Friday, September 4, 2009

Book lending for air travellers

I was thinking of creating a book lending business in airports for travelers on long flights. Instead of buying the book in the airport bookshop the passenger can borrow it only for the course of the flight by having the credit card charged full retail price of the book. Upon arriving in the destination airport the passenger returns the book and gets full refund in their credit card. The book can then only be re-lent to passengers traveling back to the country airport the book originally came from.

If a passenger really likes the book they will have the option to buy it by simply keeping it. In this case a new order to re-stock the book will be automatically made via the system and a small profit realized from having sold it retail price. People can also donate books in this business and if their used-book is sold they get to keep a portion of the profit.

http://thinkaloo.com

Will it take an Obama to catch an Osama?

While on one hand Obama wants to close down the prison in Quantanamo he also wants to focus efforts on catching Bin Laden. If Bin Laden is caught do you think it's better to just kill him or try him before executing him by placing him in a tall building and crashing a plane into it? Bin Laden is not the leader of an independent country like Saddam was. He has a wider religious appeal all over the Muslim world. My sense is to better kill him without trying him.

http://thinkaloo.com

The 'body language' of text chat

I think there's a certain 'body language' in text chat. It has to do with showing to the other person when you're typing something. In Skype you can deactivate that option but not in Yahoo Messenger. If you regularly chat with someone they develop a sense of how fast you type and think, therefore, someone can detect when you need time to think of something or whether you're re-typing/editing a text message.

For example if you answer 'yes that's great' to a proposal then depending on the amount of time it took you to write the message the other person could infer that you don't think it's that great. Usually you start typing something then change your mind and want to edit the text, that is a hidden body language that the other person can see. It's not a bad thing but it's something to be aware of.

If you want to avoid being detected that you needed time to think of something, then type in a separate notepad window and cut and paste when ready

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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Need a new job? Work in a bar

If people lose their jobs by the millions and can't find a new one, how and where will they release their despair and frustration? Drinking in a bar for former golden boys or at home for the bronze ones! So, if you have money to invest, invest it in alcohol and wine manufacturers and if you need a new job consider working in a bar!

http://thinkaloo.com

Would it be too embarrassing to order just dessert?

Dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal but I am thinking that in a weak economy people should become creative with cost-cutting and try to keep doing as many of the activities they were used to as possible. One is going out to eat in a restaurant. I guess I can eat at home and then go out in a restaurant with my friends and just order dessert and perhaps a drink to go with it.

Restaurants which will experience a huge drop in business need not advertise their plight in their websites by saying they accept dessert-only meals but if customers come in and order just dessert they should be happy to provide it and train the staff not to express any sign of surprise when they take the order.

http://thinkaloo.com

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

http://thinkaloo.com/ideas/view/view_idea.php?id=1133

Thinking out loud here. For women it's often the case in business meetings that their hands get crushed by male colleagues extending firm handshakes. If they wear a ring the pain is even worse. Handshake-friendly rings from cheap and soft material that resemble the real ring would be a great invention to sell along. I just hope the concept is not just my wishful thinking and perhaps others have thought about it too. With so many replicas of every fashionable product out there why wouldn't a replica of a ring made from soft squeezable material be possible?

I don't like people with soft/bad handshakes. I think that a handshake shows a lot about a person. I believe that you wrote that just for fun but if something like that would take place in reality people would be afraid to give their hand :)

The ideal is a warm handshake but with equal force applied from both parties, a woman can never apply as much force as a man so the man must tone it down to her level, plus some people grab and squeeze the other person's fingers which results in a very uncomfortable situation

Handshake is so customary that I don't think people can easily do without but my view is that we should stop using it, historically it has been a power game custom, whoever puts the hand on top declares he wants to be in control. people who don't get educated on this unconsciously communicate such messages even if they might not intend to

http://thinkaloo.com

What happened to the anti-globalization movement?

Now that globalization is hurting everyone you don't hear the movement protesting out loud and strong. Why's that? Shouldn't this be their 'see we told you' time? I find it strange that the movement is not pressing forward with its demands now that the global environment is more conducive to listening to them. Strange...

http://thinkaloo.com

people who know everything

Don't you just hate people who think they know everything?

I live in a small country but I have lived in the past in different countries and I notice that the smaller the country it is the more people tend to pretend they know everything.

I went to this small expensive place yesterday with my girlfriend who happens to be from France. It was a French restaurant with a cuisine that wasn't french at all (my gf is from France and I have lived in france for about 4 years).

Anyway when I told to the waiter that the food wasn't cooked properly as it supposed to be he told us that we have no idea about french food. I asked the waiter if he has ever been to france and he told me No. I asked him if they have a french cook and he told me No as well .. they have a cook trained to french cuisine. He was so insulting and so rude that pretty much I wanted to punch him :)))

By the way we ended up paying almost 100 euros for a 2 persons meal to a restaurant that didn't worth more than 40 euros for the food.

This incident is no exception. That kind of rude , stupid people are almost everywhere. And I don't know what to do . It's impossible to start a fight each time but at the same time I feel an idiot paying twice the amount I would pay in france when I am in Athens , Greece and eating their crap. And of course if I try to tell them my honest opinion I have to apologize about being honest because they know everything and I know nothing!

sorry about my long post but I had to share it with people.

http://thinkaloo.com

A hypothesis on male libido

This is just an observation from personal experience, men who sleep lying face down exhibit an insatiable long-lasting sexual urge. This is good if it's all released to the girlfriend, bad if it's released outside the relationship. Of course this is just an observation and an unusual hypothesis for psychology and sex therapy majors to test. I'm wondering that if it's true though how would a girl practically convince or make her guy to change his sleeping positions depending on the needs of the relationship over time! :)

http://thinkaloo.com

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

"Woman-Inside" sign for shared public restrooms!

Nothing complex or expensive just a small sign saying "Woman-Inside" or something to that effect. Similar to existing signs posted outside public restrooms. Some places such as small restaurants or cafes offer single restroom space for both men and women to share which is extremely annoying to women due to men's habit of leaving the place in bad hygiene. I propose women carry the sign in their bags and post it before they get in so that men waiting outside to use the restroom don't impatiently knock on the door or keep trying the door handle. When the woman comes out, she grabs her sign and enjoys the sight of men wandering around in distracted confusion.

http://thinkaloo.com

President Sarkozy on the line!

Shouldn't all the higher-ups have a) caller id with a large database of pre-approved official numbers b) voice recognition c) video conference technology and d) a smart secretary that knows how to handle a,b and c before she answers the phone and e) if she cant' handle a, b, c or d then at least be able to place a call on hold/mute when she talks with her boss? :D aaaaa

http://thinkaloo.com

Monday, August 31, 2009

How to improve local food

Make local supermarket and grocery stores sales data available online so that local food managers can access them for a fee. By studying the data on grocery sales from all supermarkets and stores in the area food managers will get a pretty good idea of people's preferences. For example, if your local food deli or restaurant sells pasta you can find out from sales data which types of spaghetti sauce people in your area buy the most. First make sure that you offer them in the menu and then work on improving their taste.

http://thinkaloo.com

recipes in the grocery markets

In each aisle of the market they could have a paper with recommended recipes and ingredients needed for this recipe. Then walking in the aisle not only you may buy what you need for your home but you may also buy more stuff than you need based on the recipe you saw before. More sales for the markets.

What do you think of my business model?

I like the idea but isn't it the case already that most products have recipe suggestions on them anyway? Your model needs to take into consideration the fact that you can't put too much info in front of the consumer as it may confuse him. It has to be well targeted with just a few recipes per aisle

http://thinkaloo.com

Obama! Was it a true victory?

Don't get me wrong. I support Obama. My whole point is based on a very simple question. Is Bush who's well hated among the world wasn't the president for the last 8 years, do you think Obama would have won McCain so easily? My question isn't finished yet. IF Obama was white and Bush wasn't the president for the last 8 years what do you think the result would be?

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Obama can't keep his BLACKberry

Or have an iPhone. Marketing disaster or marketing opportunity? He's told the more important he becomes in the world the more he can't have it. What does that say for everyone else that can have it? Here's how to spin it. HE has Everything. Except one thing. BLACKberry. Yes YOU can! If I was Blackberry I would buy it back from Obama and auction it on eBay :D

http://thinkaloo.com