E-commerce is all speed– getting you your product fast and taking your money faster. What if there was an online service that would give you some of the immediate consumer therapy of making a purchase but actually held yor money for a self imposed period of days before it actually made the purchase? It would work like this, you still get to shop at the store of your choice, you get to use your credit card and the store responds as if your just a regular shopper.Behind the sceens the whole process is managed by the online financial proxy and payement and of course shipment of the goods is held until say 5 days later. You then get an email from the online escrow service asking if you still want to go through with purchase and if you do it releases the money to the vendor. If not, no harm no foul. The online escrow could give you a chance to cool your heels a bit before realizing that there is no shortage of flat screeen t.v.’s in the world or countless other online “deals”.

Posted: August 31st, 2007 under consumer therapy, control, money.
Comments: none

I wonder if there could be an inexpensive, environmentally safe additive to toilet water that would make it non-splashing. Maybe a plant-based substance that forms a thin film on the surface of the water? Then, when “object” is dropped into the water, it is safely carried down to the bottom of the pool, and nobody is subjected to a poor man’s bidet of splashing from below.

I want the news, not the weather!

Posted: August 27th, 2007 under futureNow, gear, public spaces, safety.
Comments: none

Does breaking spaghetti feel like a waste of time? What about cutting it into pieces for a restless hungry child? Have no fear; pre-cut Kid’s Spaghetti is what you’re waiting for!  Now if only somebody would produce it.

Posted: August 19th, 2007 under food, time saver.
Comments: none

Jamie like a lot of other parents has this problem of coming up with ideas but then losing them in the wild sweeping winds that blow through our heads each day.  So here are three of hers, gathered:

Vanity blog books.  A service of printing out and binding all of the contents of a blog into a cool little book.  Something to keep or share with the non-digital set.

The Napping Lot.  A parking lot where people with sleeping babies in the car could come hang out together, maybe get a little coffee or a snack and a kiosk, or read and trade some magazines.

The third idea… what was it… it’s blown away already.  It was cool though.

Posted: August 17th, 2007 under kids, public spaces.
Comments: none

my dad knew the secret of always having matching socks – you just buy hundreds of pairs, all the same. with nanotechnology, we should make a universal sock. any sock can mate to any other sock, just by holding it next to the mate. Or, you can choose any design from your little book of sock designs. Swipe the sock over a sock image or sock pattern and sit back and watch your universal sock reorganize it molecules from sports stripes to argyle.

NANO SOCKS!

Posted: August 4th, 2007 under futureNow, gear.
Comments: 1

Orwellian technology brings lost socks togeather, would also be good for keys, wallets, cellphones — if you can loose it –why not track it.

Posted: August 4th, 2007 under control, futureNow, gear.
Comments: none

I moan
I groan
I drone
I should have known
I be alone with my fancy phone.

Posted: August 3rd, 2007 under art project, titles.
Comments: none

We miss pneumatic tubes. Here are some ways that pneumatic tubes should be incorporated into our lives:

1: at the grocery store. Instead of carrying items to the checkout, you swipe them with your rfid tag that is embedded in your cell phone, then put them in a nearby pneumatic tube. The items are sucked away and collected somewhere nearby, where you can drive by and pick up all of your purchases. Better yet, they go directly to your home, see item 4.

2: pet grooming. Put your pet in, it comes out groomed.

3: laundry. This could be a pneumatic tube, or, frankly, just a plain old tube or big hole in the floor. The advantage of a pneumatic tube is that it allows the laundry to extend past your own laundry machine and possibly go down the street to a friend or neighbor’s laundry machine, where they probably have better detergent options.

4: pneumatic tubes directly between home and preferred vendors. For ice cream, chinese take-out, or that last-minute pepto-bismol.

5: Do you ever think that paypal is a big scam? Use the pneumatic tube to get cold, hard, cash directly to your living room.

Posted: August 1st, 2007 under gear, nostalgia.
Comments: none