Where
Things Work RightWhere
Things Work Right
** New ideas added 09/01/05 starting at number 253.
253. Mini-Me Mouse
There was a story on the news the other night about how toy manufacturers
are trying to create toys that will get kids
up and moving around to counter the claims that they're making our kids
too sedentary. The example they showed
had two kids watching themselves on the screen as balloons floated down
on it. Each time they moved their hands
and hit a balloon it popped.
The same technology could be used to create an invisible mouse. The
camera would be focused on the spot on your
desk where the mouse usually is. An accompanying program would cause
the radio buttons, check boxes, etc... on
the screen to react when the fingers on your hand, converted into a miniature
mouse pointer, tapped the desktop. If
things were going really bad you could turn your hand palm up, extend its
middle finger, and shoot a bird, deleting
whatever was on the window that was currently active on the screen (maybe
with an explosive sound effect). If you
didn't want shooting a bird to equal delete, a program feature would let
you change the hand signal to something else
of your choosing, maybe having it do the same thing as clicking on the
'undo' button does.
254. You're Really a Kid -
Stopping one form of identity theft.
One of the more recent trends in identity theft in the US is stealing kids'
social security numbers and using them to
commit various types of fraud. Since the IRS already collects social security
numbers and children's ages on tax
forms it would be easy enough to scrape that information from their files
and build a database of parent-child
relationships that credit card companies, banks, etc... could use when
verifying things like new accounts and
purchases. If a two-year old tried to buy a Lexus you'd know you
either had a problem on your hands or a very
gifted child. As a special bonus from the government, the parents
of children whose ID numbers have had search
hits against them could be sent a report once a year showing when the inquiries
took place and who made them.
255. Fill My Fridge Please -
Start your extended stay the right way.
A lot of the people who rent rooms at extended stay hotels are businessmen
coming to a strange town for a 3-6
month contract. The first thing they find when they get to their
room is an empty refrigerator. If these hotels offered
a service where you could email them a list of things you want in the fridge
when you get there I know I'd be willing to
pay the extra charge. It would save me a lot of time hunting for
a store that carried the things I like (that's the last
thing I want to do when I finally get to the room after an 11 hour drive).
256. Cave Diving for Dummies -
Even expert cave divers occasionally drown.
Not too long ago I read a story about a couple of cave divers who were
video-taping their adventure. It was clear
from the clock on the tape that they were already dead and didn't know
it (too far in to make it out in time). That's
where the robot retriever comes in. Divers would set a timer on it
and leave it in the water behind them. The timer
would be triggered when they were half through their air supply.
At that time it would go after them, bringing a fresh
tank. Finding them might be a little tricky. Don't know how well
GPS would work underwater but a trail of RFID
tags might do the trick. Not only would the tags let the remote rescue
device find them they could also be used to
find the way out (this trail would be useful even if there was no rescue
device on the way - disorientation is a big
danger when cave diving - the tags would be able to show them the way out).
The price for the robot might not be as high as you'd probably expect either
- it would really just be a modified
version of the roomba that people buy to vacuum their houses now.
There'd have to be some re-designing of course
(for one thing enough buoyancy would have to be added to make carrying
the extra weight of a spare tank less of an
issue) but it seems doable.
Another couple of points to consider:
1. The electronic trail marking is not only for the robot. A lot of time
sediment stirred up by the divers reduces
visibility to zero. An electronic path back to the cave entrance
would take care of that.
2. Many times it's inexperienced divers who don't pay attention to anything
except their own clowning around that
die. Borrowing a suggestion from a user at halfbakery.com who goes by the
name of Texticle and modifying it a
little, a puppet show suddenly appearing superimposed on the inside surface
of their masks might get their
attention when their tanks were half empty, especially if the puppets were
suffering a gruesome death by dying.
The puppets could even have names under them like avatars - only in this
case it would be the names of the
divers.
257. Hook That Plane -
When brakes just aren't enough.
Granted, commercial planes are much heavier than the jets that land on
aircraft carriers. That still doesn't mean they
couldn't be stopped in an emergency by a series of tailhook cables.
The idea would be to have the cables in channels
running across the far end of runways. Sensors closer to the landing
spot would quickly calculate whether a plane
was going to be able to stop before it ran off the end of the runway.
If it couldn't then the cables would pop up and
snag new hooks built into the underside of commercial planes. The
presence of these cables would also extend the
point of no return (where pilots can safely abort a takeoff) because a
new safety feature in the planes would also let
the pilots raise the cables themselves in an emergency, increasing the
amount of time they had to make their decision.
If the cables were installed on shorter runways it would also increase
the number of places that large planes could
make emergency landings.
More points to consider:
1. Planes are probably already sending out some kind of beacon to air traffic
control towers to let them know
what's coming their way. This same beacon could be picked up by the
sensors to calculate how much runway
is required. As a backup plan, modern weighing stations for trucks
are now set up so the trucks can be weighed
while they keep moving right on over the scale. Something similar
could be added to the runways. There would
have to be more than one scale strip crossing the runway because we couldn't
be sure exactly where the plane
would touch down. (I suppose we could have just one 20-30 feet away
from the cables but that wouldn't leave
us much response time.)
2. The cables could be built to snap under a certain load so a series of
them could be used to slow down and then
stop the plane. Lots of little jolts instead of one big one.
258. Edible Survival Gear -
Companies that make backpacks might find it profitable to enhance their
product with an inner lining that was edible.
That way if you were out hiking and got lost you'd at least a little extra
to eat, improving your survival chances if you
were really really lost.
There are probably other things people carry with them that could have
an edible enhancement added for survival
purposes. Since I like to use a wooden staff when I'm out hiking
(therefore carrying the weight anyway) it might be
helpful to nice to have a hollowed out one that I could stick something
useful in.
259. Thanks For the Warning Officer -
Now could you be a little more specific?
I came across a traffic accident today and noticed something new (at least
new around here). In addition to the
flashing lights on the police car there was a row of yellow caution lights
blinking in a row right below them. Now,
one of the reasons for the particular jam that occurred this time was that
people kept changing lines trying to guess
which one was the clear one that would make it by the stoppage. It
doesn't seem like it would be hard to come up
with a bar of caution lights that could be raised on an antenna to a height
several feet above the police car. The cop
could then flip a switch and have the strip of caution lights become arrows
pointing to the clear lane. That way
people could find out a lot sooner and cause less confusion trying to guess
which way to go. It wouldn't be a bad
idea to have the same kind of system mounted on ambulances and fire trucks
too.
260. Just a couple of thoughts about hurricane Katrina -
It's been said that a lot of the poor couldn't be evacuated ahead of time
because they lacked transportation. If it's
one thing New Orleans has, it's plenty of barges. There's no reason
they couldn't have strung the usual 10-15
together, loaded several thousand people on them, and had a tugboat push
them upriver the way tugboats usually do.
That could have gotten them out of harm's way easily enough.
The drivers of trucks bringing in aid should have been given the same instructions
ambulance drivers are given - if you
see an emergency situation on your way to the emergency you're being sent
to, pass the first emergency and keep
going to your original destination. If they're told to just stop
and help whoever they come across that needs some
help then people at the center of a disaster area will always be the last
to get help - the aid sent to them will be
diverted by side emergencies.
The head of the disaster agency, FEMA in this case, should be helicoptered
to the center of the disaster and have his
or base of operations set up there (despite communication issues).
If they know they won't be able to leave until
everyone who needs help there has been helped, it might speed up the flow
of assistance.
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