Old vending machine idea

I’ve wanted one of these old cigarette vending machines for years. I remember these as a kid, and there’s something magical about the mechanical pull that dispenses goods. Ideally, I’d like to get one and have it professionally stripped, cleaned, re-painted and have all the mechanicals cleaned up and well-oiled. Then, find an interested business where the machine would stand out and be a point of interest for their customers. Then, I’d like to engage someone like my friend Rick Boxeth and his delicious, hand-made, chocolate covered caramels, …

Alaskan Farms

As I was shopping for a new house, I saw some amazing photos of ‘open-air’ homes. Homes that have giant doors the size of walls that can be opened up and create an amazing open space feeling. I thought about cooling a space that size, and wondering if the right airflow design could keep an ‘open-air’ home cool, even on the hottest days. Being the geek that I am, I suddenly flashed over to server farms, and thought – ‘What if you had an ‘open-air’ server farm in …

Non-lethal take-down tool

Over the years we’ve seen dozens of videos of crazy, and dangerous people refusing to obey police orders. I remember when I lived in Seattle, a man with a samurai sword stopped traffic for hours in downtown Seattle as dozens and dozens of law enforcement tried many ways to subdue him. Today, we hear more and more about people who want ‘death by cop’ and refuse to put down whatever weapon they have in hand, and ignore police instructions. I’d like to make package an existing product that …

Job matching business idea…

Before the mid-1990s people use to search for jobs by opening a newspaper, going to an unemployment office, talking with friends and associates or just walking into a company and asking if they were hiring. That process was still considered normal until the early 2000s, even though Monster.com, HotJobs.com, CareerBuilder.com and dozens of other job search engines came into existence. For a few short years newspapers moved their classified jobs sections to their websites, but it became so cumbersome that even they turned over that work to the …

Groupon feature idea…

Hey Groupon – here’s a feature idea for you, if for some reason it isn’t already on your list… Create a “Watch list” for products. There’s already a “Follow” feature to follow specific companies to see what deals they have, but that excites me less than if I’m looking for a deal on a certain product in the future. Google Alerts lets me keep an eye out for words and phrases that I’m interested in, and sends me a message when that item gets indexed in their search …

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