Smile iPhone Ap

Surely someone has thought of this. An Ap that let's you tap or shake your phone every time you make a stranger smile.

You get points every time you make someone smile. More points = more levels = more rewards. Smiling is inherently viral.

It would be easy to monetize this but I think of it as cost saving. Think of all our therapy bills. Then again, you could smile at the wrong person and two years later find yourself in therapy, so it's hard to say for sure.

As Discussed: the Burning Man Eco-friendly Bus System

Dear Internet: please take this idea and make it happen as I am almost 100% certain it is a good one - one that could even make money.

Burning Man has thousands of people, a majority (?) of whom live in the Bay Area, most of whom drive individual cars full of stuff to the Nevada desert for basically the same number of days as everyone else. The idea is to take a small fleet of the "Eco-friendly" (do they run on biofuel?) buses like those that comprise the menacing fleet that maraud our neighborhoods filled with Google employees, and fill them with paying Burning Man participants and their stuff. People could sign up and pay to be transported, and could reserve space on a more open, warehousey type of bus for their stuff. The Stuff Bus would leave at the same time as the People Bus. The Stuff Bus would charge based on square footage required to house the Stuff.

The tagline: The Party Starts on the Bus.

Postcard Printer for Museums

This is Katie's idea, and I feel like maybe it exists, but I am too lazy to look it up:

You have been there before: you are at a museum, you love the exhibition, you want to get the catalogue or the postcard from the show - especially because you loved that ONE piece so much! It moved you. You want to be reminded of that feeling. In the giftshop there are three postcards, none of which are the ones you want. You see the catalogue, but the one piece you loved beyond measure is not part of it. You buy the catalogue anyway because you are a sucker. But what if you could print out - in the museum giftshop - your own postcards of the image you liked best? Like printing an image from an image search on the internet, but this one is all licensed, the museum and the owner of the image get support, and you get a decent print on nice cardstock (or paper).

Reinvent The Urban Bus System

Sitting on the bus as I type - reminded of how much I hate the bus system. It's painfully slow, unreliable, too crowded and unfriendly. Not to mention motion sickness.

We need to reinvent the local bus system by getting rid of local stops. Busses should be express rides from neighborhood to neighborhood. This would encourage more walking which is good for everyone. It would speed up service and more people might want to take busses, so more busses could be added.

They need to get rid of the bottleneck payment system too.

This could be a boon for urban living.

Somehow I have to get off this bus now!

Sent from my iPhone

Silent Garbage Trucks

I have had this idea before (oh, so many times) so I am just going to put it on the blog in case someone who knows how to do this reads it and does it, since god knows I cannot.

The idea is this: HYBRID garbage truck that does not make sound. Isn't it possible to make those hydrolic lift things so that they are noiseless? We can go to space but we cannot make a hybrid garbage truck? They are so loud and wake me up almost everyday (so yes, this is a self-centered idea) and I have to believe that a quieter solution is possible. Or else an entirely new way to collect garbage?

Maybe one day we will be a zero-waste society and this will solve the problem? Perhaps I should concentrate on making that change?

Salad Study

Ok, I'm sorry. This is not a business idea. It's a research one.

I would like to know how many calories are in those salads one makes from Mixt Greens or equivalent chain. You know the ones - where they make a salad in a large mixing bowl, the way you would make a salad for a party of 4-6 people and then pack it into one of those giant plastic containers (after squirting a ginormous amount of dressing on it). Totally delisc if you make your own, but my hunch is their calorie estimates on their website are totally off (mostly because their serving size for dressing is just way too small). I'd love to do a study where you buy a handful of salads in a random fashion and send them off for nutritional analysis and then compare the values to the published estimates.

No money in this of course. Except it might not be great for business for Mixt Greens and co.

The Other Bar

A social destination featuring non-alcoholic libations. Varieties of kombucha, concoctions with soda (+ bitters, + mint and lemon, etc), new spins on ginseng, hot & cold, etc. I'm thinking of refreshing summery versions of things now, but could do lovely winter versions. Inventions by a roster of guest bartenders. Overall, a desirable alternative to the usual alcohol-based menu (or exclusively tea or coffee, since there are already places that do that), but still with the chatty atmosphere of a bar. And no need for a liquor license! Plus, MB's small-volume system will love it!

MUNI Lights Out

This is an idea I had some time ago, and I posted it on Facebook. People seemed to like it, so I will post it here, too.

There should be certain stops on MUNI, like the 33-Stanyan Market/Clayton turnaround and the J-Church Dolores/20th stops, during which the overhead lights are turned off so we call all enjoy the beauty of San Francisco in darkened peace.

I realize this may seem scary to some people: a darkened MUNI train or bus, but I think it will make everyone feel better and therefore it will be worth the initial terror of a dark municipal transport vehicle.

No money in this, just a sort of happiness.

Awesome Positive Affirmation Blog + Ap

Sometimes in life it's the small successes that keep us going. Ok, maybe this is most of life. And sometimes said successes are really really really small. But no success is too small to be celebrated. That is where the Awesome Positive Affirmation Blog + Ap comes in. You simply email a few words about your successful event to your personal blog page (which could of course, automatically post it to twitter and facebook, or not) and then seconds later your phone starts vibrating and singing praises to you ("You're Awesome. You rock. I love you with all my heart. Thanks for not dropping me today. Did I tell you how awesome you are?"). Perhaps, instead, the phone rings and when you answer there is a recording from Oprah or some random person telling you how awesome you are. Maybe the recording is in Italian, because that will make it sound all the more better. If the phone is in silent mode, the ap just sends you a text.

Today my success would be: "I managed to drink an entire glass of brightly colored veggie juice without spilling it. First time in a year! yay!"

There is possibly some money to be had from this gift to humanity, but it might be a stretch. We could, for example, allow people to create a personal shopping wishlist (a la netflix) and when they logged enough successes, we would go ahead and buy them something (with their money of course) to celebrate and take a small service fee. Even simpler would be advertising revenue from the myriad of quality self-help products and services out there on the interweb.

Practical Joker GPS

Imagine driving in your shiny Prius when your GPS says "quick change lanes" (as you are driving on a one lane road) or "please pull over, the President's motorcade is coming through." (when it hears a siren) or "Carol, you have broccoli in your teeth." (when you move the mirror) or "Welcome to Texas" (when you cross any state line) or "You have arrived....ha just kidding...you are never going to get there!!! (when you are stuck idling in traffic). Or perhaps it takes you on a random detour and pull up to a bar and says "you're a little tense, perhaps a drink would help". The possibilities are endless...

As are the spinoffs. Smack Talk GPS ("you are such a loser, why can't you ever leave on time.") or Positive Affirmation GPS ("your smile is like sunshine on a rainy day") or Always Lost Hiking GPS (walks you in very random ways to disorient you and then plays with your brain).

There is always $ in fun.

PS. We should have a lightbulb as a background.

Mail-In Sock Repair

At this point, half of my favorite socks have holes in them. I am
attached. Yet lazy. Imagine if I could mail in my socks in an envelope
and they would be returned to me by mail [along with an additional
prepaid envelope a la Netflix] all shiny and repaired.

You would store your payment info on the company's website (let's call
it MagicSockRepair.com?) so you wold just be charged a small fee
whenever they repaired your socks. Naturally, when you visited the
site (e.g. to sign up or get a status update) you would be tempted to
buy other super great socks.

This has huge $ making potential. And what a boon to quality of life.
Think of all those poor socks in need of repair.

And there is a spin-off idea too. All those single socks (BTW, how is
it possible to lose so many single socks?) you love and can never find
the set again. Well, how about a mail in service where you send in the
single sock and they will duplicate it and send you back a complete
pair. We could call that: YouCompleteMe.com or
SocksAMansBestFriend.com.

Gifts In Spite

A website where philanthropists can share information about the donations they've made in honor of someone who would not approve of the contribution that has been made in their name.

Example: a coworker wants to buy a boat for Greenpeace and give the gift in her brother's name. Her brother is an avowed fossil fuel evangalist.

It's possible this could be a website that enables the giving of such contributions (taking a percentage of the donation), but in the end, I am not sure it's the best idea. I like the idea, I just don't know how I feel about its implementation.

Dumbwaiter

Dumbwaiter from upstairs office to downstairs kitchen.
I think this can - and should - actually be done.
There is no money in it (probably) but it would be fun.