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repurpose flash drive as on/off switch

quantume electrons in a flash drive you say? What if when you physically touch the flash cell so electrons leak out, telling a transistor to turn something on or offf. This is a 2 conductor on-off touch switch with no moving parts that is like 1/10,000 -1/1000 of a cent retail/alibaba.h
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A cheap SMD Surface Mount Device (a little chip without legs that goes on a circuit board) is a 1/10,000th of one cent resistor.[link]

I think a 2 or 3 conductor on off switch SMD could be made, that is similarly about 1/10,000 to 1/1000 of 1 cent at the active SMD component. The great part is you just move your finger to the colored dot and the thing turns on. move it onto the dot again, it turns off. simple. If you feel like it the dot can glow but that's not necessary.

I think that if you have a single flash memory cell, and load it up with electrons at the factory so that it has a two centuries of them, (they leak out at a predictible rate) and attach it to a transistor, such that the transisitor switches on or off, when a higher than leakage current electron exits the flash memory and says "hi" to it. Then you get a button, or rather a nonmoving touchpad you can press as many times as you like, for two centuries with no moving parts.

Niftily, if it ever pressed the flash memory cell also happens to refill with electrons so it always lasts two centuries from the last button press (IC feature size on-chip circuitry).

Technology: well there's flash memory on wikipedia, and then there's me saying flash memory is sort of like putting electrons in a box, and they have a minute likeliness of leaving the box. Flash drives work that way. The electrons are more likely to leave the box if you, a warm person, and an electrically charged person touch the box.

So the little box the electrons are in has to conduct your body warmth. Perhaps even though it is 1/10,000 of a cent you can get away with chemical vapor depositing a few-atoms layer thick of highly warmth conductive, abrasion resisting diamond on it.

If you are going for the fact that you have electrical charge, and you want to send a ripple of charge variation through the little box when you touch it, then you would use a transparent conductive coating on the box. These, like tin oxide, are well known at display technologies.

There is another one that I like better though, it is an transparent electrically conductive polymer(plastic) called PEDOT. Perhaps you simply do anything from thinly coat to the electron box with tin oxide to embed it in a giant "pushbutton" size dolloop PEDOT. With PEDOT (or metal) there's a big nub you can touch. Anyway, you touching the conductor causes change in the box, unlike flash memory the box, like a weak walled flash drive, is really sensitive to the slightest wiggle, the transistor senses the changes in the slightest wiggle and the lights turn on.

Now, what is it good for? If you read about Plaid conductors, RAIC (redundant array of independent conductors), then the idea that you can use a CPU to find out what's what, or do a sample all the little wires and best "3+ out of 5" (0r 40 out of 1600) defines what the wire is and does.

A redundant array of Indepenedent switches (RAIS) makes it so any human attempt to get a button to work, is likely to work. Instead of corrosion or dust, or shorting, or mechanical-off-flexion, or water, or broken springs making buttons not work, any partial surviving remnant of a RAIS works as an on-off switch. This makes many kinds of machines, all over the world more reliable.

Can I use RAIS at turnable "digital gradient" knobs. Sure, and the advantage is that the component is very break-resistant. Just have an arc of little contacts, each attached to its own weak-quantum-walled RAIS flash drive cell, or perhaps each of the contacts is actually a # microarray of 9 or 125 micronubs. If any of the 9-125 nubs survices to sense the knob, you can still use that knob setting.

If you imagine a halftone arc, you can see how a smooth-soft turn continuous volume control could work with RAIS pads.

Again, part of the idea, is that if you make things that last for centuries, the interaction panels and controls should last. And, they should be really cheap. That way you can get say a tree fertilizer distributor or outdoor irrigation control electronic hub/network object that lasts centuries.

Also, it is just really cheap for RAIS touch switches on things like disposable electric lollipops, electric syringes, and even touch programmable RFID tags. The 1/10,000 cent SMD resistor is kind of a guide to how cheap to make them.

beanangel, Dec 18 2020

A syringe is 6/10 of 1 cent each on alibaba.com https://www.alibaba...=.0001&pricet=.0145
[beanangel, Dec 18 2020]

1 cent for the zap-the-tartar off piezoelectric tooth cleaner element at alibaba.com https://www.alibaba...itle.6c125f00Dhtzh2
[beanangel, Dec 18 2020]

[link]






       I have a bakelite switch that's from the 1920s and it works perfectly. Well made components with moving parts can last a very long time, and are easily understood and repaired in contrast to their flimsy digital equivalents. My car for example is old enough not to have any micro processors in it, and consequently is more reliable and easily serviced etc. In fact it never ever breaks down. Contrast that to the wired up wonders that stop going and won't move until the right codes are inserted. I'm totally opposed to everything being controlled by digital media.
xenzag, Dec 18 2020
  

       beanangel's ideas seem to me like a window into recreational stimulant abuse.
bs0u0155, Dec 18 2020
  

       "beanangel's ideas seem to me like a window into recreational stimulant abuse. — bs0u0155, Dec 18 2020"   

       bSouo155 is right, fortunately they are legal stimulants from ebay and some nootropic supplements.   

       Phenylethylamine from Ebay (this is about 2/3th of the effect)   

       Deprenyl (a nootropic antidepressant that makes rodents live 24% longer, mild stimulant)   

       Centrophenoxine (It is kind of stimulating, and it makes rodents live 30-50% longer)   

       Caffeine (halfbakery has been weathering the 200 mg caffeine pill lately)   

       BDNF releasers (BDNF might make people smarter).   

       As to abuse, I am not too sure what to do about it! the phenylethylamine has my blood pressure up around 155 for hours on end, and I do have a family history of heart disease.   

       The upside is I have written, and enjoyed writing, 1600-2000 different new to me technology ideas in notebooks and computer files. Also fun. Fun is another upside.   

       Thumbs up to truth.
beanangel, Dec 18 2020
  

       [xen] there might be a problem trying to source enough 1920s bakelite components to mass-produce //things like disposable electric lollipops, electric syringes, and even touch programmable RFID tags//.
pocmloc, Dec 18 2020
  

       I do not know if the electric syringes will work, but they could do the research and find out.   

       Basically, people get vaccines. It is possible that if you bruise a vaccinated area that the disruption causes lots of immunocyte response right at the bruised area. Lots of immunocyte response causes simultaneous greater numeric immune response to the vaccine.   

       The greater immune response to the vaccine causes more people to be successfully immunized. It is also possible that a greater immune response to a dose of vaccine means you can use less of the expensive active ingredient in the vaccine (I'm imagining things, but what if it were twice-11x as effective to vaccinate a bruise). a daydreamy person who doesn't run the actual numbers could think the vaccine gets twice to 11 times as affordable from being fully functional with less active ingredient.   

       So, how do you automatically vaccinate a bruise? An electric syringe with little sonic transducers on it could cofocalize say 5 (published) ultrasonic tooth cleaner elements onto a small area near or at where the needle tip is. I sure do not know, but I like to think that 5 tooth cleaners simultaneously on one very important 2 cubic millimeters could make a microbruise equivalent.   

       One thing Halfbakers(like you!) might enjoy is visiting [link] alibaba.com because it is full of invention parts, and they are eye-openingly affordable. A button battery is 3/4 of a cent. A piezoelectric tooth cleaning element is 1-5 cents each.[link] a syringe, with needle is 7/10 of 1 cent. [link] Using alibaba data an electric syringe is only about 7 cents to make at a quasi-wholesale parts space. Lets say you want to up the quality of the electric syringe, you can go for the 2 cent battery with the 5 year shelf life.   

       So anyway, that is an electric syringe. Now, does the bruise makes for a better immunization thing work? Wikipedia says, "Professional antigen-presenting cells, including macrophages, B cells and dendritic cells, present foreign antigens" (to the immune system). So if any of those tend to pile up around bruises, it might work.   

       alibaba is really amazing. besides finding out resistors are 1/10,000 of a cent you can find out things like those boxy things with fans on them you see next to buildings (heat pumps) are only $25. They save a lot of energy too.   

       check out alibaba!   

       This idea and all my internet content and technologies Since the year 1999 are public domain.
beanangel, Dec 18 2020
  
      
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