Where
Things Work RightWhere
Things Work Right
** New ideas added 05/01/05 starting at number 204.
204. Snagging Pirates -
The Jellyfish Defense System
Piracy on the open ocean is a costly and ongoing problem (see link). With
multi-million dollar cargoes at risk,
shipping companies might find it in their best interests to equip their
ships with the Jellyfish Defense System. Unlike
other deterrents, most notably providing their ships with armed guards
(an expensive proposition), this new system
is a buy and forget about it until you need it kind of product.
The defense system would consist of several torpedo-like tubes that would
be towed alongside the ship. They would
continually monitor for the sound of propellers heading towards the ship
(filtering out the ship's own propeller noise).
If they heard propellers coming their way the torpedoes would detach themselves
from their towline and head towards
the incoming boat. Before reaching it though, the tube would split into
two sections, each one veering off to the side.
When the time was right they'd swing back in again, enclosing the boat
in a circular net that would foul the boat's
propellers if it tried to plow on through it. A warning would come from
the ship right about then telling advising the
boat of its predicament and suggesting it stay where it was until its identity
was established. If it was a valid boarding
party, the tube would retract the nets. If it wasn't, it would just keep
the net around the boat while the ship sailed
away.
The design could be enhanced to deal with boats that have jet drives.
Jet drives require at least 3 feet of clear water
beneath their intake tube. Without it the drive can get clogged and
burn out. All we need to do is add grass- like
strands hanging down from the net like a jellyfish's tentacles to deter
boats with this type of engine.
205. Scandalous Bowling -
Selectable pin people.
In this modernized bowling alley you'd select the people whose picture
you wanted on your pins from a catalog at
the time your lane was assigned. The faces you picked would then show up
on each pin and also on a display above
the pins. That way instead of having a boring 5-8 split you could wind
up with something like a Martha Stewart /
Michael Jackson split. Or you could do as someone else suggested
and play Democrats against Republicans.
206. Floating In Style -
Might as well make the wait more comfortable.
It's too bad they didn't put a little more thinking into it when they designed
inflatable lifejackets. Instead of just
copying the shape of the old lifejackets they were replacing they could
have added all sorts of new features -
1. A hood rolled into the collar like some regular jackets so you could pull it out to keep the sun/rain off of you.
2. A segment attached to the back that you could inflate into the shape
of a lounge chair so you could kick back
and relax while you're waiting for the rescue (air mattresses don't take
up much space when they're empty).
3. Telescopic plastic poles on each side of the jacket holding a big square
piece of plastic between them so you
could pull them up when the wind was blowing and feel like you were getting
somewhere even if you didn't
know where.
4. A small bottle of bright yellow dye that you could pull out and spread
around to give searchers something bigger
than a little orange lifejacket dot to spot.
207. Let the Patients Sleep -
Most hospitals could use a good comfortability expert (or if you prefer, a usability expert).
Let's see, it was about 9 o'clock at night when the nurse came into a semi-private
hospital room where I was sitting
with a patient I knew. The other patient, an elderly woman who was
hard of hearing, was woken up so she could
sign a consent form that would make it quicker for her doctor to review
her records. That, by itself, wasn't much of
a problem (although it probably annoyed the woman who was woken up).
What was a problem was the fact that
the elderly woman had a hearing problem so the conversation went something
like this -
"I just need you to sign this form so your doctor can see your records."
"What?!"
"I just need you to sign this form so your doctor can see your records."
"What?!"
You get the picture. Now it just so happens that every patient in
this hospital has a portable TV that they can swing
around in front of them to watch. A comfortability expert would quickly
see the usefulness of this and say hey, stick
a keyboard on that thing and type what you want to say to patients who
can't hear very good. That way the person
in the next bed can get some sleep.
I'm sure there are a lot of other things he or she would recommend too,
like providing a comfortable set of
headphones to block out all of the rest of the background noise that can
keep the patient awake, and an eyemask to
block off the lights that keep getting switched on and off as visitors
come by to see your roommate.
The profit motive could even work in favor of hospitals hiring someone
like this. Take the conversation in my
example. It probably took the nurse at least 3 minutes to get the
patient to understand what she wanted her to do
and then get the form signed. Conveying the same message on a screen
could have cut that time in half. Since any
task that can be accomplished faster translates into a cost savings (decreased
labor expense), it wouldn't take long
for a comfortability expert to have a positive impact on a hospital's cash
flow. The brighter CFO's in the healthcare
field will recognize this.
When I first mentioned this idea someone pointed out that since the elderly
are often afflicted with poor sight as well
as poor hearing showing them the form on a TV screen might not help.
Since they brought it up I'd counter that this
gives our comfortability expert another opportunity to improve things and
earn their keep. If the patients can't read
the screen then they can't really be giving their 'informed consent' when
they sign the form we're asking them to read
either (insert lawsuit here), still assuming they have a hearing problem
too. Our expert would realize that in cases like
this the form itself should be shown on the screen, magnified several times,
and a flip-down attachment added beneath
the TV so they could electronically sign it (the same way we sign for credit
card purchases at a lot of stores now).
A couple might help show how this idea could result in a net savings instead of a net loss to the hospital.
At the hospital I was visiting each patient had their own phone, each one
with a long line attaching it to the phone jack
so it could be used just about anywhere. The defect in this convenience?
There was no place to hook the phone
onto the bed. Because of this the patients either laid them on the
bed or tried to tie them around the bed rails in an
effort to keep them within easy reach, resulting in several collisions
between the phones and the floor. Being plastic,
the phones are going to break fairly often. Now weigh their replacement
cost against the cost of a few pieces of
velcro - one on the back of the handset and one on each of the railings.
This would keep the phones off of the floor
and within reach of whichever side of the bed that the patient felt like
putting them on, making the patient more
comfortable. The money saved by not having to replace broken phones
could be put into the labor pool, increasing
the percentage of successful treatments.
Another case in point. The respiratory mechanics of a difficult bowel
movement are often overlooked. Ambulatory
patients using oxygen have a choice, disconnect their breathing tube and
take their chances in the bathroom, or hang
onto the tube (assuming it's long enough) and bring it in with them.
I saw examples of both. Those who left the tube
on the bed could sue the hospital for not providing them with a longer
tube if they lost consciousness during their trip
to the bathroom and suffered an injury (resulting in less money available
for successful treatments due to court costs),
and those who took it with them sometimes dropped it on the bathroom floor
requiring a replacement tube to be
supplied (again reducing the money available for successful treatments).
So what would our comfortability expert
suggest? I'm betting he'd say find the patient a convenient way to
take the oxygen into the bathroom without risking
the loss of the tube. It wouldn't be hard to find such a way either.
Most of the time these same patients have to drag
an IV stand with them into the bathroom too. The pole on that stand
is hollow. Since we know how to make small,
hand-sized cylinders that can hold about ten minutes worth of air (which
we sell to people who don't want to risk
smoke inhalation while trying to escape from a burning building) we could
easily convert the hollow pole into a similar
oxygen tank with maybe 15-20 minutes worth of air. The stand would
have it's own tube too so when the patient
wanted to go to the bathroom they'd just take off the air tube they were
using on the bed and put on the one that
came with their IV stand. Net result - no lawsuits and more comfort
for the patient. This would also let patients who
are now retricted to their beds due to their need for oxygen get up and
walk around a little bit without having to cart
around a heavy oxygen tank. (They do make tanks for the beds by the
way, they just haven't thought to turn the IV
stand poles into smaller versions of those tanks.)
It might be argued that these examples would only result in surplus pennies.
With each new solution there would be
more pennies though and pretty soon the cost of our comfortability expert
would be far less than the amount money
those solutions would be contributing toward better patient care.
If nothing else, give it to the nurses. They deserve it.
208. Flipping Gutters -
Watch out below.
This new gutter design could be built to operate in either a manual or
power mode. In its normal position, the
half-cylinder making up the main portion of the gutter would have its open
end facing up. When it was time to clean it
out the cylinder would be flipped upside down via the axles on each end
(manually or electrically). The axles would
be sitting in slots so they could be vigorously shaken to empty out any
sticky leaves. Once the gutter was clean it
would be flipped back into its normal position.
209. The Amazing Bumper Car Race -
For the child still hiding in all of us.
It's time they made a bumper car ride for adults. This wouldn't be a simple
get your car going as fast as you can and
then crash into someone kind of thing, it would be much more refined. The
ride would be built in an area about the
size of a small parking lot. At the start of the race the attendant would
push a button and cushioned walls would pop
up out of the ground forming whatever maze configuration he chose. The
ground between the walls wouldn't stay flat
either. Some sections would have an incline that went up to a plateau
before dropping down the other side. There
would also be at least a couple of circular ramps to go up and down - with
some of them terminating in a dead end at
the bottom (so you couldn't see it until you hit it). The object would
be to make it through the maze as fast as possible,
or lurk in an alley to time your crashes just right. Since most of the
walls would be straight, every intersection would
be a blind one. The first 3 drivers to make it out would get the price
of their ticket refunded.
At the end of 5-10 minutes the attendant would press another button so
the walls would drop back down into their
slots in the ground, letting everyone see how to get to the finish line.
One side note - although the cars would be have go-cart engines and bumper
car bodies, the engines would have
governors on them to keep you from going so fast that you could seriously
hurt yourself or someone else.
210. Solar Mailboxes -
Available only in select locales (those with a lot of sun).
There are several problems with the mailboxes in our area:
1. People sometimes steal the mail out of them to aid in identity theft.
2. Vandals sometimes use them for baseball practice.
3. Mailmen skip them because a car is parked too near the box and they'd have to get out of their truck to reach it.
An in-ground, solar-powered mailbox would solve these problems. When the
box was at rest it would be completely
underground with only its top visible and flush with the ground. As the
mailman's truck came down the street an
encrypted signal would automatically be sent out from the front of the
truck (much like a garage door opener) that
would cause the box to ascend on a telescopic pole until it reached arm
height. At that level another pole built into the
base of the box would telescope streetwards a couple of feet, putting it
within easy reach of the mailman (a sensor
would stop it a few inches away from any obstruction that it might encounter,
like a parked car). After the mail was
put in the box another signal sent from the back of the truck would retract
the box and send it back into its hole.
Logic would be built into the system to make sure the lid was completely
closed and prevent the descent if it wasn't
(to keep rain water out). When the homeowner wanted to get the mail they'd
click their beeper (similar to garage
door opener again) and the box would rise up for them to get it (the box
would also have a lid opposite the street side
for mail retrieval so they wouldn't have to step out into the street to
get it). A second click from the beeper would
send the box back into its hole again.
Advantages:
1. It would be a lot harder and more obvious when someone was trying to
steal your mail.
2. Mail could be delivered easier because the mailman wouldn't have to
do so much reaching (cutting down on
workmen's comp claims).
3. There would be nothing above ground for vandals to hit so homeowners
wouldn't have to keep buying new
mailboxes.
4. Homeowners would get their mail more often when cars were parked too
close to the box (but not directly in
front of it) because the box would come out to meet the mailman.
211. Smoke Long, Live Long -
A pack a day keeps the doctor away.
I was thinking about the inhalants they use to treat asthma and some cases
of pneumonia the other day and started
wondering how hard it would be to fold the treatment of lung cancer (and
perhaps its prevention) into the process of
making cigarettes. If the drug companies got together with cigarette companies
to design an inhalable version of
docetaxel, Iressa, etc. that could be added to cigarettes during the manufacturing
process then people who wanted to
keep smoking (or who wanted to quit but couldn't) could treat themselves
each time they lit up. The drug companies
would make money from whatever drug was used, the cigarette companies would
make money from these
higher-priced cigarettes (not to mention the goodwill they could add to
their books in the form of positive publicity),
and smokers could take a minor step toward offsetting the harm that the
smoking was doing.
If the drugs used in chemotherapy can't be converted in useful inhalable
forms, maybe drugs used to treat other
diseases that complicate cancer could be added to the cigarettes. Inhalable
insulin might be a good thing.
Something else we could think about using
212. Scare Squirrel -
Protector of bird feeders everywhere.
This would be a big, mean-looking artificial squirrel that you could hook
onto an existing bird feeder to scare other
squirrels away. It would be battery-powered so it could rise up on its
haunches whenever anything touched it and
give out a loud, menacing bark. (Yes, the sound squirrels make is sort
of a coughing bark.)
213. ADHD Dolls -
For overactive kids.
Based on the technology behind MIT's new alarm clock that goes and hides
each time you hit the snooze button so
you have to get up and find it when it goes off again, this new doll would
run randomly around the room saying things
like 'nyah nyah nyah nyah, you can't catch me'. When it felt it's motion
blocked when it was caught it would start
frantically squirming around to free itself. (The truly disturbed model
would spit and kick at whoever was holding it.
Of course, this one would have to be built out of highly durable material
since its head would have to withstand a lot
of bashing against things.)
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