Home Archive by category "Whimsical inventions" (Page 19)

Category: Whimsical inventions

#1427: Rubberneck bottleneck

It’s an unfortunate fact about people that we seem to have a strong sense of morbid curiosity. This is what causes traffic tailbacks as motorway traffic slows so that drivers can look at an accident on the opposite carriageway.

Today’s invention exploits this character flaw to overcome another: the tendency to drive too fast.

A transporter would be used to move a variety of crashed cars from a breaker’s yard each day to locations where speeding was a problem.

Passing drivers would occasionally see a fresh vehicle wreck and moderate their speed…due partly to momentary shock but mostly so that they could ‘rubberneck.’

#1422: Shortrading

It seems that there is still a significant amount of automated financial trading taking place, despite uncertainty about the instabilities which this may exacerbate in the world’s stockmarkets.

New work at MIT indicates that one can optimise trading performance by locating your machine halfway between market servers to exploit tiny fluctuations in prices.

Today’s invention takes this ridiculous practice to even greater extremes.

In order to exchange data with trading floors faster, it involves placing your automatic trading machine at the bottom of a vertical shaft, dug at one of the hotspots indicated in the research.

This machine would not rely on optical fibres but would lessen the pathlength by transmitting data in a straight line through the earth (using eg the mageto-inductive “Rockphone” technology, which can, it’s claimed, penetrate mountains.

The shorter path length would give you a nanosecond’s edge on the opposition, millions of times a second.

#1412: Icescape

Today’s invention is a technique by which submariners trapped beneath an oceanic ice sheet can burrow their way to safety.

The propeller of a submarine would be run in reverse and used as a drill with which to cut a hole in the ice.

Once engaged, the bow thrusters would be run at full power in order to resist the tendency for the prop. to lock in the ice and the hull to rotate.

#1397: SootNote

I’m sick of having to breathe the exhaust fumes from cars. Carbon dioxide is bad enough but particulates must surely be doing everyone immediate harm.

Today’s invention is an attempt to bring home to people the consequences of driving dirty vehicles.

It consists of a short, porous paper tube (made of eg coffee filter material) which can be placed over the end of a smoky exhaust pipe, without damaging the engine. The closed end of the tube can accommodate a cardboard disc. This disc can be pre-perforated by eg a knitting needle.

When this paper is eventually discovered by the driver of an offending vehicle, a message is highlighted on it by the preferential passage of soot through the piercings -just like the action of a can of spray paint used with a template.

This might say ‘Time for a service?’, ‘This is what you’re doing to my lungs’ or something more direct. I’d be particularly keen on attaching this to taxis which keep their engines running all day.

#1386: 7LeagueLegs

Today’s invention is a novel way to enjoy exercise. It consists of a small trampoline on wheels.

When someone bounces on the trampoline, sensors in the springs around the base pass data to an onboard computer which calculates accurately the direction and in-flight time of the user.

These data allow the trampoline’s wheels to be driven along the ground to catch the user when next he/she descends.

With practice, someone could thus learn to make long-distance bounds, eg along a road or track, whilst the trampoline automatically repositions itself to support the next, enormous step.

#1383: MatchMachine

Today’s invention is intended to provide assistance to those men who are hopeless at coordinating clothes.

Imagine a vending machine which is full of blank ties in some natural, uncoloured material. A man in need of smartening up stands in front of the machine and is imaged by a camera in the machine.

Software on board identifies the shades already being worn and selects a tie pattern and colouration which will be inoffensive.

This is applied to a blank tie, dried and then passed to the customer, following the traditional transference of credit card data.

#1374: HalfLight

It may be mostly cosmetic, but today’s invention is a computer keyboard with keys that glow when pressed.

The colour of the light emitted might vary with the speed of key depression.

The keys would then dim exponentially, with a user-defined time constant, so that the computer owner gradually learns the visual-temporal pattern associated with typing a given word, say, and will thus be better equipped to spot spelling errors in realtime (especially in irritating passwords).

#1373: Gustgraph

I was in a major city today during a rainstorm and noticed that certain locations each had a pile of broken umbrellas on the pavement, dumped by their owners as the local wind had reduced them to tatters.

Today’s invention is a gustiness map overlay for Google Street View.

This would be based on crowdsourced information about where damaging winds usually occur (mostly on street corners) and result in a display in the form of a superimposed ‘heatmap’ on a mobile phone clipped to the shaft of their brolly.

Owners would be better prepared to re-orientate their umbrellas and thus reduce the waste which unexpected blasts cause.

#1370: ArmsDeal

Politicians who represent opposed, even warring factions are often very unwilling to be seen shaking hands with each other. They either shake or they don’t and whilst not shaking, relations stay cold; peace deals tend not to get done.

Today’s invention is a way to transform this decision from a binary to an analogue one.

It consists of a telescopic tube with a false hand located at either end.

A pair of politicians can approach this tube, select how long they want their side to be and then grasp the hand adjacent to them.

In this way, an arm’s-length handshake can take place together with an indication of the preferred distance of each participant (for the benefit of their constituents).

It may be that if one side is close to a normal shake and the other is visibly standoffish, that public pressure is increased on the unwilling party, boosting the chances of an early coming together. The next shake should involve some change in the chosen lengths.

In any case, a certain amount of humour injected into the situation might even help to break the ice.

#1363: Helicescape

Escaping from a skyscraper, if it’s on fire for example, is always going to pose problems.

Since you often can’t use the lifts in an emergency, today’s invention provides a rapid route to the bottom for everyone -whether disabled or able-bodied.

A helter-skelter is built into the corner of each skyscraper as shown. This has access doors in the corner of every floor, so that occupants are in no doubt about their exit route. The helix itself would be made of fireproof material and have sliding mats attached to the interior surfaces.

People would be able to grab these and descend at a safe terminal sliding velocity to the bottom.

The slide would be made of one standard component, based on the (uniform) inter-window dimensions.

A fancier version might even be made to corkscrew upwards into position, from beneath ground level, breaking through windows when the building needed evacuated.