Wondercafe's Dragon Den

[Mendalla]

How about one that you can actually make tea in? Sure they sell the little tea packs/pods - but unless you like tea that tastes like coffee...

Just buy one and never make coffee in it, only tea. I actually got a decent green tea out of the one at my Honda dealership but maybe they clean it regularly or something.

 

[BetteTheRed]

I'd love to know what's really wrong about plugging the kettle in, or turning the gas on underneath it...

 

[Hilary]

A storage system that rotates your household decorations in the basement so that the ones you want seasonally aren't buried under 100 other things thereby making you less likely to have the house beautified in time for your Christmas party.

 

[Mendalla]

I'd love to know what's really wrong about plugging the kettle in, or turning the gas on underneath it...

Me, too. I make my tea the old fashioned away as much as possible: loose leaf and a kettle.

Hm. A loose leaf tea caddy that holds up to 6 varieties and automatically dispenses 1 1/4 teaspoons of the selected blend with each press of a button. Bet you could get David's and Teavana to sell it.

 

[Waterfall]

Fold down table tops with a light for the back seat of the car for kids and grandkids to colour or other activities for long trips.

 

[ChemGal]

The Veta Smart Case to expand for other meds. Also to have a heat source for cold days and a holder for ice packs on hot days.

 

[Hilary]

A storage system that rotates your household decorations in the basement so that the ones you want seasonally aren't buried under 100 other things thereby making you less likely to have the house beautified in time for your Christmas party.

AND makes more space as you acquire new things.

 

[Waterfall]

AND makes more space as you acquire new things.

Expandable!

 

[Mendalla]

A bit geeky and hard to explain, but a cloud-based, end-to-end forum provider.

Explanation:

Right now, we pay one company (Crocweb) to provide WC2 with an Internet connection, a server, backups, etc. Then we install software from another company (Xenforo) on to that. We have to maintain, upgrade, etc. that software, while Crocweb looks after more basic stuff.

What I am envisioning would be a company that would provide and maintain everything from the Internet connection to the forum software (the "end-to-end" part). All upgrades, maintenance, etc. would be done by this company, though they would likely turn around and use a service like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure to provide most of the infrastructure (the "cloud-based" part).

Someone who wants to start a forum just signs up, pays their subscription, and then uses a bunch of wizards and utilities to set it up. You would even be able to upload templates to control the appearance of the forums just as we do now. When an upgrade comes up, the admins just have to click a button to say "We're ready, upgrade us" and it just happens. So, you get something like Wondercafe2 up and running in a matter of hours or days with minimal work for the admins (the mods are another matter, you'll still have to deal with the trolls and flamewars).

The company could even provide a common user database, so I could sign up for one forum that they hosting (say Wondercafe3) and if I find another that interests me (say forums.rpg.net), I just click one button or checkbox and it gets added to my account. If a user gets banned from one forum, admins on other forums they are on could be alerted. And spam control could be mostly centralized, part of the infrastructure rather than the responsibility of the individual boards. You might get the odd bit of seepage, but a lot of the stuff we admins deal with now would be dealt with by the company.

There, that's my verbal diarrhoea for tonight.

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

Fold down table tops with a light for the back seat of the car for kids and grandkids to colour or other activities for long trips.

I have seen that in a car in Germany- kind of like the tables on airplaines.

 

[Pontifex Geronimo 13]

Many years ago, I had a waterbed, and you could sleep with your arm under another person and the pressure was bearable. However my temperature preference was not a match to my spouse. Anyway, we need a zero gravity sleeping chamber. No pressure points anywhere.

 

[Seeler]

A device that cools food as fast as a microwave heats it - quickly lowering hot foods to room temp, or chilling (wine), or flash freezing.
Perhaps this could be combined with my long awaited microwave/toaster oven. Put food in and press a button: cook, reheat,, bake (a real baked potato), or cool or freeze

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

A handbag like Mary Poppins at a reasonable price. ( It would put the moving van companies out of business)

 

[Waterfall]

A handbag like Mary Poppins at a reasonable price. ( It would put the moving van companies out of business)

An Uber Mary Poppins handbag....brilliant!

 

[Mendalla]

A free/low-cost car sharing service that is financed by playing an ad(s) on the dashboard screen when you first get in. Rather like how ads play before Youtube videos.