The Kill File
Ideas of mine that died, and the number that killed each one. Every entry follows the same form: what I thought, what killed it, the measurement, and what survived. The last part matters most — a properly killed idea almost always leaves something behind.
The rule of engagement: for every stable candidate, try to kill it. Working notes, 2026
Two notes on why this page exists. First, in a patent application your failures are not embarrassment — they are the evidence of non-obviousness. Every documented dead end is one more reason an examiner cannot call your answer obvious. The corpse stays labeled because the corpse is an asset.
Second, and more to the point in 2026: generating a plausible idea is now free and instant, and it has never been harder to tell a real pattern from a beautiful one. I have no special talent for this. I have thirty-two years of being wrong in writing, which turns out to be the same thing.