December 9, 2001

12:46 PM

One idea a dayfor the rest of time, copyright-free.
posted by Su (14 comments total)

In that case it's probably patented.
posted by holloway at 12:49 PM on December 9, 2001

It's a great idea for the web, but you just know that the vast majority of submissions they get have got to be attempts at being funny. And their terms and conditions aren't really in keeping with the spirit of the free web thing. Gah.
posted by mattpfeff at 1:02 PM on December 9, 2001

I think they lost it at day 3.
posted by starduck at 1:23 PM on December 9, 2001

Half-bakery.
posted by timothompson at 1:30 PM on December 9, 2001

The next time someone says to me, "There's no such thing as a dumb idea" I'll be able to point him in the direction of this site and simply say, "Oh yeah?"
posted by MAYORBOB at 1:43 PM on December 9, 2001

I liked today's idea (day 479). The problem is, especially around here, that the Highway Department can't get their signs right, so how could the Parks Department be expected to do any better?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:48 PM on December 9, 2001

Half-bakery

That's too funny. I just reread The Phantom Tollbooth. Those bums should give credit....
posted by mattpfeff at 1:53 PM on December 9, 2001

I liked a lot of the ideas. Baby soap that turns colors depending on the temperature of the water, having photographers take pictures and then auctioning off the disposable cameras rather than having the pictures developed, white cabs, and revamping traffic violations system.

Not all the ideas are product ideas, and if they are they depend heavily on science making some pretty big leaps, so it's a nice place for things that wouldn't make it on half-bakery. It's almost like reading science fiction excerpts.

It was funny to see how many ideas were WAP enabled a year ago. Also nobody mentioned: "background-color: #006699"
posted by perplexed at 2:12 PM on December 9, 2001

If their big selling point is being "copyright free," they obviously don't understand copyright law -- there is no such thing as a copyrightable idea, it's only the expression of that idea that is copyrightable. If I wanted to impliment any of those ideas, I could do so without owing the poster a red cent (unless the poster had a business method patent).
posted by IPLawyer at 2:24 PM on December 9, 2001

its a nice background color though, huh?
posted by howa2396 at 4:22 PM on December 9, 2001

I liked a lot of the ideas. Baby soap that turns colors depending on the temperature of the water,

In an old issue of Wired they had a paint that would change colours by temperature. They suggested spraying frying pans and shower heads.
posted by holloway at 4:37 PM on December 9, 2001

Fuckin eight is enough, I'm amazon nobody's done alot like so:

Day 500. Blow it out your ass, call it idea-a-day.com

posted by EngineBeak at 7:10 PM on December 9, 2001

looks like coca-cola has been reading this site. Actually, I find it hard to believe that they didn't know that some of their ideas were already in popular use.

here's an idea they can use sometme soon -- if you're really planning for "the rest of time" you'll need a better archiving system.
posted by jessamyn at 7:43 PM on December 9, 2001

i didn't know babies ate that much soup
posted by poodlemouthe at 11:05 PM on December 9, 2001