Be Excellent To Each Other

So following on from the furniture thread and the how old do you feel thread I was thinking about ideas I have had over the years that could have gone the right way if I had been arsed / thought them through properly.

Here's mine;

dronefilter.com (registered this one) : A website that lists the names and numbers of people that aren't mindless drones at large organisations such as as BT, energy companies etc. i.e. you can ring a company ten different times and one time you get through to someone who takes ownership of your issue and deals with it without passing the buck to another department or generally being shit. You would then put those details on a website and over time you get to know the decent people at every company you ever need to ring. Not sure how it would pay for itself or if you could put those details on a site but I still like the idea even if it's not workable.

That Top Gear Track thing I mentioned a while back about buying up some land, making a complete replica of the Top Gear track and then charging people to go round it in a reasonably priced car. You could do a video of their "experience" and then stick their times up on a web based leaderboard with filters based on age, track condition and various other criteria. Like it says on the Top Gear website because of the figure of 8 layout you could only have one person on it at once so you'd have to charge a few quid but I reckon a lot of people would pay it. Just not now.

Emergency Vehicle Alerts : Even yesterday this annoyed me. I was driving along and saw a flash of blue lights in my rear view mirror so pulled in left quick to let them past in plenty of time. Idiots in front of me just stayed there for ages and didn't move with the police car having to bob and weave to get through. So my idea is similar to the Traffic Advice thing where emergency vehicles emit a localised radio signal like that when their sirens/lights are on which activates a receiver in every car radio which interrupts whatever people are listening to and says "Move out of the way, dick. Emergency vehicle in vicinity". Obviously you would have to introduce it on all new car radios as part of some legislation etc but no doubt it would save the lives of Baby P, Maddie and even Lady Di when the blues and twos can get to their destination quicker.

Sock mops : You know them slip on plastic bag things you get when you go round a posh show house? Well stick an abrasive sponge thing to the bottom and you can use most of your weight to get up stubborn stains from the kitchen floor without having to bend down. Good for old/lazy people but potential for slippage on arse and subsequent litigation.

I've got others I'm sure but there's a start.

Got any?

A babysitting service for upper middle cladd holidaying couples in (Snip! - NO! NO! NO!- Taste Ed)

I had an idea for a new type of putter when I was a wee-un, but never really told anyone...

I had an awesome idea for a hemorrhoid cure.

An idea that every pc game should have:

When on the graphics settings, let us choose a resolution and the average fps that we want. The game proceeds to make tests with the in game engine and then select the appropriate settings.

The most approximate i've seen to this was F.E.A.R.

Even better, let the computer secretly scan what specs you have and then adjust the graphics setting menu so that what is in reality 'medium' or 'low' reads as 'Realistic' or 'Very High', whilst secretly hiding options that would defeat a good 24fps average. This would then stop people obsessing over tweaking their machines and buying new graphics cards, and lead to a rise of substance over style. It would also piss PC Format off. Hurrah!

About ten years ago, I had an idea for a website where you could search for recipes by simply typing in or selecting what ingredients you had. Now they all do it. Hmph.

The Cunt List - a list of phone numbers of companies that invade privacy, manipulate and openly lie to thousands of innocent people and call it 'cold calling'. A few thousand people simply spend a few hours of their week repeatedly calling these numbers and offering them a biscuit, some gardening or a car boot sale discount for only £50. If they ever protest, point out that you're merely doing the same as them, only on a far smaller scale, and so the only way they can stop it from happening is if they stop doing it themselves first.

Me too, I even went to the extent of (trying to) setting up a database from a recipe book, but never got any further. I am still surprised none of the online shops use it though, eg it scans your shopping basket and makes recommendations for recipies and further purchases. "Oh, you only need some cream to make spaghetti carbonara." Here look at this nice picture of what you could eat, just click here to add it to your basket.

"Great Ideas you just sat on" Buttocks, great idea

But now you can buy a dremel and a set of glass fibre abrasive discs from any DIY store in the land

I came up with this idea, too. It was going to be called whatsinyourfridge.com, and you'd basically put all the ingredients you had left in your fridge and it'd come up with a recipe.

is there anything like this for drinks?

I had an application that did it for cocktails, I assume there is a website somewhere that does it, but have never looked.

There shouldn't be any cream in a decent carbonara.

/cooking nerd.

Plenty of cream in my patented not-a-nara, though!

Way to miss the point!

The rest of the post was boring

(Unlike this one. Another post of the week for me, Dr G)

Carbonara? Surely you southerners just add mayonnaise and cut up some spam to add to your pasta? I seen it on the tellybox that you do.

Dronefilter is a great idea. It won't help consumers directly - as calling in and asking to speak to X because you've heard they get shit donewon't get you speaking to X, but it will help X get a management position ad then the culture of callcentres might change over time.

Top Gear track - people have it on Gran Tourismo don't they? Probably not that much money in it.

EV Alerts - no good - as they'll drive past buildings with radios on. Also won't work in rush hour Cardiff. If you are Ambulance or Fire Brigaid, people would drive off a bridge to get out of your way but if you are the Pigs, they'll be 'pretending to be lost in thought' when you come blaring up behind. I've been sat on Boulevard Des Nantes within sight of the 'baddie' when the fuzz (I always wondered why that term was used, then recently I remembered 'cunt stubble') were behind with it all going off, and people just did not give a flying fuck for them. They got him in the end, you can only ignore for so long, but don't fucking bother calling Old Bill in Cardiff when the rush hour is on, they'd be quicker walking.

Whatever my feelings about the Police, I always move out of the way, because if I don't it'll be someone I love getting raped they were off to save. That'd be typical.

Also, while on the subject of HM Police, a number of solicitors in Cardiff are letting it be known on the grapevine that arrestees are being told the solicitor can't get there for six hours... before he has even been called. Many will make a statement without one to get out of the station, whereas saying you'll wait the six hours will usually see the solicitor appear in fairly short order. Seems Old Bill forgot people would be asking their solicitors how come they made it so quickly in the end. This is not confined to one station nor one firm of solicitors. Unsure about client groups, though. Happens to my lot frequently apparently but I can't speak for your upper middle class nicked folk. For legal purposes, I must reiterate that this paragraph is hearsay, albeit hearsay I'm prepared to accept as entirely possible. Fair warning either way, innit?

It's not in Gran Turismo 5 Prolouge, it'll be in the full version.

I believe you can get it for rFactor.

Metametacritic
OK, not it's actual name.

Basically, the natural extension of metacritic. It would let you customise which places you wanted to let contribute to the score. Like, if you wanted to ignore IGN, but listen to Eurogamer, you could.

It would also let you fiddle with metrics, genres, platforms, specific writers at publications. You could also, for example, weigh games that were controversial (wide spread of scores) higher than those with more centralised data.

Add some social networking and a bunch of ads, and have some good monies.

I can imagine the PRs having a field day with that site.

I've been planning on adding this to the Random Recipe Generator for a while, but never got round to it.

My 3rd year project at uni was effectively an early flickr, but I did nothing with it after graduating

Before the advent of series link and Sky plus boxes and stuff, I planned to invent a VCR that you could text.

So you're out for the night, realise that you've forgotten to tape Top Gear, so you text "Tape Top Gear at 8pm" to your VCR, and job done.

I once had this really weird dream about a PVC tube with a soft rubber ring on the end. At the other end was a sucker thinger (kinda like a willy pump but not a willy pump likes).

It would be telescopic like the old light sabres (not them new flashy ones, the ones we all twatted one another with as kids) and would allow you to change light bulbs in high ceilings (because you was rich and filthy) without getting out a ladder or stacking chairs upon one another and risking your neck.

At the time I lived in the US, and almost put a patent down. I didnt, and I forgot all about it until about two years later some smarmy infomercial cunt was selling it for $24.99 to stupid people.


Bah.

Cock pump bulb proboscis?! I'm there dude!

Lightbulbs you say?

yeah. you extended it up to the ceiling (high ones like) and put it on the bulb. Add some suction, remove bulb.

Kinda like a big willy pump arm extension that allows you to change a bulb without any climbing.

EXmaslent idea. It's similar to my idea (which I actually did invent one of) where your car texts you when its battery is full, if you were waiting for it.

PC wivvaTV card. Modemset to "wake up on ring", channel select through pushing tone buttons, recognised via voice recognition. Job done.

Transparent toilet seats....

I'll get me coat.