10,000 Brilliant Ideas

In the name of fitness and haste, in big office buildings have one or more elevators that only go to every 10th floor. This is  preferably the elevator right next to the staircase and maybe the staircase isn't so ghetto, but that's another issue. If you work on a 10th floor, lucky you. If you work on a mid-10th floor, say the 43rd, you can either ride up to the 50th and walk down 7 flights or ride up to the 40th and walk up 3 flights. Either way it's going to be good for your health. If you have bags to carry, just take the slowvator with the fat people.

Want to save a ton on air conditioning costs? Instead of cooling your bedroom, just cool your bed! This bed has sides on it (done in a stylish way) about a foot and a half high with air vents at the top. The bed is cooled like an open deep freeze and the sides keep the cold air in. The temperature controls are right there next to you while you sleep.  UPDATE: coolbed now comes with a mosquito net on top. You simply lift it, climb in and enjoy. 

Researchers never share. They want everyone else to share with them, but they never share. Well, they do want to share eventually (weee publish!), they just really don't want to be scooped. How do you fix this perverse situation of smart people? (full disclosure: I think I really don't like the whole archaic publishing process of current day academia. Maybe I'll find something down the road, but I feel like it's been long enough and I still don't really like it. (a)) - Create some incentive to reveal early what you're up to. Some kind of notoriety. Or, more excitingly - Create a news site that hunts down things investigative journalism style. As soon as someone starts a trial or anything scientific they're posted in the papers. Of course researchers could 'turn themselves in', which is what they'd start doing if the journalists were good at sniffing them out anyway. (a) Reasons I don't like the process. - It's gatekept by establishe...

I have no plans to save you money. I don't think that's what you really want. In fact I have plans to take the exact amount of money that you want to spend. What I do want to do is give you the maximum output for that money. That way you look good to donors. You implement (spend) all you plan, and you have great results to show for it. Expect to see me make my pitch around October/November of each year.

Bail bonds is a system that more or less works. You got bail to pay, they loan you the money and then use every tactic possible to make sure you show up for court. Could the same thing go for Visa applicants? You want to go to the US. The US doesn't believe you'll return when you say you will. You pay me a bit and I guarantee the US government to a certain amount of money that you'll be back on that plane.

Perhaps this could be seen as just a modification of a suicide hotline, but more from the user's perspective. She can't take it anymore. She goes onto the bridge. Before she steps over the fence she sees a sign that says "Considering suicide? Commit virtual suicide instead. Call 800 - come get me. Location 3453" She calls the number, gives her name and location and is asked to stay on the line for ten minutes while waiting for an unmarked van to arrive. The van arrives, she climbs inside and sits down in the black interior with a trained facilitator. The facilitator begins whatever the best therapy is and obtains a contact name and number. She relays this information to dispatch who informs the family that their loved one has committed virtual suicide. This means that the person nearly committed suicide and has chosen an alternate escape route. While this route is reversible it is still serious. The family is informed of how information will be provided to them and ...

Hurricane's have huge amounts of energy. More than the world uses in a year. But of course when they blow through you better get your wind turbine turned off or it will snap in half. But what if you designed a wind turbine to handle that speed of wind? 99% of the time it wouldn't do anything, but if a hurricane did come through it would power the world for a day.