Random Ideas #
A collection of random short ideas I’ve had over the years that I haven’t executed on (yet). If you find or do one of these things let me know!
Programming #
Make $1 on the Internet #
Will probably lead to an interesting journey!
“System 1” Chatbot #
A chatbot that simulates talking to the “system 1” part of the brain only as described in “Thinking, Fast and Slow”.
Album Cover Quiz Site #
Given an album cover (or movie cover or book cover), try to guess its genre or other things about it. Basically this.
Money Conversion App/Site #
An app that allows the user to compare current market values of different things. For example, avocados to dollars or hours of specific work to rocks etc. Would be cool to have a web page associated that points out interesting comparisons.
String Image Formatter #
Write a program that takes in a string and an image file, then adds newlines/spaces/formatting to the string so that it looks like the image when viewed from a distance. If the string is too short to work, repeat it or somehow compress the image so it works out perfectly.
Synonym Finder #
A program (or text editor plugin) where you can search text using all synonyms of the words you typed to search. For example, searching some documentation for “log” would search for the word “log”, but also (and with lower priority) the words “stderr”, “stdout”, “output”, etc. This could also just be build in to the search bar, where a window would pop up containing reframings of what you searched for, as suggestions for what else to try.
See Through Walls with VR/AR #
Try to (using google maps or pre-collected data) model an object in the real world at its exact real world position in a VR or AR simulation. For example, model a toothbrush in a bathroom so that when using VR in the living room you can “see through walls” to see exactly the toothbrush. Could be used to show large objects around the world at their exact positions (like the Eiffel tower or Mt Everest). This would have a cool effect of giving you a really good bearing on your location with respect to the rest of the world.
Word Traversal Game #
Make a word game where you try to get from one word to another via connections such as:
- Words used in the same sentence of a given book
- Synonyms/Antonyms
https://www.word.golf/ is pretty close to this. It would be cool if it could be extended to other ways of connecting words.
Open Twitter #
A social network that just provides a raw database of tweets or posts and lets many third party sites pop up that censor/curate/organize the posts/tweets in different ways.
Memorization Game Mod #
Mod a game you play often (e.g. Skyrim) so that random quips (e.g. “arrow to the knee”) are replaced by random facts you want to memorize.
Lifestyle Optimization #
Water Saving Toilet #
Make a toilet where urine is redirected (like a composting toilet) into a separate area with no water in it (the back of the toilet still has water). Then, when you pee in that area you don’t need to flush, but when you poop (or otherwise flush), the rising water will drain into the pee area as well, washing it. This should reduce the number of flushes per day by a lot for the average toilet.
“Feeling” Biomarkers #
Try hooking up a continuous glucose (or other biomarker) monitor up to a vibration arm band (as discussed in the book “Livewired” by David Eagleman) to “feel” blood glucose concentration.
Hot Water Towel Rack #
Extend the hot water pipe that feeds a shower outside of the wall in a towel rack shape. This will let the water flowing through the pipe heat your towel so it’s nice and warm when you go to dry off.
Upside Down Keyboard #
Put your keyboard and mouse underneath your desk and use them with your palms facing up. This might help with RSI or at least would be a funny joke to surprise coworkers with.
Amusing #
Musical Toothbrush #
A vibrating toothbrush that can accept a midi or other audio file. Then it will modulate the vibrations to the tune of the audio.
Random Ice Prank #
Put two liquids that freeze (or get cold) when mixed in a laundry machine, surprising whoever goes to transfer their clothes!
Reverse Car Wash #
Instead of (or in addition to) spinning the bristles in a car wash, spin the car instead! More specifically, move the car around quickly like an amusement park ride so that it rubs against the bristles.
Data Exploration #
Ambiguous Acronyms #
Make a survey with ambiguous acronyms and see how the results differ based on the community that’s being asked (e.g. AC could be Armor Class or Air Conditioning). This could be done on subreddits.
Regular Break Lifelogging #
Every 30 minutes get up, walk around, and quickly note down what the last 30 minutes was spent doing. Then use that data for cool visualizations.
Tracking Digestion with Center of Mass #
Use body’s center of mass to estimate digestion progress/state. Presumably right after eating mass is centered in the stomach, then slowly diffuses to other parts of the body
Food #
Bell Pepper Cup #
Cut the top off of a bell pepper and use it as a cup.
Popped Potatoes #
Pop potatoes like corn by wrapping them in a hard shell and cooking them.
Refried Bean Pizza #
Put refried beans on pizza.
Selling Chip Dust #
Companies should sell the flavoring blends that flavor potato chips.
Cultural #
Day of Music #
A holiday where everyone in their own homes/neighborhoods plays along to a single song in whatever way they can.
1000 Hour Tattoos #
Everybody has a list of activities that they’ve done for a thousand hours or more. It would be cool if people had a piece of jewelry with removable parts like a necklace with beads, and each activity that they’ve done for over a thousand hours would be represented by one bead. You could also do this with a tattoo where you have different parts of a pattern interlinking, with each part representing an activity.
I think this would be a cool way to start conversations and also show people that people spend a lot of time doing things that you may not expect just by looking at them. Especially things that are mindless or relaxing; everybody would have a bead for sleeping but people might also have beads for zoning out. I think visualizing this is a good way of normalizing the fact that everybody needs that kind of time. And that that kind of time isn’t an impediment to success, because many people that you may aspire to be like may have beads like that, which shows that they’re more human than you might think.
Artistic #
Monthly Clock Garden #
Make a circular (or square) yard with 12 plants that each bloom during each month of the year.
Mood Ring Contacts #
Contact for you eyes that change their color based on your mood. For example, red eyes could signify anger, black eyes depressions, blue eyes calm, green eyes joy, etc.
Encoding Vocal Inflection in Text #
In March 2022 I started using text to speech converters to generate audiobooks for me to listen to on commutes. The biggest difference I noticed between robot audio and a human reading out loud is that spacing between words and vocal inflections don’t always happen in the same way. For instance, a robot voice may not give weight to a sentence that a human would.
It would be neat if an author could somehow encode this vocal inflection in their text (by using bold/italics or special characters) in such a way that a text to speech encoder could react to, to generate more natural sounding audio.
Poets (or artistic authors) could even hijack this system to instead add bizarre inflection to their text such that it would sound strange when text-to-speechified. I imagine you could do some pretty wild stuff here, from creating novel accents to spicing up rhyming verses. This technique would also allow you to encode sounds in writing that are impossible for a human voice to make.
Laser Cut Leaves #
Etch some cool pattern in tough, large leaves (treating them like paper).
Laser Cut Flip Book #
Main Idea #
Create a flip book by laser engraving a stack of thin wood (or thick paper) pieces, each with one frame of a gif or short video. Then, create a box that the stack can fit into snugly, with one of the walls perpendicular to the stack removed. In the place of that wall, put a mobile rod (or just make the wall removable). If you then turn the box so that the rod or movable wall is facing the ground, you can remove the wall and let the pieces fall downward, advancing the frame and animating the gif/video.
Variation #
Make the stack of frames, then drill a hole in one corner and thread a rod through the stack. You should be able to then rotate the stack around like a spiral staircase. Maybe you can animate it like this?
Table Fountain #
If you have a round table to eat at that seats ~4 people, put a symmetrical fountain like those found in gardens in the middle for people to use to refill their water cups. Could have four streams for easier filling.
Categories: Thought Experiments