Category: Whimsical inventions

Sheep naturally adopt a flock configuration when threatened, which is why a small number of sheepdogs can be used to round them up.

Today’s invention is a way to ensure that a flock stays together, when required -thus reducing demands on the skill of the shepherd and his dogs.

During that part of the year when sheep aren’t supposed to be lambing or being shorn, they would each have several plates attached to their fleeces.

These would have small hooks on both sides, which could be withdrawn in response to eg a mobile phone signal. The plates would attach themselves to the wool on each sheep’s flanks.

When the animals were herded into a funnel eg for dipping, they would come close enough for the protruding hooks to attach each sheep to its neighbours.

This would keep the flock bonded together and facing in the same direction until a phone call to the plates caused them to withdraw their hooks and fall off (for reuse later).

This would make sheep easier to manage without restricting their normal functions significantly. It would also protect many animals from attack from outside as well as from hypothermia.

Some trains are constantly being delayed by having to wait for higher priority ones to pass.

Today’s invention is a way to democratise the interaction between such trains.

Just as with eg two crossing streams of formation motorcyclists, the idea is that these trains would space out before a crossing and then pass through it, one carriage from each train in turn.

To maintain control, the trains shown as red are mechanically linked by a high tensile rod running beside the track and passing through the small gaps in the points.

The blue carriages are linked by overhead mechanical rods.

In this way, it would be possible to arrange all trains to have (—overhead—tracklevel—overhead—) connections between carriages and thus any train could pass through any other without significant delay to either*.

When we have space colonies, in the distant future, on planets with low gravitational acceleration, there will surely still be traffic to keep under control.

Today’s invention is a set of low-g traffic lights which operate without electronic controls.

Two pendula swing side-by-side. One has a green lens as a bob, the other red.

The red lens is stationary in front of a sealed lamp unit and behind an aperture, as shown on the left of the diagram.

The green lens swings (slowly) inwards and gradually creates the appearance of an amber light. A bar on the green lens impacts the red lens and, just as in a Newton’s cradle, exchanges momentum with it elastically, so the green lens stays put and the red lens begins to move away.

Eventually, the amber is replaced entirely by the green so that any waiting skycars can proceed.

The absence of air resistance on the space highway of the future, allows this cyclic process to proceed -effectively forever.

Once an individual is unkind to a pigeon, their face is never forgotten.

Even chasing pigeons once can be shown to cause them to recall your face (Crows are known to react in a similar way, except they tend to form a gang and attack any human against whom they hold such a grudge).

Today’s invention is an anti-terrorist system, based on the above.

An accurate 3-D mask would be made of a known terrorist’s face, based on surveillance and press pictures.

This would then be worn by eg a security guard who would then scare away a set of say five birds. These birds would then be allowed to walk/fly around within eg airport buildings.

Each pigeon would be equipped with a small camera which would take a picture of anyone from whom the bird suddenly shied away and send this back for scrutiny by security staff.

Since it seems that everyone who drinks in the street throws their container on the ground after use, today’s invention provides a way for beverage cans and other containers to sweep themselves up when they have been discarded.

The can would have a number of rectangles scored into the surface during manufacture (somewhat like the ring-pull device on the top).

These would each have slightly different dimensions. When a drinker has drained his can, he has the option to create a strandbeest-like toy by pulling out some of the ring-pulls on the side to form tangs (just like the pegs in a barrel-organ).

When the can is rolled along the ground, the tangs will be struck like mini tuning forks, making an interesting, almost musical noise.

Eventually the cans will tend to find themselves blown into piles by the wind more easily than the unperforated can design.

I was lucky enough to be eating a buffet lunch off a small plate today whilst also holding a glass of wine. My wife was being awarded a big poetry prize, but when it came to the point where people wanted to applaud, it was somewhat more muted than expected, since everyone had only one hand free.

Today’s invention is therefore a way to clap single-handedly.

A smartphone application allows the user to record his own two-handed clapping. This can then be replayed, using one hand, later -so that a real, personal clapping noise is generated without dropping one’s quiche and couscous.

I’d also incorporate sliders to control volume and clapping frequency…from lanquid to tumultuous.

Today’s invention is sunglasses with segmented, overlapping lenses.

Each segment is attached to a pivot at the nosepiece, allowing them to slide over each other, covering some fraction of one side of the face. This would allow a range of options for eye protection: either lots of stray light to be excluded or direct beams to be dimmed.

The triangular segments would have different-strength filters, so that many different combinations of colour, density etc could be selected.

It might even be possible to have the motion of the lenses powered via a small hydraulic reservoir and remote switch, so that these glasses could also take on a social signalling role.

I was inspired today by this slightly crazy idea (graduated wine glasses which indicate which note will be played if you run your finger around the rim when the wine is at a certain depth in the glass).

One note at a time seems a bit limited, though, so today’s invention is to incorporate a syringe in the stem.

Someone holding the glass can push or pull the syringe to raise or lower the level of the wine and thus alter the note played on the rim.

If you are always losing your pens and/or always snapping the folding legs off your glasses, today’s invention is for you.

This consists of a set of lenses with legs which screw in and can thus be detached -allowing all three elements to be stored flat in a pocket.

Each of the legs is also a pen and therefore always conveniently available.

Today’s invention is a productivity tool, based on my belief that much of the difficulty with ‘information overload’ is to do with the look of the dreaded Inbox.

Subject lines are meant to allow you to prioritise your reading, but in fact I’ve noticed that I tend to delay opening anything marked ‘Urgent meeting request’ or ‘Our response to your proposal’ or ‘Any news on the report?.’

Today’s invention is an email program which replaces the Subject line by a set of ASCII characters.

When the Inbox is viewed as a list, no Subjects are visible, but the whole thing takes on the appearance of ASCII Art. Every time an email has been dealt with, the Inbox list view updates to show a new image.

Messages are thus less discouraging and they might as well be opened in inbox order, thus lessening the procrastination which subject headers create.