The server’s would have no way of matching signatures. Even if she makes sure it goes through the patron could leave w/o signing it. That = no money for the restaurant.
Heh, I meant ‘she’ = server of any gender. 
Digital signatures, they’re everywhere. Not even a tiny hurdle. AFAIK legally, theyre the same, UPS has used them for years. Hell, the ony reason you even need a signature is in case of a dispute. McDonalds doesn’t require one at the drive through.
One already exists. Actually, several do. But to my knowledge the first was started at UCSB. http://www.screwthebookstores.com
A restaurant that didn’t have a menu, it had cookbooks. You picked what looked good and they made it for you…you might have to go early, or fax the recipe in before you arrive…would also be good to give mom’s recipe for whatever and have it made for you when you got there.
But an idea I have had since I was a kid was The World’s Tallest, Longest, Sliding board…I am talking Mt. Everest large. The idea is, you literally jump off a cliff and free-fall until after awhile, your body finally starts to touch against the side and the sliding board does a gradual turn until you are then sliding parallel on the ground and slow down to a stop.
Another idea is mini-remote control solar powere airplanes with video cameras…they would be about the size of matchbook cars…we would send up a few hundred thousand to some distant planet and you would pay to have one connected to your computer and you could totally control the flight around the planet, discovering it on your own.
Well, Singapore does has one thing called fried ice-cream - basically, wrap ice cream around dough and deep-fried it for a few seconds till the dough are cripsy and golden-brown. Then bite. Never tried it before, but it seems to be so good that it came up on local TV.
We’ve got Books4exchange here in Canada and I’ve been able to sell most of my old textbooks, as well as buy cheaper used books for school. I love it! Maybe you could try buying some books from the site, even if you’re in the states. I’m sure that if you paid extra for the shipping, most students would send you the books.
What I want to invent is a mechanical pencil that lets you use the WHOLE lead. I’m so tired of getting to the last inch of lead, where the pencil’s mechanism doesn’t really hold onto it anymore. You get comfortable with your writing angle, and you have a point on the lead, and then after your next click, the lead starts falling out. You rescue it and manage to keep it in, but now it’s swiveling awound and you’ve completely lost your writing point. Not only is that as annoying as hell, but it’s a huge waste of lead in the long run. Can’t somebody design a pencil that holds onto the lead right near the point, instead of an inch above it?
- Dog treats with little pouches built in for medicines.
I give 2 of my dogs glucosamine in the AM for arthritis, and I buy the processed American cheese and roll the pill up in the cheese. Sometimes this is messy, the cheese shatters and the pill is sticking out the edge. The only way to give liquid meds is struggle with the dog to get it in their mouth, or put it in food. If the medicines have to be given more often than mealtimes, sticking it in the dog food isn’t an option. A little soft treat with a liquid or pill holding pouch would be great.
- Flavored meds for pets, like tuna for cats.
Giving my cats liquid medicines is impossible. If it were flavored with shrimp or tuna I would think the process would be easier. I know they do different flavors for children’s meds (blueberry, bubblegum, etc.) why can’t the vets do the same thing?
No, no, no!! Surely you pay, pick up your dinner, and then sit in the car eating it while the carwash runs?!
My favorite bar has a nifty card reader. You can pay your tab and/or get cash, and if that involves a PIN, they hand you a keypad-on-a-wire so you can key in your secret number.
About 30 years ago, the Eisenhower bridge was built in my town. The west approach is much higher than the east end, so most of the bridge is a hill. Each section of concrete has heating wires in the roadbed. They all worked for a few years, too. A few sections fizzled out, resulting in some alarming situations. The city figured out they were going to have to salt the bridge anyway, so they just quit using the heaters.
i’d tried the pasar malam’s (street bazaar) version a long time ago - it’s more or less like having ice cream on a hot waffle, with the cooled waffle completely wrapped around the ice cream instead.
i don’t like it. cold ice cream on hot waffles on the other hand, mmm…
I was recently thinking about the viability of a cellular phone network sort of based on a decentralized peer-to-peer network, such as Gnutella or Fastrack.
Each user would have a base unit at home which would place calls on a voice over IP system such as Vonage (to place calls to people not on the network). When you place a call on your cell phone, you would either connect directly to the closest base unit, or your call would bounce from cell phone to cell phone until it reaches the closest one.
This would mean almost free cell phone service. Although it would be ridiculously unreliable, it has a certain “stick it to the man” appeal.
Most Mexican restaurants I have been to offer fried ice cream. It’s ok… not great. The batter they use seems like it has rice crispies or nut pieces or something in it… very odd texture.
We have a couple of big machines like that in Toronto… but they don’t make ice cubes. Since snow is porous, it has a larger surface area per unit mass than the equivalent ice, and is quicker to melt than ice. The machine simply melts the snow and lets the resulting water run down the storm drains. This eliminates any problems with moving resultant icecubes later, and is well worth the extra heat needed to fully melt the snow.
I got this idea years and years ago, when I worked in the top floor of a high-rise and could see various highways and interchanges, which came in very handy when I headed to my car on the days I drove.
They’re probably out there but I just haven’t found them, or else they’re expensive. Sites with little webcams aimed at the major highways, so you can go there and see what you’re going to get into before you leave work.
(Yes, there are traffic reports online. Yes, you can find out what the current average speed is on selected stretches of the 405 if you’re in S. Cal. But I wantto see it, and I want to see it live.)
Webcams are cheap, but the real estate isn’t, and I guess the bandwidth isn’t either. Okay, so you’d have to have popups.
What I want is a smallish sized robot attached to the ceiling of my garage that would drop down like a spider on my car and proceed to clean it every night, so that each morning I would have a clean car to start with. I can’t be bothered with wasting time in a car wash. I envision a robot very insect-like that would “eat” the layer of dirt off the car and “piss” a layer of liquid wax in its trail.
Inventors, you can have the idea, just send me 1/10th of 1% of the profits to my offshsore bank account. 
Retief
They currently have this in the Salt Lake City area at http://www.utahcommuterlink.com/. You can click on any of the little camera icons on the major commuter thoroughfares and get a snapshot that was taken within the last 2 minutes.
Hang on to that wife of yours, she’s one smart cookie.
Take (2).
Sort of a Frinch Fried Ice Cream Bar or Treat.
They are made & sold in Pigeon Forge TN and other places.
Just order the jelly doughnut without the jelly. Most bakeries would sell a dozen that way if ordered in advance. Now all you need is a vet’s hypodermic syringe to inject the icecream of the proper consistency and it’s ready to eat.
Take (2).
Sort of a Frinch Fried Ice Cream Bar or Treat.
They are made & sold in Pigeon Forge TN and other places.
Just order the jelly doughnut without the jelly. Most bakeries would sell a dozen that way if ordered in advance. Now all you need is a vet’s hypodermic syringe to inject the icecream of the proper consistency and it’s ready to eat.