#31: Ruminant roomba?

Global warming, we are told, is a) real and b) bad.

As a resident of a cold country, I might quibble about whether being able to drive around without fear of skidding into stationary objects is actually that much of a problem. Leaving that aside, it turns out that (otherwise blameless) cows contribute significantly to the warming process.

Ruminant livestock (including cattle, sheep, goats, and buffalo) produce about 80 million metric tons of methane per year…which is a hell of a lot. Farmers can currently buy a digester system which transforms collected cow dung into bottled methane for use as a fuel. The bad news (aside from having to drive muck about all day) is that each system costs in the region of $200,000 which, even for farmers, is a bit of a stretch. Without getting too technical, most of the methane comes in the form of belch anyway, which is harder to harvest.

Today’s invention is a light, sealed, translucent, arched canopy; big enough to comfortably cover a herd of cattle. This would be equipped with an efficient fan to collect the warm methane near the top. It would form a loose seal on the grass surface, using some form of crude skirt and It might also make sense to have this canopy move slowly and randomly within the field.

This would obviously provide a measure of weather protection too, assuming a limited number of stampedes.

#30: More catflaps

Apologies for my continuing obsession with catflaps. I’ve just remembered that Sir Isaac Newton was once ridiculed for having cut two adjacent catflaps in his door: one large one for his large cat and another, smaller one for his small cat….

Today’s invention addresses several issues with existing commercial designs.

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  • They are noisy: everyone in my household knows when our cat enters and leaves home in the early hours.
  • They are draughty: that flapping two-way gate thing with the magnetic strip is just awful.

So, here is yet another alternative (and one that I’m determined to actually implement).

Make two standard cat-size apertures and insert the outer frame of a standard cat flap into each (Having removed the damn flap from both).

Insert into each aperture the top half of a leg of a pair of old trousers, so that the leg forms a tunnel around the entry. One tunnel should point inwards, the other outwards (a good idea would be to use some waterproofing spray on the leg which lies outside). The cat in question can use one tunnel for entry and the other for exit. Since the material naturally falls closed over the hole in each case -draughts are eliminated as is that dreadful 2am crashing noise.

Training the cat to use these is just a matter of holding the tunnel open a little for a while with a plate of food on either side (I hope).

Obviously the trousers are replaceable, since they also act as fur cleaners, thereby removing the need for all that vacuum cleaner hacking discussed below.

#29: Inflatable insulation

I’ve just spent a few days insulating our loft space in opposition to Winter’s application for permanent residency. I thought, as I sat there with a mouthful of glass fibre, that it would be much more convenient not to have to deal with all that hellish stuff. Mostly, I was working with foil-backed bubble wrap anyway but this material is pretty hard to unroll and cut to shape in the restricted space available.

Today’s invention is to make use of foil balloons instead. When only slightly inflated with air, these are able to maintain their condition for a long time -probably years. (If you were concerned about deflation you could arrange that all of these connect via pipes to a single plenum which would allow convenient repressurisation -but that is way too fussy: the whole point is to keep the balloons at such a small overpressure that deflation takes forever).

These offer the following advantages:

  • Flexibility: their small size allows them to be located within very narrow gaps and inflated whilst in place.
  • Cheapness: I can buy 18 Bob the Builder balloons for £2 (I’m sure that the price could be slashed by buying Santa balloons in January or something).
  • High thermal efficiency: thin layers of air held in place with impermeable foil has got to work.

If you were in search of complete thermal comfort, I’d suggest applying some velcro patches, so that the balloons form a continuous blanket.

It’s been suggested to me that surplus wine box bladders would be an even more effective approach, with the obvious added advantage that a glass or two of wine helps you stay warm whilst doing the work.

#28: Updated librarian stamping

(I’m really interested to see what sort of ads this page gets assigned in light of the above title).

Today’s invention is stupidly simple. I spend quite some time, despite the present digital era, queueing at the library to borrow good old fashioned books made of good old fashioned tree.

It breaks my heart to see the librarians have to scan in the barcodes for all my books and then pick them all up again, one by one, and stamp the return-by date on every book. My invention today is simply to tape the scanner to the date stamp and do both jobs on each book in quick succession.

If you wanted a high tech solution, you could go for a passive display in each book, which the scanner would update automatically. I’d always go for the duct tape solution, myself but come to think of it -why can’t I just download my library books yet?

#27: Daily relaxation message

I’m very interested in hypnosis and I’ve been experimenting with visualisation to help me achieve objectives and think more creatively. One technique I use is to spend about five minutes in the middle of the day just relaxing and entering a light, self-hypnotic trance -thinking about how to get things done whilst still enjoying myself.

So today’s invention is simply to record my daily relaxation script (which I update occasionally as I think of new suggestions) using the PrettyMay voice recording plug-in for Skype. This allows me to call myself and deliver the message each day at a time of my choosing. It would be even more effective as a tool if calls were delivered via a Bluetooth headset.

This approach doesn’t necessarily have to have a hypnotic emphasis, and might just as well be a simple verbal message of encouragement from your mother or a reminder from your spouse to keep things in perspective at work.

#26: Conductive tool for dyslexics

On the subject of cerebellar, ‘motor memories’, today’s invention is intended to help dyslexics with letter formation (and perhaps subsequent differentiation).

I propose a device by which a pencil is constrained to move in a certain sequence within a mechanical template or ‘gate’ so that it can only make eg the letter p repeatedly -rather than q, with which it may be confused. (I still have difficulties with (d, b, 6), (g, p, q), (9, e) etc. It took me about three minutes to type this last sentence…but then I’m also synaesthetic, and seeing letters with ‘attached’ colours adds to the difficulty).

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This would probably require that each letter be constructed in the form of a single slot, with the pencil in continuous contact with the paper, rather than as a sequence of lines with gaps.

The allowed letter in question could be changed after several thousand repetitions, by substituting in a different gate. This is a little like the conductive education which the Peto Institute began, I suppose.

A version of this used to be available via draconian teachers who would modify anything other than perfect copperplate by use of a ruler. Nowadays they’ll settle for minimising the number of classroom fires per lesson.

#25: Touch typing via visual feedback

I’ve always had trouble developing new motor skills. It took me four attempts to pass the driving test and my inability to learn dancesteps is truly remarkable.

Touch tying is therefore a complete masydteyeu ayuidi dmer (last few words were typed with me looking at the screen, not my fingers).

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Invention of the day is therefore a simple feedback mechanism. Direct a webcam onto your hands from above and position the resulting image somewhere near your text editor window. It takes a little getting used to but it seems to work -if you’re as incorrigibly bad at this sort of thing as me.

There may also be some mileage in using audio feedback here. A keyboard with two-stage keys would be capable of ‘saying’ the letter you were just about to get wrong, when its key was only partly depressed.

#24: Low-cost head-up display

LED studded wands which, when waved back and forth, display eg the time have been around for a number of years (They are the ones that take advantage of the persistence of vision and seem to project an image in thin air).

I suggest making some practical use of these by attaching one to a windscreen wiper -which would generate the required movement. Ideally, the wipers could be manually offset from the screen to allow the display to continue working, even in dry weather.

This could be wired to an onboard GPS system to indicate the speed of the vehicle (57MPH -SLOW DOWN) or to highlight the location of eg a parking space or a particular feature in the street scene ahead.

#22: Autofocus proximity detector

I’m taking a fair number of photographs these days whilst in ‘macro’ mode. One problem I’ve found is that when concentrating on composing the image I’m always in danger of allowing the servoing lens system to collide with whatever I’m photographing. That’s not a problem if it’s a flower but it’s very bad news indeed if the lens makes even kissing contact with some more rigid surface.

So, I propose that the existing autofocus mechanism in digital cameras be enhanced to help avoid ‘parking collisions’ of this type. Basically it requires an af sensor on the tip of the lens and a fast feedback control loop, when in macro mode, that advances the lens by an amount which is always less than the distance from the object (plus some margin for error, based on other significant factors eg my camera shake).