Ideas are the most powerful things in existence. Here are mine.
We’re studying fMRI images of patients who have been exposed to cocaine in-utero (this succeeded in dropping the mean IQ of the group by an entire standard deviation from the general population).
I think I’m going to begin referring to that as the “this is your brain on drugs” research project. It’d be great if we could publish a paper that uses that phrase 
Not two weeks after coming up with it, my idea was just scooped by Microsoft.
Ah, well; I couldn’t build it anyway.
Inductors under the road can be used to detect traffic at an intersection. Consequently, it should be possible to use machine learning techniques to optimize a strategy to minimize traffic at a particular intersection (and especially to avoid buildup beyond the intersection due to poor timing).
I hypothesize that both small and large-scale sociological behavior (that is, the behavior of individuals and of organizations; the connection being formalized through my 9th psychological postulate: the “linking principle”) are governed by a sort of circadian rhythm, by which various relationships will form and various behaviors will manifest at specific times each year. For example, this is the fourth May in a row that freelance work has begun streaming in (I should note that I no longer actively search for work of any type; the process is entirely passive and yet I’m still being found), yet it’s usually fairly quiet during the rest of the year.
One of my friends brought up a very interesting point: this may be the result of prior conditioning; after all, this is about the time that the school year traditionally ends. I suppose the question is then whether this sort of behavior manifests in response to the targets (in the case of freelance work, the workers) or conditioning of the sources (the clients).
…Or both.
My project topic will be “A Database Framework for Retrieval and Analysis of Tree-like Structures in Medical Images”, building upon my previous work at Temple.
The best part is that I get to both do research and code in Perl at the same time!
I received the DSLR I ordered, a Canon Digital Rebel XT with a Sigma 18-200 mm lens (all the way from super wide to telephoto with apertures from f/3.5 – f/6.3, IIRC), today. Coupled with my existing knowledge of digital image processing, this should become quite the fruitful art for me once my photography skills are up to par. I’ve been told I have talent at photography; let’s see how it turns out!
Interestingly, dictionary.com’s word of the day is polymath!
Renaissance humanism is a holistic philosophy that states that to be fully “human”, one should strive for perfection in all things. The ideal of this philosophy was the polymath, embodied by people such as Leonardo da Vinci.
That ideal is considered all but impossible to fulfill these days, since the breadth and depth of knowledge has grown enormously in the past century. Except for some small interdisciplinary research efforts, which typically span at most two disciplines and usually involve specialized experts in both fields collaborating, hyperspecialization is now the norm.
One solution to this state, which I believe pathological and suboptimal, is to raise the intellectual capacity of thinkers to meet this larger and more complex body of knowledge. Though there is no doubt in my mind that talented individuals can function as polymaths (so long as society tolerates them), most thinkers either cannot or will not. I strongly believe that if intellectual capacity is augmented, we will see the return of the polymath… so long as people are still willing to pursue beauty wherever it lies.
That may not be a good thing, for transhumanism could as easily destroy our sense of humanity as augment it. The tradeoff might not be worth it.
It’s sad that my life is beginning to resemble comics more than reality:
http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF057AD-Super_League.jpg#126
I wonder if Benford’s Law exists for colors or other non-numeric concepts. They can, after all, be mapped to numbers.