I had this idea sometime shortly after the attacks on the world trade towers on 9/11/01.  There were all these people stuck on floors so high up, and their only way out were the windows.  So many people just jumped to their death.  The only other method of getting out of the building was the stairwells, which were full of smoke or missing completely.

I was reminded again of this idea when I watched the movie, Towering Inferno.  Probably one of the gnarliest movies I’ve ever watched.

Anyway, I remembered when I was a kid we had one of these portable chain ladders.  You just threw it out the window, hooked it to the bottom of the window, and climbed down.

So why can’t we have a bunch of these all around buildings?  Have these chain ladders built into the sides of the buildings, all folded up, and when someone hits the emergency button, they all just fall down.  I can’t imagine it would be very expensive.  You don’t have to encase the building in chain ladders either.  Maybe every other floor have a set of 4 ladders around it, and have the ladders span down 3 floors, so if a floor is inaccessible, like a plane flies into it, you can still get to the next floors from the other set of ladders.

Even having something to grab onto would help people get down to a safer height, or if they fall off, they could grab onto.  Graphic, I know, but it just seems so simple and cheap that I’m surprised it’s not implemented.

How much surface area would it take to create the tallest mountain manually?  I think this would be a good task for some place in Colorado, since they’re already so elevated.  You could build this mountain and design it to have a wide road that wraps around it, and depending how long it turns out to be, you could have marathons, sky gliding, street luge competitions, or even some crazy sort of triathalon where you run to it, bike up it, and repel down it.  You could create tourist pull overs and places to eat and check out the view.  We’re totally covering some dangerous ground close to the Tower of Babel, but we’ve go the technology and big trucks these days!  We could have it done in a matter of weeks!  Heck, while we’re at it, we might even end up creating the deepest hole just by digging out the dirt needed!  BONUS!

Here’s another video game idea that actually came to me as a result of a dream.  In the dream, I’m in a big city landscape, being chased down by military and such.  I end up stealing a Gatling gun and taking a bunch of them out at a time and then running away on roof tops and such.

So here’s the game idea.  Think Grand Theft Auto meets Streets of Rage 2.  It’s just a game of survival set in a city with lots of cars, fire escapes, roof tops, lamp posts, etc.  You start off walking down the street, either looking for fights, or fights are looking for you.  Like, you walk by a guy, you can get the party started right there and punch him in the face.  Or even some guy comes and mugs you.  Someone joins in to help him.  Someone else calls 911.  The cops come, they call for swat.  swat comes and they call in the national guard.  helicopters come in.  more and more men.  barricades are set up.

You have your choice of a few characters, each with their own specialties:

• Athletic karate chick – Quick, agile.  She can’t take a lot of damage.  I’m thinking there’s a UI (user interface) for points where she can grab on to.  Like a little “shiny spot that glimmers” on a lamp post or ladder.  You’d have her run at it and jump, she could grab on there and either climb to higher spots easily, or catapult herself at enemies.
• Big strong dude – He can take a lot of damage, but he’s slow.  He can’t fit in cars to drive them around, but he can pick them up and throw them.  He can break off lamp posts and swing them around.
• Weapons expert/PC Hacker – Probably comes equipped with tons of guns and bombs and such, but he/she can also use all the guns of the military and fly their helicopters.  Maybe something like being able to hear where the military is forming and planning next.  Maybe something like being able to shut down the powergrid and fighting in the dark with night vision goggles.
• Rich dude with political/social connections – Whatever you want, it’s at your finger tips.  You can make a call and have the military called off, you can call for someone to pick you up in a helicopter and take you away, you have your own body guard(s) that fight people off.

It’d be an arcade type of scoring, the point is just to get the biggest score/stay alive the longest/kill the most enemies.  The unique things to the game would be the “cooperation” moves when playing with multiple players.  the rich dude can order some awesome weapons that only the weapons expert can use.  the strong dude can throw the weapons dude at a helicopter for him to take it over.  The hacker can broadcast a message for the rich dude to the media to get news copters and reporters on the scene  (that would increase points multiplier as well as change difficulty).

Unique game play additions would be with media coverage.  If you’re on the news, people will come out and fight with you maybe.  You’re also less likely to die in front of a news camera.

Maybe the game takes a little bit of a riot/revolution plot.  Each character has a back story with why they need to fight against the government.  You start riots in cities across the country/globe, unlocking more and more cities until you get to the capital.  Maybe once you get the riots started in the city, you have to sneak away someone to the next city to get it started.

I’d play it.  Sounds like the multi-player would be where all the fun is.

Carnegie Mellon architecture students put together a huge study an redesign of Pittsburgh’s urban landscaping and planning. One idea included a ski lift like cable car that would go from the top of the civic arena area down to the David Lawrence Convention center (page 103 of the report).  Some other ideas included a water taxi system, dedicated bike lanes, and reusing the civic arena space as a park with a lake and ice skating rink in the winter.

You can order the 178 page book through lulu.com, or just view the pdf for free. You can read a brief article on the study through the post-gazette.

I want to “rebuild” something in the house.  I’m not sure whether it’s just a room that is a replica of another room of a house I lived in, or a famous room from somewhere else, like the Whitehouse.  At Winterthur and Nemacolin Woodlands, they have areas where the walls are actual storefronts so the room or hallway feels like a city street.  Something like that would work too.

Why haven’t we found a better / easier / more efficient way to do laundry yet? Why do we need 2 devices to complete 1 process? At the very least, can’t we have a 3rd device that moves the laundry from the washer to the dryer automatically?

I mean, there isn’t even the option of 1 device. With those stacked units, you’d think you’d be able to make some kind of floor that drops out of the washer on top and as soon as it’s empty the dryer starts.

Is there something preventing this that I’m missing??? You can’t say it’s the direction that it spins, because you could just invent something that rotated itself. I just don’t get it.

We waste far too much time “watching” laundry or waiting for one to finish so you can switch it.

I have no idea why the listed the top one first, but it’s still a pretty crazy list.  Some of these conditions are borderline super-powers if you ask me.  I wonder where we could be if we could extract these peoples’ genes…  http://www.oddee.com/item_96473.aspx

My left eye has been twitching for the past 3 days.  I have no idea what the heck is causing it.  It’s like the bottom eyelid has a pulse or something.  Wait…i think it just stopped…let me see if it does it again…Maybe it just comes and goes.  It’s just weird.  I think maybe it’s roach larva growing in my eye.  Wait, it feels like it’s going to twitch again… Any idea what would cause that?

I’d be a great eccentric millionaire. I was just thinking today about how much we rely on people’s names as sufficient identification. I would build the biggest house and make it so awesome, then invite tons of people that have the same name as me to live there so we’d have the same address. We’d only have to pay taxes once because they’d think only 1 person lived there. we could be at so many different places at the same time and people would all think it was one person.

So, i’m seeing definite muscle loss with left leg since it’s in the cast. There has got to be a better way about this then just not using it at all and going to physical therapy afterward to make sure you build muscle back correctly. What I was thinking, get one of those electric pulse things, like the informercial belt you wear to strengthen abs. Send pulses to the affected muscles so that they flex and they won’t deteriorate, at least not as bad/fast. And for muscles covered in the cast, like my calf-muscle, have something that slides into the cast that gives the shock. I’m going to mention this idea to my doctor today.