Pretty sure I invented bar ends in 1986 and made own out of two old road quill stems cut down.

Someone may have invented them before me, but I wasn’t aware 🙁

Jury Duty Olympics

National teams get selected like jury duty to re-establish the amateur nature of the Olympics and ensure the political nature of “which country is best” is brought back to the people to measure the average man of the US vs the average man of Sweden.

Would encourage governments to invest in its entire population to be healthier
Would allow governments proper bragging rights
would establish amateur status again
would mean we all have the chance to represent our country
give everybody a three week training window to learn the rules of the sport they have been picked for
sport particaption would increase as a wider range of sports need to be encouraged
would be great watching the Olympics and being to properly declare that you could do that!

Might mean we have to introduce the Super Olympics where unlimited drugs and bio engineering is allowed to offset it (always wanted to see a bio engineered human-grasshopper do the high jump out of a stadium)

Not quite the same, but a couple of decades ago as a young chap I looked at the new fangled ‘cordless’ phone in the house and thought why, if we can wrangle things around to be able transmit someones voice between the baseset and the handset wirelessly, can we not do the same with the battery power?

Wireless power! Think of the possibilities!! Why has nobody ever thought of this before??!?

Turned out someone already had thought of it. Over a hundred years ago. Hey ho. But I still think it’d be a good idea.

Wind scoops/turbine at the side of the road. Mini turbines that harnass the draft from a car into leccy: No idea if it would work. Works in my head.

It seem like the wind that precedes a tube train arrival is power that should be harnessed. I haven’t used the station for ages but there certainly used to be a little kinetic artwork in the corridor leading down to Kelvingrove subway station that would whirl away as trains arrived and left, powered by the air that was forced out of the platform and up the stairs.

Wireless power!

I’m still looking for investors in my ‘Pipeless Plumbing’ idea

Scanners and tablet screen terminal so that once you have tried on a piece of clothing but DON’T buy it, you can give feedback on whats wrong. The retailer / manufacturer could use that to improve fit / finish / design and quality.

When my mum used to look in kitchen cupboards and the fridge to see what we needed before going shopping, I had an idea to have a fridge/cupboard that knew when we were low on something and would send it to us without us having to go to the shops.

I think back then I figured milk and eggs would teleport to us but I guess Acado, Amazon pantry or similar with RF tags or barcodes would do.

Thinking about it, I am surprised this hasn’t taken off with the technology we have and so many of us having food delivered.

One night I invented the ratchet spanner

Proudly strolled into work the next day and told the fitters about my genius invention that would revolutionise their work.

One of them then pulled my invention out his toolbox 🤦‍♂️

A sat nav with an accent that is always local

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/26/satnav_voice_dialect/

This fuel thing… my car says “Diesel”* when I open the flap. 1. I can read and 2. the pumps are colour coded. Why all this need for automation n shit? 😆

*not literally – there’s a sticker

Washing Machine Counterweight – that big concrete weight in a washing machine makes it expensive to ship and difficult to move. Replace it with a tank that is filled with water once it is plumbed in.

Electronic Boarding Passes – had this idea long before smartphone, bit redundant now: issue passengers with electronic devices as boarding passes. They are more secure (keyed to specific passenger), allows you to track and page individual passengers. And lets you sell the tracking data to the airport shops and use it for monitoring queues etc.

Bladder in Beer Barrel – came up with this on a recent trip to a brewery. Head brewer was saying beer goes off in pubs due to the increased levels of oxygen in the cask as the beer is drunk. So why not put a flexible bladder inside the cask that can contract as the beer is drunk? You could then pump gas between bladder and cask to increase the pressure without gassing the beer. Been done apparently 😒

Wind scoops/turbine at the side of the road. Mini turbines that harnass the draft from a car into leccy: No idea if it would work. Works in my head.

Bin dun

https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2019/05/top-article-from-2019-traffic-powered-wind-turbines/31030

A sat nav with an accent that is always local

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/26/satnav_voice_dialect/

Ten years ago that article —- and where is it. I’ve dropped the hint to every app developer I’ve met (both of them) and they make excuses like ‘well, it would be difficult because…..’

Changing accent sat nav thing – on my desk – Monday morning. No excuses!

Head brewer was saying beer goes off in pubs due to the increased levels of oxygen in the cask as the beer is drunk.

Assuming that what’s important here isn’t the volume of air but the area in contact with the beer, would tapping the side of the barrel rather than lying it down and tapping the front not fix that?

This way the surface area of beer in contact with the air doesn’t change (much) as the level drops. I mean, it’d still go off due to contaminants in the air, but it wouldn’t go off faster as the level drops?

Or am I having a Physics fail?

Wind scoops/turbine at the side of the road

I guess the downside isn’t the physical technology  – you generate the most power when the roads are busiest. Thats when most people are neither at home or at work so whats the power used for?

Washing Machine Counterweight

This I really like the sound of, it’s genius. You could even have it auto-fill from the supply so that you can’t forget to do it (and maybe auto-drain too so you don’t get stagnation).

whats the power used for?

Rechargeable batteries have already been invented.

Washing Machine Counterweight – that big concrete weight in a washing machine makes it expensive to ship and difficult to move. Replace it with a tank that is filled with water once it is plumbed in.

unless you’ve mentioned that on here before, I’m reasonably sure it’s been done

Washing Machine Counterweight

This I really like the sound of, it’s genius. You could even have it auto-fill from the supply so that you can’t forget to do it (and maybe auto-drain too so you don’t get stagnation).

However water weighs around half that of concrete so the space allowance for it inside the machine would have to be greater thus reducing the capacity of a load. Which would have the greater impact on the environment? Lugging heavier machines around or a lifetime of smaller wash capacity?

back in the days of VHS recorders, I invented* a system where your VHS was connected to your phone line, and you could phone it up to programme it when you’d forgotten to set it for Blankety Blank

* thought about

Also, time limited music tracks..you could download music tracks and listen to them for a day or two before they self-destructed (like Mission Impossible), unless you paid for the Unlock code. I had no clue how it would work, just thought it would be neat (obvs in the day before Spotify, and probably when it took 5 mins to download each track of a 28k dial up)

This fuel thing… my car says “Diesel”* when I open the flap. 1. I can read and 2. the pumps are colour coded. Why all this need for automation n shit? 😆

It’s for blind people.

would tapping the side of the barrel rather than lying it down and tapping the front not fix that?

No idea – there were lots of technical bits about sediment, settling etc. I was fairly well caned by that point of the tour 😁

maybe auto-drain too so you don’t get stagnation

Could be an issue – not sure if brim-filling then sealing it would help prevent that? Or auto-drain as you say. Being able to drain would help when you need to move the washing machine too.

1. I can read and 2. the pumps are colour coded.

then helpfully you get coloured ads on the handle that counteract the visual cues of the coloured handles. The one time I’ve misfuelled there was a black mars bar advert on the green unleaded pump handle and there was a green ad on the diesel pump handle.

But in Murphy’s Law terms you should design problems it out, not put a label on it.

Its misquoted as “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” but really its – If theres more that one way of doing something and one of those ways ends in disaster then design that option out.

Quite an interesting story about how that law came about.

However water weighs around half that of concrete so the space allowance for it inside the machine would have to be greater

Ah… but that potentially works in it’s favour though – if you are only fitting a moulded plastic tank then it can go right the way around the drum which might help deaden the sound as well. (I could be reaching here).

this one is for some time in the future and E-cars will have to change where the batteries go and are designed but…

all electric vehicles to have a worldwide standardised battery (think a cube for ease) and instead of charging at a charging point you drive through a car-wash type of thing where your bonnet opens and a robot arm removes your drained battery and replaces it with a charged one from a bank of batteries which are on permanent cycle. no more waiting to be fully charged and a higher turn over of vehicles.
you’d still have the option to use the normal charging for home use etc

One of them then pulled my invention out his toolbox

@ BoardinBob – I feel that deserved a fnar fnar.

In my mind, I invented Rapid Rise (remember that?) about 2 years before it was released. I’d be a forgotten-about millionaire by now.

Jollibee in London 6 years before it opened and had a mile long cue outside.

Well…would have been world changing for me.

Jollibee in London 6 years before it opened and had a mile long cue outside.

That must be one enormous pool table.

you drive through a car-wash type of thing where your bonnet opens and a robot arm

So like the “better place” system?

(that went bankrupt)

Dammit!

water counter weight done in 2017

My idea – GPS speed limiter.  Car knows what the limit is and will only allow a small percentage over the limit – can be overidden but all data is logged in a black box recorder and can be used as evidence in the event of an accident.  Been done already I imagine

Planned to be a requirement on all new cars in EU in 2022 I thought

Edit: https://www.google.be/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/27/all-new-uk-cars-to-have-speed-limiters-by-2022-under-eu-plans

I can imagine that is going to create a fair amount of froth

That must be one enormous pool table.

Goddamnit!

Oh and malaria carrying midges. That’d solve the problem of Scottish independence.

You guys want to head on over to the HalfBakery. The home of half baked ideas…

https://www.halfbakery.com/

Ah… but that potentially works in it’s favour though – if you are only fitting a moulded plastic tank then it can go right the way around the drum which might help deaden the sound as well. (I could be reaching here).

True, although concrete could also be moulded to shape I guess. Interesting that it has been done though apparently.

Around ’92, deep into my first year doing Biochemistry, I thought that it should be a relatively simple task for an advanced nation to take the genetic blueprint for something like the common cold (easy to infect, travels well) and combine it with something like ebola (kills really well, travels not so well) to basically, well, kill off a lot of the world’s population.

Imagine my surprise when, all these years later, someone appears to have been thinking along those lines too!

It’s a good job I went into IT instead of staying near genetics.

water counter weight done in 2017

Curses! *shakes fist impotently*

I think I knew that to be honest. I had the idea decades ago. Really should have done something more than save it for an opportune thread.

Mine is catseyes that have a solar panel in the top or are wired up to one on the side of the road. They then light up when it’s dark or flash when it’s icy. Even did it as a presentation for my HND coursework at college! A few years later the exact things started to be tested on roads around me, still see some around but they didn’t really take off.

Most garages have ANPR right, so why not link it to the pumps? The ANPR scans your reg, checks what the vehicle is on the tinterweb, then prevents you from using the incorrect fuel.

I had the same idea when talking to a friend’s son who works in a local Tesco petrol station that suffers quite badly with drive-offs. He said they do have ANPR but it really struggles to read the number plates correctly and 9/10 they have to watch the CCTV and read the number plate themselves when a drive-off does happen. Silly things like B reads as 8, E as L, D as 0 etc, not to mention all the people with mis-spaced plates and silly fonts. I remember when the card-only Asda station opened in Leckwith, Cardiff. It was the cheapest one by a few pence and right on my way to work so handy too. Except it could never read my number plate and I always had to press the button and speak to an operator to get the pump authorised. The number plate was K70 NAD (sold it a few years ago) and was 100% legal, it would be read as a jumble of random symbols!

Back when I was a kid, in the early 1980s, I had the idea that it would be great to store music and video on solid state memory chips….