10,000 Brilliant Ideas

An idea stemmed from my conversation with a friend last night. For teens who's eyes have just been opened to the world, how about an on-line group where each logger-on fills out a profile for where they're from, and nationality, etc. and are then matched into a group with exactly one person from each country/region. The group defines a strong community and each member feels important since they are the only one of their kind in the group. Perhaps this could overcome the insulated effect that teens get into where the rest of the world is just too far away.

Why doesn't this exist? If it does, where is it? I want a tool not unlike gapminder that takes summary statistics from tons of studies and allows me to mash them together. Traditionally, this has been done with meta-analyses which are studies of studies that compare these outcomes and using different weights and probably other things (you want me to read wikipedia on this?) to come up with some sort of broad conclusion based on all the evidence. Granted, this may not be as scientifically sound, but hey, everyone's doing homemade ecological studies (these are the gapminder kind) and I don't see anyone cryin'. Here's the experience (for anyone I haven't lost) I have a kid who hates to wear his seatbelt (hypothetical here of course). I think what are the actual risks if you don't wear a seatbelt . So I look up the Meta-analysis explorer under seat-belts for kids and I narrow it down to around his age range and I get some statistic like, A kid in the US who does...

This café is wired. There are cameras and microphones everywhere. What goes on inside is constantly broadcast in real-time on the café's website. There is a bold disclaimer on the front door telling everyone who enters that their conversation and image will be viewable by anyone accessing the site. It is open from 6am to 2am the next morning to maximize global viewing time, without becoming too seedy. It is located in New York or LA or maybe both. Another option: At the same time, monitors in the cafe show analytics in real time of how many people are on the website and where they are located. Maybe it even shows how many people are watching each camera and listening to each microphone. Perhaps people on-line could post chats and be active participants as well. Would no one want to go to a café where their privacy is completely nil? Would no one want to sit at their computer and watch people living instead of doing it themselves? Or do people have an inner desire to be seen, especi...