass ratio. However, gold bars are still a great design
   1.694 +     because they can hold a lot of value in a small space. A gold bar
   1.695 +     could be given the same protections (and more) that gold coins
   1.696 +     have to offer by changing it into a "gold book", which would have
   1.697 +     hundreds of "pages" of gold bound together. This could be
   1.698 +     implemented with multiple steel rods going through the book which
   1.699 +     can be removed, or some more classier mechanism for holding the
   1.700 +     pages. The point is that the bar can be EASILY subdivided (and
   1.701 +     people would perform this test before buying), thus guaranteeing
   1.702 +     it's authenticity.
   1.703 +
   1.704 +</div></div>
   1.705 +<div class="project"><h2>aurellem shirt</h2><div class="description">I should make an aurellem star symbol tee-shirt. 
   1.706 +
   1.707 +</div></div>
   1.708 +<div class="project"><h2>touch vision</h2><div class="description">inspired by GelSight, I want to reexamine cortex and
   1.709 +                  see if I could implement touch as a very low range
   1.710 +                  form of vision.
   1.711 +
   1.712 +</div></div>
   1.713 +<div class="project"><h2>high school science</h2><div class="description">this is a lesson in scientific ethics. The
   1.714 +     goal is to calculate <i>g</i>, the local gravitational
   1.715 +     acceleration. The students are told that the textbook says it's
   1.716 +     <i>exactly</i> 9.81 before they start the experiment. See how they
   1.717 +     doctor their results to get closer to the textbook value. It's
   1.718 +     neat because for any given school, <i>g</i> is probably <b>not</b> exactly
   1.719 +     equal to 9.81, because that is just an average!
   1.720 +
   1.721 +</div></div>
   1.722 +<div class="project"><h2>opencourseware subtitles</h2><div class="description">there are ladies who type up lectures
   1.723 +     while they are being given. These recordings should be kept and
   1.724 +     given to OCW for subtitles. If the timestamps of keys are
   1.725 +     recorded, then it is easy to make subtitles.
   1.726 +
   1.727 +</div></div>
   1.728 +<div class="project"><h2>screen locking timing</h2><div class="description">you use your computer camera to see if you
   1.729 +     are sitting in front of the computer. If you are, then the screen
   1.730 +     will never lock. If you are, then the screen will lock with a
   1.731 +     30-40 second timeout. It's an extension of using inactivity to
   1.732 +     initiate the countdown, just with more information.
   1.733 +
   1.734 +</div></div>
   1.735 +<div class="project"><h2>mirror toilet</h2><div class="description">a toilet with a square basin made or mirror instead
   1.736 +                   or porcelain. That way, you can see how good of a
   1.737 +                   wipe job you have done / watch how your excretion
   1.738 +                   system works.
   1.739 +
   1.740 +</div></div>
   1.741 +<div class="project"><h2>test dummies</h2><div class="description">why don't we clone anencephalic humans and use then to
   1.742 +                  test <i>in vivo</i> human organ systems and drugs? It
   1.743 +                  would be ethical as long as there are women who are
   1.744 +                  willing to host the clones, and it would be a
   1.745 +                  tremendous resource for studying the human body. I
   1.746 +                  see nothing wrong with it morally, since no one is
   1.747 +                  suffering, and it stands to save many lives throughout
   1.748 +                  more advanced technology.
   1.749 +
   1.750 +</div></div>
   1.751 +<div class="project"><h2>X-ray telepresence</h2><div class="description">given that a doctor is operating on a patient
   1.752 +     via telepresence, one cool things you can do is shine X-rays into
   1.753 +     the patient to view the insides during real time. If the system
   1.754 +     was coupled with a Bayesian model of the layout of the structure,
   1.755 +     and the x-rays were only fired whenever the uncertainty of the
   1.756 +     model reached a certain threshold, then the radiation damage
   1.757 +     and surgery risk could be minimized.
   1.758 +
   1.759 +</div></div>
   1.760 +<div class="project"><h2>superfluid vascular system</h2><div class="description">I wonder what would happen if you
   1.761 +     replaced the blood in a human with a superfluid. What would the
   1.762 +     physical dynamics be? Would the superfluid flow through the
   1.763 +     vasculature, or would it ignore it and travel through the cells,
   1.764 +     or something else entirely. Since superfluids need to be cold to
   1.765 +     retain their superfluidity, how would the dynamics change during
   1.766 +     perfusion of a superfluid, where the fluid gains and looses
   1.767 +     superfluidity as it goes deeper into the body and is cooled by
   1.768 +     superfluid from upstream. In summary there are two things to
   1.769 +     simulate 1.) replace all blood in human with superfluid
   1.770 +     instantly. 2.) perfuse superfluid into human.
   1.771 +
   1.772 +</div></div>
   1.773 +<div class="project"><h2>projective guessing</h2><div class="description">I think that we read and see things by
   1.774 +     making a really good guess about what we're expecting to see,
   1.775 +     and then searching for our guess in what we see. If it really
   1.776 +     doesn't match, then we start to make more guesses / analyze the
   1.777 +     image from first principles, but most stuff is projective
   1.778 +     guessing.
   1.779 +
   1.780 +</div></div>
   1.781 +<div class="project"><h2>Intestinal flora maintenance</h2><div class="description">why not inoculate babies at birth
   1.782 +     with "ideal" gut flora instead of whatever bullshit they
   1.783 +     naturally get, thus giving them optimal digestive/nutrient
   1.784 +     extraction capabilities. Might also be able to make their farts
   1.785 +     not stink for life, too. MORE IMPORTANTLY, might help to
   1.786 +     preventatively stop some forms of <i>colic</i>, which affects 1 in 5
   1.787 +     babies and causes constant screaming and pain for about 5 weeks.
   1.788 +
   1.789 +</div></div>
   1.790 +<div class="project"><h2>server culture : mirrors</h2><div class="description">make a distributed system where people
   1.791 +     can mirror the websites of people they like &ndash; essentially cover
   1.792 +     the server costs of favored websites. This could make popular
   1.793 +     websites run at no cost. The system would require that the
   1.794 +     mirrored content be the same as the official source. Sort of like
   1.795 +     bit-torrent for websites.
   1.796 +
   1.797 +</div></div>
   1.798 +<div class="project"><h2>map programming</h2><div class="description">one problem with functional programming is that
   1.799 +     in order to remain functional, you have to pass up arguments up
   1.800 +     into each calling function to get the full range of behavior
   1.801 +     from the lower level functions. Normally people come to a
   1.802 +     compromise involving abstraction and sparing use of dynamic
   1.803 +     variables to configure runtime behavior. What would be the
   1.804 +     advantages of making a programming language where every function
   1.805 +     receives one argument, a map, which contains all the symbol
   1.806 +     bindings it would ever need? This map is passed on to all
   1.807 +     subordinate functions. This way, you could replace functions on
   1.808 +     the fly, and arrange for there to be sensible defaults,
   1.809 +     etc. Might cause more harm than good but is an interesting idea.
   1.810 +
   1.811 +</div></div>
   1.812 +<div class="project"><h2>rest nest</h2><div class="description">a small EEG device you would attach to your head when
   1.813 +               you go to sleep at night. ML algorithms would determine
   1.814 +               your particular sleep cycles. This would mostly be an
   1.815 +               alarm clock that you could give a time range, say
   1.816 +               7:00AM - 7:15AM, and it would wake you up during an
   1.817 +               ideal time corresponding to then end of one of your 90
   1.818 +               min sleep cycles. You would feel much more rested upon
   1.819 +               waking up, and would wake up faster. There might be
   1.820 +               some other uses for the EEG data as well.
   1.821 +
   1.822 +</div></div>
   1.823 +<div class="project"><h2>image compression</h2><div class="description">use a library like gimp or opencv to process an
   1.824 +     image to make it have less entropy, then store the reverse of
   1.825 +     those operations along with the compressed simpler image as a
   1.826 +     super-compressed image file (possibly accepting some
   1.827 +     losses). Trades file size for decompression time, and allows one
   1.828 +     to cheat by using information in gimp/opencv to compress the
   1.829 +     image. 
   1.830 +
   1.831 +</div></div>
   1.832 +<div class="project"><h2>fixed cryopreservation</h2><div class="description">why not use a fixative to buy enough time
   1.833 +     to ramp up cryoprotectants to an acceptable level at room
   1.834 +     temperature? Then, the whole system can be rapidly cooled and
   1.835 +     vitrified. This method "severs the biological link" in that the
   1.836 +     fixatives are highly toxic, but current vitrification procedures
   1.837 +     do this anyway since there can be a lot of freezing damage.
   1.838 +
   1.839 +</div></div>
   1.840 +<div class="project"><h2>dilated security camera</h2><div class="description">a security camera that would capture
   1.841 +     full video footage of everything at 60fps but then decide to keep
   1.842 +     only every 1 frame every 5 seconds unless there's something
   1.843 +     "interesting" happening.
   1.844 +
   1.845 +</div></div>
   1.846 +<div class="project"><h2>bitcoin wallet</h2><div class="description">Part of "server culture", this would be something
   1.847 +                    like "coin.your-domain.com" which would serve as
   1.848 +                    your personal trusted access to your own bitcoins
   1.849 +                    from anywhere.
   1.850 +
   1.851 +</div></div>
   1.852 +<div class="project"><h2>libpay</h2><div class="description">this would be a free library which would enable
   1.853 +            micro-donations to software projects and other projects,
   1.854 +            so that you could donate a penny to "emacs" and it would
   1.855 +            be automatically split up to every person who has ever
   1.856 +            contributed to emacs in proportion to the amount of
   1.857 +            community esteem, code quantity, bugs fixed, whatever the
   1.858 +            community decides. This might make it possible for
   1.859 +            programmers to live entirely off of free programming.
   1.860 +
   1.861 +</div></div>
   1.862 +<div class="project"><h2>distributed graphics</h2><div class="description">Browser based graphics-card accelerated
   1.863 +     distributed computing API.
   1.864 +
   1.865 +</div></div>
   1.866 +<div class="project"><h2>pronouns</h2><div class="description">use capital letters A-Z instead of pronouns. They solve
   1.867 +              pronoun referents and gender neutrality, are short to
   1.868 +              say, and you can encode useful information into the
   1.869 +              choice of letter. For example, instead of "Meetings
   1.870 +              shall be presided over by the president, unless she is
   1.871 +              absent." USE "Meetings shall be presided over by the
   1.872 +              president, unless P is absent." We already use this a
   1.873 +              little, since I and U are reserved for the subject and
   1.874 +              object respectively.
   1.875 +
   1.876 +</div></div>
   1.877 +<div class="project"><h2>phone DSP</h2><div class="description">software app that inserts an audio DSP between the
   1.878 +               input to a phone and the output. The DSP is delicious
   1.879 +               and configurable, and can allow men to make their
   1.880 +               voices deeper, etc. The app would allow you to hear
   1.881 +               your own voice as others hear it. Most people hate how
   1.882 +               their own voice sounds. The app would also allow one to
   1.883 +               immediately change the parameters of the DSP using good
   1.884 +               presets.
   1.885 +
   1.886 +</div></div>
   1.887 +<div class="project"><h2>predestined body learning</h2><div class="description">a good example of predestined learning
   1.888 +     might be the mirror neurons.
   1.889 +
   1.890 +</div></div>
   1.891 +<div class="project"><h2>restaurant receipt</h2><div class="description">use a carbon copy receipt instead of two stupid
   1.892 +     copies. 
   1.893 +
   1.894 +</div></div>
   1.895 +<div class="project"><h2>anti google glass</h2><div class="description">glasses with mounted lasers and computer vision
   1.896 +     that targets the cameras in google glass and destroy them.
   1.897 +
   1.898 +</div></div>
   1.899 +<div class="project"><h2>wearable towel</h2><div class="description">towel with clasp, velcro, whatever, that allows
   1.900 +                    one to wear the towel more securely than just
   1.901 +                    wrapping it tightly and hoping for the best.
   1.902 +
   1.903 +</div></div>
   1.904 +<div class="project"><h2>crossdressing</h2><div class="description">Easiest way to disguise oneself as a woman is to
   1.905 +                   wear a burka.
   1.906 +
   1.907 +</div></div>
   1.908 +<div class="project"><h2>book-mode</h2><div class="description">intelligent color highlighting for books and
   1.909 +               articles. It would disambiguate pronouns and involved
   1.910 +               references. For example, if "Rachael" was assigned the
   1.911 +               color red, and "the blonde haired girl" refers to
   1.912 +               "Rachael", then "the blonde haired girl" would be
   1.913 +               colored red. Also, you could disambiguate multi part
   1.914 +               run-on sentences by highlighting each
   1.915 +               subcomponent. Maybe would also have applications to
   1.916 +               scientific reading.
   1.917 +
   1.918 +</div></div>
   1.919 +<div class="project"><h2>Handheld light Rain measurement</h2><div class="description">this would be a clear, teflon
   1.920 +     coated plastic disk with a camera underneath the disk. You would
   1.921 +     be able to hold the device out and it would measure the rate of
   1.922 +     accumulation of water droplets from fine mists and light rain by
   1.923 +     using computer vision to measure the diameters of the drops.
   1.924 +
   1.925 +</div></div>
   1.926 +<div class="project"><h2>Big Brother Farming</h2><div class="description">This would be a vision system that would
   1.927 +     individually monitor each plant and turn on water, etc to ensure
   1.928 +     maximum/uniform growth for each plant. 
   1.929 +
   1.930 +</div></div>
   1.931 +<div class="project"><h2>Discrete Faucet</h2><div class="description">A faucet with discrete ticks instead of
   1.932 +     continuous. 
   1.933 +
   1.934 +</div></div>
   1.935 +<div class="project"><h2>Laser Circle</h2><div class="description">take a glass microfiliment and shine a laser at one
   1.936 +                  end at an oblique angle. It will make a perfect,
   1.937 +                  large circle on the wall, converting a laser beam
   1.938 +                  into a laser cone, preserving most of the energy of
   1.939 +                  the laser.
   1.940 +
   1.941 +</div></div>
   1.942 +<div class="project"><h2>Invisible Glass</h2><div class="description">Take a container of liquid and embed a
   1.943 +     glass sculpture made out of glass that has exactly the same index
   1.944 +     of refraction and color of the liquid. Then the sculpture will be
   1.945 +     totally invisible in the container, and will only be revealed
   1.946 +     when the liquid is drained. The container might be a fancy
   1.947 +     wine/spirit bottle or an hourglass.
   1.948 +
   1.949 +</div></div>
   1.950 +<div class="project"><h2>Caterpillar people</h2><div class="description">A race of caterpillar like creatures gains
   1.951 +     intelligence after eons of predation by birds, etc. These
   1.952 +     caterpillar creatures still undergo metamorphosis into a large
   1.953 +     butterfly-like creature. The metamorphosis process turns the
   1.954 +     caterpillar's brain into mush and reforms it into a minimal,
   1.955 +     dumb, truly insect-like mind, completely destroying the person
   1.956 +     the caterpillar was. The society develops all sorts of customs and
   1.957 +     religious interpretations of the metamorphosis. It is viewed as
   1.958 +     good and natural by some since it is part of their life cycle and
   1.959 +     necessary to propagate the species, as only the butterflies can
   1.960 +     mate. Some think that the butterflies are still the same person
   1.961 +     because they have the same soul, even they no longer posses the
   1.962 +     memories or personality of the original caterpillar. Some see the
   1.963 +     butterfly form as the "true form" of the species, since the
   1.964 +     butterflies can fly, mate, and are beautiful. Many make a big
   1.965 +     deal out of the fact that 1-2% of the caterpillar's mind is
   1.966 +     actually preserved in the butterfly. Some see it as a terrible
   1.967 +     tragedy and argue that the caterpillars should try to stop the
   1.968 +     metamorphosis by technology. Practically, some very important
   1.969 +     members of society undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery to
   1.970 +     prevent metamorphosis so that they can live longer as themselves.
   1.971 +
   1.972 +<p>
   1.973 +     This is a continuation of Marvin Minsky's ideas about pain being
   1.974 +     something that preserves our bodies while destroying our minds,
   1.975 +     something that is a remnant from our too harsh animal days that
   1.976 +     hasn't caught up to the fact that we have very complex brains
   1.977 +     now. It's a worst-case scenario about a maladaptive genetic
   1.978 +     legacy. Also, it's inspired by "There She Is!!!", which makes a
   1.979 +     compelling point about homosexuality by introducing a second
   1.980 +     gender characteristic (bunny/cat, male/female), which makes
   1.981 +     homophobia look very silly. Here, our own biological legacy of
   1.982 +     pain and death is made to look like the tragedy it is through the
   1.983 +     lens of the the caterpillar people.
   1.984 +</p>
   1.985 +</div></div>
   1.986 +<div class="project"><h2>relationships as a business</h2><div class="description"><a href="http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx">Turnover-Crisis</a> is an excellent talk
   1.987 +     about the "culture of quitting," which is about better business
   1.988 +     by letting people go instead of keeping them around past their
   1.989 +     "apex". Focuses on information transfer. Cool idea of an alumni
   1.990 +     network, which for relationships would be a group of satisfied
   1.991 +     ex-lovers, who would recommend new people your way, and who might
   1.992 +     consider coming to you again, refreshed from their time away with
   1.993 +     new stories/experiences. I should look for examples of this and
   1.994 +     how they worked out.
   1.995 +
   1.996 +</div></div>
   1.997 +<div class="project"><h2>coffee with tea</h2><div class="description"><i>rlm-tea</i> contains 2% sugar, 10% cream, and 20%
   1.998 +                    dylan coffee. <i>dylan coffee</i> contains 5% sugar,
   1.999 +                    20% cream, and 10% rlm-tea. Start your mornings
  1.1000 +                    with recursion!
  1.1001 +
  1.1002 +</div></div>
  1.1003 +<div class="project"><h2>psychic crystal</h2><div class="description">in a science fiction story, this would be an
  1.1004 +     object that is very easy to move physically but is extremely
  1.1005 +     difficult to move with telekinesis.
  1.1006 +
  1.1007 +</div></div>
  1.1008 +<div class="project"><h2><a href="http://betsofbitco.in/">http://betsofbitco.in/</a></h2><div class="description">what a great place for an AI/person to
  1.1009 +     prove themselves as a good predictor. I wish this could be
  1.1010 +     automated. 
  1.1011 +
  1.1012 +</div></div>
  1.1013 +<div class="project"><h2>true reflection</h2><div class="description">don't forget about that mirror in the student
  1.1014 +     center!, it's two mirrors at right angles, like staring at a
  1.1015 +     corner of a room. The light reflects so that it shows you what
  1.1016 +     you actually look like, instead of your mirror image.
  1.1017 +
  1.1018 +</div></div>
  1.1019 +<div class="project"><h2>remote control wasp</h2><div class="description">use computer to drive wings with remote
  1.1020 +  power/logic.
  1.1021 +
  1.1022 +</div></div>
  1.1023 +<div class="project"><h2>encrypted email phone book</h2><div class="description">public (distributed?) database of
  1.1024 +     email-&gt;private-key pairs, to enable automatic encryption.
  1.1025 +
  1.1026 +</div></div>
  1.1027 +<div class="project"><h2>universal eye color</h2><div class="description">every equivalent creature will see each
  1.1028 +     others' eyes as black &ndash; it's universal. Even if the creatures
  1.1029 +     see in radio waves, and their eyes are 2m long pieces of jagged
  1.1030 +     metal, when those creatures look at each other, they will see
  1.1031 +     black, the absence of light and color (since it's being absorbed
  1.1032 +     by the sensor array).
  1.1033 +
  1.1034 +</div></div>
  1.1035 +<div class="project"><h2>intelligent microwave</h2><div class="description">it learns where the hot nodes of its fields
  1.1036 +  are, and uses them to evenly heat any food item. It has an infrared
  1.1037 +  camera or something to keep track of how hot the food is. That way,
  1.1038 +  you don't get bowls where the edges are boiling, while the center is
  1.1039 +  still frozen. Requires a little bit of intelligence/vision, since
  1.1040 +  the exact pattern of heating totally depends on the exact shape of
  1.1041 +  the food.  Wouldn't need a carousel, and wouldn't need a timer,
  1.1042 +  just a desired temperature. Could also detect ice, and automatically
  1.1043 +  defrost the parts which are frozen. Might be able to work much
  1.1044 +  faster since it can avoid overheating; might have problems with
  1.1045 +  heating the insides of thick things, might need a weight sensor too.
  1.1046 +
  1.1047 +<ul>
  1.1048 +<li>Would be much cleaner than other microwaves, since food would
  1.1049 +    "sputter" and splash liquid much less.
  1.1050 +
  1.1051 +</li>
  1.1052 +<li>Throw in some SIFT+R processing to match previously cooked foods
  1.1053 +    and learn the exact heating profiles for things that have been
  1.1054 +    cooked before &ndash; it can get faster the more it's used.
  1.1055 +
  1.1056 +</li>
  1.1057 +</ul>
  1.1058 +
  1.1059 +</div></div>
  1.1060 +<div class="project"><h2>compression</h2><div class="description">brain-aware image compression algorithm
  1.1061 +
  1.1062 +</div></div>
  1.1063 +<div class="project"><h2>Credit card proxy</h2><div class="description">would be a company which works like paypal
  1.1064 +     except for real world transactions
  1.1065 +
  1.1066 +</div></div>
  1.1067 +<div class="project"><h2>Flesh pillow</h2><div class="description">a pillow like the arm or torso of a human, complete
  1.1068 +                  with simulated temperature, bones, and heartbeat.
  1.1069 +
  1.1070 +</div></div>
  1.1071 +<div class="project"><h2>super screw</h2><div class="description">a screw which has only one or two threads and instead
  1.1072 +                 uses compression to fit into a hole (the whole shank
  1.1073 +                 of the screw is split into multiple pieces to
  1.1074 +                 accomplish this; the tip is a point, then the middle
  1.1075 +                 bulges out and gets compressed when screwed in.
  1.1076 +
  1.1077 +</div></div>
  1.1078 +<div class="project"><h2>light filter</h2><div class="description">(like light tweezers) to mechanically separate
  1.1079 +                  fluids with different index of refraction
  1.1080 +
  1.1081 +</div></div>
  1.1082 +<div class="project"><h2>chalk eraser project</h2><div class="description">maybe make a directional eraser, for easy
  1.1083 +     release of chalk dust, like fur, and how it likes to rest in a
  1.1084 +     certain direction.
  1.1085 +
  1.1086 +</div></div>
  1.1087 +<div class="project"><h2>silver socks</h2><div class="description">socks laced with silver for the antimicrobial
  1.1088 +                  properties.
  1.1089 +
  1.1090 +</div></div>
  1.1091 +<div class="project"><h2>UROP</h2><div class="description">magnet gear/metal teeth tape 
  1.1092 +
  1.1093 +</div></div>
  1.1094 +<div class="project"><h2>Rod of Moses</h2><div class="description">device to distill urine through evaporation and
  1.1095 +                  easily dispose of urea crystals for use in desert --
  1.1096 +                  produce drinkable water.
  1.1097 +
  1.1098 +</div></div>
  1.1099 +<div class="project"><h2>UROP</h2><div class="description">Make the LED in line with the flow for the micro injector, so
  1.1100 +          that it may transmit maximum flow.  Motor that changes
  1.1101 +          distance of internal magnet from windings depending on
  1.1102 +          desired speed so as to obtain maximum power efficiency.
  1.1103 +
  1.1104 +</div></div>
  1.1105 +<div class="project"><h2>lottery scraper</h2><div class="description">web scraper which monitors various lotteries,
  1.1106 +     looking for "special" gimmick changes in the rules (like 4x
  1.1107 +     winnings on Wednesdays) and computes expected value&hellip;
  1.1108 +
  1.1109 +</div></div>
  1.1110 +<div class="project"><h2>Memristiors novel design</h2><div class="description">make an evolutionary algorithm to make
  1.1111 +  old stuff using all four basic circuit elements.
  1.1112 +
  1.1113 +</div></div>
  1.1114 +<div class="project"><h2>Conductive concrete</h2><div class="description">concrete that has embedded metal fibers so
  1.1115 +     that it can conduct electricity.
  1.1116 +
  1.1117 +</div></div>
  1.1118 +<div class="project"><h2>little bitty melting pot</h2><div class="description">might be useful for some types of
  1.1119 +     manufacturing/3D printing &ndash; how small can an induction melter be
  1.1120 +     made, for example.
  1.1121 +
  1.1122 +</div></div>
  1.1123 +<div class="project"><h2>power strip/timer programmable combination</h2><div class="description">meh
  1.1124 +</div></div>
  1.1125 +
  1.1126 +<div class="project"><h2>algorithms...</h2><div class="description">which learn what their inputs are and in what order,
  1.1127 +               and can adapt to changing circumstances &ndash; they
  1.1128 +               remember previous arguments and adapt so as to respond
  1.1129 +               to different connections.
  1.1130 +
  1.1131 +</div></div>
  1.1132 +<div class="project"><h2>true pure tones</h2><div class="description">hear a true pure tone by direct stimulation of the
  1.1133 +     nerves of the ear
  1.1134 +
  1.1135 +</div></div>
  1.1136 +<div class="project"><h2>mechanical analogue to the electrical op-amp</h2><div class="description">would be an object
  1.1137 +     with two levers &ndash; you pull on one lever and the other moves the
  1.1138 +     same way, no matter what's in the way or what it is driving. This
  1.1139 +     analogy could be useful to teach op amps to people.
  1.1140 +
  1.1141 +</div></div>
  1.1142 +<div class="project"><h2>paper folding device</h2><div class="description">make it convenient to fold lots of papers in
  1.1143 +     various ways.
  1.1144 +
  1.1145 +</div></div>
  1.1146 +<div class="project"><h2>concrete epoxy</h2><div class="description">epoxy with sand/ some other solid material.
  1.1147 +
  1.1148 +</div></div>
  1.1149 +<div class="project"><h2>light capacitor</h2><div class="description">suspend some ball of material with a high index
  1.1150 +     of refraction and shine light into it so it gets stuck &ndash; would
  1.1151 +     the light stay trapped forever? Could you build up unlimited
  1.1152 +     quantities of light inside the sphere (which could then be
  1.1153 +     released slowly by frustrated internal reflection?
  1.1154 +
  1.1155 +</div></div>
  1.1156 +<div class="project"><h2>movie screening</h2><div class="description">Movies always are too long at first. One way to
  1.1157 +     shorten them ``scientifically" is to record blink rate during the
  1.1158 +     move and then remove / shorten the frames of the parts in which
  1.1159 +     there are a lot of blinking (average this over multiple people)
  1.1160 +     better yet, put it online and do it across thousands of people. I
  1.1161 +     got this from youtube in which there is an episode of kill bill
  1.1162 +     which is composed entirely of the parts in which people had their
  1.1163 +     eyes closed. slogan: want to make a movie people can't take their
  1.1164 +     eyes off of? Just take those parts out!
  1.1165 +
  1.1166 +</div></div>
  1.1167 +<div class="project"><h2>optimize an article</h2><div class="description">capture reading of a scientific article via
  1.1168 +     screen capture while people read it, then use it to make the
  1.1169 +     article better. like the movie-pruning idea.
  1.1170 +
  1.1171 +</div></div>
  1.1172 +<div class="project"><h2>super reading program</h2><div class="description">teaches people the ideal mental mask to
  1.1173 +     apply during reading so as to read very fast.
  1.1174 +
  1.1175 +</div></div>
  1.1176 +<div class="project"><h2>explosive thermite epoxy putty</h2><div class="description">one part would contain the rust,
  1.1177 +     one part the aluminum.
  1.1178 +
  1.1179 +</div></div>
  1.1180 +<div class="project"><h2>reading comprehension</h2><div class="description">use the above screen capture routine to
  1.1181 +     make a quiz program that constructs questions about the content
  1.1182 +     you seemed to gloss over while reading. could be easy if the pdf
  1.1183 +     came with embedded questions.  Dylan: automatically generate
  1.1184 +     word-cloud about the parts you found most interesting; help
  1.1185 +     others who read the same stuff by drawing attention to the
  1.1186 +     interesting parts.
  1.1187 +
  1.1188 +</div></div>
  1.1189 +<div class="project"><h2>hard sword</h2><div class="description">make a samurai sword, but use osmiridum instead of
  1.1190 +                martensite for the cutting part; it should be a better
  1.1191 +                sword.
  1.1192 +
  1.1193 +</div></div>
  1.1194 +<div class="project"><h2>close range wireless</h2><div class="description">use the induction technology used to
  1.1195 +     recharge electric toothbrushes with no metal links to send data
  1.1196 +     without any metal at all!
  1.1197 +
  1.1198 +</div></div>
  1.1199 +<div class="project"><h2>reading</h2><div class="description">is a form of synsethesia
  1.1200 +
  1.1201 +</div></div>
  1.1202 +<div class="project"><h2>DNA printer</h2><div class="description">A machine which translates the text eg, "ACTGAC" into
  1.1203 +                  actual DNA
  1.1204 +
  1.1205 +</div></div>
  1.1206 +<div class="project"><h2>black generator</h2><div class="description">ferro-fluid magnetic field suspended micro
  1.1207 +     generator to make electricity
  1.1208 +
  1.1209 +</div></div>
  1.1210 +<div class="project"><h2>alcohol battery</h2><div class="description">alcohol/fluid flow powered battery
  1.1211 +
  1.1212 +</div></div>
  1.1213 +<div class="project"><h2>folding razor blade sword</h2><div class="description">
  1.1214 +
  1.1215 +</div></div>
  1.1216 +<div class="project"><h2>perfect pitch</h2><div class="description">learn perfect pitch using another sense in
  1.1217 +                   combination (sight or touch)
  1.1218 +
  1.1219 +</div></div>
  1.1220 +<div class="project"><h2>kaleidoscope projector</h2><div class="description">
  1.1221 +
  1.1222 +</div></div>
  1.1223 +<div class="project"><h2>razor blade de-sharpener</h2><div class="description">for guilt free disposal
  1.1224 +
  1.1225 +</div></div>
  1.1226 +<div class="project"><h2>bricks</h2><div class="description">filled with luminescent plant material
  1.1227 +
  1.1228 +</div></div>
  1.1229 +<div class="project"><h2>bio metallic structure</h2><div class="description">metal grids with seeds inside, which grow
  1.1230 +     together and form a durable biological matrix. The metal
  1.1231 +     substrate delivers water. (maybe use plastic instead of metal?)
  1.1232 +     Dylan: enrich plants with inorganic compounds; electrical
  1.1233 +     interfaces in cellular plant matter =&gt; remote-controlled
  1.1234 +     photosynthetic/bioluminescent structures.
  1.1235 +
  1.1236 +</div></div>
  1.1237 +<div class="project"><h2>conducting extracellular matrix</h2><div class="description">to allow better control of
  1.1238 +     organic systems and an enhanced nervous system.
  1.1239 +
  1.1240 +</div></div>
  1.1241 +<div class="project"><h2>cross-modal memory hashing</h2><div class="description">a way to retrieve memories more
  1.1242 +     robustly. 
  1.1243 +
  1.1244 +</div></div>
  1.1245 +<div class="project"><h2>flossing thimble-guards</h2><div class="description">(these actually exist)
  1.1246 +
  1.1247 +</div></div>
  1.1248 +<div class="project"><h2>rules + lattice learning</h2><div class="description">integrate lattice learning with rules by
  1.1249 +     generating hypothetical examples
  1.1250 +
  1.1251 +</div></div>
  1.1252 +<div class="project"><h2>wooden refrigerator</h2><div class="description">to give food a better taste Dylan: like
  1.1253 +     barrels for wine, or planks for salmon. Maybe just have "flavor
  1.1254 +     planks" for your pre-existing fridge. Need to mitigate effect of
  1.1255 +     temperature on volatility?
  1.1256 +
  1.1257 +</div></div>
  1.1258 +<div class="project"><h2>radioactive transmutation molecule by molecule</h2><div class="description">create precious
  1.1259 +     metals or something else economically advantageous.
  1.1260 +
  1.1261 +</div></div>
  1.1262 +<div class="project"><h2>crowd preservation</h2><div class="description">inoculate food with tons of harmless
  1.1263 +     bacteria so that there's no room for bad bacteria as a method of
  1.1264 +     preservation
  1.1265 +
  1.1266 +</div></div>
  1.1267 +<div class="project"><h2>old school preservation</h2><div class="description">Pasteur - style holding jar with siphon
  1.1268 +     as a way to store liquids at room temperature indefinitely w/o
  1.1269 +     refrigeration.
  1.1270 +
  1.1271 +</div></div>
  1.1272 +<div class="project"><h2>restaurant policy</h2><div class="description">Throw rude people out of restaurant as a matter
  1.1273 +     of course &ndash; make ambiance much better.
  1.1274 +
  1.1275 +</div></div>
  1.1276 +<div class="project"><h2>clean windows</h2><div class="description">make something that mixes soap with fire hydrant
  1.1277 +                   water (and reduces the pressure a bit) and use it
  1.1278 +                   to clean windows of buildings.
  1.1279 +
  1.1280 +</div></div>
  1.1281 +<div class="project"><h2>ocarina</h2><div class="description">make an ocarina out of pure silver
  1.1282 +
  1.1283 +</div></div>
  1.1284 +<div class="project"><h2>fire pen</h2><div class="description">pen which burns words on to the page, thus never needing
  1.1285 +              any ink. Is there a way to make it runnable from the
  1.1286 +              human's energy?
  1.1287 +
  1.1288 +</div></div>
  1.1289 +<div class="project"><h2>website to design your own soda</h2><div class="description">and label, and have it mailed to
  1.1290 +     you / sell it from your own online store.
  1.1291 +
  1.1292 +</div></div>
  1.1293 +<div class="project"><h2>solar panels</h2><div class="description">that float on the ocean
  1.1294 +
  1.1295 +</div></div>
  1.1296 +<div class="project"><h2>handcuffs with more than two cuffs (3?)</h2><div class="description">great for daisy chaining
  1.1297 +     people, binding them to environment, etc.
  1.1298 +
  1.1299 +</div></div>
  1.1300 +<div class="project"><h2>vector based SOUND files</h2><div class="description">like the pictures but with SOUND. codify
  1.1301 +     sound in a language with enough symbols so that it can describe
  1.1302 +     everything and encode it in that. would be like going from speech
  1.1303 +     to text or smtg. Could also store sound as an image of the
  1.1304 +     wavefront encoded as a vector image.
  1.1305 +
  1.1306 +</div></div>
  1.1307 +<div class="project"><h2>Mouse</h2><div class="description">with a horizontal scroll wheel in addition to the vertical
  1.1308 +           scroll wheel
  1.1309 +
  1.1310 +</div></div>
  1.1311 +<div class="project"><h2>logic maintenance system for big institutions</h2><div class="description">to make sure the
  1.1312 +     things they are thinking about doing are not retarded
  1.1313 +
  1.1314 +</div></div>
  1.1315 +<div class="project"><h2><a href="http://www.regulations.gov/">http://www.regulations.gov/</a></h2><div class="description">cool site
  1.1316 +
  1.1317 +</div></div>
  1.1318 +<div class="project"><h2>genetically engineered glowing fruit</h2><div class="description">sell seeds?
  1.1319 +
  1.1320 +</div></div>
  1.1321 +<div class="project"><h2>memory slide</h2><div class="description">IF memories are encoded using particular sensory
  1.1322 +                  impressions, what happens if the sensory organ
  1.1323 +                  itself changes? those memories would become
  1.1324 +                  inaccessible. maybe this is why we can't remember
  1.1325 +                  much from our childhoods. also, could this happen
  1.1326 +                  throughout life as well? Could S remember stuff from
  1.1327 +                  his childhood?
  1.1328 +
  1.1329 +</div></div>
  1.1330 +<div class="project"><h2>make a completely indestructible phone</h2><div class="description">no moving parts or display
  1.1331 +     you should be able to slam it around all you want, and it will
  1.1332 +     just work. brutally simple. aerogel around the battery, minimal
  1.1333 +     interface - never gets too hot, and can be dropped into water. no
  1.1334 +     holes &ndash; uses field effects for everything from the buttons to
  1.1335 +     inductive charging and data transfer.
  1.1336 +
  1.1337 +</div></div>
  1.1338 +<div class="project"><h2>midi to ocarina "tabs" program</h2><div class="description">(online website? buy ocarinas from
  1.1339 +     it too)
  1.1340 +
  1.1341 +</div></div>
  1.1342 +<div class="project"><h2>3d printing with sound pulses (or just patterns)</h2><div class="description">like the 8.03
  1.1343 +     lecture
  1.1344 +
  1.1345 +</div></div>
  1.1346 +<div class="project"><h2>lighter flint on spring</h2><div class="description">make hot, throw it at something, and it
  1.1347 +     makes sparkles!
  1.1348 +
  1.1349 +</div></div>
  1.1350 +<div class="project"><h2>nuclear energy</h2><div class="description">Rebranding New+Clear Energy with informational
  1.1351 +                    campaign and public debate forum to enforce its
  1.1352 +                    transparent and open nature. France needn't be the
  1.1353 +                    world leader in nuclear energy. (Dylan)
  1.1354 +
  1.1355 +</div></div>
  1.1356 +<div class="project"><h2>bubbles</h2><div class="description">Engineer a material which has both ductility and high
  1.1357 +             surface tension to make the "third"
  1.1358 +             minimal-surface-energy solution to a bubble suspended
  1.1359 +             between two equal-diameter rings. (Solutions are
  1.1360 +             cylindrical catenary curve, two separated half-bubbles,
  1.1361 +             and a double-cone)
  1.1362 +
  1.1363 +</div></div>
  1.1364 +<div class="project"><h2>Textbook whose content can be varied continuously</h2><div class="description">alter level of
  1.1365 +     difficulty, rigor, diction, emphasize crossover with certain
  1.1366 +     other discipline, etc. Content generated dynamically from
  1.1367 +     knowledge base, along with questions that are moreover altered to
  1.1368 +     guide knowledge acquisition. Motivation: One book of
  1.1369 +     knowledge. <i>One.</i>
  1.1370 +</div></div>
  1.1371 +</div>
  1.1372 +
  1.1373 +
  1.1374 +
  1.1375 +</div>
  1.1376 +
  1.1377 +<div id="outline-container-1-1" class="outline-3">
  1.1378 +<h3 id="sec-1-1"><span class="section-number-3">1.1</span> From Jacob's idea list</h3>
  1.1379 +<div class="outline-text-3" id="text-1-1">
  1.1380 +
  1.1381 +
  1.1382 +<ul>
  1.1383 +<li>Roommate-canceling headphones: uses roommate's laptop mic to seed
  1.1384 +  noise cancellation alg in your headphones (would this
  1.1385 +  work?). -Update on sound canceling headphones that take feed from
  1.1386 +  tv: how about ones that cancel people talking on the phone by
  1.1387 +  receiving the phone signals and playing inverse sound
  1.1388 +  waves. #signalprocessing ~jcole@mit.edu
  1.1389 +
  1.1390 +</li>
  1.1391 +<li>ClackerAlert &ndash; tells if you slam the keys too hard using sound data
  1.1392 +  (and speed/jerkiness data)!.Prevents RSI ~jcole@mit.e
  1.1393 +
  1.1394 +</li>
  1.1395 +<li>separate pin that you can tell someone if forced to
  1.1396 +               identify your PIN (idea from idea about credit cards)
  1.1397 +</li>
  1.1398 +</ul>
  1.1399 +
  1.1400 +</div>
  1.1401 +</div>
  1.1402 +</div>
  1.1403 +</div>
  1.1404 +
  1.1405 +<div id="postamble">
  1.1406 +<p class="date">Date: 2015-02-04 23:52:02 EST</p>
  1.1407 +<p class="author">Author: Robert McIntyre</p>
  1.1408 +<p class="creator">Org version 7.7 with Emacs version 23</p>
  1.1409 +<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer">Validate XHTML 1.0</a>
  1.1410 +
  1.1411 +</body>
  1.1412 +</html>
  1.1413 \ No newline at end of file
     2.1 --- a/org/ideas.org	Thu Feb 05 23:05:45 2015 -0800
     2.2 +++ b/org/ideas.org	Thu Feb 26 17:56:46 2015 -0800
     2.3 @@ -31,6 +31,50 @@
     2.4  getting credit.
     2.5  #+end_quote
     2.6  
     2.7 +- whole brain perfusion embedding :: Do the standard EM embedding
     2.8 +     protocol, but skip the osmium step, and use the "perfusion
     2.9 +     pausing" method to prevent overextraction during the dehydration
    2.10 +     and embedding steps. I think that you CAN perfuse resins into the
    2.11 +     brain, simply because you CAN perfuse viscous rubber when doing
    2.12 +     vascular casts.
    2.13 +
    2.14 +- perfusion pausing :: One problem with doing perfusion is that if you
    2.15 +     STOP the perfusion, you rapidly loose pressure in the organ as
    2.16 +     your perfusate leaks out. You can prevent this by submerging the
    2.17 +     organ/head/rat whatever in FLUID at the appropriate level. Use
    2.18 +     something inert like flurocarbon to avoid problems. You would
    2.19 +     have to slowly decrease the flow rate while simultaneously
    2.20 +     lowering the perfusing object into the fluid. To start again,
    2.21 +     reverse the process -- reengage the peristaltic pump slowly while
    2.22 +     removing the organ from the fluid.
    2.23 +
    2.24 +- evoultionary textbook mimiricy :: as surgery becomes more common,
    2.25 +     there develops a distinct selective pressure for individuals
    2.26 +     organ layout to look more like the medical textbooks! :P
    2.27 +
    2.28 +- transparent skin :: temporary / permament transparent skin. Allows
    2.29 +     for examination of organs / muscles and visual prevention of
    2.30 +     disease and detection or abnormalities / good things
    2.31 +     eg. excercise. 
    2.32 +
    2.33 +- sweet information :: candy with a whole book written in it. Eat a
    2.34 +     book! 
    2.35 +
    2.36 +- targeted immunosuppressant :: just kill off the B-cells and friends
    2.37 +     that would cause problems in a organ-transplant / other
    2.38 +     situation. AIDS is good at killing these cells -- maybe make it
    2.39 +     just target the ones that will cause problems. Then you can
    2.40 +     premptively kill off that part of someone's immune system before
    2.41 +     a transplant. ALSO, you can kill off everyone's defenses against
    2.42 +     other blood types and make people effectively type AB+ w.r.t
    2.43 +     blood transfusions. Actually, why not give babies this treatment
    2.44 +     so that they're automatically compatable with all blood types?
    2.45 +     The immune system has this already when it's first growing; maybe
    2.46 +     it can be "retrained" to accept new things, or the mechanism of
    2.47 +     immune cell death be co-opted for these purposes.
    2.48 +
    2.49 +- fuck you tetris :: tetris that actively gives you the worst possible piece.
    2.50 +
    2.51  - pockets :: more things should have them!
    2.52  
    2.53  - colored shower head :: a shower head add on that measures the temp