Brain Calorometer

I want to know how much brainpower is literally being used when I think up thoughts. Is it generating heat that I can measure? Would it need to be wired up? Perhaps it's in a helmet of some sort. Yeah, show me how much mental exercise I'm doing right now... Awww, SNAP!

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Now playing: Kruder & Dorfmeister - Rollin' On Chrome
via FoxyTunes

Bike Powered Trash Compactor

I want a trash compactor, but I don't want all the power drain. I want to hook my bike up to a set of pulley and have all my trash (which is not a lot, by the way, mostly thin plastic coatings and lids) squished into small bricks. I want my bike to power tons of things, so a bike powered generator would also be nice, but that's an idea that's already in circulation. The compactor should make very little noise, give me some exercise and reduce the amount of times I need to take my trash out while keeping my trash costs lower since I don't need the big bin at pickup time.

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Now playing: Joe Satriani - Day At The Beach (New Rays From An Ancient Sun)
via FoxyTunes

Tune Google

I want to whistle a tune into my computer and have Google search the web for the same musical signatures and find all the songs with that tune. Perhaps just be able to hum literally a few bars and get the web to discover the gist of the tune, then find it for me.
Case in point, the Periodic Song that my friend Damien Potts introduced me to. He passed away recently, and I didn't have the sense to ask him who sang it. Might as well also have Google embed a simple tuner and metronome into the search page to make sure you got the notes right. Heck, integrate it into Garage Band for me while you're at it, so I can plunk a few notes on my midi device to have the tune discovered out there.

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Now playing: Damien Potts - Periodic Song
via FoxyTunes

Conservation dial for combustion cars

I want to be able to tell my car "More power, I need to be able to pass that truck up this hill in the rain" and later on be able to tell my car "Less power, I need to coast at 65 all the way to Portland and get 70 mpg". I know this is possible. If you have a 6 cylinder car, you need to be able to tell it "5 cylinders right now, I'm in traffic going 5 mph". I want a computer readout just like the Prius has, showing torque and mpg as I move the dial from power to energy savings. Kablow!

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Now playing: The Chemical Brothers - Left Right
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Idea Camp

Another idea I've been cooking up for years. I think this one is my best. The idea is to give kids a camp experience that specifically fosters creativity. All the best camps wrapped up into one. Fun with brainstorming, collaboration, and inventions. At the end kids would do the classic talent show, but with an opportunity to show the camp their best ideas. All kinds of creativity would be fostered, but the focus would be on the specific skill of coming up with new ideas and exploring ways to implement them in the real world.

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Now playing: The Chemical Brothers - Galvanize
via FoxyTunes

Big Fun Gym

This is an idea I've been cooking up for 7 years now: Build a geodesic dome the size of a football field. Cover it with solar collectors, but let much light in below. Inside the dome, it's a huge playground for grown up kids. All the stuff we liked doing as kids, but bigger, better and faster. Around the outside would be a huge river-like trough for kayaking. Inside lane separated with a wall would be a swimming track. Inside that would be a walled-in racetrack for human powered toys: That's right, Big Wheel, Trikes, Green Machines, scooters, rollerblades, the works. Racing teams meet weekly. In the middle, there would have to be a huge mountain for climbing, bouldering, rappelling. All around the mountain would be cool big toys to climb on like cargo nets and such. There would have to be a zip-line from the top of the mountain, landing you in a huge pool of plastic balls. An olympic-sized pool at that. Jungle gyms a plenty. A juice bar. Pogo stick area. Adult-sized Sit-n-Spin with adult sized vomit bags in the middle. Of course, there would have to be hundreds of yards of adult-sized habit-trail. At night, you could play laser tag. Some of the human powered devices would be fitted to generate energy for the facility. How you like me now?



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Now playing: Cat Stevens - Peace Train
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Book a marching band dot com

You heard it on Tusk by Fleetwood Mac, and it's about time high school and college marching bands put their shingles up. Clearly it has to be a non-profit endeavor, so the money raised would go to the music program or to a fund for under-privileged kids to get new instruments. Essentially, marching bands rock and should be hired to play gigs that are not just astroturfed. A marching band for a wedding? You bet, and the proceeds go to a good cause.

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Now playing: Herbie Hancock - Chameleon
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