Someone Needs to Make This! Thread

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Ever thought to yourself, "Why the heck hasn't someone already invented this?  I know I'd buy it/do it/use it!"

Now's your chance to share all those brilliant ideas.  Who knows, maybe someone who has the time/ability/savvy/money to make it happen will see it here, and turn it into a reality!  (And if they're really nice, they might even give you credit, a thank you fruit basket, a lifetime membership, or a teensy little piece of their millions -- but don't count on it, there's no way to prove they got it from here....)

We can discuss how to make things practical, but please don't criticize unless you can be constructive about it.  :-)

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Okay, first thing I really want is an indoor dog park.  There are all sorts of "doggie day care" places around here where you can drop your dog off, and they can play and get exercise without you, but you can't stay with them.  There are also lots of dog parks, where you can go with your dog to run around off-leash, play with other dogs, run after balls and frisbees, etc., but they're snowy and cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and usually full of mud year-round.  

It's not just for human convenience.  Flat-faced dogs, dogs with laryngeal paralysis or narrowed trachea, northern breeds with thick coats, all of them have trouble being active when it's hot out, some of them to the point of it becoming life-threatening.  In the winter, dogs with short coats and/or small bodies have trouble keeping warm, and in the coldest spells all but the northern breeds would be in danger of frostbite if they stay outside more than a minute.  In spring and fall you get weeks when it rains every day, usually with a thunderstorm right when you get off work and would have time to take the dog to the dog park, and all the standing water is a wonderful breeding ground and route of transmission for Giardia and Leptospirosis.

So, next time a KMart or a grocery or furniture store closes, some place with a big open space and relatively high ceilings, you empty it out.  Put in a running track around the outside, and artificial turf in the middle, with a drainage system underneath.  There could be hoses hidden under sections, or that come down from the ceiling, or attached to the occasional pillar which would doubtless be needed to hold up the ceiling, used to spot-clean as needed and to disinfect at the end of the day.

I'm not sure which model would work better as far as running the place -- the dog park, which seems to be volunteer-driven and often run by the park district or village, or the doggie day care (or human gym), which are usually for-profit businesses and thus might have more liability issues.  Either way, I think it would be a big hit!

[The Old Hack 2,448]

3 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

I'm not sure which model would work better as far as running the place -- the dog park, which seems to be volunteer-driven and often run by the park district or village, or the doggie day care (or human gym), which are usually for-profit businesses and thus might have more liability issues.  Either way, I think it would be a big hit!

Vaguely relevant: this absolutely adorable video of a chocolate poodle waiting for their human to arrive and pick them up from a day care in Seoul. Look how enthused the furball gets when spotting Mommy!

 

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Another idea of mine....a full-size screen movie theater complex where you can choose which movies to show in a given theater, ranging from current hits to old classics, or DVDs/blurays brought in from outside.  It would require keeping track of who is owed what for the public exhibition, but surely modern computer systems could handle it by now!

A theater can be rented/reserved for a flat fee (possibly plus a per-head royalty) by a group who already have their viewing planned.  Any theaters not reserved ahead of time, the walk-ins can vote on what movie to show, if there are enough of them to be worth running the system.  Perhaps they would split the fee for that showing, so the more people agree on a movie, the less each one has to pay to see it, and if someone was determined enough to see a given movie no one else wanted they could just pay the whole fee themself.

A group of friends could get together and watch an old favorite while still getting the full big-screen popcorn-bucket surround-sound experience.  Parents could make sure their kids' first experience of Jurassic Park had the same visual impact they had when they first saw that enormous dinosaur towering above the audience.  Or, an enterprising group could rent a theater for a particular day and time for a flat fee, then do their own promoting and charge admission; if they do a good enough job they can make a little money and the complex makes more on popcorn sales and such.  (Again, there would have to be some sort of arrangement for paying royalties etc but surely the modern information age can handle that!)

It would cater to the modern tendency to want everything personalized and on-demand, and give movie theaters a new lease on life without having to invest in 3-D and moving seats and such.

[ijuin 572]

Running theaters like that would probably require that they acquire the rights to show entire libraries of films similar to how streaming services like Netflix, etc. function. The current financial paradigm is that the theaters pay high amounts of money per title. It is likely that the existing paradigm will remain in place for "new" films (e.g. those released within the past twelve months), while older films that have finished their initial theater run could be added to the library service.