Powdered Creativity

Sensing Fatal Errors

2008-02-28T14:26:00.000-08:00

This week I caught some stupid show called Sensing Murder where two psychics are brought in to help confuse cold case detectives by making up a bunch of bullshit.

But that got me thinking, if psychics or clairvoyants were real, why couldn't they be brought in to help detect fatal errors in computer code?

Same concept isn't it?

What if.?..Then What?...So What?

2008-02-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

That's the formula I once heard for coming up with an idea for a story. What if?...Then what?...So what?

I forget who said it.

So here is one idea I had for a sci fi type story

What if? In some future orwellian society people had chips implanted in their brain to 'override' reason so they would believe the faulty logic being fed to them by a ruling elite

Then what? Somebody's chip fails

So what? You have the proverbial sane person in an insane world

Not completely original in that this theme has been explored a lot. But since most good science fiction is actually about the present situation; I think this would be a good vehicle to explore the utter bullshit we are sometimes fed by politicians.

(PS, it's also possible that this precise story line has already been explored. I don't pretend to know everything -- unless I'm at a party).

Dear reader,

2008-02-09T05:55:00.000-08:00

You might know my friend Cara. In fact, if you are reading this there is a good chance that you are my friend Cara.

Anyway, Cara has had some damn good ideas herself and co-conspired with me on other ideas such as Scarlet Letters -- a word game which was invented on a Sunday morning and then thrust upon her somewhat relucant yet willing family that evening.

Cara is usually around for my more ridiculous ideas, such as this one, which she has taken upon herself to implement. Although there is still no way for Yukonites to add their submissions.

So much idea for today is that you check out her blog which is not only made up of words but intermittently about them.

The Cousins Project

2008-02-05T18:46:00.000-08:00

This is a concept I have for a coffee table book to be created by a photographer/writer with a car.

Said photographer/writer (P/W) selects a cousin and goes to his/her house--takes some pictures tells a story. He/she then goes to visit a cousin of that person, same deal. the P/W repeats this a number of times.

There are some practical issues like how do you avoid reaching a terminal point in the cousin chain where there is no new cousin to visit.

In a way, this idea is very corny. But I also think it would be cool to see how quickly the socio-economic class changed as the P/W moved along the chain.

Will somebody please implement a simple stack on a television remote

2008-02-02T17:11:00.001-08:00

Previous channel is neat and all, but what if I am rotating between three or four shows (it happens to us sports fans), Why not a simple three button set up:

1. Add button
2. Remove button
3. Cycle button

The first button puts channels onto the stack. The second button takes them off and the third button just cycles through the channels currently in the stack

(Think of the previous channel button as a fixed stack of two if you are having a hard time figuring out what I mean by stack.)

hextraction.com

2008-02-01T06:02:00.000-08:00

OK, so not all of my ideas turn out to be completely original. Apparently there are some other people in the world who are, you know, smart.

So here is something crossed off my list with me even knowing it. It's a simple concept: you provide a URL and the tool shows you all the colors with the associated hex code. It even finds the css file.

However, if you want to get into the color extracting 'business', hextraction.com is (as of today) still available to be registered.

This is a classic example of why I started this blog. Back when I originally had this idea, there weren't any sites doing this (at least I couldn't find any on Google).

Verses Versus Verses

2008-01-30T09:47:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note today on this idea I had for a TV show which is like an American Idol for ministers. Part poetry slam, part church sermon. Could be interesting and it has a catchy title.

The Ubiquitous Annoying Jingles From Hell Ringtone Sweepstakes

2008-01-29T06:33:00.000-08:00

I don't even know why I am posting this one because I hate jingles and annoying ring tones aren't that far behind. But that's another rant (maybe)...

Companies invest a lot of money getting their message out and part of that message is often an annoying little jingle that is supposed to stay in our heads against our will. So far it's working.

But in a world of seemingly ringtone obsessed consumers, why don't companies pay cell phone users to use their stupid annoying little jingles as ring tones. The most interesting way would be to have some little code snippet on the users' phones to track how many times that jingle-tone actually plays. Then at the end of some predefined period of time every jingle play gets an entry in some sort of giveaway/sweepstakes.

Stupid Gadgets

2008-01-27T19:53:00.000-08:00

We have so many freaking gadgets in this world we might as well keep going. Here's one I thought of the other day: Smart beds.

A smart bed would be integrated with a few devices. I'm thinking telephone and alarm clock. The phone knows when somebody is asleep on the bed (laying down for more than ten minutes or whatever) and either doesn't ring or gives one quiet ring when there is an incoming call. The alarm clock knows when there is nobody in the bed and doesn't go blasting just because somebody happened to wake up early.

Something like this might already be out there. It seems to me it should be but when I googled smart beds I got a bunch of hospital supplies.

Social Bookmarking is cool, but what about email?

2008-01-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

I'm intrigued by the fact that none of the big email providers (cough, cough...gmail) have realized that they are sitting on a gold mine. Well, a copper mine anyway. I would guess that some of the coolest internet content is passed through private channels. Some of it should stay private, but all of it?

Let's think about links being sent around via email.

I don't know about you, but I 'find' a lot of sites by getting email. Who hasn't sent a cool link to a friend? Why can't I tag people in my contact list as 'trusted' so that when they send me a link it automatically populates to some sort of personal linkpool where I have a bunch of links categorized by who sent them to me and some nifty ajax that allows me to drag them into other categories. (I'm not a fan of saving bookmarks locally.)

Furthermore, why couldn't I then (on a one-by-one basis) set those links as 'public' so that other contacts could come in and view what has been sent to me.

Add one more component and you have a sort of social networking scheme going. Allow the sender to choose some setting that allows people to find her through my link page. For instance, one of my contacts sends me a link to an an image of an Anselm Kiefer painting, I then set that as public on my page. Now suppose there is another contact of mine who (unbeknown to me) has a keen interest in Kiefer.

As far as I can tell, you now have two fairly important indicators for an actual real-world friendship--common interest (Kiefer/fine art) and common friend (me). Does that automatically make a friendship? Of course not. But it does hint at the possibility of one.

So allow some way for a person viewing my links to contact the person who sent me links they found interesting.

I think social bookmarking and social networking sites have a place in this world. But I think many people are still email centric. If I find a link that will be of interest to a friend, I'm going to send it to him via email. With a little bit of extension from an email provider, the non-sensitive portions of a person's email account could be selectively exposed in blog/bookmark form and serve as the foundation for larger social vehicles.

Things Somebody Else Should Do Before I Die

2008-01-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

This blog is meant as a simple way to publicly document ideas I have that I will never get around to pursuing.

I have been sort of an intellectual wanderer throughout my life and have a fairly steady flow of ideas which I think are moderately interesting. Not all of them are ready for prime time, or even viable. But I think I have enough decent ideas to just start blogging them so that others can take them, think them over and possibly pursue them in some way.

Basically I have come to accept that life is short and that I will generate more ideas in my life than I have any hope of pursuing. So I am faced with either doing something like this or taking these ides to my grave.

So here then is my blog. These ideas are free for the taking. My only request is that if you use one of them, you let me know.

PS: If you see any of these ideas already implemented or discussed somewhere else, give me a shout.