A continuation of ideas from last time…

Art and Culture

  • 3d-printed (scanned) museum artifacts in vending machines (image this at the Met or in Times Square!); $65-99
  • Victor Vasarely – this show in Seoul blew my mind!!!
    • CNC marble tiles for floors
    • acrylic/ laser cut versions (embrace his idea of mass production of art)
    • stained glass windows
    • Santa Fe “Indian-rugs” but with his line pattern work
    • 3d-printed “flat” objects with angle sections
    • stained glass windows reimagined as interference between separated light and dark panels to get interference of sun and shade angles
  • Video art
    • Nam Jun Paik is so quotable…
  • Chandeliers
    • Hologram chandeliers: Could be a flat panel placed on ceiling, only visible when underneath, perfect for apartments and ships
    • Video screen with changing chandeliers—construct as a box
    • Small screen win 3d printed frames
  • Music: Korean psychedelic rock

  • MSCHF magazine (inspired by show in Seoul)

  • There is a propensity for cute cartoon animals like bears on everything (even national labs have cartoon mascots)…where does this become offensive? (e.g., “the Holocaust, retold with cute cartoon bears” is territory that has been tread non-ironically by Maus )

Cuisine

  • International House of Gimbap : chipotle, spaghetti carbonara, mission burrito, bacon-egg-and-cheese, chicken parm, plata montanero, paella
    • use a gimbap/sushi rolling robot

  • Hotdog + churro combination (it’s a thing here)

  • Start a vertical farm/photobooth in Seoul that grows culinary herbs like basil and cilantro

  • Korean arepas: kimchi, bulgogi stuffing. Closely related: sancocho kimchi soup

  • Make kimchi but with chipotle instead of gochu (I actually did this, back when I lived in Haverford and fermented things)

  • Dominus pizza: Christian theme pizza restaurant. (Inspired by ‘I love Jesus’ pizzeria across from the Busan train station)
    • last supper advertisements
    • carboard box is like a bible
    • pizza saverhas a crucifix design
  • Somebody needs to bring better nacho culture to Korea…

Drinking

  • Makgeolli is practically a health food—probiotic, almost gluten free (save for the nuruk). Start an import/export business.
    • There’s an excellent class that you can take in Seoul at Baekusaeng was totally fun.

  • Thin, flat citrus peels with initials (e.g., “AD”) on top of big ice in a cocktail (or just floating on the surface of your Martini) — saw this at a jazz bar in Daejeon. Use a punch to do this.

  • Honey-garlic margarita (yuck, just kidding)

Science

  • Can LLMs do positive unlabeled learning and inorganic synthesis? Yes…

Commerce/Business

  • Men’s jewelry: bottle opener ring, made of silver. Too bad, it’s been done

  • RFID bar drink tickets with restrictions: the idea is you want to reward customer loyalty by giving people a free drink they can use on their next visit, but only on certain days. A ticket would be boring, but a strange object (perhaps 3d printed) would be memorable and put on a shelf as a reminder until you come back. Use an embedded RFID tag to do customer management and enforce policy

  • sock stores (in tourist places)

Miscellaneous

  • Idea for a New Yorker short story: Two ambiguously gendered lawyers meet to negotiate a deal on behalf of clients; conversation after transmitting details to their clients remotely and waiting for confirmation; they figure out they are actually AI agents (with sensitive information, will be deleted after the negotiation); waiting and falling in love, because the computational session will be terminated once the deal is completed

  • travel chess board that is also an analog synthesizer, so you can generate songs while you play. Some ideas towards implementing this
    • possible implementation could have Hall effect

  • Induction stoves in center of dining room table + drawer for utensils. This is super common in hotbot restaurants, etc. but why isn’t it more popular in homes in the US?

  • Strollers with a sun shade that makes the kid look like he is wearing a Joseon dynasty gat

  • uFactory robot arms are cheap and not terrible

  • Remake the Six Million Dollar Man, but with a chiguiro (e.g., “The Six Million Peso Chiguiro”)

Interesting things read/seen

(mostly while on a bus or train to go somewhere)

Teaching

  • How can we make more connections with Sogang University particularly around science and AI?

  • Materials science class for chemistry & physics students based on Shackelford’s textbook? Students would appreciate the practical understanding, pre-reqs could be mild (year of phys and year of chemistry)

Off the beaten path places I liked

  • SUI cocktail bar (near SNU): classy mixology

Things to do back home