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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

#91

Post by quesera »

ashleyn wrote: post #23
dfxm12 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the reason? Anything beyond concerns over ownership of the ideas, characters, etc. (which I presume is the boilerplate legalese)? Did they even admit to reading your letter?

This was a very common thing media companies dealt with and still deal with. There are too many legal risks in even reading the idea. SOP is to send back the envelope sealed and with a canned response explaining that they don't accept pitches from the public.

How do they know what they are not reading if the envelope is still sealed?

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

#92

Post by niklasrde »

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…

You mean what Vista introduced?

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

#93

Post by wazoox »

In 2000 I was in a startup which used yellow and blue colours for all its graphic design (website, app, etc). For a big trade show (IBC Amsterdam) someone thought it would be cool to give away M&Ms, but only in yellow and blue of course ! So we bought many bags of M&Ms, and sorted them out by hand... That wasn't a good use of our time, plus we had tons of red, brown and green M&Ms to eat while working and we were getting diabetic fast. So Marie called Mars to ask if it was possible to buy only yellow and blue M&Ms for our trade show. And you know what happened? Mars sent us a huge bag of each colour for free !

In the following years, they made it possible to order custom M&Ms (for a price...) and how you can even have your logo on them.

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

iamwil wrote: post #76
kraig911 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't that what happens when they post their projects on HN?

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by cm2012 »

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 am sorry to say this, but there is a zero percent chance your letter influenced their product roadmap in an 8 month timeline.

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

#96

Post by zadikian »

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 emailed him in 7th grade asking if Pages could automate bibliographies. In hindsight, EasyBib was good enough.

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

#97

Post by ramblin_ray »

Similar age; similar story to many others' here. I "designed" so many things as a kid... including this spaceship: https://yesteryearforever.xyz/spaceship_cross-section

I remember the wiring, pipes, everything actually went somewhere and was meant for something. Nothing was just for looks and everything served a purpose.

Still hasn't been built to this day ;P

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

#98

Post by Forgeties79 »

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.…

Man that tape. I wish I still had mine!

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

#100

Post by MattGrommes »

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 wonder if they have a policy about not accepting ideas / replying to people don't think their idea was stolen. I know TV shows have that policy so nobody can accuse them of plagiarizing their script idea.
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