Free Idea Factory

Mount a series of wireless cameras at significant points along major commute routes. Make a smartphone app that charges for access to realtime views from those cameras.

Soft cat food packaging could be hugely improved. None of the ones I’ve tried is simple to get out of its container, they all require a lot of futzing or the dirtying of a utensil. And none of them make portion control easy if you want to dispense less than a full container (because you have one cat that doesn’t eat a whole one, or, multiple cats that you want to share a single container).

I’d pay twice what I pay now for cat food if I could pop-out thirds, as needed, quickly and without the need for a utensil or washing my hands afterwards.

Watching Fish Fight

I know that the iphone has a security feature where all your data can be set to be wiped if the user incorrectly attempts to log into the phone several times.

What about a third party app that makes your phone be annoying in the event it was stolen and someone was incorrectly attempting to access your phone.

Maybe on the third attempt it could say “sorry try again”. Then on the fourth attempt a fake home screen jpeg could be displayed, then when they try and select and app, it says, “Just messing with you. You don’t belong inside this phone. Give it back. Really, don’t be an ass, give me my phone back.

Some other ideas after a certain number of incorrect attempts have been tried:

-The credits from Monty Python and the Holy Grail play on repeat with all the flashing and the llama’s
-Random incredibly unexciting histroy facts are recited in a monotone voice
-A recording of Richard Simons repeatedly encourages the theif that they can do it, then the battery dies
- etc.

This wasn’t always the case, but, I noticed that lately the names showing up as the “Sender” in my Spam folder have evolved away from the ridiculous and towards the pretty kick-ass if you’re writing a book, short story, or play and need character names. Here’s what I have in there right this second:

Elizabeth Haskins, Leroy Whittaker, Mavis Darling, Brian Bergman, Rosetta Moore, Rachelle Burkett

All prime candidates for characters, I think.

There are a few metaphor generators out there that exploit the fact that one form of metaphor can be abstracted to:

the [adjective] [concrete noun] of [abstract noun]

It’s a trivial matter to drop in lists of words of each type and then randomize them for fun and profit. I was thinking yesterday how fun it would be to convert the words to images, or visual properties, and instead of making an exquisite corpse sort of generator, make an animated image that fuses (or layer flattens) all the elements into one complete image.

Tollroads could be subsidized by selling advertising space on the center concrete barriers if the advertisements were optimized for 65mph peripheral vision either:

by being streeeeetched to the proper distortion amount

or

it might work to make flip book style animation frames

Not that I want more advertising in my peripheral vision, but, hey, the ideas come and the genie can’t be put back in the bottle.

I find myself planning to talk to certain people about certain things the next time I see them. I’d love an iPhone application that lets me construct a kind of to-do list but organized around the names of people who may or may not be in my address book. I’d like it to have some scheduling abilities to, so that I could easily enter, store, and retrieve information clusters like:

Bob

• talk about great idea
• ask about his nobel prize
• remind him about the $20 he owes

may see him at party next Friday

Then I’d want to be able to scroll though the list and have it maybe self-sort based on projected time of meeting.

I’ve heard several stories of artists forced to abandon storage units or old apartments in a hurry who had to discard or otherwise leave behind large portions of their work.

Seems like it would be a viable business to form a non-profit organization that could go pick up the art and give the artist a receipt for a donation at some reasonable amount; this way the artist could at least get a bit of a tax deduction for the donation, and, the organization could then redonate the art back to community projects and use it in auctions to raise money for community projects.

The Cranky Cats