gwern has a great summary of "time-lock encryption" possibilities: http://www.gwern.net/Self-decrypting%20files

I think your sarcasm-meter failed you.

Hey, that is an interesting idea that I have often thought about before, but have not been able to wrap my head around how this could be done. Are there any links/literature you can point to for techniques that sort of fit this bill?

I almost imagine doing something like this in a physical system is easier than at the cryptographic level, but that probably is to be expected considering my physics background. I mean, using quantum phenomena seems to be an obvious way to do it this albeit completely infeasible at this time.