Why does a personal analog-to-digital film developing device not exist? I cannot believe that based on current technology, a device/appliance couldn’t be made that allows a person to drop an APS roll into a device, which then pulls the film strip through an assembly line that develops the film then scans the developed negative and writes the picture to a flash memory card. The only thing I can think of is that it would virtually destroy an entire (and extremely profitable) industry. Thoughts?
Category Archives: Ideas
Sign up early
New business plan for life: Sign up for every community web site and game that comes out, as soon as possible, betting on the idea that some of them will become huge and I can sell my low user numbers. (I’m 2141 on Friendster, and 454 on MetaFilter. If you want to give me a starting push on my new career, feel free to send me a bid!)
Looking for data
Anyone know where someone could find a free/public XML feed of stock quotes (or even just the major indexes?) E-mail me is you know of one. I’m working on a top (TOP!) secret project, and screen-scraping just isn’t doin’ it for me.
On a similar tangent, if you happen to own a chain of used record stores, and would like to give me the data on your inventory (weekly or quarterly, you pick) for a top secret project, that would be great. Thanks in advance.
Creating a web-only, real-time news broadcast
Seeing this image of Dan Gillmor using iSight and iChat together gave me an idea: Creating a web-only, real-time news broadcast, using something like iSight and iChat to create the generic “anchor desk shot”, complete with infographics! (For example: 1, 2, and 3) The idea is that a second person (the picture-in-picture) would be the “production” computer, which holds the video and photos, and runs the show, switching the focus from computer to computer. When the focus is on the anchor, the production computer shows an infographic, and then when the anchor is done talking, the focus switches to the production computer which then runs a video or displays a photo. This idea may be really raw, and possibly not workable with iSight and iChat specifically, but I think it could be interesting, in a amateur/guerilla/Dogma 95 news kind of way…
It may be possible with iSight and iChat, but it would be sloppy, since that’s not what those programs were made for. My initial instinct would be to point the camera at the production computer’s screen, which would mean you would have to have it done very tightly and exact, or have a program that would display the imagery fullscreen with no loss. This is also not really something I have experience in, and I also don’t own any of these technologies so that I could try out or test such a setup.
Ranks albums by how many people still own them
Data I would love to have: albums sold to used music stores. Even if it was just a few charter stores as sample data. What I want to have is a sort of “staying power” index; a list that ranks albums by how many people still own them, not by how many were originally sold. I am never amazed at how many new albums are in the used bins, because they all contain 1 popular song and 11 other crocks of shit. I want to see what the albums are no one would ever part with. You could use the actual sales data to make a ratio vs. how many were sold back. Anyone run a used record store?
Start a parcel delivery business right at airport security checkpoints
Idea of the century: Start a parcel delivery business, set up shop right at airport security checkpoints. Have people send their confiscated (or about to be confiscated) items either back home or to the place they’re going to.
Combine Map of the Market with an actual aerial map of a city
LazyWeb, I invoke thee! (Since I do not have the ability to trackback, this is really just me yelling out to noone in particular…) Someone should somehow combine the Map of the Market with an actual aerial map of a city (or “market”, if you will). Use company addresses to plot their location on a map, and show the graphic representation of their stock price (ala the green/red color blocks in SmartMoney’s version) over the plot of their building/campus on the map.
I’m not sure how truly useful of an application this might be, but I think it would be interesting and I could see myself sucked into it for hours on end. It also might be interesting seeing how certain sectors of industry are clustered near each other (think semiconductors in Silicon Valley), and how that might make the whole city or area’s map look.
Pool together money and resources in order to meet someone
Random idea: Create an off-shoot of meetup where a collective of interested people and organizations pool together money and resources in the attempt to meet a pre-determined person, such as a celebrity, comic, or speaker. (For example: A web or publishing crowd who wants to meet with David Weinberger or Cory Doctorow in Des Moines, IA. His known “going rate” for an appearance might be something like $2000, in order to cover expenses and be “worth it”. Individuals interested in hearing him speak, as well as local organizations and chapters who might pitch in larger sums, donate to a pool in the hopes of “hiring” him. The interested party could approve of the meet at any point in the running tally, or wait until the amount reaches a certain dollar amount.)
One modest browser proposal
One modest browser proposal: Since linking to the home page via the logo is more a useful convention than a design standard ? or even an expected feature by users ? and the “Home” button in the browser is often used/confused by users trying to get the home page of the site, why not create a button in the browser that distinguishes the two? Have one button called “My Home”, which is the site the browser loads to by default, and a “Site Home” button which brings users to home of the web site being viewed. It could be specified by the developer in a meta tag, or default to the root of the domain if such a tag isn’t coded.