I'd buy that for a dollar

May 22, 2007 6:55 PM

My Million Dollar Ideas"Ever since I thought up of the basic idea of the World Wide Web in 1990 and didn't write it down, I thought I should start documenting these more." Jon Konrath takes notes on certain of his harebrained ideas. Examples to date: the pneumatic-tube-food-delivery theme restaurant 'Tubes,' America's next hit gameshow 'Heads or Tails,' and several ideas that combine the concepts of American status-seeking image-consciousness, SUVs, car conversion kits, and hybrids.
posted by mwhybark (37 comments total)

Ever since I thought up of the basic idea of the World Wide Web in 1990 and didn't write it down

1990? What a coincidence, that's the same year that Tim Berners-Lee finished his first implementation

Also I'm pretty sure this is a dupe.
posted by delmoi at 7:02 PM on May 22, 2007

How in the name of *** does this site keep crashing Safari?
posted by lekvar at 7:08 PM on May 22, 2007

Huh. It seems to be possible for the same person to hate hybrid cars irrationally and also to despise modern television game shows.

I'll have to make room for this new category of individual in my model of the world.
posted by gurple at 7:09 PM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Cleverer and less bitter: Ironic Sans.
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 7:12 PM on May 22, 2007

What is it about hybrid cars that brings out such derison? If someone invented a car that ran on water, would it have the same image problem?
posted by Western Infidels at 7:33 PM on May 22, 2007

Oh man, I would totally eat at a pneumatic tube restaurant. Every day, if possible. Especially if it were an automat.
posted by the dief at 7:33 PM on May 22, 2007

I don't know that writing it down would have helped this guy. C.Batt said it best over in the Ze Frank thread: "No matter how many time you say '1 part inspiration, 9 parts perspiration' no one listens."
posted by revgeorge at 7:34 PM on May 22, 2007

What is it about hybrid cars that brings out such derison? If someone invented a car that ran on water, would it have the same image problem?

I think some people resent people who are genuinely altruistic, but I think the hybrid car hate is more against people who ostensibly practice altruism by spending money on themselves. It's similar to the resentment of people who buy organic vegetables or free-range chickens or hemp clothing. The idea is that you don't get to feel high and mighty if you're just spending more money on yourself than other people do.

I think the reality is, of course, more complicated, but I'm guessing that's where the hate comes from.
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 7:56 PM on May 22, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

This guy sounds like he needs a cockpunch.
posted by Thoth at 8:00 PM on May 22, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

He was 25 years late. Ted Nelson dreamed something very much like what ended up being the web in 1963. He invented the word "hypertext" because he needed it to write up that idea in 1965.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:14 PM on May 22, 2007

Well, yes, Steven, but that doesn't mean that Tim Berners-Lee gets no credit, does it?

Generally invention is more a matter of several people pushing in roughly the same direction at once, like the dozens of light-bulb patents that preceded Thomas Edison. Edison didn't invent the light bulb -- he invented the first one that worked, that was economical to produce, and that attracted investors.

I've had much the same reaction as this guy, although I never thought writing them all down would help. I had a basic idea for an optical mouse back in the 1980s, after my umpteenth gummed up mouse. I even came up with a touch trackball -- before I had ever seen a trackball mouse. Did I have the engineering expertise to turn these into patents? Of course not. I have no idea what prior art was at that specific date (whatever it was) and I bet that there was a similar patent sitting somewhere in some file cabinet already. But nobody was making them yet.
posted by dhartung at 8:24 PM on May 22, 2007

IfIHadANicklr (beta)
posted by mkultra at 8:32 PM on May 22, 2007

I love my Prius. When I had to drive another car for a few days (thanks to a neighbor hitting it) I missed it and couldn't wait to get it back. The Prius is very pleasant to drive. I love just touching the door to unlock it and pressing a button to start it without having to fumble for a key. Driving a regular car I was annoyed by the engine noise & transmission shifting jolts, which the Prius doesn't have. Any other car feels primitive to me now.
posted by mike3k at 8:59 PM on May 22, 2007

Tubes...
posted by Tube at 9:17 PM on May 22, 2007

Meh.
posted by bhouston at 9:25 PM on May 22, 2007

I had an idea to do a website like his at least five years ago.
posted by extrabox at 9:28 PM on May 22, 2007

I thought of that comment before you posted it.
posted by pompomtom at 9:35 PM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wow. "My Million Dollar Ideas, or: My daily irrational screeds against sensible fuel consumption"
posted by Navelgazer at 9:57 PM on May 22, 2007

Best of the...oh, fuck it. This guy's a douche.
posted by maxwelton at 10:40 PM on May 22, 2007

You see it's this mat, with different... conclusions written on it
posted by dreamsign at 12:24 AM on May 23, 2007

(pneumatic tubes rock)
posted by dreamsign at 12:25 AM on May 23, 2007

What is it about hybrid cars that brings out such derison?

Conservation of energy. See, Prius owners love their cars so much, in all four of the Classical Greek senses, that it upsets the balance of dharma. This excessive love invites an equal and opposing hatred to take shape in the heart of man.

This is similar to the Hasselhoff Effect, wherein a personality maligned and loathed universally in his/her fatherland will enjoy inexplicable success and approval in a random European nation. Or Japan.
posted by kid ichorous at 1:02 AM on May 23, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

Oh, thank god. I was worried the web was running out of random people posting their complaints and unsuccessfully trying to be ironic and funny in doing so.
posted by Muddler at 2:23 AM on May 23, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Hmmm, I see: Whenever you get a potential idea you first check this site to see if it's there. If it is, then you know the idea is shit.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:37 AM on May 23, 2007

Hmmm, I see: Whenever you get a potential idea you first check this site to see if it's there. If it is, then you know ahead of time that the idea is shit.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:39 AM on May 23, 2007

I really like the contraceptive beer idea.
posted by lemonfridge at 3:41 AM on May 23, 2007

On the other hand... "I think the next logical step for small computers would be the insertable computer. It would be roughly dildo-shaped, and stored in a bodily orifice"

DO NOT WANT!
posted by lemonfridge at 3:42 AM on May 23, 2007

C'mon, not even a Al 'I invented the interweb' Gore joke?
posted by darkripper at 4:00 AM on May 23, 2007

I thought of the pneumatic tube restaurant already. Also the model train food delivery restaurant. At both of these restaurants you'd order via a McDonald's-style console at the table.

As someone who thinks up hare-brained schemes on a nearly daily basis, I'd like to point out that invention is only 1% inspiration. I'd finish the rest of that quote but I'm too lazy.
posted by DU at 4:25 AM on May 23, 2007

Sorry, Al Gore jokes died with the Constitution.
posted by mek at 4:26 AM on May 23, 2007

What is it about hybrid cars that brings out such derision?

One guess: for some, it might be that hybrid buyers act and feel as if they are doing some great thing for the environment when they are really only taking a largely token action, because they could and should simply drive fewer miles, make fewer trips, walk and bike and bus instead, and otherwise get their asses out of their cars and keep their cars off the roads and out of the parking lots. But hybrid drivers continue to zoom around in their cars, perhaps even more than they used to do in their non-hybrids.
posted by pracowity at 4:57 AM on May 23, 2007

darkripper: "C'mon, not even a Al 'I invented the interweb' Gore joke?"

Internet != World Wide Web
Please stop thinking it does.
posted by Plutor at 5:31 AM on May 23, 2007

What is it about hybrid cars that brings out such derision?

South Park: Season 10, Episode 2.
posted by mkultra at 7:22 AM on May 23, 2007

Q. What is it about hybrid cars that brings out such derison?

A. I love my Prius. When I had to drive another car for a few days (thanks to a neighbor hitting it) I missed it and couldn't wait to get it back. The Prius is very pleasant to drive. I love just touching the door to unlock it and pressing a button to start it without having to fumble for a key. Driving a regular car I was annoyed by the engine noise & transmission shifting jolts, which the Prius doesn't have. Any other car feels primitive to me now.

Sorry.
posted by otio at 7:29 AM on May 23, 2007

DU I've eaten in model-train-served restaurants in both the UK and Australia. The UK one also had a robot serving drinks.
posted by pompomtom at 3:19 PM on May 23, 2007

Western Infidels writes "What is it about hybrid cars that brings out such derison?"

I'm guessing "hybrid car owners".
posted by Bugbread at 7:25 PM on May 23, 2007

Oh, man, I totally feel this guy. Every week or so I come up with my new Million Dollar Idea, but never write them down and then get pissed when someone actually implements them.

I invented the debit card in like 1984 - in my mind, of course. Fuck me.
posted by tristeza at 2:41 PM on May 24, 2007