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• computer controlled cars

  Wednesday, Sep 9, 2009 9:30PM / Standard Entry / Ideas

  just hit me the other day.  if all the cars were controlled by computers, wouldn't that mean we could get rid of stop signs and stoplights?  the computers could just control the timing exactly so that the cars would just pass by each other without hitting one another -- sort of like when people are walking around in a crowd.
  
  of course, you'd need to have some failsafe mechanisms to prevent massive car crashes if the computers ever had problems.
  
  you'd also need overhead walkways and such so that people could still cross streets.
  
  hmm, and you'd also need pretty much 100% of the cars to be controlled by the computer.
  
  the nice thing, though, is that ideally there wouldn't be any traffic jams and idling cars at stop signs/lights.  and you could make sure no one was speeding and also that cars were going at the most fuel efficient speeds.  that means you'd get to where you'd be going faster and save energy too. 
  
  
  

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• karaoke!

  Sunday, Jul 12, 2009 11:45PM / Standard Entry / Ideas

  went karaoke'ing while we were in beijing and came up with another idea.
  
  so, you know how rock band and guitar hero are super popular in the united states?  did you know that bands can actually sell more songs through those games than they can on itunes?
  
  not sure if this exists already, but my idea was to make a karaoke "game" that isn't really a game.  it's just a way to turn your x-box 360 into a professional karaoke system with easy search by title, artist, new songs, etc.  the interface will also allow you to turn up individual microphone levels, change the pitch of the song, have the singer accompany you or not, increase the music volume, etc.
  
  when you buy the "game", it also comes with one microphone and has the option to buy additional microphones (up to four total).  the game could also come pre-loaded with 20-30 songs.
  
  the main idea is this: you work with the music labels and artists to port their songs over to karaoke.  you'd have the REAL videos and the REAL singers/bands.  it would be professionally produced and the lyrics would be 100% correct and timed perfectly to match.  ie. it wouldn't be those horrible cheesy "girl walks through park" karaoke videos with the bad midi-sounding music.
  
  you charge, say, $0.99 per song.  x-box takes a cut, the music label takes a cut, and the game company keeps the rest.  and the consumers could get (ideally) all the songs that they really want to sing in the convenience of their own home! 
  
  i think it could really help out the music industry, because this is not something that could be easily pirated.  what would be really cool is if you could put out the tools to let indie artists "karaoke-ize" their song to play on the x-box 360, and then have a system like itunes where they can put it up for sale, too.
  
  if you wanted to add a game element, maybe people could record themselves singing and post it online for voting.  and the best singers could win prizes or go on tv or something like that.
  
  anyways, hopefully someone will make this because i'd buy it! 
  
  update: ok, turns out this EXISTS already!  thanks robin chi and don cruz for pointing this out.
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIsRQ7px3BY
  

  
  
  
  
  

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• basketball

  Thursday, Jul 2, 2009 12:31PM / Standard Entry / Ideas

  after reading this article by john hollinger about the rockets (it talks about the options they have with yao still injured), it got me thinking.
  
  for the western conference semi-finals, the rockets still managed to beat the lakers twice without yao, mcgrady, or mutumbo.  as hollinger points out, they had $25 million in salaries going up against the lakers' $75 million.
  
  now, what if the rockets, or any team for that matter, built a team without superstars?  ie. they have no max-level contract players?  so, rather than have mcgrady for $20 million, they have 2 or 3 players with the same money?
  
  if you figure the salary cap is $59 million and each team can have 15 players, that works out to $3.93 million per player.  let's just say $4 million per.  that's actually a decent amount.  it's not too far below the mid-level exception of $5.58 million.
  
  so, let's say for the top 8 players on the team, you give slightly more than the mid-level: $6 million.  that totals $48 million.  then you split the remaining $11 million with the last 7 players, or about $1.5 million each.  with the top 8 players, you have the starting 5, plus the backup point, wing (SG/SF), and post (PF/C).
  
  (or, give the top 5 players $7 million, the next 3 $6 million, the next 3 $1 million, the last 4 $750k.)
  
  what this does is two things:
  
  1) it creates insurance.  if one or two or three players are injured, you have a just-as-capable backup there and aren't totally screwed.  similarly, if one of the players blows up and another team gives him a huge contract, again, you aren't totally screwed.
  
  2) it has flexibility.  if you have an internal "player cap" of $6 million, you will never be stuck with an untradeable contract (unless you really overpaid for that player, which is hard to do with a $6 million contract).  a bunch of $6 million and $1.5 million contracts are easier to move than a big $20 million one.
  
  so, while you might not be able to put a super-awesome starting 5 on the floor, if you draft/bid well, you could put a decent product on the floor at all times - regardless of injury.  and if you had 8 players that were all very good players (but no superstars) ... it still might be able to beat out the teams with 1 or 2 superstars and cheap role players.  you'd be able to rotate your players in and give people rest while the other team leans on its superstars and wear them out. 
  
  personally, after the last few years of following the rockets (and wizards) ... i'm jaded on superstars.  in most cases, if your main star gets injured, you're basically a lottery team.  the rockets have been pretty much without a superstar during the entire yao/mcgrady era (the two players combined have played only about 50% of their games over their careers), and because their team and payroll is more balanced, they still manage to almost always get in the playoffs. 
  
  the pistons are another good example (not counting the past year).  they had 5 players that were all very strong and no one had a max level contract.  during that time they managed to get to the eastern conference finals or further like 6 times in a row from 2002-2008, even winning one title in the process.
  
  or, an even more extreme example would be to have your top 10 players all be at the mid-level.  that'd total $55 .8 million, then give the last 5 players about $640k each.  and then go with bill simmons and malcolm gladwell's idea about having a full-court press team.  have your starting 5 play a more traditional style, and have players 6-10 play something totally opposite, like the full-court press. 
  
  back when people used to play street fighter 2 in the arcades, my brother an i used to both play guile, but we had very different styles.  when we'd play other people, one of us would go first.  then the other one would play the second round.  then whichever of us did better would take the third round (if it came to that).  it worked really well.  i think it'd make sense to do that for basketball, too. 
  
  heck, you could go super extreme and have 15 players all making $4 million per year and have 3 teams-of-five with very different strategies.  and then rotate them in each for 16 minutes (for a total of 48 minutes).  so each team would get 1 and a third quarters to play.  and since each team-of-five would only need to play 16 minutes, they could go 110% all out. 
  
  the main problem with this idea, though, is that players like to play a lot of minutes.  if everyone only got 16 minutes, they'd be pretty unhappy.  the two team idea works better because you could probably give the starting 5 about 30 minutes each, and the full-court 5 about 18 minutes each.
  
  
  

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• business ideas for artists

  Sunday, Jun 28, 2009 12:57PM / Standard Entry / Ideas

  from helping to run alivenotdead.com, i've been able to understand the economics of the different art industries here.
  
  from my point of view, i think the indie filmmakers have it the toughest.  a film is generally much harder and more expensive to make than an album (or short film versus a song), and harder to monetize.  indie films have a very tough time getting into theaters, and no one buys dvds these days.  if they put it on the internet, they don't make any money on it.
  
  so i was thinking ... at least with music artists they can do concerts.  so, why couldn't filmmakers do something similar?  maybe convince a theater to let indie artists screen their work one night each month.  the theater sells tickets, and shares the proceeds with the artists.  that would be the equivalent of bands doing concerts.  and if you pick an off day for the theaters, the theater would probably have a better turnout doing this AND the theater would be supporting the local film community.
  
  or, for the music industry.... the way i see it going, physical cd sales will go the way of merchandise.  only the hardcore fans will buy it.  everyone else will buy/steal the digital version.  so, why not look at the visual art (or comic book) models and make the physical cds collectible?  let's say selling 10,000 cd's would be considered a huge hit.  what if instead, you made a super collectible special edition that you only made 1,000 of, but they each sold for 10 times as much?  you could also do the same for dvd's.
  
  or, taking it one step further.... what if you treated each song as a work of art (kind of like a painter's paintings) and sold the song to a collector?  if someone bought the song, then you'd give them the master for them to hang up in their house.  in the album, next to the song name, you'd list them as the owner.  put them in the music video (if there is one).  and any money generated from that song would be split between the music artist and the person that bought the song.  the owner could also later sell the song to someone else if they wanted.
  
  i know it sounds weird, but ... like ... doesn't everyone have a favorite song?  wouldn't it be cool if you could actually buy it?  or if you had a favorite band, and you commissioned them to make you a song?  the music artists could price their songs at a level where they'd cover all the costs of producing the songs, plus make some extra money as well.  and then any money made from album/song sales would be split between the song owners and the artists, but for the artists it would just be gravy since they are already profitable from selling the songs.
  
  hmm, not sure if these ideas are too crazy.  just thinking that maybe you can take what works in one industry and transpose it to another industry.....
  
  
  
  
  

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• the remixers

  Wednesday, Jun 10, 2009 8:16PM / Standard Entry / Ideas

  had an idea for a new band!
  
  basically make a band that sings remixes of songs.  what that'd be is either remixing one song and doing it in a very different style.  or, even better, working with a dj to mashup two or more songs, then practicing the mashup and performing that live!
  
  wouldn't that be neat?
  
  i figure, if you wanted to be able to perform mashups of any type of songs, you'd probably need:
  
  1 lead male singer
  1 lead female singer
  1 rapper
  2 guitarists
  1 bass player
  1 drummer
  1 keyboard player
  1 dj
  
  that's 9 people.  but, if you figure that the singers, rapper, and dj could also play the instruments, maybe you only need 5 very talented people.
  
  i think they'd be pretty popular since they'd be performing songs that people already are familiar with.  and ya, maybe they couldn't sell albums of their music (since they are copyrighted songs), but i think they'd be damn popular performers!!
  
  some examples of what i'm talking about (just imagine people performing this live):
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdfMByPSJ-8
  

  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNWCclOqUHw
  

  
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfadLhw14l8
  

  
  
  
  
  

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