A List Of Discarded Ideas

I have purposely abandoned them.

Many were just too silly, some were totally unfeasible, and a few of them I simply got bored with. I always keep a running list of ideas, spread across notebooks and software, and every few months I try to go through and clean it up. But instead of tossing this crop out, I decided to share. Generally, these kinds of ideas are blasted out in pithy status updates, but I think there’s something special about collecting and liberating them all at once.

We should all fearlessly release ideas, even the ones we aren’t passionate about, even the ones that are slightly embarrassing. Put them out into the ether…

• Foods that change flavor based on sonic frequencies. A cake that tastes like red velvet when you listen to bouncy pop-music, but changes to vanilla when you go classical.
• A streetlight theater company. Amateur produced plays that would be conducted in crosswalks during red lights. Pedestrians would become unintentional bit players.
• Adult-sized light-up shoes. They were my absolute favorite thing to wear as a child. Let’s bring them back for the kids-at-heart.
• A board game based on philanthropy. On your turn you can’t do anything to yourself, you can only help other people. You’d win when you lose.
• Remember Apple’s “Cards” app? I wanted to pick an address from the phonebook at random and send them a card everyday for a week. I’d share my dreams, confessions, and hopes and fears. All with an accompanying photo.
• A story about the opposite of a werewolf: a dog that turns human once a month. What would he do with himself? Would he gorge himself on day-old donuts from dumpsters, or maybe he’d get really into skee ball? I imagine there’s no end to the whacky adventures he could get into with opposable thumbs.
• Socks designed to look like famous people’s feet.
• You know how people say “enhance” in sci-fi movies, and a computer then zooms in on a photo? I wanted to make an application that does this on your phone. “Check out this photo of the New York skyline!” “Enhance. Enhance. ENHANCE.” That’s all.
• A video game where every new level is played on a different console. From Atari and Xbox to Sega Saturn and Gameboy.
• TV documentary about how different people throughout the ages have envisioned the future, from Nostradamus to Roddenberry. Mainly so I could use the title “The History of the Future.”
• Make a mirror with eye recognition and a speaker that gives you a compliment whenever you look into it. Because compliments are the infinite currency for the soul. For me I wouldn’t even want it to comment on my looks, I’d only want positive and encouraging statements. Things like: “you’re going to do great work today,” or “that idea you have is fantastic,” or even just “don’t worry, everything is going to be amazing.”