• suggestions

    New Ideas For Kids' Books About The Lean Times Ahead

    Last week, Slate published a list of children's books about poverty, unemployment, shoe-eating, dust bowls, depressions, and recessions. From a late-19th century series called The Five Little Peppers through to 2007's How To Steal a Dog, the list captures over 100 years of poverty-level slice of life—what we might call the Plight of the Raggedy Children.

    "If publishing history repeats itself," Slate writes, "the financial crisis of 2008 will probably produce a new crop of poverty lit for kids." We agree, and below we offer some ideas for you opportunistic writers out there. More »

    9:34 AM on Mon Oct 13 2008
    By Chris Walters
    4,897 views, 41 comments

    Most discussed cf27: This is driving me nuts. How does anybody know that there will be "lean times ahead"? Sure, more »

  • decorating ideas

    Decorate Your Walls For Less By Gluing Random Crap Together

    My friend and I used to pretend to be crafters, and we would email elaborately ridiculous project descriptions back and forth to each other as examples of that past time gone wild. Now we must put down our imaginary glue guns and denim swatches to pay homage to Pamela Cole Harris, who does this stuff for real. Below, see what happens when a kindly scrapbooker goes insane. More »

    3:54 PM on Tue Sep 9 2008
    By Chris Walters
    11,025 views, 47 comments

    Most discussed howie_in_az: I'd love to see some of her "designs" in action. In fact, I'm rather upset that she didn't post more »

  • early adopters

    Great Idea: Website To Let You Share The Cost Of Fad Gadgets

    David Pogue thinks the Pleo dinosaur is meh. He's seen it all before with Aibo, and despite all the "it's so lifelike!" ad and editorial copy devoted to it, the charm wears off pretty much the same day you buy it: "My surprise, though, was my kids' reaction. They thought it was really, really cool—for the first half-hour." He's proposed a new website idea where you'd sign up for the latest Hot New Thing coming out of CES, Toy Fair, Macworld, etc., then pay an ever-shrinking percentage of the original sales price to own it when your turn came in line. More »

    7:50 PM on Thu Jan 24 2008
    By Chris Walters
    2,819 views, 23 comments

    Latest by WillScarlett: @lemur: I don't understand what value is added by knowing the chain of ownership anyway. This just seems overly more »

  • mobile applications

    Idea: Find Your Way Through The Mall Via GPS

    Now that we've got such advanced cell phone technology, Russel Shaw with ZDNet thinks we should start putting it to use to make shopping in the real world easier. His idea, free for the taking if you're feeling entrepreneurial: shopping mall geolocation services. More »

    11:55 PM on Thu Dec 20 2007
    By Chris Walters
    1,053 views, 17 comments

    Latest by bunnymen: I would've thought this was a stupid idea if I hadn't just wandered around two malls recently trying to find more »

  • holidays

    Gift Idea: Buy Someone A Magnum

    Tyler Colman, Ph.D., also known as Dr. Vino, suggests giving magnums this year because those huge bottles have a smaller carbon footprint due to the more favorable wine-to-glass ratio. More »

    6:43 PM on Wed Dec 19 2007
    By Meg Marco
    1,957 views, 23 comments

  • ideas

    Cut Spending With Flickr And A Cameraphone

    Here's an idea for people trying to get a lock on their spending but find writing down everything too fascist. What about taking a picture of everything you buy with your cameraphone and uploading it to Flickr? More »

    11:57 PM on Tue Jul 17 2007
    By Ben Popken
    6,040 views, 29 comments

  • ideas

    How To Fix Online Retail

    We've got an idea. On Sunday, NYT wrote about how the increase in online sales has gone from 25% to 10%. They wondered whether shoppers were getting tired of online commerce. A Harvard professor said that etailers were giving shopping a "blase" experience that felt too much like work. The solution seems simple to us. Hire more game designers to help design online shopping sites. Find ways to introduce "leveling" concepts. Let us become 34th level BattleShoppers who can shoot 20% off coupon fireballs from our clenched fists. — BEN POPKEN More »

    9:13 AM on Tue Jun 19 2007
    By Ben Popken
    885 views, 28 comments

    Latest by factotum: The weakest link in online shopping is delivery. I've had numerous problems with both FedEx and UPS (packages not delivered, more »

  • amazon

    Amazon's Valentine's Day Bad Gift Ideas

    Amazon.com has put together a list of bad gift ideas, and we must say we enjoyed it. Of particular interest is the Fresh Whole Rabbit that we posted about previously. Other bad ideas we like: More »

    1:37 PM on Tue Feb 13 2007
    By Meg Marco
    261 views, 12 comments