Idea: Salsa Bowl

This is an idea I've had so many times (every time I eat salsa, actually) that I was sure I'd blogged about it before. Apparently not. In any case, I can't claim royalties on this one, because it's already being sold on ThinkGeek here. It's kind of expensive for a bowl, but I wouldn't complain if I got one as a present.

Idea: Plot

This would actually make a good writing prompt for a class or writing group.  Write a story in which the protagonist is bestowed with a lucky charm/talisman/blessing of some kind and has high hopes for a specific goal.  Soon after receiving it, he or she encounters a series of seemingly unlucky events and circumstances that lead him or her to the brink of discarding/disavowing said lucky charm/talisman/blessing, only to culminate in the discovery that each of the misfortunes led in a previously unforeseen way (flashbacks!) to the intended lucky result.

That seems too easy to have not been done before.  Who am I ripping off?

Idea: Movie/Book Plots

As promised, excerpts from the old idea book:

Movie/Book Plots

1.  Genetic engineering company puts kit/device on the market (to general consumer) that enables people to design, incubate, and grow their own plants and small animals.  There are, of course, safeguards in the program prohibiting toxic, venemous, large, etc. creatures from being created.  Plot would revolve around the ethical controversy and character-wise on those opposed and the person who cracks the safeguards and the consequences.  Possibilities with the specifics are endless.

2.  A person gradually becomes unable to forget his dreams (i.e., they don't fade away after waking) until he is eventually no longer able to distinguish between his dreams and reality, sleep and consciousness.

3.  Just like a computer program has glitches the programmer didn't plan on, someone finds glitches in the laws of nature that allow him to do weird things or weird things happen.

The first one was written knowing its similarity to Jurassic Park, but it's different enough I think it could work.  The real upside to this one is the marketing.  Couldn't you just see the toys of all these fantastic new creatures?

The second is an extrapolation of that feeling everybody gets where you can't remember if you did that in a dream or real life.  I'm not sure how similar it is to Inception (haven't seen it), but I still like this idea.

The third one I think has some cool potential.  It's like fantasy explained by sci-fi.  It needs a plot, of course, but that's what writers are for.

Idea: Asymmetrical Umbrella

I checked out woot.com this morning, when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the physical manifestation of an idea I had a long time ago - the asymmetrical umbrella.

They call it the "SENZ Original Aerodynamic 30" Storm Umbrella", but I call it patent infringement.  Well, maybe not, but I dug through my old stuff to find my idea book that I started on my mission and as this approximately 10-year-old illustration clearly illustrates, this was my idea.

As for who came up with it first, well that's a matter for the courts to settle.  In any case, it's nice to see the idea realized.  I'd buy one, but fortunately I no longer spend many hours a day outside wearing a backpack as I did for a certain 2-year stretch.

As a bonus, my old idea book has a few other unpublished ideas I'd forgotten about.  Look for more exciting ideas soon!

Idea: GPS Enhancement

There is a fairly trivial enhancement to a car GPS unit that I think would be incredibly cool.  The idea of gathering this data has interested me since I was a kid, but GPS technology makes it so trivial it should come standard.

The idea is this.  As you're driving, you should be able to define certain routes by pressing a button as you get to different spots along that route.  For instance, I could specify the end of my street as one point, the entrance to the highway as another point, the exit from the highway as a third point, and the entrance to the parking lot at work as the last point.

Then the car would drive for you.

No, just kidding.  Then every time you hit those points again in that order, it harvests information about that route and stores it internally.  Actually, you really only need the date/times you hit those points, from which you can get

• The time it took to travel each segment
• The average time of day you hit each point

And if you use the GPS to approximate a road distance between those points, you can get

• Route and segment distances
• Your average speed for each segment

The real benefit of this is when you want to compare two different routes.  It would answer the age-old question of which way is the fastest way home!  Over time you would get enough samples to know which way is faster, or perhaps figure out which portion of your route is the slowest and come up with an alternative.  You could also use it on a one-time trip, like a vacation, to keep track of how long you drove.  I could even prove scientifically that my summer commute is faster than my winter commute.

There are lots of trivial details to iron out, like whether the GPS unit itself collates and processes the data and you have to try to figure it all out on the small screen, or perhaps stores it on an SD card and provides a PC app to analyze your data in the comfort of your home.  You have to be able to remove spurrious entries, decide what to do with incomplete routes, etc., but those don't really affect the fundamental idea.

So is that a great idea, or the greatest idea?  I'm awaiting my check from Garmin.

PS - I didn't google this one, so let me know if this already exists.  I want one.

Idea: Generator

I've often thought it would be great if there were a device that could convert heat into electricity. I know nuclear power plants essentially do this, but I'm talking ambient heat, like the hot air on a hot day. If you could remove that heat energy from the air and convert it into electricity, not only would that be awesome, it would cool down the air! It could be an electricity-producing air conditioner!

Think of the applications. Stick it in your attic to power the fans that blow the cool air it produces all through your whole house. Put it on your laptop CPU to eliminate overheating and recharge your battery. Put it in your car as an alternator and AC. Or just power your portable devices with your body heat!

Ok, so I was about to write how the laws of thermodynamics would probably make this infeasible and that it would just make a good bit in a science fiction story, but a prudent search of the googles found some pretty cool examples of this very idea, down to my examples:

• Nanowires
• Acoustic heat-engines
• Organic heat-engines
• Thermocouples (example)

If somebody gets one of these to actually work on a mass-production scale, this could be huge.

Idea: Comedy sketch

Somebody needs to do a comedy sketch about what it would be like if people walked like they drove:

• Somebody walks really fast, gets right in front of somebody else, then slows down suddenly to open a door and leave.
• Somebody walks to the front of a line, then just stands there and asks to get in, then forces their way in when the line is unwilling.
• Somebody moves sideways a little in order to turn down a hallway causing the person behind to slow down and change direction slightly. The second person yells, flips off the first, then begins to run.
• Somebody sprints past some other people, but has to stop . The other people, going a normal speed, catch up and also stop. When they can go again, the first person sprints ahead again, has to stop, people catch up, etc.

Any other good bits?

Idea: Movie device

As promised, more ideas.

I don't remember the genesis of this idea, but I think it would be fascinating to watch a movie in which the screen was split down the middle and there were two separate storylines being portrayed simultaneously, but the dialogue or major sounds of one never overlapped the other. Someone more artsy and into meaningful deep profoundness would have to come up with the storylines, probably something about people in similar situations who deal with things differently, or two unrelated storylines that progressively become more related until they merge into one screen (hmm... romantic comedy?), or show how one decision changes the life of a person by showing both outcomes. The important part is that the dialogues not overlap, but complement and even cleverly play off each other despite the non-interaction of the storylines.

Profoundly deep or profoundly annoying to watch? That's for you to discover, aspiring filmists.

Idea: commercial

Sometimes I have ideas that I think are pretty good, but I have no use for them because I have neither the resources nor the connections needed to realize them. Instead of letting them languish, however, I've decided to post them as I think of them (or remember them) for all 3 of my readers to enjoy. Just remember to throw a little something my way when you're rich an famous.

This idea came to me as I was watching an agonizingly boring commercial on TV. A really funny advertising campaign for a product like, let's say, ice cream would be to have the product instantly cool the rage of whoever uses it. For instance, picture a wife who is extremely mad at her husband for XYZ and is about to rip into him as soon as he walks in the door, but as she opens her mouth the husband nonchalantly hands her a tub of ice cream and walks past her as she is immediately and completely placated.

I think it would be funny, anyway.