#2,608 – Random Thoughts Edition

A quick look at everything that I’ve been thinking about lately:

• I wish there was a way to make your own change. The other day I was in a hotel with only a five dollar bill. But I needed to tip both the maid and the valet. So I had to choose who to tip. I chose the valet because it would be awkward to not tip the person you’re seeing face to face. But I would have preferred to split my $5 bill into $2 and $3 or $4 and $1. That’s why I wish money had perforations that you could tear along and essentially split your money into smaller denominations. But over time all larger bills would wind up being made into smaller bills and we wouldn’t have any large bills anymore. So we’d also need a way to reverse the process and recombine smaller bills into larger bills like Legos that we can stack together or separate.
• Staying in a hotel also gave me another idea: wake up calls all the time. Why limit such a convenient service to hotels? Why isn’t there a number that I can call whenever I need to make sure that I wake up for an important event? The power could go out at your home and render your alarm clock obsolete. And not having your phone’s ringer on could negate your phone’s alarm. But a wake up call service could be the perfect fail safe. And rather than just a simple call to wake you up I’m thinking the wake up service could be customized to play your favorite song when you pick up or even provide you with a fun fact or news briefing.
• Instead of book clubs I think we should have reading clubs. Where instead of getting together to discuss the same book (that maybe wouldn’t interest everyone) we get together to discuss the latest book that we’re reading and inform others if they should be reading it too.
• I think it would be great if pictures could speak. So when you looked at a picture from one of the trips you went on you’d know what it was that you were looking at e.g. the view from Clingman’s Dome in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. AI can already label the elements in a photo and tell you when and where you took it. All you’d have to do is then add a text to speech program to read out the AI generated description.
• I think we should start a public service campaign to establish an Information Pyramid similar to the Food Pyramid that promotes a balanced diet. This way people would know that they shouldn’t reside in Echo Chambers that reinforce their narrow world views and that they should instead consider a wide variety of sources on both sides of issues.
• I think it would be cool if the lottery was a TV show. Instead of buying tickets all you’d have to do is tune in live to the show to see if your name was called. You’d then have two minutes to call in to claim your prize. The ratings for such a show would be through the roof with everyone literally watching every time enabling TV network to have a program that would rival live sports and counteract the litany of streaming options available to viewers. And the advertising dollars that these huge ratings bring it would replace the cost of lottery tickets thereby removing the tax on the poor that the lottery is.
• The modern NBA has been turned into a three point shooting contest thanks to the rise of analytics. To restore the game to a more entertaining style of play that emphasizes play in the paint lets reverse the way points are scored making the tougher, more heavily guarded interior points worth three points each and cowardly long range shots worth only two points. Since everyone can now shoot three pointers (even big men) the novelty of the shot has worn off anyway.

What if threes became twos and twos became threes?