how to raise money for an expensive surgery

why not broadcast it online? viewers can pay a small fee and hospital and medical equipment suppliers will pay larger fees to advertise directly. if you don't have insurance and can't afford to pay for the surgery, there's nothing wrong letting the public watch. some viewers will be medical students and learn not to repeat mistakes when something goes wrong and you die. at least you won't die in vain or leave your family in debt.

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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.

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Post-it note economics

I am not sure if this falls under psychology, ecology or economics. My friend works for a company which is currently facing severe economic difficulties and management is frantic about reducing costs. Half-jokingly someone suggested that they use both sides of a post-it note. When I heard it, I was surprised but after giving it some thought I realized it's not such a bad idea. If we use less paper, that's good for the environment, isn't it? The only time I used both sides of a post-it note was when, having run out of sets, I had to make do with the last note in the pack. It never occurred to me to think of the environmental impact so I'm now reconsidering my one-side only use.

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Can we make deals with criminals?

Each year governments spend X amount of money to catch criminals and bring them to justice. If criminals agreed to reduce their activities by 50% that would bring down the cost of crime for the government. If governments agree to reimburse criminals by that amount when they come out of jail and on that basis criminals agreed to reduce crime, would that be an acceptable deal to make?

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SkypeShare for lower phone bills

You probably know you can make very cheap phone calls with Skype to landlines. Under a monthly subscription of about $12 you can make unlimited calls to more than 40 countries.

SkypeShare is a cheating concept. Share the password to one account with a few others and make unlimited calls driving down the monthly subscription cost even further. To prevent abuse, Skype's fair use policy actually limits 'unlimited use' to 10,000 minutes per month with a maximum of 6 hours per day but still, the restrictions can allow for plenty of time to be shared among a few friends.

Sharing the account could also work with prepaid plans and calls to mobile phones which are more expensive. The idea is nothing new or extraordinary, one account with a shared password to split the monthly subscription bill among a few people. Simple as that!

http://www.thinkaloo.com