#280: Emoticuffs

I was watching someone giving a talk whilst wearing a battered suit the other day. Half of the thread holding the remains of his buttons had disappeared, making some of them look like smileys.

Today’s invention is therefore to manufacture buttons with the minimum number of threadholes required to create the appearance of emoticons. I reckon that the simplest configuration is probably six holes, arranged with five circumferentially and one in the middle -allowing both sad : <· and happy : · > faces (nb only the two v-shapes would be constructed from thread passing through three holes, the other features would be formed by empty holes).

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If you felt inclined, you could have a combination of ‘sads’ and ‘happys’ sewn onto your clothes (using thread in contrasting colours to the buttons) and only ‘do up’ (ie allow to appear through the buttonholes) those faces which expressed your mood on any given day.

#268: Takeoff tracks

It costs a lot to get planning for and to build an airstrip from scratch. Given that thousands of miles of straight railway track lie around most of the time doing absolutely nothing, I’d like to propose some reuse of our underemployed transport infrastructure.

Today’s invention is to allow straight sections of railway line, in unpopulated areas, to be used as a take-off and landing strips for light aircraft.

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Obviously this would require small modifications to existing planes (eg a detachable sled), and a mechanism put in place to ensure that they operate on sections of line which aren’t just about to be used by other services.

This approach could work for gliders too. If a railway engine were equipped with a winch, the combined speed of the engine and winding speed would be more than enough to get a glider aloft.

Landing…well that could certainly prove trickier. Descending smoothly onto a flatbed car, already moving at speed, would however be well within the capabilities of most private pilots.

This whole approach could be funded by landing fees and help pay for improvements in the world’s neglected railways.

#264: Chewticles

Far be it from me to promote bad habits, but some people just can’t help biting their fingernails. When I was a child, our nails would be painted with bitter aloes in order to force us to stop gnawing our paws…didn’t really work though.

Today’s invention is a way to allow the bad habit but preserve the underlying nails.

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Edible, false fingernails could be bought and attached (briefly) to one’s own nails. These would be long and patterned and available in a wide variety of delicious flavours (including both sweet and savoury versions; maybe even sugar free and containing toothpaste).

Although absent-minded or nervous nibbling would still take place, at least this would not involve consumption of anyone’s bodyparts.

Before there’s a storm of protest from the food hygiene lobby, consider how free from germs the average teenager’s fingers are whilst they chew them. This approach would even allow a layer of nasty-tasting stuff to be incorporated within the false nails after the tasty bit was finished and the underlying, real nails were in danger of being bitten.

#261: Datatrack

Railway sleepers -since the 1820’s these things have been supporting tracks all over the world.

They might be seen as a kind of barcode, if they were laid at slightly varying distances from each other (or at small angles to each other). Ok, it might seriously test the patience of the average squad of navvies to have to locate them precisely enough to still support the load and also contain some kind of message, but a jig could certainly be devised to place them quite precisely.

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Today’s invention is to provide passing trains with sleeper-encoded information. This would probably best be a description of eg the station currently being approached, some information about the maximum speed allowed and also where to brake.

This might be a valuable augmentation to existing safety procedures, if the message could be picked up by a camera under the engine or even by a spring-loaded rod tapping on successive sleepers..

#248: Jaw-jaw

My visual metaphor thing accidentally switched on the other day, whilst fooling about with a cellphone.

Suddenly, a clamshell phone started resembling the head of a creature (with one half of the shell acting as the articulated mandible of some T Rex-like robot space creature….I really must stay off the espresso).

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Anyway, I began thinking about today’s invention: A clamshell phone designed in the shape of the head of eg a parrot, crocodile or whatever. Instead of a ringtone, the creature’s squawk or roar could be issued at the same time as opening and closing the clamshell by a small amount (many such phones already have motors on board to drive the internal buzzer). It might even be possible to lipsynch clamshell movements with the words spoken by a caller.

Design in a pair of flashing LED ‘eyes’ on the top surface and you have a lot of added product personaility in a market saturated with sameness.

#245: Birdbutts

People, it seems are largely incapable of putting their cigarette butts into the ashtrays or wastebins provided. I often see smokers just throwing their butts on the ground and it drives me nuts. Those things are biodegradable but the process takes forever. While it’s happening the rest of us are supposed to admire the ubiquitous carpet of disgusting cotton filters and then slip around on it a bit.

Since we can’t rely on members of our own species to clean up after themselves, it’s time again to look for help from some other lifeform: in this case, birds.

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Today’s invention is to make cigarette filters from the husks of seeds that birds like to eat …eg sunflower seeds. Strictly, these wouldn’t even have to be non-toxic to humans, since, if you are crazy enough to stick all that poison in your body, a little extra won’t matter.

In fact, filters could be made entirely of harmless organic matter, which would not taint the ‘taste’ of the tobacco but which would still be attractive fodder for avian scavengers. Result: increased bird population, decreased butt population.

The effect of nicotine on our flying friends has yet to be assessed.

#239: Snorkel shoes

One of the reasons that shoes smell is that the moist air inside gets trapped with a lot of sweat and bacteria which feed on its organic constituents.

In the summer, you could get away with wearing open-toed sandals (if you weren’t any kind of fashion victim) or at least light shoes with ventilation holes. No-one wants to wear these, though, when there are icy puddles everywhere.

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Today’s invention is a breather tube fitted to each shoe in the otherwise unventilated region of the toe box. This would emerge from the shoe and snake around, attached to the outside, until rising to the level of at least the tongue. You could still step in puddles without getting inflow onto your socks and keep your feet aired at the same time.

Rather than rely on low pressure air flows, driven by just toe movements, the pipe could be attached to a small air pump on one’s belt or even a bladder within the sole which would compress under bodyweight, forcing air into the shoe and then spring open when unloaded, sucking it out again.

#229: Smoking mask

Smoking: I just don’t get it. Even if you feel it makes you look ‘cool’ and wildly attractive to the opposite sex and calms you down and…you’re just plain wrong, ok?

In Europe, lots of countries are banning smoking in public places, which has to be a good thing. The ankle-deep leaf litter of discarded butts outside these buildings is not. Even when ash cans are provided, they don’t seem to get used very effectively.

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So I suggest that, rather than forcing people to stand outside in the rain, smokers should be compelled to use today’s invention. It’s a smoking mask. A cigarette is loaded into a tightly fitting breathing mask and lit by contact with a car-type integrated lighter.

Some of the incoming airstream, when inhaling, is drawn through the cigarette. On exhalation, a battery of activated carbon and particle filters stops the usual exhaust problems and removes the danger to others of passive smoking. If we employed a small cyclone separator at the outlet, this would also enable the wearer to perform the usual coughing that is all part of looking cool and grown-up.

This mask could be used as an active aid to help people give up the habit by eg displaying the number of cigarettes consumed or the ongoing cost. It could also contain a prefilter to remove increasing amounts of the toxins and addictive elements over time.

#225: Modesty mask

I’m getting just a little tired of people fighting about their religious beliefs. If folk want to dress in a particular way because their god tells them to do so, then, I’d be strongly inclined not to try to stop them. Equally, I wouldn’t want my children taught by someone dressed as Ronald MacDonald, the Lone Ranger or Darth Vadar.

Today’s invention attempts to defuse the row about certain groups of people wearing clothes that may interfere with their communications with the rest of us.

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It takes the form of a mask incorporating a small screen (basically another hacked mobile phone) on which would be displayed an image of their face, captured by the inbuilt camera and coarsely pixellated.

It would display just enough infomation for others to be able to lip read what they are saying and sense the mood of ther comments, but without revealing their identity or even their sex.

If necessary, their voice could be disguised too.

#219: Order of merits

If you are a Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB) you rank higher than a QC and certainly above a mere BSc.

Even the most apparently matey countries have an ‘order of precedence’ that makes democracy look even more foolish than it usually manages on its own. What happens though, in this highly schooled (if under educated) era, if you have several such post-nominal letters?

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What if you are a decorated miltary hero, a member of learned societies and have degrees in medicine and international relations: in what order do your honours appear on that business card (assuming you have enough room)? The head of NASA holds seven earned degrees -maybe he got lost in a University.

Anyway, today’s invention is for people like him with way too much time on their hands. It’s a website on which one types in one’s post-nominals and it applies the rules of precedence to correctly order them.