Poem is a strange type of literature, isnt it?

That did stop ...if it detected you watching it, thereby teaching you the old wives saying.

be able to rate ideas +1 / -1 and sort either side of the zero point

Invite them into your garden. Invite them in...

heres an idea. Lets not have christmas for one year and see if England can cope without the festivitiies to look forward to. think of all the shops that would lose profit just because a couple of days were cancelled....

and think of all those kids. the kids would be very very disappointed if "santa" never came, but i reckon the parents would be enormously happy at the thought of all the money they would save on presents, decorations,food and booze.

england would look different too. no trees. no lights

it would be AWEFUL!!

NEVER BAN XMAS I SAY

never ever write a report on Tesco. It is very pointless and has a lot of hardwork for nothing

Giving a lot of thought to Celtic history lately.
Particularly the Celtic shaman and his role within the tribe...

it is adventurous and has magic and dragons and romance

Might it be instructive to now when these ideas were included?

I suggested this not as an "upgrade", but having just added my own and first 'idea' it might be interesting to see if there are any prevailing sociological, societal, political or temporal connection(s) to the ideas displayed.

It's just a thought.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Well?

Answers on a postcard to...

Though in truth this leads me to my childhood. This is not so much an idea per se as a thought - possibly brought on by the previous "favourite book..." - but does it appear to others that as one gets older we seem to receive more and more hints of what one was like as a child? Lately I seem to be inundated with these strange moments of "that's from my childhood" followed by odd feelings. And I'm not referring to seeing some awful TV programme on TV. Possibly, and here there is perhaps some facsmilie of thought or idea, the older we become, the more attached we become to our youth. Especially and including those of us who are resolutely lacking in any feeling of nostalgia (or nos-tal-gee-ahhh, as David Sylvian sings).

I dunno...

Do you?

.. has got to be "fire and hemlock" by diana wynne jones (for me).

strangely, it seems to fit all kinds of advanced ideas and stories into easy-to-understand writing - or was that just my imagination ? :)

also, it has that key quality of (like star wars), having elements of classic fables mixed in ..

anyway, it beats harry potter anyday in my book =)

sadly ...

Here's a quick thought -- someone said to me the other day that the main focus of any company, corporate or otherwise, is the bottom line. This got me thinking about... why?

Of course, every company has to at least break even, and preferably make a little profit for growth, but why the main focus? Companies also have to do stock control to stay in business, but that doesn't mean stock control is the company's main focus. Nor HR. Nor legal issues. Nor paying the tax bill.

So how about making up other indicies of how successful a company is, and let them motivate your business. Focusing on money is purely arbitrary anyway, so why not make something else arbitrary, such as,

-- fun in the workplace
-- innovation and creativity
-- cultural worth
-- low environmental impact

and work towards maximising that instead of profit? Of course money is still necessary, but only in the way that stock control is useful...

a cross between ideas box and those internet games like everquest ..

not quite sure how it would work, but .. :)

Dinasaurs GM'd to be pocketable. Like cold-blooded tamagotchi. It's gonna be big.

skooba@gmail.com

It's about 3 ninjas that have ben trained to have powers like water, or fire. But there are vampires trying to strike.

Why do cars have built in lights, but not bicycles? Weird. You could make really cool looking LED ones, kind of wrapped around the handle bars, with the batteries inside the tubing. They couldn't get kicked that way either...

create a videogame based on the arena football league

I read a relatively sane right wing American commentator (a rare beast indeed) the other day, saying how he and his compatriots couldn't understand how FOX has such a split personality, i.e., how FOX News is the bastion of the right, whereas FOX entertainment channels are the font of moral degredation and corruption of 'family values'.

What these people still don't get is that FOX, along with most of large corporations, don't have a moral, ethical or politcal agenda. They're not on the side of these right wing people. They just want to make money. And they're pretty efficient about it.

So FOX doesn't have a split personality at all. They've just realised that they can make a lot of money with right orientated scare mongering news, and with purile, morally degrading entertainment. And as they don't have any kind of agenda, there's no contradiction for them there at all.

do we want to be able to identify who said what in the dialogue?

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will each their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

each member at the birth is given an opportunity to hold and hand in whenever the chance to leave is required with all the grace and openness that welcomed them in.

How are we going to get away from pleasure and pain?

1 - does soap work underwater?

The Indian election left me stunned. Mere arithmetic of seats threw up the prospect of Sonia becoming the prime minister. It was hailed as the triumph of democracy and for some glorified souls darkness passed. Democracy was abused and violated on the national stage and for many apolitical people it felt like witnessing that fateful Mumbai train rape episode without any controls in their tiny hands.

Today the high act of power transition is over. A political sacrifice has left genuine issues in utter ruins. A moral high ground of a person of a curious background has created a potentially dangerous weapon.

It is now in the hands of those people who would use it for their own interests. Obviously the first to claim price for this sacrifice are Gandhi’s of Feroz variety. Sacrifices also have classes and categories. They shine different sheens and yield unequal dividends. Vedic people knew it very well and often scarified unabashedly to gain higher dividends. Sonia understands this too. It was not the question of democracy or the people or the party she primed for it was the question of legacy of her acquired family. To accept the prime minister ship was the difficult route to keep that legacy intact. To deliver what was expected from that sacred surname under the current scenario is not an easy task. With ideologically (whatever ideology that might be) strongest opponent, an idiosyncratic governing partner in the form of left which is good for nothing when it comes to shouldering the responsibility for greater goods and pumped up expectations of the populous it is Herculean task for a first timer. The sacrifice is a far easier route. It has achieved most of her objectives. The legacy is shining more than ever. Her progeny is in the wings and with this sacrifice it has acquired immense unchallengeable stature in the Indian politic. A high visibility sacrifice as correctly is said a masterstroke with keeping eyes on the next election (which every one expects in near future) where party is expected to pitch their ace candidate Priyanka.

However again democracy has lost. The oldest party though for the time being has given a puppet prime ministerial candidate or should we say a sacrificial lamb has more than ever has become a fiefdom of G’s. The gullible personality cultic populace continues its dream of democracy.

This sacrifice is a potential weapon to all those Jesuits against the lesser faiths absurd it may seem at first but for those who are aware the way these silent terrorists work will be evident. A roman catholic has lived the tradition of the greatest soul Jesus and has strengthened the secularist fabric of the Indian culture against the ‘nationalistic Hindu fundamentalists’ whatever that term may indicate. A progressive christen has affirmed his faith in modern values while fanatics (conveniently their religion) have demonstrated their narrow mindedness and retrograde mentality towards it.

While all those who are aware how the west is still in it’s under veiled racist supremacy. This has given an intellectual satisfaction that a white (wo) man has shouldered his (her) racial responsibility towards the lesser civilization. The sacrifice of this stature cannot be expected from the petty mortals packaged in brown skins.

On the other hand the weapon has taken and will continue to take heavy toll on the nationalistic sentiments. It has already created a rift. What is Indian nation and what is Indian identity? For many people like me it has put a question mark on the achievements that we are always proud of. It is a heavy burden on the assertion of ethnic Indians abilities. Well assimilation cannot be merited if it has no discretion to it. It is a toll on the pragmatic consideration of India as a geo-ethnic identity, which cannot be wished away.

This sacrifice for personal gains, glorified by the media has left me with helplessness. I am watching the shattered dream in disbelief.

despite being surrounded by lush vegetation, giant pandas will only eat bamboo - and can only digest one fifth of all they eat. because they are solitary and females are only sexually active for two months of the year, chances of meeting at the right time - let alone successful reproduction - are very slim. they typically have only one cub, which will be born blind, bald and defenceless and over half of all offspring don’t see out the first year. the most common cause of death? the mother rolls over and suffocates them in her sleep…

?!?!?

...which gave me a writing idea. That's cool.

Transformers the game on PS2!

JSA, problems caused by, a solution to.

The cost of administering the endless hoops through which a doley must jump in order not to be summarily dismissed, would be eliminated by paying £45 pw to every adult in the country.

Payments to the employed would be recouped through income tax, thus amalgamating two processes of means testing and allowing the Jobcentre staff to concentrate on helping people- eg by networking with local employers and matching jobseekers up on a one-to-one basis.

From industrial to information revolution. There's talk of ripping it down as it's 'unusable'. Yet the building still stand up, why not use the towers as wi fi antennas? Then we could have internet access in battersea park, sitting by the river. A working picnic. Ahhhh!

.. an italian with a rubber toe ?

... watch tv regularly and eat only processed food.

Excuse me if this isn't as deep as the other ideas but I'm not one for your Dawson's Creek style middle class white guilt ridden nonsense.

I proposed that people throwing litter out of their cars are stopped and ordered to walk home after having their car crushed.

I work in a fairly rural area and have been known to jettison the odd apple core where I know people won't be walking and where I know the little beasties will munch away on it and probably be quite happy, but to even consider throwing a choccy bar wrapper or crisp packet out seems daft as heck.

This includes you people who throw their fag buts out of the car. You shouldn't smoke and drive anyway and isn't that an ashtray down there in your dashboard?

This seemingly unsolvable problem always a hot (pun intended) topic at this time of year, so maybe we can hammer something out?

So, to kick things off, here's one that seems practical, but is probably seriously flawed once given deeper though:

Why not stick an extra car at the back of each train with the air conditioning gear in it? Maybe it would only need to be a half length car or something. All the carriages would need to be retrofitted with the ducting necessary to bring the conditioned air into the train from the special car, which would obviously cost, but there would be no need for a bulky unit in each one - the ducts could probably be internal and wouldn't take up much space - wide, flat ones across the ceiling for example

I guess it would have a knock-on effect on network traffic, having slightly longer trains, but it would probably be small, and the length of the trains would be a problem... as is the question of the extra power usage and how the extra air being sucked would effect the tube's whole complicated pressure control system. And needless to say there's the cost... but even if the system was effective enough for a drop of a couple of degree C it would be worth it :)

Are we subjected to a constant battle from
our self-destructive impulses ?
Over-indulging our senses in anything that detracts from creative thought....
or what we should be attending too....the constant battle of the spiritual higher consciousness over the gross, base physical self. The human complaint....

Shamelessly pinched from Adbusters vol. 11 no. 5, who pinched it from John Raulston Saul's Voltaire's Bastards:

Just how confused we are by what we mean by individualism can most easily be seem by looking at the west from the outside. Buddhist societies are horrified by a great deal in the West, but the element which horrifies them most is our obsession with ourselves as an object of unending interest. By their standards nothing could be unhealthier than a guilt-ridden, self-obsessed, proselytising white male or female, selling God or democracy or liberalism or capitalism with insistent superior modesty. It is clear to the Buddhist that this individual understand neither herself nor his place. He is ill at ease with his role; mal dans sa peau; a hypocrite taking out her frustrations on the world.

As for the contemporary liberated Westerner, who thinks himself relaxed, friendly, open, in tune with himself and eager to be in tune with others -- he comes across as even more revolting. He suffers from the same confused superiority as his guilt ridden predessecor but has further confused himself by pretending that he doesn't feel superior. While the Westerner does not see or consciously understand this , the outsider sees it immediately.

A monk came and gave a talk at the Zen meditation group I go to today. He's a chilling guy, always with a big grin, like this :D

He gave an awesome talk. Nothing in it seemed to be amazingly new to me, but the way he put and explained things, and associated the ideas seemed somehow just right.

One of the things he talked about was desire. The main point was that desires are natural, and that suppressing them out of hand serves no purpose. Indeed, fulfilling our desires is fine and healthy (as long as they cause no harm to ourselves and others). When we're hungry, we desire to eat. This is natural.

The problem arises when we're driven by our desires, when we begin to crave and grasp after what we want. When we reach the culmination of this state, we can never fully satiate ourselves - the objects of desire become poisoned and despised, as we know that the fulfillment they give will be temporary at best. This is the same across all things - from spiritual practice, such as desiring results from our chosen path, to more worldly desires.

So, the key is to be able to make the choice, to fulfill or not to fulfill our desire. This is to be human.

the idea is to provide parties for free as a /public service/. if one person benifits and has a good time then the aim has been fulfilled. quite amazing that someone isn't doing this already, but maybe there is .. who knows ??

q: what is the difference between this and a free party ?

a: these are focussed on stimulation and liberation and pure enjoyment, with the principal factor being the motivation and intended results, rather than the means. its not an idea to promote a certain type of culture, ideology or music, .. but **basta** !!

How about this for a highly interactive experiment?

The central point would be to confront people with how easily (and accurately) they are put into demographic groups which are in turn exploited for marketing purposes. In other words, how a company can reduce a person to a category and use that category to manipulate them into buying a product or range of products.

Quite how one would do this I don't know. Maybe just write catgories down on bits of card and go around pinning them to people... although, unfortunately, this is likely to cause trouble (if not mayhem). It could be limited to a gallery space where people would be more willing to participate (although of course you've then limited the number of demographics present and limited the scope of the experiment). Audience participation is essential one way or another though. You could ask people to fill out surveys, and then give them a list of all the targeted marketing that would result from their answers.

Once the experiement is finished there could be all kinds of material output.

contented

... to ideas box. Go on, confront the blank page and type something in.