Showing posts with label 1001 ways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1001 ways. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

1001 Levers To Move The World, Number Eighty and Eighty-one..

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81:  Robot Bank.

80:  Two words: Snack-sized cereal.

It's a twofer!  I remember back when I was going to do this everyday.  Turns out I still have ideas every day, it's just that some days I don't feel like improving the world.

No, just kidding.  Some days I'm too distracted by the fact that they're now adding cheese to cheese to go and improve the world, which, when you think about it, is a losing battle because as I give you now 81 different ways to make the world better, the world has gone and decided that the most important thing it could do is make cheese a little cheesier.

That's a real story: Kraft has started adding cream cheese to other cheeses, to make them creamier, they say, but really it's just because (A) the federal government is heavily invested in getting people to buy cheese because we literally have caves full of cheese bought for government price supports, which is how the whole idea for adding cheese to things started, and that's not some crazy tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theory-- I was one of the experts interviewed for this article about deceptive milk marketing done by the State of Wisconsin (a/k/a "America's Dairyland.")  and (B) we, as a society have apparently decided that if it doesn't include cheese it's not worth eating.

I like to imagine the conversation that led to the breakthrough of adding cheese to cheese:

MAN:  Mmmm.  Some cheese.

OTHER MAN:  I know, cheese, right?

[NOTE: THIS IS ONE OF THOSE WORLDS THAT EXIST ONLY IN COMMERCIALS, WHERE PEOPLE JUST EAT CHEESE FOR NO REASON.  WHICH IS, AS I THINK OF IT, OUR WORLD. SO BACK TO THE STORY]

MAN:  Life is good.

OTHER MAN:  Could be gooder, though... what if

MAN:  I'm not sure that...

OTHER MAN: Don't interrupt.

MAN:  It's just that I don't think you ...

OTHER MAN:  Hear me out.

MAN:  "Gooder," really?

OTHER MAN:  Just thinking aloud here, what if we put CHEESE ON THIS CHEESE?

MAN:  I would like to marry you.

And that, friends, is how you write a best seller that some people will say should star Scarlett Johannsen. I left out the good parts so you'll have to buy the book.

None of those are today's ideas, which are twofold and which I will have to discuss quickly.  I'm doubling up because, as I said, I have to fight against a world where 2,000,000 years of evolution has led us to the point where we are just injecting cheese into things instead of exploring the stars (Answer to Enrico Fermi: those other cultures are composed entirely of rolling blobs of cheese.)

So Idea 80: Snack-sized cereal: This is at least an improvement.  If you, like me, have been urged by people/cardiologists to reduce your intake from certain "food" "groups" such as the "-ito" group (Doritos, Fritos) and the "-yuns" group (Funyuns, a naturally occurring substance), then you like me may have switched your snack foods to a primarily Frosted Mini Wheat-based system.

Which is to say: mostly, when I would otherwise be eating potato chips, you'll find me with a bowl of dry Frosted Mini-Wheats, which I choose as a snack because cereal is pretty healthy, but most cereal is tiny-sized: Have you ever tried to pick up a Cheerio? Or a Wheatie?

So my solution? Make Wheaties Snack Sizes: A bag (or box, if you must) of Wheaties with the flakes the size of a Dorito, so I can buy a bag of Wheaties to eat.  Do that with Cheerios, and Raisin Bran, and more, and I will buy them, and so will other people, and BLAMMO! (a marketing term) you've got yourself a new product.


 Idea 81: Robot Bank is my solution for fixing much of what was wrong with banking.  At ROBOT BANK, there is no building, no tellers, no people, period.  There is just an online site, like, say Paypal or "JPMorganChaseGlaxoKleinGloboSkynet" or whatever they're calling the company that co-owns America with the Chinese now, and a series of algorithms.

When you open a bank account, you do so online by depositing money.  The algorithms track and apply your money, which, lets face it, that's what banks do now: Tellers aren't hand-crediting your passbook the way they did when I was a kid with a little actual book they'd stamp stuff in.

Here's the real genius, though:  Loans, which is what banks exist to do although they've forgotten that, would be entirely automatic, too: when you want to borrow, you apply online and give access to your credit report and to your electronically-filed tax returns (if you paper file, Robot Bank will gladly invite you in a robotic voice to take your business to a bank in the 1920s, when you live.)  Robot Bank then simply calculates how much it has in the reserves, what its lending limit is, what your interest rate should be, and issues the loan or denies it.

You then authorize automatic payments from your Robot Bank account and any other accounts your credit report shows.  If your balances fall below a certain percentage of the loan you took out, Robot Bank contacts a collection agent and shuts down the account (as well as all the regular defaults.)

The beauty of this, aside from the fact that we would never ever see another One Percenter like Jamie Dimon explain why a fat guy in London could lose $2,000,000 but that's not a big deal?  No overhead, so the bank can make small loans at a lower rate -- bringing microlending to the masses.  Plus, Robot Bank can't be racist or sexist and removes all the "judgment calls" that got banks into trouble the first time around. (I'm pretending banks use "judgment." They don't, but let's pretend. It's fun! And we don't have to realize how much trust we place in the people that control all the money!)



Prior entries:Link






















































13. Ban driving any kind of automobile, motorcycle or other personal vehicle within 1-2 miles of downtown in any city with a population of more than 100,000.

12. Abolish gym class; instead, teach kids to play musical instruments.

11. Change copyright laws to allow anyone to use anyone else's creative work provided that the copier pay 60% of the profit to the originator and that the copier not cast the original work in a negative light.

10. Have more sidewalk cafes and outdoor seating.
9. When you have to give someone a gift, ask them what they want, and then get that thing for them.

8. Never interrupt or finish someone's jokes.

7. Periodically, give up something you like for at least a month.

6. Switch to "E-money."

5. Have each person assigned one phone number, and then add an extension for the various phones and faxes that person might be reached at.

4. Abolish Mondays and Tuesdays.

3. Don't listen to interviews with athletes or comedians.

2. Have "personal cashiers" at the grocery store.

1. Don't earn more than $200,000 per year.





Is this working? You bet --

1001 Ways also helped change the world here!

And

1001 Ways also helped change the world here!

and
1001 Ways helped change the world here, too!

And here, I not only changed the world but proved that everyone in the world is either dumb, or mean.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

1001 Levers To Move The World, Number Seventy-Nine


This was previously titled 1001 ways to fine-tune the world, but I changed it.
Link
79: Let's get a uniform system for saying, and repeating, numbers, addresses and the like.


This JUST HAPPENED to me, and it happened twice already today, so there is clearly a need for this lever.

Here's what I'm talking about. I say to you "I'll give you my email address, are you ready?"

And you say: "Yeah," because you're ready.

And I say "Okay, it's thetroublewithroy,"

And then all heck breaks loose, in a very minor way, because one of several reactions happens then:

I might pause to let you take that down, while you write it down without saying anything, in which case I'll wonder if you heard me and might say "Did you get that?" or I might start on the next portion of it.

Or you might begin to repeat what I've told you to confirm that you heard it correctly, thereby talking over me as I go on to the next portion of the address.

Or we might do both and repeatedly stumble over each other as we try to sort out who should be talking about what, a verbal dance similar to what happens when two people meet in a narrow hall.

Earlier today, I had to take down a phone number from a guy on the phone, and here (with the exception of a fake number being inserted) is exactly what happened:

Me: Okay, go ahead.

Him: 1-555 [pause]

Me: 1-555... [pause]

Him: [Starting to talk as I began to repeat his numbers during pause] 867-

Me: What?

Him: What?

Me: I got...

Him: Let me begin again.


And so on.

So here's what I say: everytime you have to dictate something for someone to right down, pause at each natural break, after which that person will repeat what you said, and then you'll go on.

So it'd be:

Speaker: 1-555

Listener: 1-555

Speaker: 867

Listener: 867

Speaker: 5309.

Listener: 5309.







Prior entries:Link











































13. Ban driving any kind of automobile, motorcycle or other personal vehicle within 1-2 miles of downtown in any city with a population of more than 100,000.

12. Abolish gym class; instead, teach kids to play musical instruments.

11. Change copyright laws to allow anyone to use anyone else's creative work provided that the copier pay 60% of the profit to the originator and that the copier not cast the original work in a negative light.

10. Have more sidewalk cafes and outdoor seating.

9. When you have to give someone a gift, ask them what they want, and then get that thing for them.

8. Never interrupt or finish someone's jokes.

7. Periodically, give up something you like for at least a month.

6. Switch to "E-money."

5. Have each person assigned one phone number, and then add an extension for the various phones and faxes that person might be reached at.

4. Abolish Mondays and Tuesdays.

3. Don't listen to interviews with athletes or comedians.

2. Have "personal cashiers" at the grocery store.

1. Don't earn more than $200,000 per year.





Is this working? You bet --

1001 Ways also helped change the world here!

And

1001 Ways also helped change the world here!

and

1001 Ways helped change the world here, too!

And here, I not only changed the world but proved that everyone in the world is either dumb, or mean.
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Thursday, November 03, 2011

What is it, America? Are you dumb, or just mean?



Because of the subject matter, this is a triple-post and is appearing simultaneously onNonsportsmanlike Conduct!, Thinking The Lions, and Publicus Proventus.

I'm only 78 items into my once-daily series "1001 Ways To Tune Up The World," but my impact is becoming clearer and clearer, even if it takes a while for people to realize how right I am.

Back in August, 2009, Way Number 15 was "Just Allow Colleges To Pay Athletes Already," which, I'll note, everytime I mentioned it most people were aghast -- but they're college students! - -they'd say, and I'd point out that many college students get paid for interning in a job.

Now, in November 2011, colleges have decided I was right all along; the NCAA recently proposed to let conferences decide to pay athletes up to $2,000 a year to cover "expenses," and, as a Grantland writer pointed out in commenting on the story, once you decide to pay someone $2,000, you can pay them $5,000 or $10,000 or $100,000; the "moral" objection to paying "student-athletes" being removed, the only question is how much can they get paid.

If he'd seen this coming, Cam Newton might have stayed in college. And also: I'm not a hypocrite for saying Newton shouldn't have the Heisman because not only did he plead guilty to a felony while in college, but also, he broke the rules at the time. Future Cam Newtons should have the right to demand a $175,000 signing bonus to go to a college. This Cam Newtondidn't.

(But, then, it doesn't matter because the Heisman Trophy is the most overrated sports award ever.)

That alone was enough for me to mention Grantland, which is actually one of the better sports sites around (not surprising, since Bill Simmons gets much of his material from me.)

But even better, that writer went on to note why it seemed fair to cut "student-athletes" in on the mountain of money generated by college sports.

And it is a mountain:


But the ancillary income — television revenues, the sale of jerseys and other gear, the use of a player's "likeness" in video games, and on and on — completely overwhelms the equation and makes the relationship inequitable. The Southeastern Conference made over a billion dollars last year. The Big 10 made $905 million. These people may have a moral right to their ticket sales based on the scholarships they provide, but they don't have a moral right to every last nickel they can squeeze out of their labor force. That's absurd. It's un-American. And it cannot last.


I'm just going to highlight the important part of that block quote:

The Southeastern Conference made over a billion dollars last year. The Big 10 made $905 million.

Last year was one of the years that took place in what news organizations blandly refer to as "the current economic crisis," wasn't it? I'm pretty sure 2010 was part of "the current economic crisis." I'm pretty sure that in 2010 we were bogged down in Racist Tea Party arguments that we didn't have enough money to pay for Medicare or pretty much anything else that wasn't Dennis Hastert's million-dollar-a-year-office. I'm 100% certain that Candy Man Paul Ryan began 2010 by saying that we couldn't pay for health care for seniors.

But we -- you-- could spent two billion dollars on college football games.

TWO.

BILLION.

DOLLARS.

That's just on two conferences. And one of those conferences is pretty awful, when you think about it. (I'll let you figure out which one.)(Hint: It rhymes with Mig Men.)

I keep wondering when it's "Game Over" for people like the Racist Tea Party and every Republican currently running for office and Scott "Patsy" Walker, and I keep being amazed that people are so damn dumb. And before you get mad at me for thinking people are stupidfor voting for Republicans and letting them claim we've got no money when we can spend two billion dollars watching %(*%^%&$ Purdue play Iowa State, remember that the only otheralternative is to think people aren't dumb but are just mean.

So what is it, America? Dumb, or mean? We've decided that we can take two billion dollars of our money to pay college athletes to play games, because Lord knows we need more football on the air. Having voluntarily done that, do you think you can maybe quit supporting people that want to kill the poor and start making this a country that lives up to its promise?

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Thursday, October 20, 2011

1001 Ways To Tune Up The World, Number Seventy-Eight


78. A "Stay-On" Button On Your TV that you have to press every 20 minutes to keep the TV on.

We have a "sleep" function on our TV that lets us set our TV to automatically turn off anywhere from 15 minutes to 120 minutes from when we turn it on, thereby guaranteeing that I will never have to say "Well, I'm pretty sleepy now, better turn off the TV and go to bed" and then have to risk whole minutes in which my brain is not given something to hear/see/think about.

(Actually, for me, that's a good thing. Being left alone with my thoughts results in me coming up with stuff like this.)

The other night, I was watching TV, unable to sleep, and I realized that Sweetie had set the timer because suddenly the "60 second countdown" feature came on: the screen at the bottom showed 60... 59... 58 and let me know that if I didn't do something in less than a minute, I'd be TV-less.

The remote control was right next to the TV, which, when you think about it, is a useless place to have a remote control. But I laid there in bed for a few seconds, watching the timer, and pondering whether I wanted to get up and go re-set the TV or if I should just let it turn off and try to get to sleep without it.

If you've read this blog for even 3.2 seconds you know what I decided: I got up and turned off the sleep timer and then for good measure got my smart phone, because screw you, private thoughts, and watched Mission: Impossible 3 and didn't get to sleep until about 4 a.m.

But somewhere in the jumble of Jonathan Rhys Meyer's quips, I had the idea that if TVs were equipped with a switch that would automatically turn off the TV every 20 minutes, and the switch was on the TV, then every 20 minutes or so, we'd have to re-evaluate whether we really wanted to watch that TV show or movie, and maybe we'd end up staying up and watching as Tom Cruise shows Fake Katie Holmes how to shoot a gun, but maybe we'd end up doing something else once in a while, too.

Also: Because he sent me a haiku on Twitter, here's some Jonathan Rhys Meyer's clips. He can really sing, as you'll see:









Prior entries:Link











































13. Ban driving any kind of automobile, motorcycle or other personal vehicle within 1-2 miles of downtown in any city with a population of more than 100,000.

12. Abolish gym class; instead, teach kids to play musical instruments.

11. Change copyright laws to allow anyone to use anyone else's creative work provided that the copier pay 60% of the profit to the originator and that the copier not cast the original work in a negative light.

10. Have more sidewalk cafes and outdoor seating.

9. When you have to give someone a gift, ask them what they want, and then get that thing for them.

8. Never interrupt or finish someone's jokes.

7. Periodically, give up something you like for at least a month.

6. Switch to "E-money."

5. Have each person assigned one phone number, and then add an extension for the various phones and faxes that person might be reached at.

4. Abolish Mondays and Tuesdays.

3. Don't listen to interviews with athletes or comedians.

2. Have "personal cashiers" at the grocery store.

1. Don't earn more than $200,000 per year.





Is this working? You bet --

1001 Ways also helped change the world here!

And

1001 Ways also helped change the world here!

and

1001 Ways helped change the world here, too!
Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels:

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Yep, I'm taking credit again: 1001 Ways To Tune Up The World: Update

The other day I posted number 77 on the ever-growing list of brilliant ideas I have for improving the world in ways small and large.

This morning, I came across an ad for a solar-powered iPod docking station/speaker:


Which is clearly inspired by Way Number Fifty-Five. I love it when the world realizes how smart I am. It's not as great as when the world realizes how handsome I am, but it's still pretty good.
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