Where
Things Work RightWhere
Things Work Right** New ideas added 01/07/05 starting at number
11.
11. Hannukah Car, www.halfbakery.com, phundug, 12/10/04
It's a miracle.
Imagine having only a quarter of a tank of gas in your car, enough only
to last you for one day, but amazingly,
incredibly, it lasts for eight whole days, and the fuel gauge doesn't go
down even a smidgen!
The miracle of Hannukah lives on with the Hanukkah Car. This car comes
with a secret, reserve tank full of gas that
the customer will never know about (and won't see even if he looks, because
it's inset into the real gas tank).
When the car's computer calendar detects that it's Hanukkah, the reserve
tank activates instead of the regular tank -
for 8 days.
After 8 days, the fuel gauge starts dropping again as normal, and, when
the driver fills up, the reserve tank fills (just a
little more each time over the next year) as well as the main tank. So
the driver's never any the wiser.
12. Bering Straits Rail Tunnel, www.whynot.net, Stephen Lange Ranzini, 11/22/04
It is a little known fact that at the narrowest point, the Bering Strait
between Alaska and Russian Siberia is just 42
miles across. Also, unlike the English Channel, where complex geology and
many geologic faults complicated
tunneling, the Bering Strait has relatively uncomplicated geology that
makes a tunnel feasible at relatively low cost
using modern tunneling techniques, such as those pioneered in the Swiss
Alps. A relatively shallow depth means that
ventilation issued could be solved by many means, for example, by two artificial
islands.
With a rail tunnel under the Bering Straits and a railroad line from Calgary
to Vladivostok, it would be possible to
ship rail freight from North America to the Chinese/Korean frontier in
three days and on to Europe in seven days
using the trans-Siberian railroad. Such a rail tunnel would revolutionize
global logistics, greatly reducing the need for
ocean-borne freight, which is the source of much of the global pollution
of oceans. It would also offer more
dependable and lower cost freight options and open up the Russian territory
east of Siberia, with all of its tremendous
untapped mineral resources, to economic exploitation.
The construction of such a railroad and tunnel system would be a major
boost to the worldwide economy, and
greatly increase the availability of oil, precious minerals and industrial
minerals which are currently in shorter supply
than in previous decades. Construction of such a railroad and tunnel system
should be undertaken to boost global
economic activity, especially during a period of economic slow growth,
such as we are now experiencing.
All technical challenges to such a project can be overcome. For example,
the rails can be heated using technology
developed in Canada to keep the temperature of rails from falling too low,
which would otherwise lead to train
wrecks. Financing of the proposed rail network could be undertaken by a
combination of U.S., EU and Asian
capital and a land grant by the Russian government, similar to that which
opened up the U.S. West during the
construction of the trans-continental railroads, where every other square
mile for some hundreds of miles north and
south of the railroad was granted to the railroad company as an incentive
to fund the project.
13. Safe as Houses, www.cnn.com, Gloria Wu, 11/10/04
I have come up with an idea that will prevent house fires, often caused
by ovens accidentally left on. My device
would be situated next to house doors and would be connected to the oven
in the house. It would light up when
the appliance is on and you would be alerted to this fact by seeing the
light on.
14. Spherical Laundry Basket Cage, www.creativitypool.com, Rapunze123, 12/16/04
My idea is a laundry basket cage which is spherical in design. The advantage
of this design is that it can be rolled
down stairs or along the floor using the hands or feet to propel forward
toward its destination. There are no wheels
or handles to this unit.
Made from the same flexible basket-weave plastic that is used on the sides
of traditional laundry baskets, the laundry
basket cage has a serviceably large, round hinged opening for loading and
unloading the laundry. Closing the hatch
completes the spherical design. It's now ready to be kicked and/or rolled
down the stairs, along the hallway toward
the laundry room.
When being used as a hamper or when unloading into the washer, there is
a separate round plastic "stabilizing ring"
where the cage rests. This plastic ring will sit on the floor under the
cage, steadying the sphere. The ring is made of
the same light-weight plastic as the laundry cage.
This begs the question, what about when you want to return folded clothes
to other parts of the house? In the
bottom of the cage is a shallow flattened surface for folded laundry. The
lid (hatch) has an inset cut-out handle for
carrying the sphere.
Carrying laundry baskets at arm's length is one of the hardest household
chores. With gravity and its "basket ball"
design, the laundry basket cage makes half the job easier.
Kids would be more inclined to get their laundry to the wash room. College
kids would be kickin' their laundry
basket cages all over campus town.
15. Snoring Computer, www.halfbakery.com, DesertFox, 12/20/04
Oh so softly.
I'd like my computer to snore really softly when it is asleep. You
could turn off this feature if you don't like it.
16. Straighten UP!!, www.halfbakery.com, bristolz, 12/20/04
A small, battery-powered and very low-gear driven sticky rubber (silicon
rubber) roller that clings to the wall and is
squarely attached to the back of a picture or artwork frame. The device
has an orientation sensor, either mercury or
other sensitive level, that is periodically checked and if the sensor indicates
that the picture is crooked then the roller
drive engages and moves the painting back to a level sensor reading. The
low gearing and stickiness of the rubber
help to keep the artwork from creeping back out of level.
The painting must be hung by a single point for this to work.
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