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Inventions/Ideas to change the WORLD!!!

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07:07 / 22.01.03

I was at the gym the other day on one of those exercise bikes when it came to me, Why not put dynamos on them to power the gym lights heating etc?? Thinking about it some more wouldnt this solve Americas energy problem, the places there doing the rolling blackouts are the places with the most fitness freaks, why not capitalise on their energy usage??
(not coming from America there are a wide arrangement of assumptions here so no flaming, just corrections ta)

Have you got an invention to change the world sitting in your head waiting for exposure that you want to share with us? Or can you not risk sharing your idea with such an open forum...

Inventions or ideas please!

Pot.

11:24 / 22.01.03

Along those lines, I've always wondered if it would be possible to combine a central heating boiler with an oven and so put the unused heat from either to good use.

As for exercise bikes, I've often wondered if one could, like, take it off its stand, attach another wheel, add tyres and use it to propel oneself somewhere more interesting than the gym. :-)

14:59 / 22.01.03

Yeah but the problem is around my area bikes that have wheels dont have them for long.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

15:07 / 22.01.03

"Undo" machines.

Not sure how it would work, but definitley want one.

15:10 / 22.01.03

Ah ha! Then maybe a dynamo hooked up to the capacitor coil thingie from a camera flash gun, in turn hooked up to the wheels. Touch my wheels and -- Zap! Ow! Mum ... blubber.

Halfords, buy me out know. You know how much you make selling expensive wheels and cheap locks.

15:12 / 22.01.03

Yup, I do know the difference between now and know. I just ... forgot.

The local Goth prototype has become a run-of-the-mill example of the apocalypse.

20:25 / 22.01.03

First I wanna thank Rage!Rage!Rage! ang TG for the instaz generator as without it I wouldn't have existed. I dunno if I should be using a name generated by their generator. But if I've make the mistake, please do PM me or otherwise.

My ideas is :

1. Door bell activated phone dialer. When someone presses the door bell, he would be able to communicate with the owner (even the owner is not in) via the owner's handphone.

2. I know that video enhancement sharpens the overshoot and undershoot of video waveform. Could they come up with a software that allow us to enahnces/manipulate audio wave as well?

3. Someone ought to come up with a word such that at the mention of this word, peoples will want to increase their sales orders. This will helps in a downturn.

My $0.02 cents worth......

The Apple-Picker

20:34 / 22.01.03

Yeah, I'd thought about the bike thing before for generating electricity in the home. I always thought it would be so great to have a bike hooked up to a generator. I need to do the wash? Time to exercise! It'd be a great way to insure that I'd exercise. Or else a great way to insure that I wear dirty clothes forever more.

I'm supposed to be writing a paper now.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:20 / 22.01.03

Didn't a guy actually do the excercize bike dynamo thang? I heard he hooked it up to one of those hand-held videogames or something, so that people would be motivated to keep pedalling (no juice, no Space Invaders).

You could always just pop down to the local bike shop and buy yourself a dynamo. Then you could power whatever you liked, within reason.

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:31 / 22.01.03

Cool. My supercomputer awaits! As do buns of steel!

22:11 / 22.01.03

Yeah, I'm certain I've read about bikes being hooked up to either the TV or radio with the person pedaling for the duration of a show or whatever. Which is well and good if you want to watch "Friends" and not so good if you want to listen to 24 hours of Throbbing Gristle.

23:59 / 22.01.03

24 hours of pedalling and you'll be nothing but throbbing gristle. So I hear, anyway.
Kids have a lot of sugar induced energy these days. Can't we put them in giant hamster wheels? Dangle a Beyblade from an extending arm a little out of their reach...

05:18 / 23.01.03

Hey! Someone ought to try that out! I can't wait to hear what's the outcome of kids doing that.

09:31 / 27.01.03

My guess is thin kids.

A

10:59 / 27.01.03

I think it would really improve the standard of communication on the Information Superhighway if someone were to invent a process enabling one to send someone a mild electric shock via email. Anyone pisses you off, you can just zap 'em, that'll sort 'em out.

13:10 / 27.01.03

More of an idea than an invention, but since ideas were also invited...

It seems to me that a great number of people who work in centrally located offices could do their jobs from home if equipped with a networked PC and a telephone. If all the people who could do this did do this, we would:
(a) Be able to pay them more, given that office space and overheads in the middle of big cities is very expensive (roughly equal to a worker's gross salary, I believe is the rule of thumb), which would...
(b) Free up huge amounts of space in central locations which could be turned into accommodation, driving down prices and giving those who want it a chance to live centrally....Which would mean....
(c) A great strain would be lifted of public transport which ferries huge numbers of people from their over-priced homes in out-lying areas to office spaces they don't strictly need to go to.......which in turn would mean...
(d) People who using public transport would, for a larger part, be using it for leisure purposes and would be happier, less rushed and less embittered individuals, less likely to want to kill their fellow travellers for daring to take a large bag with them.

Just a better world.

I'd also make broadsheet newspapers tabloid size, cos....er...why not?

13:57 / 28.01.03

I like Mr Weaving's idea. Once you've got everyone working at home, you can grass over the roads and motorways and replace everyone's cars with sit-down lawn mowers. Fuel should be rationed, and dished out to individuals according to how much mown grass is in their grass box (ie exactly as much as would have been used to cut that much grass, plus a bit extra). Thus, although individuals can cheat by nicking grass from other people (turf wars, anyone?), the total number of journeys made is limited by the rate of the growth of grass.

Another bonus - since grass stops growing altogether in the autumn, people will be forced to put their mowers away and hibernate through the winter months, which is just as it should be.

19:53 / 28.01.03

If genetic tinkering counts as invention then I would like to see a miniature dolphin developed. About an inch long. It won't really change the world or anything, but I think it would be great to have one of the little fellows porpoising around in an aquarium.

Brigade du jour

20:36 / 28.01.03

Telepathy. But I don't know if it would change the world for the better or not. At any rate, provided it was a natural evolution and therefore available (and indeed compulsory) to everybody, it could produce better understanding. Or maybe just better ways to hurt people.

Hmm. Depends on the person in question. Maybe it would only change things for a while, slight shift in the way power structures operate rather than the power structures themselves.

Then again, maybe a kind of Darwinian nightmare where instead of the people with the most money run the world, the most intelligent people would run the world.

Damn. I'd still be only sort of in the middle then, like I am now.

21:52 / 28.01.03

Talking about genetic tinkering has anyone ever played the genetic crossing game where you get two animals and hypothersise on what there offspring would be? Best one wins a shiny penny.

spitting cobra giraffes?
flying sharks? (much better than flying monkeys)

Should this have its own thread?

Pot.

Brigade du jour

21:57 / 28.01.03

come on, nothing tops flying monkeys! having said that, sharks could then do exactly what they do underwater in the air ... oh shit, that's a scary thought!

22:00 / 28.01.03

I find the spitting cobra giraffe worse. This won the last contest. Just visualise....

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:12 / 28.01.03

A natural history of non-existant species has clearly got a spitting cobra giraffe-shaped hole in it.

13:32 / 31.01.03

I'd change the world by replacing the old 12 month calendar with a decimal one. Partly just to upset people and make a mess of everyone's arrangements, but mostly as an excuse to think up some new month names, cos I'm bored of the old ones.

The Decimal Months will be:

Bobtember
Trianguary
Starch
Vonembra
Cheggen
Knackabane
Foze
Rogerboove
Clacktober
Bentax

I'm not sure exactly when the year will start in relation to our current system, but Knackabane and Foze will be the winter months - in both hemispheres. This means the hemispheres will be 5 months out of sync with each other, ie when it's Knackabane in the North, it'll be Bobtember in the South.

It would be nice to decimalise the days as well, but there's nothing we can do about the Earth's rotation for now, so we're stuck with 365. Therefore, each month will consist of 36.5 days. So, Bobtember being the first month will end at 11:59am on the 36-and-a-half'th of Bobtember. From 12:00pm onwards it will be the half'th of Trianguary (so Trianguary ends roundly in the last minute of the 36th).

No reason we can't decimalise the weeks, though, so I propose we have ten weeks a month, each week consisting of 3.65 days (of which two days are weekend, just to keep the traditionalists happy).

The days of the week:

Barryday (weekend, 24 hrs)
Terryday (weekend 24 hrs)
Bovis (the work day, 24 hrs)
Hmm...day (15 hrs, 36 minutes).

The awkward 0.65 of a day (or 15hrs, 36 minutes) at the end of each week should be postponed till the end of the tenth month, so there's six and a half days proper at the end of each month to play around with - probably a good time to tidy up ready for the next month.

The only problem I see with this is Hmm...day. Can anyone think of a better name for it?

13:49 / 31.01.03

Brake-lights that get brighter the harder the brakes are applied. It might not revolutionise the world, but it would mean I didn't soil my pants whenever the driver in front of me on the motorway taps their brake pedal.

15:41 / 31.01.03

My idea may not revolutionize the world but it certainly will make it more fun:

A belt coprised of small, but extremely powerful speakers, all contected to an MP3 player, instatnly giving us our own everchanging soundtrack!

May I suggest that Hmm.. be called Crap, and be the only day of the week when telephone solicitation is legal.

21:42 / 31.01.03

i say we call Hmmm...day Scurnday, the mythical day that falls between Sunday and Monday when you sleep (that is if you belive everything me and my friends make up and say all the time)

what about a metric clock? i haven't work it all out but time is so subjective that it could work, a 10hr day, different messuments of time used prolly... i don't know... this is what i think about when i'm bored

08:05 / 04.02.03

radjose:

"i say we call Hmmm...day Scurnday, the mythical day that falls between Sunday and Monday when you sleep"

I like that, yes! Scurnday it is. Btw, where I said to postpone all the Scurndays till after the "tenth month", I meant "tenth week".

"what about a metric clock? i haven't work it all out but time is so subjective that it could work, a 10hr day, different messuments of time used prolly"

There's no reason why not. I'm not too keen on stretching the hours to fit just ten in - that would make the Lord of the Rings film 7.2 conventional hours long! Better to make it 100 hours a day and get everything over and done with nice and quick (1 new hour = 14 minutes 24 secs of conventional time). The 8 hour work day would be over in just under 2 normal hours.

Minutes should be adjusted so that 10 fit into the new 14 minute hour, so you get longer per minute. This should bring actual minutes more in line with current theoretical minutes (or 'estiminutes'); the ones that everyone uses when they say "I'll just be a minute! Give me a f..king minute, will you?!"

11:51 / 04.09.03

Visual Dictionary

Got an object in mind, but don't know what it's called?

"Yes. I saw this thing on the telly once, it was mostly round with yellow thins which went in and out. Had a cross shaped socket on the base which emitted egg shaped balloons. Some sort of teaching aid?"

Then consult the visual dictionary!

Only available on the internet - input as many or as few key descriptive terms (eg long, round, oval, branches, axle, symmetrical etc) to the search form as you like, and select the shape/outline from the selection that is offered up that is nearest to the object you are thinking of. This will take you through to a set of more detailed drawings, which, by further selections should take you through to a fully detailed photo or drawing of the object in mind AND ITS NAME (plus standard dictionary definition).

Whisky Priestess

14:10 / 04.09.03

Wait just a (theoretical) minute ... (are these related at all to London Underground minutes, by any chance? I think there must be a connection).

If we're going to do this properly, we've obviously got to start at the beginning.

Seconds: usual length, 100 per minute
Minutes: 100 seconds each, 100 minutes per hour (making New Hours roughly three times longer at 10,000 seconds rather than 3600)
Hours: 100 minutes each, 10 per day.

This will somewhat extend days from 86,400 seconds long to 100,000 seconds, which means that days and nights will slowly get out ouf sync over several months until you end up having lunch in the pitch dark, but that's a small price to pay for chronological neatness. As far as months go, you can do what you like.

I hope this is helpful.

My life-enhancing invention would be electric cowboys to replace traffic cops.

18:50 / 04.09.03

Visual Dictionary

Got an object in mind, but don't know what it's called?

"Yes. I saw this thing on the telly once, it was mostly round with yellow thins which went in and out. Had a cross shaped socket on the base which emitted egg shaped balloons. Some sort of teaching aid?"

Then consult the visual dictionary!

I've got one. It's all about things and their component parts (bodies, animals, machines, buildings, musical instruments).

This isn't it, but it's close.

21:05 / 04.09.03

People should have an extra pair of arms & hands, like Hindu gods.

Think how great the sex would be. And you could carry shopping home without losing fingers to loss of peripheral circulation. Plus the economy would benefit from all the redesigned shirts we'd have to buy and jewellers and tattooists would be so happy.

There's a fresco of Vishnu in the royal palace in Cochin, pleasuring about nine ladeez at once. It's a goer.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

22:34 / 04.09.03

A realisation of the simple truth:

Cheese leads to Marriage.
Marriage leads to Fear.
Fear leads to the Dark Side.

Cheese is of the Dark Side...

Hm. I look at that, and it no longer seems as obvious as it did.

02:18 / 05.09.03

toilet paper with short stories printed on it so you'd have something to read.

02:51 / 05.09.03

Its so wierd you bring this old ass thread up, at a session today I had the idea of child proof plugs! I thought it was genius as i'd never heard of them before, hurriedly scampered home, googled it, only to find 20,800 links. I guess i must live in a cave. With dodgy electrics.

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