1,000 (bad) ideas
blog.jgc.org
blog.jgc.org
If you write an idea down and think about it, you show your brain interest in ideas so you will get more ideas over time.
I think it's an essential habit, to write and think about your ideas, when you want to be more creative and have many ideas.
Then the value in actually realizing all your ideas, is much less than picking the good ones and realize them.
Update: I believe that some Mercedes models actually have brake lights that flash during strong braking. Google "adaptive brake lights" for more info.
I've seen them on the road maybe 20 times.
If the ECU knows the position of the crank (because of the encoder on the crank these days) it also knows which piston is past top-dead-point.
Inject some fuel in to the air already present in the cylinder, spark and go!
No starter motor required.
Regarding the ideas, I think the way you are organized and how you have this set up is at least as impressive as the fact that you've had 1000 (not so bad) ideas. My way of 'filing' an idea is usually to register a domain name in the hope that when the time to fish for a new project comes around that I still remember what it was about.
A system that pauses music when you remove headphones would solve a problem, thus it's a good idea - it's just a small issue of the implementation.
Probably most of those 1000 ideas are not bad, but might be difficult or infeasible to implement.
RE: headphones - there could be many possible solutions to this - I think Casio makes a watch that activates the backlight when you raise you rist to look at the time - same technology.
This practice is rendered impossible by this proposed technology.
That said, as an idea, it isn't bad. However, I contend that the statement that ideas can't be bad, is wrong. The idea of eliminating all Jews, gays and Gypsies to fix Germany's economic problems strikes me as a pretty bad idea.
Put a fifteen second delay on it. Problem solved.
I have that habit too, actually, in the workplace for instance.
However I'm pretty sure the idea of ethnic cleansing and mass murder was conceived quite a lot earlier than the second world war...
If an idea is actually compelling, then it will stay with me even if I don't write it down (and I'll continue to think about it, expand upon it, tinker with it, etc.). If I don't remember it, then it probably wasn't that interesting to begin with.
I track all mine, good or bad, and when I'm feeling uninspired or burned out on what I'm working on, I like to go back and at least have a laugh at all the old ideas.
Sony Ericsson has already implemented this! http://www.sonyericsson.com/putyourearsincontrol/
Here's another one: http://stealchoofsideas.blogspot.com/
If anyone is interested, the site is free and hosted here: http://idealogue.heroku.com
Source here: http://github.com/robinator/ideas
Look page source Line 70 to 94.
Not exciting to say, but ideas are a small part of success. Or said another way, to implement one idea, you need 1000 good ideas.
Yes, though regrettably without your level of discipline and patience, so reviewing my old notebooks makes me feel scatterbrained. One thing I'm going to steal from you is the practice of numbering concepts: quantifying them is a great way to mitigate over- and under-confidence.
Of course, a lot of 'bad' ideas only seem so because it's not obvious at the time how the cost of implementation would justify the benefit. For example, I like your idea of pausing the music when the headphones are off. Downside: the requirement for sensors in the headphones, signal infrastructure going back to the sound source, and so on. Possible workaround: ability to measure micro-variations in power consumption consistent with worn/unworn pressure differentials.
Fortunately, I was able to keep my filing to disclosure ratio quite high (21/36) (even if it was never tracked officially). Agree that just because the company decides to file a patent does not automatically make it a good idea.
Eventually I got back to coding and went away from ideas. The gulf between ideas and implementation is not just time, its also mindset. I am learning how to balance the two.
It's essentially a webapp where you give someone a book with the promise that when they are done reading it, they will then give it someone else, and so on and so forth. You could then visualize your 'impact' upon the world by seeing how many books you've spread and where they've gone.
Any input?
You're supposed to trade books, you use points to order books, get points by sending them, etc.
You read a book, then 'release it in to the wild' by leaving it in a public place with a sticker and unique book-crossing ID. Other people can then pick it up and pass it on, leaving a trail online of it's travel across the globe.
It can be entirely free, although there is a store where you can order the stickers, and unlock 'pro' features on the website.
The general idea is good but the implementation is odd. It should be enough to do like the ipod/iphone, that pauses the music if you unplug the earphones. I don't know if it's a original idea by Apple, but I love it.
Unless of course it detected when you put them back in and resumed.
It's a great idea too, imo.
It would even work for giving someone else the buds to hear a song you're listening to. Pauses while you hand them over.
http://www.sonyericsson.com/putyourearsincontrol/
I don't think they ever shipped, though.
One problem is that a general forum is not attractive to specialists (who might have to invest time just to explain why something would be useful in the first place), with the result that suggestions trend towards a blend of trivial and naive. Another is the nagging sense that the more well-specified an idea is, the more likely it is to be be exploited for private gain, and since one can't patent or copyright an idea per se, and building a prototype plus filing an application for a patent is quite expensive, there's not much economic incentive to develop ideas to that point, even if the goal is to make the patent public domain (so as not to allow private monopolies).
Actually, this is precisely what patents are for. You don't need to implement an invention in order to obtain a patent, you just need to describe it in sufficient detail "as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use [the invention]" [1]
Currently licensed by Bosch and integrated into at least one test vehicle.