I had an idea for a website with community driven content.  Someone would post a rumor or something unconfirmed and people would either simply "confirm it" or add evidence and such to support or invalidate the rumor.  I'd compare it to a cross with snopes.com and mythbusters.  You could have different user rankings for how much they've contributed and maybe for a rumor to move to a status of "confirmed" it would need to be confirmed by an established member or authority.  Eventually, as the community grew, I think we'd form quite a thinktank full of valued people. 

Watching J'aime's kids the other day, gave me an idea.  I call it KidCom.  It's a device, much like a watch, that your kids wear.

In it's simplest form, it just has the time on it and you can set alarms on it that say things like "1 hours before Daddy gets home", or "it's almost snack time".  It's to help highlight and grow the anticipation for the important and happy moments in their days.

There are a few things you can do to extend the functionality.  A web interface or desktop application to record your own voice and have it say messages on certain times.  Or you can change settings remotely if you're going to be late.

It could be integrated with a gps for locating your kids, or even some sort of 911/call home functionality for emergencies.  I think the simpler the better these days when it comes to technology...especially when it comes to kids...which makes me feel old...I'm going to go play with LEGO blocks now.

When I see abandoned cars along the road or in vacant lots, or even really rusty old heavy machinery and such, I want to steal them.  I had always thought it'd be fun to have a flatbed truck, drive up to these vehicles, and just take them.  Take them to the recycling center for some extra cash, or just stack them somewhere in a big pile for fun.  When I passed basically a parking lot of a half a dozen rotting vehicles the other day, I had a new idea.  When you take the vehicles, just go and leave them in the middle of a street somewhere, or just parked in a parking space somewhere in the city.  That will get the owner's attention and start taking care of it.  

It reminded me of a story where some neighborhood with an HOA put a boot on his car right outside his house because you weren't allowed to park cars on the street there.  He ended up getting a car mover dolly and moving the car in his garage.  The boot company said he stole their boot, and he denied it and said that they are welcome to take it anytime want.  Pretty funny read...http://www.clublexus.com/forums/car-chat/362154-epic-thread-homeowner-vs-hoa-and-arizona-parking-solutions-boot-me-i-move-car.html

Had this idea on our honeymoon to chichen itza.  You used to be able to climb up the pyramids, but since 2005, after someone fell down them and died, they have been closed off.  I wanted nothing more that day to go up those steps.  There's even a doorway at the foot of the pyramid that you used to be able to tour the inside.  The root of the idea is everything has a price.  If I paid someone enough money, they would let me do it.  It's just a matter of finding that person and negotiating with them.

So that's what this company does.  We go to popular destinations like chichen itza, sports stadiums, etc and draft a contract with them.  Each contract would have to be custom tailored to protect the interest and investment of the site and the members.  Things like only 5 members at a time, have to be a site staff person with them, only able to go after hours or certain times of the years, etc.  The site has the benefit of free advertising through our website and brochures etc.  So we'd have sites interested in offering us a special service, maybe even to the point where they would approach us once it got popular.

We could also have members make requests for a specific event or site.  We would act as the broker for them, building upon our previous reputation and experience.  There could be different membership rates and options.

  We'll call it the Blue Jacket Members club or something.  The logo would be a capital M with a circle above it, to look like someone in a jacket.  We'd put little logos at the ticket counters of each of the spots we had agreements with.  The long term goal is to just keep on building up a portfolio of places to see and experience to the point where common conversation is "oh yeah, we went to that place too, but we did the Blue Jacket Members Tour and it was a blast." 

 

With all the hoopla around getting a "good" email address, to the point where you want to make sure you have a good one for resumes, I wonder what we're going to go in...03?  40? 50?  years when all the owners of current email addresses die.  I know Yahoo will deactivate your account after 90 days or so of non-use, but I'm not sure that there is a purging system for all major accounts.  Maybe we'll just see a new fad domain come out, like aol.com, hotmail, or gmail.  It will probably just get harder and harder to get the name you want.

In our Bible study, we're going through Hebrews, which has its ups and downs for sure (controversy around Melchizedek, God swearing against Himself in 6:13 when it's against the 3rd commandment, or not to swear at all in Matthew 3:34, the differences between a promise and an oath, etc), but an interesting clarification occurred to me today, and I wanted to get it down on here to preserve it for later research for historical roots or existing thoughts.  I am going to keep to the theory of 2 covenants with God and His people, even though there are arguments for multiple.  The old covenant (AKA Old Testament) and the new covenant (AKA New Testament) being how we obtain salvation and how we are cleansed.

My thoughts were around the transition from the old covenant into the new covenant.   A brief comparison between the 2 covenants can be found here.  In Hebrews 8:13, depending on what translation you are reading, the old covenant is called obsolete and will decay away.  Even in 8:6-7, the new covenant is called better.  This right here would be the building blocks against the Jewish faith.  In some articles I've been reading, they take the perspective of uniting the Gentiles with the Jews with the new covenant (see Ephesians 2:15 and Galatians 3:28).  The key part in the Galatians verse is "...for you are all one in Christ Jesus."  He is the catalyst to a new covenant.

In the first covenant, Moses uses the blood of animals to cleanse, but not grant eternal life.  (It's important to make the clarification that killing animals did not guarantee the Old Testament followers salvation.)  So it was through death that we were cleansed.

Now, there is no plan for salvation explicitly stated in the Old Testament; unless you make a connection to Jesus Christ through symbolism or hidden meaning.  Only in the new testament are we told what we must do for salvation: Acts 4:10-12  "It is by the name of Jesus Christ...Salvation is found through no one else..."

So, we have a covenant requiring death for cleansing, jesus being a catalyst, and a new offering of salvation as a result.  So my idea was that Jesus was born into the old covenant, His blood was shed (as the Lamb of God) by the people, was put to death, and then he defeated death.  If we think of things chronologically, he dies, we would then be cleansed (if we are to allow the assumption of his death being a sacrifice, although inadvertantly) When he is resurrected, what then happens to our guilt?  My answer is that Jesus Christ now owns it, since it was washed away by His blood.  So we have no choice now but to follow Christ since we are not clean without him holding our sin.

Just like in the economy, debts can be bought.  The loophole in the old covenant is that Christ was operating under it, but had no sin, therefore no debt.  So when he is capable of maintaining integrity to the first covenant in that he remains without sin, but now that he has defeated death, he can offer it to us as well under a new covenant.  Basically, he bought us out of our old contract and is able to make his own terms so long as he operates by the original contract.  The only mentions of eternal life in the Old Testament is in the apocolyptic Daniel, where he says the dead will raise, some to eternal life. 

The unique thought here (at least in my opinion), is that Christ is not only the beginning of the new covenant, bringing eternal life to sweeten the deal, but Christ is also necessary to make the transition from Old to New.  It's not just a "God says it's over" and bada boom bada bing.  There is still a legalistic flow and logical understanding connection to be drawn, which is important in these days.

This is another one of those ideas that came to me in a dream.  There was a popular guy that ran this coffee shop hang out place, and I went to him all excited about an idea to help his business.  He had all this wall space that he liked to hang paintings and photos from local artists.  My idea to him was to have people be able to take digital pictures they've taken of the city, and print them out in his place.  The idea would be, if the photo was really good, he would offer them the opportunity to have their photo featured on a postcard and sold in the store.  So you'd have these racks on postcards all from local people basically on consignment.  It'd be a great starting place for art school students or even indie photographers to get started and make a few bucks.  It wouldn't have to be limited to postcards, but I would think it would be the most marketable item (and the store was downtown by point state park).

Had a dream about a video game last night.  It was a free roam world, 3rd person, kind of like the game Black & White.  All the characters were animals and you had to interact with them to learn "concepts" like trading, communication, hiring, etc to get things done.  The point was just to create a community that worked together and you got to chose how they worked together, whether through strict government policies, violence, friendly favors, etc.  It was a very cartoonish and humorous game.  The animals were very personified.

So that was the extent of the dream, and then I started thinking about this more and fleshing it out.  As far as names for the game, the first thought was "Orgz" since it's catchy and could be short for 'organization" or "organisms".  My next thought was for a sub-title, which was something like "All animals are created equal.  some are just more equal than others."  Which is an obvious lending from the book Animal Farm  by George Orwell.  Then, you'd have to consider the legal ramifications, but it would be a great opportunity to base the game on the book and just call it Animal Farm.  You could use all kind of quotes from the book like "2 legs are better than 4".

You could pick from a few animals as your character, each with their own personalities and benefits:

Duck - Everyone's friend since they are in the air, water, and on land.  They're pretty emotionally unstable and irational though.  They also can't do much hard labor.

Horse - Very stern and a strong laborer.  Things are the way they are because they should be that way.  Not cooperative or open to change or creative inovation.

Dog - Smart and analytical.  Able to organize (herd) everyone to action by motivation (not fear).  Sometimes distracted by leisure instead of work.

So the goal of the game would be to run a farm, but it's really more of town exchanging goods and services.  Like, the pigs have bacon to trade, you don't actually kill the pigs for their bacon, you talk with them and work out something in exchange, like X amount of mud for Y amount of bacon.  Keep the pigs happy, and they'll give you more bacon.  you could even get a little more complex about designing the layout of the farm.  Keep the cats away from the muddy pigs so they'll chase the mice out of the barn.  A sense of humor will determine the success of the game, so you have to put in a lot of witty things like being able to open a petting zoo for money, but none of the animals like being extorted like that (form of prostitution).  Or humans coming in and offering to outsource your cow production items like milking, meat packing, etc.  Cows would be really stupid in the game.  Really stupid.

 

Sitting around a friend's house Saturday, Nick, Andy, and I had a fleeting idea for a new business.  We'll call it Retro's.  It's a store where they have every video game console available for you to play.  You'd have to have the systems behind a case, and only employees are allowed to handle them.  Patrons can come in, pay a membership fee or some equivalent to play any game from the library of video games you have in stock.  Now, the cool part is, as you're starting out, you ofcourse want to build an inventory.  So, you barter membership time for game titles or systems that you do not currently have in stock.  Eventually, you'd have a pretty awesome collection of all kinds of games and systems, and you didn't really have to do work for it at all. 

In a world where everything is consumer driven and made for a 24/7 commercial world, we've seen on demand movie rentals, personal television recorders, skipping commercials, and even regular content available for free on the internet.  We're perpetually tailoring services to meet the demand of a growing need for customization.

Recently, a bunch of my friends and I had a tough time scheduling a movie outing with everyone's schedules.  This has to be a common occurence.  I wouldn't be suprised if we saw theatres offer smaller, private theaters, that let you select the movie and even the starting time.  Replace the huge 280 seat theatres with 7 40 people theatres, and as soon as it fills up to a profitable margin, let them start their movie whenever they want to.

As home theatres get cheaper, and the availability of new releases gets delivered to the home sooner, I am predicting we'll see the disappearance of the movie theatre completely, and just like televisions became common place, so will a more developed movie experience.