MetaFilter posts tagged with ideas

highDEAS: Unique ideas or insights generated while one is under the influence of cannabis that wouldn't have existed otherwise (like the one for this link)

carsonb — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:26:56 -0800

Dude, wouldn't it be totally cool if there was an opposite microwave to cool tasty canned beverages in seconds? What if underwear had pockets? They'd be called Underawesomes! And don't you think ketchup packets should be bigger? Oh man, speaking of munchies, what if you had see-through fudge? You could see right through it! Dang, it would be rad if there was smokable tape you could use to repair your busted spliff, huh? But I mean, dude, there should like really be a website where stoners could post and discuss the ideas they get when they're super high. I'd call it highDEAS.

The Success of Development

kliuless — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:21:43 -0800

Innovation, Ideas and the Global Standard of Living by Charles Kenny: "The Success of Development acts like a sword through many of the Gordian knots plaguing the development community, especially those surrounding the rate of economic growth in many developing countries. Put that question to one side, says Kenny, and suddenly a lot of much more interesting questions, about issues like education and healthcare and clean water and human rights, come into a lot more focus. And if you use those metrics, rather than GDP growth, to judge the success or failure of developing countries, then things look rather more optimistic than you might think." (pdf) Glenn Hubbard's review, cf. Technological Creativity and Economic Progress BONUS - Philip Greenspun on Universities and Economic Growth - Welcoming the Wall Street brain drain - A Lost Decade for Jobs - Productivity and the Internet - How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations

Should the Government Give You a Credit Card?

emjaybee — Mon, 25 May 2009 12:48:17 -0800

"In fact, while transactional credit provision is a perfectly good business, it might be reasonable for the state to offer basic transactional credit as a public good." Blogger Steve Randy Waldman has an idea that's so crazy it might work. He buried it in a nice wonky, obscure post about transactional and revolving credit, but now has been linked by Ezra Klein at his new WaPo blog. Will Metafilter heads explode?

God, Memes and Steel

Artw — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:34:29 -0800

Jared Diamond on the Evolution of Religions. (SLYT)

11. Witty Post Titles

daniel_charms — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:24:25 -0800

Which way are the winds blowing in the world today? From New Calvinism to Ecological Intelligence, here are 10 ideas that are changing the world right now.

What if...

divabat — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:03:15 -0800

The Signtific Lab invites people to develop cutting-edge ideas through experiments of imagination and discussion. Experiment One: what would happen if outer space becomes as accessible as the Web today?

Liberal Arts 2.0

divabat — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:44:16 -0800

"What are the new liberal arts?", asks SnarkMarket, inspired by Jason Kottke's tagline and Edge. The blog post has turned into a pitch for a new collaborative book, with spirited discussions and over 100 suggestions including photography, design, relationships, mythology, intuitive thinking, synthesis, knowledge mastery, search, archiving, play, and home economics.

Web design inspiration

signal — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:42:15 -0800

Pattern Tap: an organized collection of web design ideas. You can also make your own 'user sets', suscribe to other's sets, and other 2.0ey things.

Dopamine

homunculus — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:30:25 -0800

A New State of Mind. "New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process."

Philip Pullman's ideas behind His Dark Materials

rongorongo — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:40:33 -0800

Philip Pullman interviewed about the ideas behind "His Dark Materials" [YT,1 hour, South Bank Show,parts 2,3,4,5,6,7]. Inside, and hidden from those who don't want spoilers, are links relating to the ideas raised and about the books generally. References have to start out with the Fall of Man and specifically with Milton's Paradise Lost (Pullman's opinion this book) which gave the series its title and form. Add in some William Blake and especially "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" which Pullman memorised as a child (part of an excellent New Yorker article "Far from Narnia"). Finally Heinrich Von Kliest's essay "On the Marionette Theatre" which sees the fall in a positive light (and which features an un-foolable fighting bear to boot). Growing up his early literary inspirations included Tove Jannson's "Moomins" - for their gentle strangeness, Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" books for their skilful construction and the comics such as The Eagle and Superman for their vivid way of telling a story. An illustration in "A Hundred Million Francs" by Paul Berna might have been the original inspiration for Lyra. "The Balloonist" - by MacDonald Harris serves as a template for Arctic exploration by balloon. Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Lady with an Ermine" and "Young Woman with a Macaw" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo were inspirations for the look of daemons. A general antipathy to CS Lewis' Narnia ( Pullman on 'The Dark Side of Narnia') - and other books which appeared to be against the idea of growing up - helped shape HDM too. Altough they are fantasy the books have quite a lot of science in them: multiverses, dark matter and communication devices which work on quantum entanglement for example. And if you would wish to follow in the steps of Mary Malone you might want to know about divination using the i-ching too. On writing - Pullman outlines some lessons for aspiring writers and fans of garden sheds interview him on the perfect place to construct your own best-selling trilogy. On religion we have previously had a thread about Pullman's conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Separately he has been called "The Most Dangerous Author in Britain" for his religious views. In the documentary he sites Physicist and atheist Steven Weinberg. For more serious fans Srafopedia is a wiki-based encyclopedia to go with the series and BridgeToTheStars is perhaps the best site for serious addicts. Finally places are important: the gargoyles of Oxford, Jordan college - based on Pullman's alma mater, Exeter College. The (threatened) boatyards of Jericho, Svalbard -the Arctic pearl (from a previous post). And finally, of course, a garden.

Imagine It!

divabat — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:00:39 -0800

Teams of student entrepreneurs around the world had six days to add value to a stack of Post-It notes as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The results are documented in Imagine It!, which aims to promote creative thinking. Some of the projects generated from the Post-It notes are a fundraising fast-food service that uses Post-It notes for orders; an elementary school class on entrepreneurship; a collection of notes and wisdom from top minds around Stanford University; awareness-building systems for disabilities, pedestrian crosswalks, and the Thai Constitution; mass fundraising for Kiva microlending; an open-source factorial music program; and some comedy based on organizing girlfriends. The video also features interviews from Guy Kawasaki, John Hennessy (president of Stanford), Richard Caruso (Entrepreneur of the Year), and other people in academia, business, and social entreprise.

Overblown, conceptually thin, with nothing to say

divabat — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:38:56 -0800

Rick Poynor asks - isn't it time we demanded more from design conferences?

Room in a Box

divabat — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:10:53 -0800

Moving houses but don't want to buy bulky furniture? Get a Casulo.

"When the world's great scientific thinkers change their minds"

stbalbach — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:55:33 -0800

"When the world's great scientific thinkers change their minds". Some Big Name thinkers (Dyson, Pinker, Venter, ...) change their minds on some Big Ideas (race, evolution, global warming,..) and explain why in about a paragraph each. Via Edge.

Better World Books

divabat — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:50:44 -0800

Better World Books - Recently recognized by Fast Company as one of the best for-profit social enterprises of 2008, they offer a wide selection of new and used books with free shipping in the US and less than $3 shipping elsewhere. A portion of the profits go to fund literacy organizations such as Room to Read and WorldFund, and their shipping is carbon-neutral. The only thing missing is the ability to import Amazon wishlists.

“I’ve been told the oil companies might try to assassinate me.”

divabat — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:06:16 -0800

64-year-old Frank Pringle has figured out a way to extract oil and natural gas out of nearly anything.

Hrm, where can I find an idea?

jonathanstrange — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:45:53 -0800

The Ideas Catalogue is a weird and wacky thing. It features ideas of things, and nothing more. They are for sale, and some have been bought.

What year is this?

divabat — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:44:56 -0800

On December 8th, pretend to be a time traveller.

Take a spin on the Idea Generator

jbickers — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:56:09 -0800

The Idea Generator.

I'd buy that for a dollar

mwhybark — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:55:45 -0800

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.

Web 2.0

bobbyelliott — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 09:44:05 -0800

What is Web 2.0? [PDF] The best description of Web 2.0 that I have read. The six big ideas... 1 Individual production and User Generated Content 2 Harness the power of the crowd 3 Data on an epic scale 4 Architecture of Participation 5 Network Effects 6 Openness

randomness

petsounds — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 09:00:54 -0800

Random Friday! pictures, confessions, quotes, wiki, word, kittens, livejournal, family circus, flickr groups, essay, comic strip, idea, haiku, howto, bullshit, inspiration

innovations of sorts

nickyskye — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 21:06:20 -0800

Some new gadgets, things and inventions: solar bikini that charges your ipod, paper soft wall, waterproof laptop, million dollar fishing lure, Obvio hybrid micro-car, needle-free injection, hi-tech dummies that can speak, breathe, bleed, react to drugs & die, dragon bag. Interactive sight, sound and physical objects from the student artists of the NYU Interactive telecommunications biannual showcase [video], including Animalia Chordata and Botanicalls, building telecommunications between people and their plants.

Holiday gifts for the world.

divabat — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 17:46:00 -0800

In need of last-minute Christmas gifts? Want to help the world in some way? Websites like ChangingThePresent and Alternative Gifts International allow you to buy or sponsor something useful as a present - from an hour with a creative coach, to wheelchairs in Cambodia; from walking children to school in the West Bank to flighting corruption. Maybe even a charity gift certificate? [more inside]

Steven Foster thoughts

trinarian — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 03:50:51 -0800

Steven Foster is the perfect bartender. He wants to share his ontology, his reflections on what it means to be happy, bird aquariums, how to make margarita mix from scratch, solutions to the world's five most pressing problems [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or just read the summary on every page towards the bottom], and more drink recipes than you can shake a stick at. This man delivers.