10,000 Brilliant Ideas

Late at night in a vacant parking lot, hundreds of Jeepney drivers crowd together, eating and laughing. There's a big stage in the front and a man climbs up to address the crowd. "Thank you everyone for coming. This is a new initiative that I think you're going to like. First let's talk about how things are. You drive 12, 14 hours a day or more on the streets of Manila. The air on these streets is terrible, there's no doubt about that. And who suffers the most from this polluted air? The guys driving around without windows, that's who! And who's making a huge part of the pollution? The jeepneys without windows, that's what! And guess what else? There are people, businesses, and institutions who will benefit from less pollution who are willing to give you guys bonuses for reducing emissions. So here's the deal, everyone who wants in can come in. Everyone who achieves a rate of less than XX ppm/hour gets an extra 500 hundred pesos per month. Drop it...

Can you have a warehouse clear up north where shipping companies can pass by with frozen goods, leave them there with minimal storage cost, and then ship them to countries when needed?

24/7 dispatch in any storm (Is the water getting close? Give us a call!) preventative service (with guarantee!) must-go taxi service (never miss a flight!) Gear Tough dudes on call (with waders and boots) snorkeled and sealed SUVs and trucks (with winches and the like for clearing roads if needed) Truck-based pumps Gas-powered pumps Tarps and coverings Sandbags car props for getting a vehicle up high collapsible door tunnels (these might not yet exist...) Obviously this plan is very seasonal, but only the gear needs to be sitting around all year. The guys that are needed can just be regular joes with normal jobs that don't have other worries when the rain comes. Their regular jobs will be cancelled during that time anyway.

An aluminum bridge shell that can be attached to SUVs that can go underwater. The SUV has a few modifications. It has a snorkel, sealed doors, roof access, and pre-mounts that make attaching the bridge easy. (or just pre-mounts if you dismount it before the flood.) You drive the SUV under the bridge shell (stored in a warehouse or somewhere), lower the legs (lowering device on the top of the shell) until it sits on the pre-fastened brackets, raise the legs up all the way, drive to and then into the flooded road, climb out the top, lower the legs until the bridge is free-standing, get back in and drive out. Each bridge can either stand alone with on and off ramps or be connected to other bridge shells. The trick would be to get the bridge to where it's needed when most often there would be a huge backup of cars. This isn't an easy solution, but it works. The bridge has wheels on the bottom of each leg and can be removed from the SUV at the back of the car line-up and walked ov...

Basically you have a virtual car. With a driver. Here's how BlacKab works: You think, I should be getting to some place . You look at your smart phone and touch the BlacKab appKab. It tells you a Kab is 5 minutes away. You touch the "Come get me" button. You then finish the rest of your mango shake until a few minutes later your smart phone beeps. You walk outside to see a sleek black taxi with the words "BlacKab client priority" waiting for you. You climb inside and the driver says "Good afternoon Ms Yorname, where would you like to go?" You then go to said destination, climb out, pay nothing and go inside. Then comes the weekend. You check your phone again and select "I drive". It tells you that cars for this weekend are this much per day and the top few cars you prefer. You select one and confirm what time you'd like it. You wake up Saturday morning with the car in front of your house with the keys in the mailbox. You take it for t...

If you're wondering why this post was sent to you on a banana leaf, it's because I'm now in the Philippines! So expect a tropical/dev country slant for the next while. This is obvious, but it's weird to me why this isn't implemented. I'm sure it's quite ubiquitous as well. So I ride the Manila light rail system to work. I'm letting you in on this secret, because it isn't a secret. Everyone and their dog rides it as well. It's a great way to avoid Manila traffic - well automotive traffic, not human traffic, I'm not talking about the nasties that sell human beings, ok, you're right I'm not even talking...CROWDS ok? I'm just talking about crowds. Big crowds. Thank heaven I'm a head above most because I wouldn't be able to breath kind of crowds. And so we play this game. Tons (literally) of people wait on the platform. The train approaches and everyone guesstimates where a door will end up and muscles in front of one. The ...

I like the idea of beefing up at the gym, but it seems like a bit of a waste of time to me. Can we make a commuter bike with several different ways of propelling it that will work out different muscle groups? I realize this would make one look like an idiot going down the road doing curls to move, but that's not an idea I'm worried about.

How hard would it be to arrange an ad-hoc arrival and departure at an airport for a 747? If the answer is "not impossible", then this idea might work. (disclaimer, I think I already posted something like this. Consider this a refinement.) Get a plane and a web site and a group of admin people who are superb at figuring out arrangements. Then open up for people to join the flying club. You join, then put in possible travel plans way in advance. You can see what routes other people are thinking about to see what's more popular and more likely to actually happen. Then when some cut-off point occurs, whether enough people interested or 6 months ahead or whatever, then an itinerary is laid out and people get the chance to buy a ticket. Those who already expressed interest are given first priority. This works out to the plane flying an irregular schedule around the world. The admin team then arranges arrival and departure with each airport. As long as passengers are buying the...

Okay, I've been ironing out the details of this for a few days (once the hamster wheel gets turning it's hard to shut 'er down). This is a bridge-less intersection where one road never has to stop. Permit me to illustrate in 8 easy steps. Yes, I did make this in so-elegant powerpoint 2003. Yes, some of the steps are doubled up. (You know. I had dreams of animating this thing.)

Perhaps this is only a problem in Switzerland, but here the freeway is 120 and for tunnels and around cities it's 100. Of course, there are a lot of tunnels here. How about a cruise control that memorizes two speeds?

I know this must have been dreamed up before. How can you ride a train and not think of ways of doing it better?. But why doesn't it exist yet? Specifically, why doesn't it exist on my commute? I could sleep in an extra 10 minutes! Basically these are stopless trains. They are made up of several short cars with automatic doors on each end that couple together automatically. There is one of these coupled units at each stop. You come to the stop hop on the short car in front of you and when the train nears the stop, the car takes off on it's own in front of the train. The train catches up to it and couples on and the doors in the back open up. You then walk back through the train to the car of the stop you're getting off on (as seen by the digital notice boards) and sit down. The train drives full speed until your stop when the doors in front close and your segment detaches and slows down to the stop. You hop off enjoying the fastest land commute known to man. Not to ment...