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I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

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Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#121

Post by hinkley »

projektfu wrote: post #105
nogridbag wrote: post #15

These letters matter a lot to kids. I sent my video game idea to Nintendo as a little kid and I had the same reaction seeing that envelope from Nintendo in the mailbox addressed to me. I think it was also a bit more special pre-internet as these companies felt a bit more magical and mysterious. You can only read about them through video game magazines and see their names in the credit scenes at the end of the games.…

Six year old me sent an idea to McDonnell Douglas for an airplane with turboprops to back up the jets in case of engine fire. There was also a fire suppression system. They sent me some nice brochures about the DC-8, -9, and -10, but looking back on it they could have mentioned that the jets are already redundant and will usually stop burning when the fuel is cut.

> usually

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#122

Post by hinkley »

kraig911 wrote: post #50
nogridbag wrote: post #15

These letters matter a lot to kids. I sent my video game idea to Nintendo as a little kid and I had the same reaction seeing that envelope from Nintendo in the mailbox addressed to me. I think it was also a bit more special pre-internet as these companies felt a bit more magical and mysterious. You can only read about them through video game magazines and see their names in the credit scenes at the end of the games.…

I so much wish we could all get together as engineers and make a site where kids can write to and send videos etc on and we just praise them and tell them their ideas are good as a community.

Volunteer to judge the science fair?

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#123

Post by mcintyre1994 »

EGreg wrote: post #62
RobCodeSlayer wrote: post #44

At age 13 I pitched a candy idea to Mars Bars as part of a school project to write business letters. I loved Snickers at the time but was tired of unwrapping so many fun-size ones from Halloween. I told them something like - “you should just put the fun-size candies in a big resealable bag, so people can eat as much as they want without dealing with the wrappers. You can call them unwrapped minis. All you have to do…

I sent steve jobs (sjobs@apple.com) an email saying that MacOS should have an unspoofable dialog for the system password authorization, same way they have for DRM videos etc. I also suggested the user could choose a secret phrase or image to be displayed in the dialog during system setup. Never heard back. This was when Steve was alive and in charge. And to this day anyone can spoof the system password dialog and ste…

I always wonder about how easy that would be to spoof, because it seems like it'd be trivial.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#124

Post by hinkley »

TheGRS wrote: post #27

Around this age I went to a water park and was similarly inspired. I had the idea for making an entire water park dedicated to making sure people would get wet and jump onto rides from beginning to end. I called it "Totally Wet People", drew up an elaborate concept art for water slides, sprinklers, pools, tubes, etc. My mom thought it was hilarious and brought it to work (alas, she worked for the Navy at the time, no…

Little did you know that your ideas were incorporated into Navy training. The Navy is wet work and you need practice working in such conditions. They unfortunately left out your concessions stands and the water slide. Sorry.

(I know that submariners literally have water obstacle courses where they have to learn to, for instance, do some repairs while a compartment is flooding, but I’ve no idea what the Navy does as a whole).

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#125

Post by nogridbag »

Nition wrote: post #115
postalcoder wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creative Writer is one of the best pieces of software I've ever used. What's the state of kids software nowadays?

Pretty terrible in my experience. The good stuff for kids mostly moved to tablets and phones, but no keyboard and mouse is a limiting format, and you have to sift through a hundred bad apps to find the good one. Not much that runs easily on modern PCs comes close to the old magic. Though Tux Paint is actually very good, retaining the sense of whimsy that most modern software lacks. It's hard to describe but it almost…

This is a timely post. Just last night my 8 y/o asked if she could create a presentation on my laptop like they do at school. I have no idea what software they use at the elementary school.

I've let her play around with Google Docs before. But what I really wanted was something like Creative Writer that is more kid friendly. I used Gemini (sorry) to suggest some software and it suggested "Book Creator" which is intended for schools/teachers. I signed up as a fake teacher and added my kids as students and they did create some really creative books, importing images, and adding their own drawings. But it's still missing that kid-friendly vibe like Creative Writer.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#126

Post by hinkley »

raphinou wrote: post #12

When I was young I wrote to the Formula 1 team McLaren to ask if they could hire me for a student job. I didn't expect to get a reply, but I got one. The answer was negative, but I was happy. I never reflected about it until now, but maybe it learned me that asking doesn't cost anything, and that the worst thing that can happen is getting a negative answer? Not sure that was the turning point, but this is indeed my a…

I think this is one of the ways in which the internet is dangerous for children.

Gen X kids were starving for any adult not their parents to acknowledge their existence. Which made us targets for predators. But now we’ve overcorrected and acknowledgement is routine. That dopamine hit is practically free.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#127

Post by dubcanada »

Roedou wrote: post #18

I wrote to Sainsburys (large UK grocery store chain) in 1993, suggesting an idea for a "self checkout", where you would scan items yourself as you put them into your shipping cart. My anti-theft solution was that they'd weigh your cart as you left, to make sure you'd scanned everything! I never expected a reply, but was so stoked when I received a letter with a similar generic-but-enthusiastic reply, along the lines…

You'd have better luck mailing a letter, but to be honest the kind of "sending a letter and getting a reply from the CEO or some sort of higher up" is long gone unfortunately. There is a few exceptions, but all of them are for very old private companies. You will never get a reply from Pepsi as a kid with a new flavour idea. Or Disney about a new ride for that matter.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#128

Post by krackers »

EGreg wrote: post #62
RobCodeSlayer wrote: post #44

At age 13 I pitched a candy idea to Mars Bars as part of a school project to write business letters. I loved Snickers at the time but was tired of unwrapping so many fun-size ones from Halloween. I told them something like - “you should just put the fun-size candies in a big resealable bag, so people can eat as much as they want without dealing with the wrappers. You can call them unwrapped minis. All you have to do…

I sent steve jobs (sjobs@apple.com) an email saying that MacOS should have an unspoofable dialog for the system password authorization, same way they have for DRM videos etc. I also suggested the user could choose a secret phrase or image to be displayed in the dialog during system setup. Never heard back. This was when Steve was alive and in charge. And to this day anyone can spoof the system password dialog and ste…

>And to this day anyone can spoof the system password dialog and steal the system password

TouchID solves this in a sense.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#129

Post by airstrike »

krackers wrote: post #128
EGreg wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sent steve jobs (sjobs@apple.com) an email saying that MacOS should have an unspoofable dialog for the system password authorization, same way they have for DRM videos etc. I also suggested the user could choose a secret phrase or image to be displayed in the dialog during system setup. Never heard back. This was when Steve was alive and in charge. And to this day anyone can spoof the system password dialog and ste…

>And to this day anyone can spoof the system password dialog and steal the system password TouchID solves this in a sense.

Make it look like the TouchID isn't working and switch to password mode, boom. User password obtained

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#130

Post by microtonal »

raphinou wrote: post #12

When I was young I wrote to the Formula 1 team McLaren to ask if they could hire me for a student job. I didn't expect to get a reply, but I got one. The answer was negative, but I was happy. I never reflected about it until now, but maybe it learned me that asking doesn't cost anything, and that the worst thing that can happen is getting a negative answer? Not sure that was the turning point, but this is indeed my a…

When I was probably 10 or so, one of the largest computer magazines in the country had a job for a 'junior writer'. My 10yo brain did not realize that junior meant 'just finished the relevant education' and though 'hey, I'm a junior'. So I just called them up and the guy on the other side of the line was clearly confused what to say to me not to disappoint me too much and mumbled something like "the person responsible for hiring is not around". In hindsight, it's pretty ballsy for a kid to just call, if I had to do it ten/fifteen years later I'd have been pretty nervous.

I'm a bit sad that we lose that innocent, carefree attitude later in life.

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