The Mad Scientists' Corner (Vol. 6). You know, recently it seems like this series would be more aptly titled “The Entrepreneurs' Corner,” but hell, that wouldn’t be half as much fun, eh?
Cereal Kit. You know how they sell cereal in those disposable single serving size plastic dish things? Well that’s all nice and dandy cuz you don’t need to get your own bowl, but what about everything else? Let’s break this breakfast thing down. Ok, so to have yourself a bowl of cereal, I figger you need the following: a bowl, cereal, milk, and a spoon. They’ve got 2 out of the 4 covered now, why not go ahead and take care of the other two as well? More revolutionary of the two I think would be the milk part. Why can’t they stick some instant milk powder in there with the cereal flakes (or puffs)? Then you wouldn’t have to lug around a jug of milk when you want cereal in the field. Just pour in water, stir, and consume. It’d be like ramen, except it wouldn’t even need to be hot water. And I guess while they’re at it, they could toss in one of those fold-up plastic spoons. It could be right in there with the cereal, and you’d dig for it like the prize in the box from when we were kids (; they don’t do that anymore, do they?).
PBJ Slices. When I’m making sandwiches, and I’m in a hurry, 9 times out of 10, the sandwich I make is ham & cheese. And you know why? Cuz neither of those requires a knife! None of that wasted extra time opening jars and spreading and whatnot. But you know, a lot of times, I’d really rather have like a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I think they should sell “slices” of peanut butter & jelly just like they have slices of cheese. And you know, hell, while they’re at it, the produce department should sell like lettuce, tomato, and onion slices packaged in single sandwich quantities. So whenever you want a sandwich, any sandwich, you pop open one package (ok, maybe 2 or 3 to account for ham and cheese, but nothing requiring a knife), flop that on some bread, and you’re good to go. Yea, forget the fact that it’d probably be easier just to buy a pre-made sandwich, and I think this has got potential.
iPod Karaoke. Ok, I thought this one up right when the video iPod came out, and thought it’d be such a cool use of the iPod’s new capabilities. But then the more I thought about it, the more annoying it seems the whole concept would be. I’d really hate to be the guy responsible for causing an epidemic of American Idol wannabes walking on the streets causing all that noise pollution. So yea, I guess this one kinda needs to go back to the drawing board. But seriously, how easy would it be to just have a music video playing along to a song, and stick some words in there, and have a ball bounce over ‘em at the right time?
Smell-Proof Weight Gloves. (If you don’t wear gloves while weightlifting, you should if you’re serious- they prevent calluses and I think it helps you lift more.) Anyways, most times I throw out my weightlifting gloves, it’s not because they’re worn-out, but rather because they start smelling horrendously of B.O. (body odor). And it’s a shame, cuz under that putrid odor lies supple leather that’s still fully capable of doing its task. Going back to the root cause of the smell, I believe it’s the waste products of bacteria eating the nutrients in your sweat. So couldn’t they treat the gloves with some kinda anti-bacterial gunk like they do shower curtains? I would think that’d solve the smell problem… Or hell, there’s a lot of friction when you lift too. I suppose they could make the gloves to have like a scratch & sniff style scented coating- that’d do the job roughly the same.
Ice Sublimator. Credit for this one goes to my mom, actually. We were driving around on vacation somewhere, and she noticed a patch of ice that had steam coming off of it. The more sciency members of the family pointed out that it was the phenomenon of sublimation, whereby under the right barometric circumstances (atmospheric pressure), ice changes directly to water vapor without passing through the liquid water phase. And this brought up the stories about how mountainside villages were sometimes flooded when winter ice started melting. Ignoring the possibly catastrophic side effects it could wreak, couldn’t they make some kind of gigantic device that lowers the atmospheric pressure in a large ice-covered area? Sure, it’s probably impossible and might cause devastating rain downwind, but you’d have temporarily solved a localized flooding problem. =P
Less Thought-Out Ideas. 1) Halfway through my trip last Fall, I learned the technique of pointing a camera at yourself from arms-length so you can get yourself in your pictures without asking someone else to take it. The problem with this method is that due to the limitations on most average people’s arm-lengths, your head usually ends up taking up half of the frame. Other than the obviously hokey solution of a telescoping arm extension thing (and/or asking for someone else’s help), is there anything you can do? 2) You know how when you’re wearing a long-sleeve shirt and you put on a jacket and the sleeves of the shirt get all messed up and unsmooth under the sleeves of the jacket? Other than just grabbing your shirt sleeves as you slip on the jacket, is there any way to get around this uncomfortable phenomenon? 3) I'm like obsessive compulsive with checking people's buddy info's on AIM. You suppose they could make like some kinda RSS type of thing for profiles, where it'll tell you when someone's changed something? Kinda like in Facebook how it tells you which of your friends has updated their profiles recently.
Previous Edition>>
Cereal Kit. You know how they sell cereal in those disposable single serving size plastic dish things? Well that’s all nice and dandy cuz you don’t need to get your own bowl, but what about everything else? Let’s break this breakfast thing down. Ok, so to have yourself a bowl of cereal, I figger you need the following: a bowl, cereal, milk, and a spoon. They’ve got 2 out of the 4 covered now, why not go ahead and take care of the other two as well? More revolutionary of the two I think would be the milk part. Why can’t they stick some instant milk powder in there with the cereal flakes (or puffs)? Then you wouldn’t have to lug around a jug of milk when you want cereal in the field. Just pour in water, stir, and consume. It’d be like ramen, except it wouldn’t even need to be hot water. And I guess while they’re at it, they could toss in one of those fold-up plastic spoons. It could be right in there with the cereal, and you’d dig for it like the prize in the box from when we were kids (; they don’t do that anymore, do they?).
PBJ Slices. When I’m making sandwiches, and I’m in a hurry, 9 times out of 10, the sandwich I make is ham & cheese. And you know why? Cuz neither of those requires a knife! None of that wasted extra time opening jars and spreading and whatnot. But you know, a lot of times, I’d really rather have like a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I think they should sell “slices” of peanut butter & jelly just like they have slices of cheese. And you know, hell, while they’re at it, the produce department should sell like lettuce, tomato, and onion slices packaged in single sandwich quantities. So whenever you want a sandwich, any sandwich, you pop open one package (ok, maybe 2 or 3 to account for ham and cheese, but nothing requiring a knife), flop that on some bread, and you’re good to go. Yea, forget the fact that it’d probably be easier just to buy a pre-made sandwich, and I think this has got potential.
iPod Karaoke. Ok, I thought this one up right when the video iPod came out, and thought it’d be such a cool use of the iPod’s new capabilities. But then the more I thought about it, the more annoying it seems the whole concept would be. I’d really hate to be the guy responsible for causing an epidemic of American Idol wannabes walking on the streets causing all that noise pollution. So yea, I guess this one kinda needs to go back to the drawing board. But seriously, how easy would it be to just have a music video playing along to a song, and stick some words in there, and have a ball bounce over ‘em at the right time?
Smell-Proof Weight Gloves. (If you don’t wear gloves while weightlifting, you should if you’re serious- they prevent calluses and I think it helps you lift more.) Anyways, most times I throw out my weightlifting gloves, it’s not because they’re worn-out, but rather because they start smelling horrendously of B.O. (body odor). And it’s a shame, cuz under that putrid odor lies supple leather that’s still fully capable of doing its task. Going back to the root cause of the smell, I believe it’s the waste products of bacteria eating the nutrients in your sweat. So couldn’t they treat the gloves with some kinda anti-bacterial gunk like they do shower curtains? I would think that’d solve the smell problem… Or hell, there’s a lot of friction when you lift too. I suppose they could make the gloves to have like a scratch & sniff style scented coating- that’d do the job roughly the same.
Ice Sublimator. Credit for this one goes to my mom, actually. We were driving around on vacation somewhere, and she noticed a patch of ice that had steam coming off of it. The more sciency members of the family pointed out that it was the phenomenon of sublimation, whereby under the right barometric circumstances (atmospheric pressure), ice changes directly to water vapor without passing through the liquid water phase. And this brought up the stories about how mountainside villages were sometimes flooded when winter ice started melting. Ignoring the possibly catastrophic side effects it could wreak, couldn’t they make some kind of gigantic device that lowers the atmospheric pressure in a large ice-covered area? Sure, it’s probably impossible and might cause devastating rain downwind, but you’d have temporarily solved a localized flooding problem. =P
Less Thought-Out Ideas. 1) Halfway through my trip last Fall, I learned the technique of pointing a camera at yourself from arms-length so you can get yourself in your pictures without asking someone else to take it. The problem with this method is that due to the limitations on most average people’s arm-lengths, your head usually ends up taking up half of the frame. Other than the obviously hokey solution of a telescoping arm extension thing (and/or asking for someone else’s help), is there anything you can do? 2) You know how when you’re wearing a long-sleeve shirt and you put on a jacket and the sleeves of the shirt get all messed up and unsmooth under the sleeves of the jacket? Other than just grabbing your shirt sleeves as you slip on the jacket, is there any way to get around this uncomfortable phenomenon? 3) I'm like obsessive compulsive with checking people's buddy info's on AIM. You suppose they could make like some kinda RSS type of thing for profiles, where it'll tell you when someone's changed something? Kinda like in Facebook how it tells you which of your friends has updated their profiles recently.
Previous Edition>>
posted by Dear Daniel at 6:21 PM
2 Comments:
Nice! I've missed these. But in the interest of playing devil's advocate--
PB&J slices: They already sell jars with the pb&j "premixed"--in stripes. I don't think it'd be a hard sell to freeze them and then make slices of the resulting pb&j log, and you could even work in spirals and cartoon characters and all...dammit, now you've infected me with your madness.
iPod karaoke: Dear God. If you launched this, my daily BART commute would be miserable and then I'd have to go kill you.
Smell-proof weight gloves: I've seen some people use baby powder on their sparring gear for tkd. The cheap version seems to be storing them in baby powder. Dunno if this is anywhere near close to your kind of scene (Texas v. different from SF) but ask around the fetish community and see how they keep their latex and rubber clean and ick-free.
Wheee, fun. And now I have to go do my reading.
They actually make PB slices. I think it's kinda gross. But they do. Not sure about jelly. Chances are, they make them. :P
Also, instead of tossing your workout gloves, just sanitize them -- I lysol my boxing gloves after heavy workouts, and I toss my wraps into the laundry machine (cauz they're cloth). Granted, all that chemical goodness isn't the best stuff for you, but I air them and wipe them down with rags.
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