100 ideas

Synthetic Biology or Synthetic Genomics?

Synthetic Biology is not a new term. In Laying the Foundations for a Bio-Economy[1], Rob Carlson writes:

“‘Synthetic biology‘ was, until recently, a phrase found in literature at least decades old (Szybalski and Skalka 1978), first appearing nearly a century earlier (Keller 2002), but not used much in the last thirty years.”

Drew Endy tends to emphasize that Synthetic Biology is development and application of engineering principles to the genetic engineering technology stack: DNA sequencing, synthesis, PCR + part & measurement standardization, insulation, and abstraction hierarchies for biological systems [4].

Other people use synthetic biology to mean progress in building a completely synthetic cell.

Craig Venter sort of ignores the “hardcore” SB engineering dogma and just talks about “Synthetic Genomics” (also the name of his company) as the ability to synthesize a genome de novo.

Of this set, I’m most excited about the hardcore SB dogma, which to me is the most visionary and novel.

[1] http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2398717

[2] http://fora.tv/2008/11/17/Drew_Endy_and_Jim_Thomas_Debate_Synthetic_Biology#chapter_04

email graph

I’d like an application that graphed the 1000 email addresses I mail most often, clustered based on co-occurrences in messages to more than one person, with edge length inversely related to message frequency

disposable sticky lens

stick one on your iPhone to improve images of text and business cards etc

chorelog.com

Chorelog.com is a tool to help housemates reveal work done on common chores with very little overhead.

• chores are entered as a short phrase and selected from an autocomplete list
• time spent in minutes is also tracked for each chore phrase
• fun visualizations of the stats are provided, like a leaderboard of the most active people and sparklines for each discreet chore
• chorelog can watch for tweets with #chores and a number (of min) for each user

The main design goal is to enable simple, fast, public chore tracking. Yourgroup.chorelog.com should be left open on a public computer in a main room and anyone and everyone in the house should be able to tell the system they completed a chore in less than 10 seconds.

cap canister - keep track of all those beers

Keeping track of how many alcoholic drinks you have consumed is a fun and informative game. I have noticed an inverse relationship between my self-reporting accuracy and number of drinks consumed. So, a system for tracking drinks is in order.

Many exist already - my current favorite is the Last Call iphone app, which not only tracks all the different drinks you claim to have consumed, but also attempts to interpolate your B.A.C. percentage on a spiffy chart.

Here I propose a low-cost tangible alternative: keeping all the bottle caps to the beers you drink. I suggest a clear plastic tube to hold the bottle caps and keep them organized - this should also increase accuracy.

Packaging Entrails

Packaging should be designed to tap into the opener’s carnal instincts and give them a sense of satisfaction from ripping it open to get at the tasty delights contained within.

Instead of packing peanuts or a string of inflatable plastic bags (amazon), items should be packed with a compromise between the two: a long intestinal string of lightly inflated tubes. Some could optionally contain packing peanuts to evoke food particles, but this isn’t strictly necessary.

One end of this packaging string should be situated under or within the primary length of tape keeping the package closed. By grasping and pulling the little tab at the end of the tape, the entire package is disemboweled.