Status-Q

I have a large number of business ideas which I’ll never get a chance to turn into companies. For most of them, that’s probably just as well. Here’s one I’ve been thinking about recently…

Many people travel regularly to another city. Not regularly enough to have an apartment there, but sufficiently often that the process of carrying a suitcase of clothes back and forth is a real pain. I think what is needed is a way to have a wardrobe in the places you visit most often. I’d like to create a business which does this and the great thing is that I can just piggy-back it on existing services. Here’s how it works:

You go to a hotel, stay for a few days, and on departing you just leave behind any clothes that you’d like to stay in that city. The hotel laundry washes your clothes, and puts them in a specially design cardboard wardrobe, which is then picked up and put into storage. When you’re next returning to that city, you just call up or log on and say where you’ll be staying, and the clothes are hanging in your wardrobe when you get there. The cardboard wardrobe might have a special drawer for toiletries etc as well.

If you stop visiting that city, then for a modest charge, the wardrobe can be shipped back home, or to wherever your business is taking you now.

Neat, huh? Now, I was explaining this to a couple of lady friends of mine over lunch recently, and they pointed out that this was clearly a male-centric view of the world, because women would (a) want to have much more control over the precise clothing they had available for a particular trip and (b) wouldn’t want to leave valuable outfits behind in some far-flung part of the world. I suggested that part of the storage process could include an automatic photographing of each of the items of clothing, so you could see on the website exactly what would greet you when you opened your wardrobe in San Francisco, but they still seemed unconvinced.

For the average travelling bloke, though, I think this could work quite well. What do you think? Anyone feel like investing in an exciting new globe-spanning venture?

A couple of people have told me how much they enjoyed James Randi’s talks.

If you liked those, and you haven’t yet seen it, you really owe it to yourself to watch Michael Shermer’s TED talk, which is one of my favourites.

“Some people call us debunkers, which is a kind of negative term but, let’s face it, there’s a lot of bunk!”

You can associate multiple email addresses with your Google account. Just edit your account info.

Then when people send you invitations to join calendars, share documents etc, at something other than your Google address, they will all be associated with your one Google account.

A very good way to pass an enjoyable few minutes on YouTube is to search for James Randi. Randi, for those who don’t know, is a magician, but he’s better known as a debunker of the paranormal and pseudoscientific. He’s also an amusing speaker… here’s a little clip where he explains homeopathy:

And there are lots of other nice examples out there – a TV appearance where he puts a graphologist to the test, for example.

And here he talks about Uri Geller, and the faith healer Peter Popoff:

The J. Randi Educational Foundation has, for several decades now, been offering a prize – now standing at $1M – to anybody who can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability under proper scientific observation. Here are the details if you want to have a go, and the process is documented in the open on the JREF forums. Even getting past the preliminary test will get you $10,000. So far, none of the hundreds of applicants has got that far.

From RyanAir’s FAQ:

DOES RYANAIR CARRY HUMAN REMAINS?

Ryanair only carry human remains on the London Stansted-Knock route. To make a reservation you must contact Skytrader in Birmingham on +44 870 4422979.

Somehow I feel there must be an interesting story behind that.

The mobile phone revolution really is sweeping across Africa.

Story here.

Martin sent me a link to this quite interesting site – if the world could vote for the US president, whom would you pick?

Now, this is a cute idea, though of course the rest of us won’t have to live with the domestic decisions, the tax burden, the healthcare system etc. of whomever gets chosen. And I wish it had been done by somebody inside the country rather than an outsider.

None the less, it’s valuable data, so as long as you can say with a clear conscience that you wouldn’t mind Americans making suggestions about your next leader, cast your vote!