Someone who manufactures pots and pans should make a matching set of measuring cups that look just like the pots they make but smaller. And with some creative design tweaks, teaspoons and tablespoons could be made that look like tiny frying pans.

Or, the items could be designed the other way around. They could make pots and pans that look like enormous measuring cups, complete with “1/4 Cup” and “1/2 Cup” written in oversize lettering. And then when you buy the set, you get the matching measuring cups included.

Posted by David at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Filed under: Design | Ideas

Car companies are coming up with new ways of making sure you’re aware of other cars in your blind spots. Using radar and special mirrors, you will soon get audible and visual warnings when cars are approaching.

But what about tactile feedback? When I drive, my hands are already on the steering wheel, so why not take advantage of that to let me feel when a car is approaching in my blind spot?

The steering wheel could be embedded with a row of nubs that protrude under your hands when they need to alert you to another car’s presence. If a car is approaching in your blind spot on the right, the nubs raise under your right hand letting you feel the car’s presence. Likewise for the left side. And the wheel could detect where you place your hands while you drive, so if you don’t keep your hands at ten and two the nubs will be active wherever you do place your hands.

With practice, it could become second nature to use the sense of touch to gather information while you drive, just like you use sight and sound already.

Posted by David at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (37)
Filed under: Ideas | Technology

A Wikroll is when a person rudely interrupts an on-line conversation to provide a link that seems to have nothing to do with the topic at hand, claiming that it goes to the video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” But the link actually goes to a Wikipedia article that adds relevant insight to the discussion.

For example, lets say I write a blog post about macaroni which prompts discussion in the comments about the origins of macaroni and the best tasting brand of macaroni. Then someone leaves this comment:

Hey, everyone. I really like that Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up” so I thought I’d post a link to the video on YouTube so everyone can watch it. Click here to check it out: http://tinyurl.com/296l7r

Did you click on the link? Snap! You’ve been Wikroll’d!

Posted by David at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Filed under: Entertainment | Ideas | Music | Technology

I think we can all agree that sundials pretty much suck. They only have an hour hand, they don’t work at night or indoors, their accuracy changes with the seasons, and if you happen to live in the Southern hemisphere they run backwards. And yet, we all would love to be able to tell the time by looking at shadows, right?

That’s why I’ve come up with the Bulbdial Clock.

The Bulbdial Clock has no hands — just one pole in the center of the clock, and three light sources of varying heights which revolve around the pole casting shadows. In the model illustrated above, the light sources are each attached to a ring which rotates around the pole. The innermost ring rotates once per minute, casting a “second hand” shadow. The middle ring rotates once per hour, and casts the “minute hand” shadow. And the outer ring rotates once every 12 hours, casting the “little hand” shadow.

The Bulbdial Clock can be used flat like a traditional sundial, or mounted vertically on a wall. A variation on the design intended for large-scale installation (such as in a museum) involves a pole sticking up in the middle of a room, while the light sources are mounted on the ceiling, shining down on the pole as they rotate around it.

The Bulbdial Clock solves most of the sundial’s problems, but it still has a problem of its own: It doesn’t work in bright light. So the Bulbdial Clock is best suited for dim spaces such as restaurants and nightclubs.

Previously: An Orange Clockwork

Posted by David at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (66)
Filed under: Design | Ideas | Technology

keming. noun. The result of improper kerning.

Update: Now available as a t-shirt.

Posted by David at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (98)
Filed under: Design | Ideas | Language

You may have heard the recent announcement that Polaroid will stop making instant film soon. They’re manufacturing just enough to last through 2009, and then they’re shutting down the factories. That gives them almost two years to develop what I think should be the last Polaroid product: a digital picture frame that makes sure the familiar look of a Polaroid photo lives on.

You just put your memory card in a slot on the bottom of the frame, and navigate using the touch screen to select whether you want to view your photos in “Standard” mode, which functions like any other digital picture frame, or in “Classic” mode, where each photo slowly fades into view over the course of a minute or so while you watch and wonder what photo is coming up. (In Classic mode, you can try shaking the frame to make the photo fade into view more quickly, but it won’t really do anything).

If you’re the sort of person who prefers to pin your Polaroid pictures to your cork board in your cubicle, you can take advantage of this innovative feature: The stand on the back of the frame can rotate to an upward position, sticking up above the top of the frame and revealing a hole for you to stick a pushpin through. The rechargeable internal battery allows you to showcase your photos that way even if you don’t want a wire dangling down from your cork board.

The bottom portion of the frame features a dry erase surface, so you can write your own title for your slideshow by hand, using a dry erase marker. Because sometimes it’s nice to preserve at least a little bit of the old way of doing things.

Previously: Idea: The Digital Jewel Box

Posted by David at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)
Filed under: Ideas | Photography | Technology

Thursday is Valentine’s Day, a holiday where it’s customary to give a card to your loved one just to say “I Love You.” But even before the Catholic Church decided to honor one of its Saints with a holiday on February 14, this month was celebrated as a month of fertility festivals going all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome. I’ve decided to honor an entirely different group of people with this collection of romantic cards you can e-mail to your loved ones on February 14th, or any other day of the year. It’s Scientist Valentines!

You can click on these to get larger versions:

Previously: You say you want an evolution…

Posted by David at 7:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (38)
Filed under: Favorites | Ideas | Science

You may have already heard about The World, a man-made archipelago currently being built off the coast of Dubai. When completed, the grouping of islands will resemble, more or less, the whole world, and each individual island can be privately purchased by a billionaire who wants to live surrounded by other billionaires..

It’s a clever gimmick. But for the truly eccentric billionaire, why stop there? For enough money, you could build your own island in the shape of whatever you want. Here are a couple more island ideas I came up with.

For the classic TV lover, the Isle of Lucy:

Of course, the same billionaire should also build Gomerp Isle nearby. But no Gilligan’s Isle. That’s too easy.

And for the practical jokester, here’s Compass Island:

Okay, the practical joke isn’t immediately obvious. Let me show you what it looks like from space:

That’s right, it’s oriented upside-down. It’s sure to disorient pilots flying overhead, and confuse people who come across it on Google Earth.

The idiom-loving billionaire could build islands which spell out the phrase “NO MAN” so that, finally, No Man is an island. The person who made his or her fortune in pancreatic medicine could live on the Islets of Langerhans, in the shape of the human digestive system. Oh, the island-pun possibilities are endless.

Posted by David at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Filed under: Ideas

The website gethuman.com has created a database of phone numbers for every major company in 15 different categories (such as insurance, phone companies, banks, etc) with instructions on exactly what you need to do in order to navigate your way to a real live human. For example, if you need to talk to a live person at Priceline, the instructions say, “At prompt press 1; at prompt press 1; at prompt enter phone number #; at prompt enter phone number #; at prompt enter phone number #.”

But that still seems like an awful lot of work to get a human. Why doesn’t someone create an application that does all the work for me? Let me select what company I need to call, and then use my modem to call them and do all that number-pressing automatically. At the last step, play a sound so I know to pick up my phone. Or just turn up the speaker on my computer so I can hear when a human picks up. Of course, not everyone has a modem any more, so the program could also come as a Skype plug-in and in cell phone versions for different mobile operating systems.

The program doesn’t need any sophisticated voice-recognition technology to know when it can press the next number. It can just be programmed to pause an appropriate length in between number-presses. And by letting me set my default services, I don’t need to see the huge list of companies all the time unless I want to. I could just press the “electric company” button and be talking to a person at ConEd a few minutes later. The program would need to come with some actual spoken words pre-recorded for those phone systems that require you to say “yes” or “operator,” etc. And it could store my account numbers so it can enter them where needed.

This shouldn’t be too difficult, right? Old BBS dialer software might even be usable by loading it with Gethuman info instead of BBS phone numbers, and using Hayes Commands to handle the pauses and subsequent number presses. But that method has limitations, and isn’t as complete or elegant a solution as a dedicated Gethuman Dialer.

[This idea came about during a conversation with my friend Jay, who deserves a share of the credit on this one. Thanks, Jay!]

Update: Well that was fast. A reader named Scott points out that such a service already exists through a web-based interface called Bringo at nophonetrees.com. I suppose a desktop app would calm any concerns about divulging your phone number or other personal information to any third parties, although it should be noted that Bringo’s privacy policy looks pretty good. So until such a thing exists, I’ll definitely bookmark Bringo.

Posted by David at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Filed under: Business | Ideas | Technology

Wikipedia lists dozens of variations on Tetris. I’ve played several of them, and still like the original version best. But I recently thought of a variation I haven’t seen before. It’s like a cross between Tetris and “Bubble Breaker” style games.

In this version of Tetris, which I call “Montris,” there are no falling tetrominoes (the shapes made up of 4 bricks that you’re familiar with in Tetris), and there is nothing to rotate. The shapes just drop one brick at a time, and it’s up to you to create tetrominoes when they land. When you create a tetromino, it disappears. Your goal isn’t to clear entire rows of bricks. You just clear tetrominoes. When you clear one and the bricks above it fall, this may create other tetrominoes that clear creating a chain-reaction. So thinking ahead is important.

If you drop a brick where it could potentially create more than one tetromino, you have to decide which tetromino to clear. See the animated example above for an illustration of how this could work.

Dropping one brick at a time means the well would take a long time to fill up, so there should be some other variation that keeps the game exciting. Maybe it’s as simple as a narrowing the playing field to only 5 or 6 bricks wide? Or maybe gameplay speeds up very quickly. Or maybe the next brick starts dropping when the current one is only half-way down.

One of these days, I’m going to learn enough about programming to be able to actually try my ideas.

(I call it “Montris” because it combines “mono” and “tetris.” Also, the word “montris” in Esperanto means “to show” in the past tense. That’s not really relevant, but now you know a word in Esperanto.)

Posted by David at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Filed under: Games | Ideas

Based on photo by FatBusinessmanSculptors sometimes choose their medium based on how that material will change over time. When Frederic Bartholdi decided to make the Statue of Liberty out of copper, he knew that years of wind, rain, and sun would give it a nice green patina, and he must have had that final look in mind when he designed it. I think a sculptor should be brave enough to take a similar approach to another natural phenomenon that can change a statue’s color: bird poo.

Perhaps a bronze statue in homage to a historical figure who had salt-and-pepper gray hair can be erected below the branches of a tree. At that time, the sculptor’s work would be finished, but the statue would not. Only after enough pigeons have crapped on his head to give him a greater likeness to his subject would the statue truly be complete.

Or maybe a statue could be made depicting a child holding up a delicious cupcake. A nice bird crap patina on the cupcake could portray delicious frosting. Or, if he holds an ice cream cone, dripping bird poo flowing from the cone to his hands could emulate melting ice cream. Maybe the child could even be depicted as about to lick it off.

Or, even more simply, how about a statue of someone wiping bird crap off his shirt, placed somewhere that the statue is sure to be pooped on? A great work of art, depicting a modern Sisyphus.

Previously: Michelangelo’s David meets George Bush

Posted by David at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Filed under: Art | Ideas

Yesterday, I posted the image seen here and told you that there is another picture hidden somewhere within it. I challenged my readers to find it. After a bit of confusion in the comments, someone finally declared that they found it: “Hahahaha! Cool! It’s the NY skyline!” Another reader noted, “The first thing I did was to try to tweak the image using the Levels command. I was greeted with a surprise right there in the dialog.”

Yes, the New York City skyline is hidden in that picture’s histogram. It looks like this:

Several people have asked how I did it. So I’ll explain, but I might get a little longwinded in my attempt to be clear. Feel free to just skim and look at the pictures if you don’t want to read it all.

The idea for this project started with a question: Is it possible to create an image that depicts its own histogram? (A histogram, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a bar graph representing all the tones in an image — it typically looks something like a mountain range). I played around a little bit in Photoshop and the closest thing I came up with was this image:

…which has this histogram:

Yeah, okay. That was neat I guess. But I couldn’t come up with any other shapes that worked. But all this thinking about histograms and what they represent got me wondering if I could control what a histogram looks like by manipulating the image. Could I create something recognizable? To try it, I would need to find something that would be entirely black, horizontal in orientation, and not require any holes or vertical gaps. A skyline seemed perfect.

I did a Google Image Search for “manhattan skyline silhouette” and was tickled to see that the perfect image came up in a result from my own site! I once posted an entry about New York City as depicted in the animated film Antz. Google showed me this image from that entry on the first page of search results:

A typical 8-bit grayscale image can have 256 possible shades of gray. A histogram represents the amount of pixels at each level from 0 to 255, and is 256 pixels wide. So the first thing I did was shrink down the Antz skyline to 256 pixels wide. This meant that each vertical band of black pixels in the skyline represented a value from 0 (black) to 255 (white).

Then I created a new document. The first column of pixels in the skyline image represents value “0” and has 43 black pixels. So my new document needed 43 pixels with the value “0.” Column 2 of my skyline represents value “1” and has 46 black pixels. So my new document needed 46 pixels with the value “1.” And so forth.

Another way to think of it is to say that I took all of the “skyline” pixels from this image:

…and put them in a new document, with no other pixels. Then I rearranged all those pixels into a square from dark to light. The result was very close to perfect. The histogram looked pretty much like the skyline, but it was stretched vertically.

Normally, a histogram is scaled vertically so that whatever value has the most pixels reaches all the way to the top of the graph, and everything else is sized proportionately. In this case, it is the shade of gray which forms the World Trade Center antenna that has the most pixels. So this is roughly what the histogram looked like:

I was thrilled that it worked, but I didn’t want it stretched vertically like that. In order to prevent the WTC tower from being too tall (and everything else scaling upwards with it) I had to put extra pixels of one value in my image, so there would be more pure of that value than any other value, which would push the others down so that the graph remains proportionate. I chose pure white, because this creates a thin black line at the far right side of the histogram where you don’t notice it.

I could have added this row of white pixels at the bottom of the new image, but instead I typed my website name in white, and placed it within the image. In doing so, I copied over some other pixels, which altered the skyline. So I had to put it in a place where the “damage” to those buildings wouldn’t be that noticeable. It took trial and error, but I found a good spot. It changed the skyline on the left side a little bit (compare to the “Antz” image). But it still looks like buildings, so I accepted it. Also, this way I get some credit if the image gets passed around without attribution.

I did it all tediously by hand, but I think with a little tinkering, someone could write a program to simplify the process, taking a 256 x 100 silhouetted image and extrapolating a new image with that as the histogram. And the final image file doesn’t need to be a square with a gradient, either. Those pixels could be in any order. They could be completely scrambled. Or they could be laid out in a way that shows an image of an Apple (as in “The Big Apple”). As long as no new pixels are introduced or deleted, the histogram remains the same. But that is a lot more work than I was prepared to do.

Oh, I almost forgot: I doubled the image size so it would look a little better on the website. As long as I resized it using the “Nearest Neighbor” method instead of some other interpolation method, every pixel (and therefore every shade represented in the image) would be duplicated identically, keeping the proportions in the histogram the same.

Update: A reader has taken this idea even further!

Posted by David at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (40)
Filed under: Art | Favorites | Ideas | New York | Photography | Technology

Note:I wrote this article in 2001. At the time, Nintendo had a camera add-on product for the Game Boy that took low-quality black and white pictures. Small, cheap, color digital cameras were not nearly as prevalent as they are now. I originally posted this on my photography website. There has been a link to the article from Ironic Sans in the sidebar on the front page, but I’ve decided to integrate it as a regular Ironic Sans entry and remove the sidebar link.

Background

All colors of the visible spectrum can be broken down into combinations of just three colors: Red, Green, and Blue. In fact, if you look at your computer screen under a magnifying glass, you will see that it is made up of tiny red, green, and blue lights that are varied in combinations to create all the colors you see on your screen.

Every color picture can be broken down into three separate black-and-white pictures which represent the amounts of red, green, and blue that are used to make up that picture, as in this example:

The Theory

If a color picture can be made from three black and white pictures, I could use the Game Boy Camera to take three separate black and white pictures (using filters to capture the red, green, and blue values of a scene) and then use the computer to combine them into a single RGB image. A more elaborate version of this process is commonly used in high-end digital cameras used by large photo studios, so I saw no reason why it wouldn’t also work with the Game Boy Camera. [*note: three-pass digital cameras aren’t really used as often now in 2007 but they were at the time I wrote this]

The Process

I picked a location in my apartment where I could make sure the Game Boy could sit absolutely still (so I could take three identically-posed pictures) and picked a small colorful object to photograph. One of the first objects I tried photographing was a Snapple bottle, Kiwi-Strawberry flavored, with a colorful green and pink label.

To capture only the red light reflecting off the Snapple bottle, I was going to need a red filter that I could place in front of the Game Boy Camera, so that only red light would reach the lens. I went to a local photo-supply store and obtained a free book of filter samples, containing dozens of various colored filters. I picked a red filter and held it in front of the lens and took a picture. I repeated the process with a green filter, and then a blue filter, careful not to move the camera or the bottle in between shots.

Using the Game Boy Camera PC Link from Mad Catz, Inc., [no longer available in 2007] I transferred the images to my computer, where I ended up with these three images:

I thought I had done everything right, but when I pulled the images into Photoshop to create my RGB composite from these three images, I came up with a picture that looked like this:

Problems

Obviously, I didn’t have the full color photograph I had anticipated, although there was a hint of color in the image. If my theory was correct, though, it should have worked. A little bit of research on the internet brought me to the cause of the problem. It turns out, the light-sensitive chip inside the Game Boy Camera (it’s called a Mitsubishi M64282FP chip) is sensitive to infrared light, which isn’t visible to the human eye. While I was succesfully filtering out red, green, and blue light, infrared light was still reaching the lens of the camera.

This was easily provable by pointing my Game Boy Camera at my TV remote control and pushing a button on the remote. Even though nothing seemed to happen that I could see with my eyes, I could see the front of the remote light up on the Game Boy screen! I would have to filter out the infrared light reaching the Game Boy Camera in order to get my full color photograph.

Solutions

Apparantly, most digital cameras are sensitive to infrared light, but contain a built in “hot mirror” filter, which blocks infrared (something I learned through a little research on-line). So I went to my local camera shop and bought a hot mirror filter (which was more expensive than I thought it would be, but I was now determined to take color photos with my Game Boy Camera, so I bought it anyway). I held it in front of the Game Boy Camera and repeated the remote control test, and could no longer see the light of the remote light up. I had a good feeling about this. I attached the hot mirror filter to the front of the Game Boy Camera using masking tape, and picked a new test subject to photograph: a Garfield Pez Dispenser.

Repeating the three-pass process of photographing an object with the red, green, and blue filters, I came up with these images:

Already I had a good feeling, as these images were more in line with what I was expecting than with the previous tests.  So I again transferred them to Photoshop, created a composite RGB image, and this was the result:

The World’s First color photograph taken with the Game Boy Camera!

More Pictures

October 31, 2001 - Okay, I know that they are not the most exciting subjects, but the following photos (plus the Pez Dispenser above) are the World’s First color photos taken with the Game Boy Camera. I just shot whatever was around to be used as test subjects.

November 10, 2001 - My first outdoor attempts. First off, notice the vignetting in these images (the halo that seems to be around the pictures). This is caused by the camera itself reflecting in the Hot Mirror filter. I’ll have to use a black magic marker or something to make the GB Camera black so it doesn’t reflect (I think it wasn’t a problem indoors because the camera didn’t have such bright light on it). In the picture of the trees, the blue sky came out nicely peeking through the top. I’ll have to solve the halo problem before my next attempts.

[That’s it. I never got the motivation to shoot any others in this series, as cheap color digital cameras became more prevalent, and the novelty of taking low quality color pictures with a cheap handheld device wore off].

Posted by David at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Filed under: Games | Ideas | Photography | Technology

I think a kitchy home accessories designer should license historic photos of celebrities giving the middle finger and turn them into 3-dimensional coat hooks. At right is an artist’s rendition of how such a coat hook might look using a famous photo of Johnny Cash.

A coat hook like this would be the perfect thing to put in your rebellious high school son’s bedroom. He’ll enjoy it so much you can be sure he won’t come home from school and just drop his jacket on the floor any more!

Other celebrities who have been caught on film giving the middle finger, making them great candidates for the coat hook conversion, include Abbie Hoffman, Willie Nelson, and, um, George W. Bush.

Posted by David at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Filed under: Design | Entertainment | Ideas

In business, there comes a time in the fiscal year where the boss calls his or her employees into the office for a performance evaluation. But the only direction the evaluation flows in the workplace is from top down. Nobody asks the employees how the boss is doing. Sure, the boss has to be evaluated, too, but the view of his or her performance is only seen from above.

I think businesses should implement Boss Evaluations, similar to the Teacher Evaluations that students get to do in school. I’m sure we’ve all had similar thoughts when it came time for our own evaluations, so I know it’s not a revolutionary idea. But maybe it’s an idea that needs to rise out of the wishful thinking of the low rungs on the ladder and actually be implemented.

Of course a manager’s performance can be measured quantitatively (are sales up? is profit up?) just as test scores can be measured to judge a teacher’s success. But human relations are an important factor in a business’s bottom line, as well. When employees are happy, they stick around. While high turnover is acceptable in some industries, time and money spent training new staff may be better spent elsewhere. It benefits a company to have dedicated employees who aren’t constantly seeking a better position. It has been said that people don’t quit their jobs – they quit their bosses.

It may turn out that a division within a company is successful despite a boss that nobody likes. That is important to know, too. Employees with bad bosses may still be working hard, but they may also be more likely to steal office supplies, trade secrets, or other property.

Sure, there’s always going to be the brown-noser who gives a positive evaluation no matter what. And the employee with a grudge may give a negative evaluation to a boss who’s actually pretty good. Statisticians are better equipped than I am to suggest ways to account for that (is it as simple as throwing out the highest and lowest scores?). But a progressive company bold enough to ask the employees how the boss is doing may find itself with valuable information for running their company more effectively.

Note to my former boss at the last company I worked for: You didn’t inspire this article. Don’t worry.

Posted by David at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Filed under: Business | Ideas

Walt Disney should add a new division of scientists (biological imagineers) to its company with the goal of breeding “Mickey” mice — real mice, selectively bred for their big round ears and black facial coloring which makes them resemble a certain famous cartoon mouse. Then they can sell them as pets in pet stores.

If they start now, this could be the next big craze come Christmas.

Posted by David at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Filed under: Entertainment | Ideas | Science

I’m off to the Galapagos Islands, so I won’t be posting anything or replying to e-mails for the next two weeks. Try not to make a mess of the place while I’m gone. Hopefully the Spambots won’t take over.

To give you something to talk about, I’m leaving you with my Top 5 “Remainder” Ideas. These are just a few of the many ideas I’d jotted down in the past but decided weren’t worth fleshing out into full posts for one reason or another. Since they will probably remain that way, I figure they’re better off posted here than wallowing in obscurity. It may be more obvious why some never made it to full posts than others.

Remainder Idea #5: Bring back the Ford Prefect

I had this thought one day that Ford could make it big with Science Fiction fans by introducing a new car in its defunct Prefect product line. Then I actually looked at the old Ford Prefects, and wondered if maybe there was a good reason the Ford Prefects aren’t around anymore. I don’t know how you’d give that old car a modern feel.

Remainder Idea #4: The World’s Mildest Salsa

Salsa companies always brag that they have the world’s hottest salsa. But what about people who just want flavor? Why doesn’t anybody market a product as the world’s mildest salsa? I think there’s a missed opportunity here.

Remainder Idea #3: “The Short Con”

In the con artist’s world, a “long con” is a term referring to an elaborate and drawn out scam where the victim actually hands over his money repeatedly, going back to the ATM (or his home, or office) for more and more money. A “short con” refers to a quick scam where the goal is simply to get whatever money the victim has at the moment. Well, I thought “The Short Con” would make a great name for a movie about a con artist who happens to be really short, and who specializes in short cons. Somehow, he gets involved in a long con. Naturally, he would be played by Danny DeVito. I didn’t get much further than that.

Remainder Idea #2: My Amazon “Don’t buy me this” List

On Amazon.com, you can create a Wish List of items you want, and rank them by priority so people know what to get you for your birthday. Not long ago, the lowest ranking you could give an item was labeled “Don’t buy me this.” I wondered why on Earth anybody would bother putting something on their “Wish” list and then rank it “Don’t buy me this.” So I put together a whole list of only things I didn’t want people to buy me on Amazon, and ranked them as “Don’t buy me this.” I don’t remember what was on the list anymore except for a few things like some earrings that looked like chewed gum, a talking Ann Coulter doll (for which my comment was something like, “I’d rather have a bag of dirt”), and an actual bag of dirt. Shortly after I put together my list, Amazon changed the Wish Lists so the lowest priority rank no longer says “Don’t buy me this.” It just says “lowest.” And then my list wasn’t funny anymore. To the contrary, it suggested that I kinda wanted a talking Ann Coulter doll and a bag of dirt, but just a little bit.

Remainder Idea #1: Webstr

This was my idea for a Web 2.0 site for people who want to adopt orphan sit-com boys (the one for adopting orphan sit-com girls is called PunkyBrewstr of course, and they’re both in perpetual beta). I even went so far as to make a Webstr logo, using the old Webster TV show font in Flickr logo colors. But then I decided it wasn’t funny enough, and I set it aside until I could come up with a better idea for what a Web 2.0 site called Webstr would be. That never happened.

Interesting note: While working on Webstr, I realized that adopted kids were a big theme in 80s sit-coms. Punky Brewster was adopted. Webster was adopted. Arnold and Willis were adopted. Ricky Stratton was adopted. Well, reunited with his long lost father, anyway. Close, though. Any others?

Bonus remainder idea: The Top 10 Reasons Phil Donahue Should Be President

One day I realized that I think Phil Donahue is a pretty level-headed guy and I mostly agree with his politics. I thought it would be funny to put together a list of the Top Ten Reasons he should be President. Unfortunately, I only thought of one, and it’s probably only funny to hardcore Phil Donahue fans, and that’s not enough for a good post. So let’s just pretend I’ve come up with 10 reasons, and you’ve just read reasons 10 through 2, and they were very funny, so I can go ahead and tell you the one funny reason I came up with. Ready? “And the Number 1 reason why Phil Donahue should be President is…. That First Lady!”

See you all in a couple weeks!

Posted by David at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Filed under: Ideas

I recently rewatched the Alien movies. I must still have Aliens on my mind because today I got a little creeped out by my stapler (it’s the one on the right):

All this leads me to the thought: They should make a stapler shaped like the Alien. And it should have one of those staple trays that reloads by extending outward, instead of having to open the top.

Previously: Yip-Yip Martian Binder Clips

Posted by David at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Filed under: Design | Ideas | Pareidolia

The way I see it, companies have about a week or so left in the life of the lolcat meme to come up with some clever ads that use the lolcat format. I think for the most bang for their advertising dollar, the campaign should probably appear in college newspapers or someplace else where the fewest people possible will be scratching their heads in confusion.

Take a pizza and burger joint, for example. They could start with a picture of a pizza delivery guy, with the caption “I’M IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, DELIVERING YOUR PIZZA” or it could have a picture of a burger and fries with the caption “YES YOU CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER.” Okay, they could probably come up with something more clever than that. But it would give me a chuckle to see a company incorporate an on-line meme into their ads without referencing where it came from. It would be sort of an inside joke among the internet savvy.

Posted by David at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Filed under: Advertising | Business | Ideas

Note: Do not play the game described below if you are in any potential danger of hurting yourself or others, or if you are near traffic, or anywhere that you aren’t positive it can be played safely. Play at your own risk.

That’s got you curious, huh? What’s the Sensory Deprivation game that’s so dangerous it requires a disclaimer? It’s something I found myself doing one day in college as I was walking across the busy campus and saw a blind student walking in the opposite direction with a walking cane. I wondered what it’s like to confidently walk around, even while unable to see. Blind people seem to do it okay. Could I?

I had my sunglasses on, so I figured nobody would notice if I suddenly closed my eyes. First I looked out at the ground ahead, the people walking around, and figured that if I just kept walking straight I would avoid all of them, and the lamp post. How many steps could I take before I had to open my eyes again? I decided to find out. Without changing my stride, I closed my eyes.

The answer was only around 6 steps. I had no confidence in my ability to navigate at all. I felt like at any second I would smash into something or someone. I must be veering one way or the other, right? When I opened my eyes, I realized that I had been walking straight after all and was actually doing pretty well. So I tried it again. After another 6 steps, I couldn’t bear it.

Why was I only able to take 6 steps? How many would I have been able to take if I’d had a walking cane before I freaked out about bumping into things? How long does it take the newly-blind to be able to get around confidently? Is it faster to learn with a cane, with a guide dog, or with echolocation?

I haven’t really played the game since then. Do I dare, here on the busy streets of Manhattan? Do I get bonus points if I play while wearing my iPod? How many steps can you take?

Posted by David at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)
Filed under: Games | Ideas

It’s Memorial Day weekend, so I thought I’d share a little something I came up with after one of my Memorial Day BBQs a few years back.

You know how hot dogs come in packs of 10, but hot dog buns come in packs of 8? This pretty much assures that there will be leftovers of one or the other at the end of the day. Hamburgers on the other hand can be spread out a little more evenly because you can control the size of the patties you make with your ground beef. But one year I ended up with too much ground beef, and too many hot dog buns.

That’s when it occurred to me: Nobody says that hamburgers can’t be shaped like hot dogs. Thus the Hamburdog was born. Just roll up the ground beef into tube shapes, grill as usual, and place on a hot dog bun. Add your normal hamburger condiments, and voila! It goes against everything you think you know about picnic meats, but it sure is tasty.

Posted by David at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)
Filed under: Ideas

Today I had an idea for a t-shirt. Here’s the artwork I came up with:

I decided to make it available with or without the caption, in designs suitable for dark t-shirts or light t-shirts. I like it both ways:

It’s Charles Darwin meets Liverpool and it’s available now in dozens of styles and colors for men and women in the Ironic Sans store!

Posted by David at 1:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Filed under: Favorites | Ideas | Science

FOX should make a spinoff of “24” for kids. They should call it “12” and the main character should be twelve years old. Each of the 24 half-hour episodes covers 30 minutes in the life of Brad Bauer (or whoever). The first season could start at 7:00 a.m. on his twelfth birthday as he prepares to head to school, and end at 7:00 PM when he gets home. In between, Brad gets wound up in some crazy adventure and manages to save the day, while he tries to keep up with his classes, celebrate his birthday, and impress that girl he likes in algebra class.

Previously: What George Bush and Jack Bauer have in common

Posted by David at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Filed under: Entertainment | Ideas

There’s an article on-line from Money Magazine called “50 Bulls**t Jobs.” That’s right. Bulls**t. With those two asterisks in there. Come on. We know what word they mean. So why not just say it? If they think we’re adult enough to be reminded of the word, why don’t they think we’re adult enough to see the actual word? (The article is based on a book by the same name, but without the asterisks)

Oh, I know. It’s the kids. They might be reading. Sh*t. I didn’t f*cking think of that. It would be terrible if they would see the word “Bulls**t” in print, but it’s okay for them to see it with the asterisks, right? They’ll have no idea what that means. And I’m sure they have no idea what “the F word” is, so let’s just keep calling it that.

But what about us adults who can decide for ourselves whether we want to see foul language or not? Is there a way for us to avoid all this f****ng unnecessary self-censorship littering the internet?

There is now. I’ve created the “Uncensor the Internet” script for Greasemonkey (a Firefox plug-in that lets you add all sorts of useful functionality to your web browser, available here). If you’re running Firefox with the Greasemonkey plug-in, just install this script, and see all the foul language that people are pretending they don’t use.

It’s also available as a standalone plug-in for those of you who aren’t running Greasemonkey. Right-click on the link to save it to your desktop, and then drag it into your browser window.

To see an example of the script in action, reload this page after you’ve installed it.

Previously: The CNN Fortune Cookie Greasemonkey script. It automatically adds the phrase “in bed” to the end of CNN.com headlines.

Update: I’ve fixed the script so it knows the difference between “a whole” and “a**hole,” and it knows the difference between “batch,” “botch,” “butch,” and “b*tch.”

Posted by David at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (58)
Filed under: Favorites | Ideas | Language | Technology

I love having my music on my hard drive or iPod, but one reason I still buy CDs and then rip them is that I enjoy holding the jewel box in my hand and reading the liner notes while the music plays. I just hate how much space all those jewel boxes and liner note inserts take up.

So how about making a Digital Jewel Box? Here’s how it would work: The DJB sits next to your stereo or computer in its charging dock. Similar to a digital picture frame, it syncs wirelessly to your home network via WiFi, syncing itself with iTunes or whatever digital player you use. When a new song comes on, the DJB’s screen shows the album cover art for that song.

At any time, you can take the DJB out of its dock, sit on the couch with it, and use the controls on its side to flip through the rest of the liner notes, including track listings, lyrics, song credits, acknowledgments, and whatever else is included in the paper version. The pleasure of flipping through liner notes doesn’t need to go away just because CDs do.

You can also use the DJB as a remote control, as long as your media player supports it. The DJB has an infrared transmitter, and the charging dock has an IR receiver. So if you’re sitting on your couch flipping through your favorite album’s liner notes and you decide you’d rather be listening to a different track, you can skip forward or back by pressing buttons on the DJB itself. If you want to hear a different album entirely, use the DJB’s menu to flip through your music. The songs themselves aren’t stored on the DJB, but the track listings are.

When you’re not playing music, you can set your DJB to turn off completely, or double as a digital picture frame, displaying your personal pictures.

Here’s another mock-up of what the DJB might look like, but probably with fancier transitions than these:

Posted by David at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)
Filed under: Design | Entertainment | Favorites | Ideas | Technology

The term “F-Bomb” is used often these days to describe what we used to simply call The F Word (mp3). Specifically, it describes the F Word when it’s used unexpectedly. For example, if a caller on a radio show uses the F Word, the host might chastise him for “dropping the F-Bomb.”

With that in mind, I think that if I were an evil dictator in a country developing a nuclear weapon, I would name my new weapon “The F-Bomb.” Then I’d get a little giggle every time it was reported in the news that my country is threatening to drop the F-Bomb. As in, “Ironicsansistan tested a long-range missile today, heightening fears that it will follow through on its threats to drop the F-Bomb on South Ironicsansistan.”

Posted by David at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Filed under: Ideas | Politics | Science

Nearly every episode of the 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter began or ended (sometimes both) with the main character Gabe Kotter telling a really corny joke about a family member. It usually started with him and his wife sitting around, and he asks, “Did I ever tell you about my Uncle So-and-so?” When I was a kid, I loved this show. I found it hilarious. Now, not so much. But I’d still like to see a definitive list of Kotter family members and the situations they found themselves in. I think there’s a Wikipedia article somewhere waiting to be written. I’ve done a little bit of research, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Uncle Carl was a hunter out hunting game. One day, he shot a beautiful girl in the woods because she told him that she’s game. (Season 2, Episode 11)

Uncle Max was a barber. He once hired a private investigator to follow a man who kept coming in the barber shop, asking how long the wait was until the next haircut, and leaving. The investigator followed the man and reported back to Max that the man was going to Max’s house every day. (Season 2, Episode 11)

Aunt Brenda believed in reincarnation. After Uncle Sidney died Brenda went to a seance where Sidney’s ghost revealed that in the afterlife he has a lot of sex before and after every meal. He explained that he is not in heaven — he has been reincarnated as a bull in Montana. (Season 3, Episode 5)

Uncle Eddie was a thief. He used bricks to break windows of stores so he could steal precious items for his girlfriend. When she got too annoying about all the things she wanted, Eddie asked her if she thinks he’s made of bricks. (Season 3, Episode 5)

Uncle Julian was raised by wild dogs. Eventually he was brought to civilization and became a mailman. He was fired for biting himself on the leg. (Season 3, Episode 24)

Uncle William was a pharmacist. He was fired for trying to fit bottles into a typewriter in order to type information on the labels. (Season 3, Episode 24)

Uncle Milton was a famous spiritualist who held seances every Friday night. One night Milton felt the presence of a spirit named Max who in life made a living as a waiter. Milton asked Max’s spirit to come closer to the table. Max refused, as Milton was not at one of Max’s tables. (Season 3, Episode 25)

An un-named uncle went to an Italian restaurant where he noticed a Chinese waiter who speaks perfect Italian. He asked the restaurant owner why. The owner explained that the waiter has only been in the country for two months and is under the impression that the owner is teaching him English. (Season 3, Episode 25)

Uncle Melzer was a navigator. He once removed a thorn from an elephant’s foot in Africa. The elephant was so grateful that he picked Melzer up in his trunk and placed him in his second floor hotel room. A year later, at the circus in Pittsburgh, the elephant picked up Melzer in its trunk and flung him into the balcony, breaking his legs. It was a different elephant. (Season 4, Episode 3)

Uncle Nezbit had no friends, but he brought his dog everywhere, including to the movie theater. The dog enjoyed a particular movie, which surprised Nezbit, because it hated the book. (Season 4, Episode 4)

When Gabe was young, his father told him that the local bully Tommy O’Shaughnessy was a coward. So Gabe told Tommy that, prompting Tommy to beat up Gabe’s father. (Season 1, Episode 2)

Young Gabe’s mother told him to ignore kids who made fun of his big head. But when she sent him on an errand to the supermarket, she suggested he could carry all the groceries home in his hat. (Season 1, Episode 2)

Anyone have more to add?

Posted by David at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Filed under: Entertainment | Ideas | Lists

INTRODUCTION
I’ve been participating in the beta test of a hotly anticipated new program called Joost. It’s essentially a video-on-demand service from the people who brought you Kazaa and Skype, which uses proprietary technology to make high quality video over the internet as instant as your TV. Unlike video sharing sites such as YouTube, you won’t get to upload your own videos to Joost. They will provide the content through contracts with various TV and movie companies, and show the programs in appropriate Channels. For example, they might have an NBC Channel where you can catch up on episodes of Heroes. Or you might go to the Warner Brothers Movie Channel to watch the movie Batman.

While still in beta, the content is pretty limited. I can watch some National Geographic documentaries, a few episodes of the World’s Strongest Man competition, some Canadian music video programming, and that’s about it. But while Joost is working on adding new content and improving the video technology, I’m still left wondering where the feature is that will make me want to watch video on demand with Joost instead of with, say, my local cable company or other on-demand service. Is it enough that the video starts in 5 seconds instead of 5 minutes like with other high-quality streaming video services? Maybe. But my cable box is even more instant than that. There’s a real opportunity here to make Joost something different and better than television, instead of something that’s as close to TV as possible. That’s where my idea comes in.

I imagine a feature that combines all the best elements of social websites like Digg, the humorous style of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the educational aspect of DVD commentary tracks, the user-contributed spirit of a Wiki, the format of Pop-Up Video, and integrates it all with Joost. It could make even the dullest content interesting and fun to watch, and make the best programming even better. Here’s how it works:

HOW IT WORKS
If I have the yet-to-be-named feature turned on, I can choose to use Joost in one of three modes: Writer Mode, Voter Mode, or Viewer Mode.

Writer Mode
In Writer Mode, whenever I pause the program I’m watching, a window pops up that I can type in. Joost uses a time stamp to remember where I was in the program when I wrote this comment, and also remembers where on the screen I’ve put the window. Then I can type in any comment I want. Preferably, it’s either informative about the particular scene (e.g. “This scene was filmed at Maine North High School in Chicago”), or it’s a funny comment on the scene. I can tag it appropriately as “funny” or “informative” so Joost knows how it’s intended.

Voter Mode
In Voter Mode, I watch the movie with a window overlaid in which all the comments people left scroll up automatically. I get to vote every comment up or down based on whether I agree that it’s funny or informative or neither of the above. In my illustration, all the comments are white, but perhaps they would be different colors to specify funny or informative. If there are too many comments to reasonably vote on so quickly, I can tell Joost to not show me every comment so that it’s more manageable. I can set the pace myself. Or I can just vote on the ones that jump out at me, ignoring the others.

Viewer Mode
In Viewer Mode, I can watch a program or movie with comments turned on. They will show up where and when the commenter specified, and then disappear after a few seconds. Because people read at different paces, I can control how many pop-ups I want per minute. If I say I want 12 per minute, only the 12 highest rated pop-ups will be shown in each minute of the program. I can specify if I want to see just the funny comments, or just the informative comments, or both. I can choose to read the highest-rated comments of all time, or just of the last month or week or day. I could watch the same program week after week and experience it with a whole new set of commentary. And at any time, I can switch to a different mode if I think of a new comment to add or if I want to vote down a lame comment I just read.

It’s possible that someone might have written a highly-rated comment that only makes sense if you’ve read a particular earlier comment that isn’t as highly rated and may not be shown. To make sure this doesn’t happen, the writer can indicate his comment is a “reply” to a specific earlier comment. In this way, a “reply” comment with enough votes to be shown automatically bumps up the earlier comment so it’s also shown.

CONCLUSION
This could be a lot of fun. Imagine watching a show like Heroes once, and then watching it again with comments turned on to see what other people caught that you missed. Also, this has potential to make programs appealing that people wouldn’t otherwise watch. Joost could worry less about making deals with content providers, because even free content like old copyright-expired movies become entertaining in a whole new way. So much of what makes Web 2.0 great is the community-generated content, and right now Joost offers no new way for the community to interact with its product except passively.

Sure, it does have an integrated chat window, but that’s nothing new that I can’t already do with any of a dozen IM programs. And because Joost offers video on demand (as opposed to live broadcasts), it’s unlikely that I’d be watching in sync with anyone else in a chat room anyway, which limits the usefulness of channel-specific chat. This idea could solve the problem of commenting in real time, and makes sure all the best comments rise to the top.

Posted by David at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (25)
Filed under: Entertainment | Ideas | Technology

Okay, imagine this. You go to a movie with your friend Pete. It’s an alien invasion movie about some lizard creatures from another planet who kill and oppress Earthlings. For the sake of our example, let’s just say it’s a remake of the 1988 movie They Live, and that it stars former wrestler The Rock. When you pick up your ticket at the box office, you’re asked if you sympathize with the aliens or the humans. You decide to sympathize with the humans, and you’re given a special pair of sunglasses. Pete picks the aliens, and he’s given a different pair of sunglasses.

You sit down and watch the movie, each of you with your glasses on. A few minutes into the movie, there’s a scene with a couple sitting on their couch watching TV. As you watch, you hear the sounds of the TV show they’re watching. It’s a nature program. They make some comments to each other about the show. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, two aliens jump in and attack, killing the humans.

Meanwhile, Pete has been sitting next to you with his pair of glasses, watching the same screen. But he’s seeing a very different visual. He’s seeing the scene from the aliens’ perspective. He still hears what you hear — the TV on, the couple’s comments to each other — but he sees the aliens climb in through the window, sneak up on the couple, and finally jump in and attack, killing the humans.

Later on in the movie, the aliens begin putting subliminal messages on billboards that only their fellow aliens can plainly see. You, with your human-sympathizing sunglasses on, see billboards advertising computers and such. But Pete, sitting next to you and watching the same scenes, sees the word “OBEY” on the billboard. He sympathizes with the aliens, so he gets to see what they see.

As The Rock wanders through the film, passing average citizens of his fair city, little does he know that some of them are actually aliens. You of course have no idea, either. But Pete, sitting next to you with his special glasses, is able to see which people are really aliens because they have hideous alien faces.

At some point in the film, The Rock gets his very own pair of Alien Sunglasses, and he’s able to see for himself who the aliens are and who the humans are. Action ensues, and The Rock saves the day.

How does it work? Rather simply. It uses the same technology as 3-D movies, but in a different way. In a traditional 3-D movie, two slightly different images — each representing what your right or left eye would see — are projected onto one screen through different filters. To avoid being too technical, we’ll just call them filter A and filter B. To get the 3-D effect, your right eye needs to see only what’s projected through filter A, and your left eye needs to see only what’s projected through filter B. So you wear special sunglasses with different lenses over each eye which filter the corresponding images. Filter A over your right eye makes sure it only sees what’s projected through a “A” filter. Filter B over your left eye makes sure it only sees what’s projected through an “B” filter.

In Simultain-O-Vision (that’s what I call it), there are two different images projected on the screen, only this time they are not representing what each eye sees. They are representing what each Sympathizer sees. Human Sympathizers get sunglasses with two “A” filters and no “B” filters. So they will only see the image projected through an “A” filter. Alien Sympathizers get sunglasses with just “B” filters. So they will only see the images projected through a “B” filter.

In practice, the “A” and “B” filters are actually polarized lenses set at certain angles. This means that if an audience member tilts his head even a little bit — or if the glasses aren’t made to an exacting standard — the angle of the lenses isn’t quite right, and he will see both visuals simultaneously and probably get a nasty headache. But some people will have more problems than others.

As a bonus, the “Sympathizer” aspect of the movie can be retained when the movie comes out on DVD. It can take advantage of the rarely-used “angle” button on your remote control so you can switch back and forth between Human and Alien perspectives while you’re watching the movie.

Posted by David at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Filed under: Entertainment | Ideas

Hi hi hi there, droogs. This weekend, oh my brothers, I, your humble blogger and narrator, had a thought in my rasoodock to create this orange clockwork. Viddy well this malenky clock which you can hang in your domy for just a little pretty polly. Perhaps your pee and em, or some other veck or soomka you know would find this clock real horrorshow.

Now available in the Ironic Sans store.

Posted by David at 1:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Filed under: Art | Design | Entertainment | Ideas

If I had the time, the means, and the resources, I’d make a series of large paintings of those little cards that describe paintings in museums. They would be paintings of the cards that describe themselves. For example, I’d do a painting in oil on canvas that describes itself as being an oil painting on canvas. Then I’d hang it in a gallery next to a little card that’s identical to the painting, but is actually there to describe the painting. I’d do a whole series, with different materials. Oil on canvas, Acrylic on wood, etc. See the photo illustration above for an idea of how it might look.

Posted by David at 7:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (30)
Filed under: Art | Favorites | Ideas