Archive for: August 2008

The world of Science is dependent on citing references within publications. The number of citations (and journal in which it appears) are often used as some kind of assessment of each paper. Papers however can be referred to for reasons other than their quality or the positive influence they may have had on the thinking of subsequent authors.

Today’s invention is therefore a system which encourages an author to add information to each reference which says why the citation occurred. At its simplest, each reference could be tagged with symbols which reflect the extent to which it reports novel(N), professionally-undertaken(P) and important work(I). There might also be symbols for “my findings support those of this paper” and vice versa. Each of these signs might also be given a quantitative measure of the extent to which they applied (ie 5I=>”very important work”).

All of this could be made compatible with the semantic web (as currently under construction) and thus allow more meaningful, up to date rating of the cumulative value of an author’s contributions.

Inspired by origami, today’s invention is a parachute which is folded into the shape of an overall.

This could then be integrated into the rear surface of a one-piece flight suit, wearable by everyone travelling by air. Rather than have to carry a bulky parachute, or to grab and don one in an emergency, people would be always ready to make an escape from their aircraft by wearing a folded chute, distributed around their body.

The folding could be done in such a way as to minimise the thickness around areas of flexure such as elbows and knees -and thus maintain maximal flexibility in use.

Anyone who has ever tried to hang wallpaper or to cut fabric knows that it can be hard to achieve any kind of long, straight edge. If you are working with expensive materials, the cost of having snipped a section which is slightly too short, because of irregularity in the cut edge, can be very high. So you might try using a long ruler and marking the line to follow…but that requires potentially defacing the very item which is soon to be on show.

Today’s invention is a pair of scissors equipped with a small laser beam projector (adapted from those which are commonly used in eg portable CD players).

The laser beam is mounted on the outer face of one of the halves of the shears and, driven by a small pendulum, this ocillates so as to describe a fine, coloured straight line along the surface of the material being sectioned, directly in front of and in line with the scissors.

A more advanced version might take the form of a stationary projector which would form an entire cutting pattern image, showing eg a tailor or a vehicle upholster where the blade should go.

Young dogs seem to chew anything within reach. This is obviously hard to discourage and may even do damage to the animal’s mouth. In particular, they seem to like to gnaw on their bedding and, if not closely supervised, their baskets.

Today’s invention is a puppy basket in a woven construction. The weave is made not of wicker, but of rawhide strips impregnated with a dental disinfectant. Since the animal will soon grow out of both this bad habit and the basket itself, it might as well contribute to the pup’s health.

This being summer, it’s the season for being rained on at barbecues. Since I like my meat actually cooked, rather than ‘rare’, I have to spend a lot of time watching whatever is being made on my behalf. Food in preparation always gets shuffled about on a grill a fair bit, making tracking one’s forthcoming steak much more difficult.

Today’s invention is a dogtag for barbecue items which helps ensure they are cooked to your taste.

On arrival at the cookfest, you would be handed several tags made of a heavier than usual aluminium foil. Each tag has an alphabet pressed into it which allows you to punch holes where your initial letters appear (using eg a wooden skewer, or at a pinch, a pencil).

Having done this, the selected pieces can have a normal bulldog clip attached to their edges and a tag twisted around the ring on each bulldog clip, gripping it securely and allowing it to be identified irrespective of orientation.

Similar punched holes in the tags can be made to express your sauce preferences and to allow the chef to easily determine whether bleu or bien cuit (cindered) is required. The clips can be dishwashed clean afterwards and the tags discarded.