Dear Internet: Please make these things

If I had infinite time, I would work on these things because they'd be sha-weeet. But I have finite time. So maybe you can make them exist for me? (I would totally be a contributor on Github.) They're kind of art pieces that have arguably little utility but would be fun, simple projects that would look great in a portfolio.

umop apisdn

difficulty: 1 weekend
probable technologies: Sinatra, Heroku, HTML(5), CSS(3), Photoshop

In Chapter 7 of Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, Blixy the cat demonstrates a program that turns text upside-down (about 1/4 of the way down, right after the giant rabbit-thing). There are already websites that turn text upside-down, but not in as a charmingly low-tech way. I'd like to see a very simple web app with a focus on good, Why-inspired design and clean URLs. Maybe add a little bit to Blixy's version of the program (like, maybe swap '?' and '¿' and those sorts of things), but don't invert everything like these ad-ridden over-achievers.

Nonlinear Conversation

difficulty: 1 month
probable technologies: a fancy db, Node.js, Spine.js, Jasmine

It occurs to me, you know, that conversation is only one dimensional because of a limitation of the medium. Air waves travel from me to you, you ingest them, you send some back to me. What if we could hear and speak in two dimensions? Our conversations could flow out in multiple directions, branches overlapping, make tapestries.

So basically, I think it'd be really neat to have an IM client that by default was one dimensional, all new replies just piled on the stack. But I have the ability to drag the replies around, reorder them, make their visual representation more accurately match the thought-flow. Make one node branch out into two or more new ones. IMs are so perfectly suited to this.

Have you ever had a split in an IM conversation, when you end up discussing two things at once? That's an obvious use-case. When either (or any) of the participants relocate a node, both see it.

This could be a really beautiful, interesting examination of how the brain organizes thoughts. Do shy away, though, from adding extra and silly features, like customizable colors & shapes or anything like that.

A Suggestion Service for Music Suggestion Services

difficulty: 1 month
probable technologies: a database, Rails, Heroku and optionally lots of JavaScript in the form of a Chrome extension

Oh, let's see: iTunes, Google Music, Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, Noise Trade, ReverbNation, Moog Music, GrooveShark, thesixtyone, Last.fm, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Bandcamp, etc, etc. There are so friggin' many of these friggin' things. All with their unique take on the future of music.

I want a service to give me a tour of each of them. It's obviously a little tongue-in-cheek. But also super useful (both for we people trying to navigate all of these, and as a commentary (DO WE REALLY NEED THIS MANY WHY ARE THEY STILL GETTING VC FUNDING)). Tell me if it's a music-exploration service, or a place where I store my music, or both, and how do bands post their own music, and how do fans navigate it, and how are artists compensated, and how does the company make money. All of this information and more could be crowd-sourced. Heck, maybe you could even parse Wikipedia to get started. And a simple directory of all of this information would be a great place to start, but I think the biggest value would be in a browser extension that brought me to each new service with a simple click. And a thumbs-up and thumbs-down button for each service.