Insulation material in a roofspace has a tendency to compress -especially if you want to use a double layer.
This greatly reduces the effectiveness of heat retention.
Today’s invention is a cheap plastic fork with needle-like tangs (red).
When the insulation is laid, and has had a chance to expand or ‘loft’, many of these forks would be pressed into the sides of each batte in order to maintain its thickness (and air retention) over time.
Today’s invention is inspired by my friend’s attempts to deal with a phone company -ambitiously enough, via the phone.
She was placed on hold for half an hour by O2 and left listening to dreadful ‘music’ -presumably because they were too stingy to license the use of anything vaguely tuneful.
Ideally, calling a company should immediately put you in touch with an intelligent, helpful human. Whilst this remains beyond lots of companies, today’s invention is a playlist for those on-hold.
Everything else in the arena of phone service is based on a select-a-number process, so why not enable people to choose some music from a numbered list of artists or tunes?
You could even take a ‘feeling lucky’ option to listen to, or scroll through, a number of new, unsigned musicians…thus supporting creative people that the phone industry purports to value.
If you had to make several such calls, the system could remember your favourites and offer them first…or even use the opportunity to recommend something new but similar.
Travelling in lifts is not very exciting for the most part.
Today’s invention adds a certain extra interest.
A normal lift with opaque surfaces has two large screens fitted into the floor and ceiling (the bottom one would need to be protected with walkable glass, as in the deck at the top of the CN tower, for example).
The screens would display high-definition video. This would show a view upwards, apparently through the ceiling and downwards, apparently through the floor.
All traces of the actual lift shaft contents would be gone and instead you could have eg views of advancing into a cloud-filled sky or towards the surface of the sea from the depths.
The upper and lower images would be coordinated so that the passing of this virtual backdrop would appear continuous.
It would even be possible to have objects seem to fall towards the lift and then through it.
I hated using wax crayons at school. They almost never gave a good quality line when drawing and ‘colouring-in’ should be outlawed as a cruel and unusual punishment, in my book.
Today’s invention is a small improvement in the situation for schools that haven’t yet got to grips with felt-tip pens.
A small tube, wide enough to accommodate even those absurdly fat crayons, has a conical metal internal surface.
When the device has a crayon pressed into it, a small heater fires up as shown, melting the end of even horrid crayon stubs until a nice, sharp point is created (and without wasting all those sharpenings I used to hide in my desk).
Today’s invention is a touchscreen watch suitable for children trying to learn about the weird alternative ways we have for describing the time of day.
The top left image shows the verbal version of the conventional description of minutes in the position and orientation of the hand itself. A moment later, the same convention would be applied to the hours description. This would clarify one difficult part of telling the time…getting the minute and hour descriptions in the right order.
A contrasting arrangement could then be generated for the same time as described according to the 24 hour clock (in which the order is, confusingly, hours then minutes.)
A further description could then appear which would be simply the digital version of this time ie 9:15
Today’s invention offers a way to provide public rooms and restaurants etc with flexible furniture and floorspace.
For high-ceilinged rooms, a set of square-section boxes would be brought in to create a raised floor area.
Each box would incorporate an L shaped frame, one arm of which would be the box’s top surface.
The L shapes could be reattached to their boxes to provide seating or tables, as shown.
Today’s invention is an alternative to the container ship.
Containers would be made individually watertight, lashed together in the shape of a hull and propelled by several dispersed containers each containing a large electric motor and propellor.
Many such containers would travel below the water surface and a small set of them would be used to create crew quarters on the uppermost face of the ‘vessel.’
Sticky zips. Ever since the original brass design was replaced by a range of other materials, zip fasteners have started to snag and jam.
Today’s invention is an aftermarket fix for all those low-precision plastic zips out there.
A semicircular tab (pale yellow) is attached to the normal zip handle (grey). This goes through the hole in the handle and is secured to a small, replaceable wax crayon (yellow) in a housing.
From time to time, the zip handle can be flipped forward, as shown, and the crayon allowed to contact both sets of teeth as the zip is closed.
Such an arrangement leaves a thin film of clear wax on the zipper and stops the usual swearing/tugging/jamming when the rain comes on suddenly.
I’m always interested in the small scale measures necessary to ensure fairness in games and sport.
Today’s invention is a way to guarantee that a coin toss is actually fair.
For any given coin (grey) a close-fitting, moulded shell is made in two halves and of the same material as the coin itself (blue).
These halves are clipped onto the coin so that its orientation is unknown by the caller when ready to toss and so that any asymmetry in its motion is removed.
On landing, a neutral party removes the top half of the case to reveal the result (or it might break off on impact with the ground).
Wearing a hard plastic safety hat may protect you from falling debris. If you have to work on your own at some remote location, a rock or a rivet or a plank which lands on your head may well just render you unconscious.
Today’s invention is an alarm fitted inside all such hats which is activated by any impact large enough to cause concussion.
Any such impacts would be sufficiently strong to drive a prodder mechanism within the helmet far enough to reach a particular button on the user’s phone (stored in its crown). This would send a text message back to base.
It would then cause the phone to issue a few squawks, so that anyone within earshot would rush to help.
The effect would be to minimise injury caused by lying unattended for a while or perhaps staggering around whilst disorientated.
