New Inventions Featured at the BIS 79
kjh1 writes "BBC News is running an article covering the British Invention Show (BIS) and some of the (quite useful) inventions that will be on display there this year."
An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says 'Beam me up, Scotty'.
Too bad many of them aren't new or novel... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not trying to be cynical here, I'm just pointing it out.
Re:Too bad many of them aren't new or novel... (Score:2)
Re:Too bad many of them aren't new or novel... (Score:5, Funny)
And it goes to 11.
flimsy too (Score:2)
Of course one would have to be sure that the said relative was not lying close to the trajectory of the door that one is kicking in
p.s. only do the kicking stuff if you are wearing good boots/shoes and jeans/thick trousers, so in event the
Re:flimsy too (Score:1)
Breaking into your own house at 5:30am is no fun, especially the last thing your brother has done before going for a holiday was painting the door and then slamming it shut and lock while the paint is still dry. When you arrive at home after driving 12 hours, you can't be patient. Breaking the door was the fastest route to the coffee can.
Re:flimsy too (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too bad many of them aren't new or novel... (Score:2)
Um ok.. (Score:2, Funny)
Here I was wondering what the RIAA was up to now.
Hmm (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:1)
I've got it (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I've got it (Score:5, Funny)
sigh... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:sigh... (Score:1)
HTML cache of PDF (Score:2, Informative)
Although I do agree, it's annoying that its a PDF document in the first place. Either way, here you go:
British Invention Show FAQ PDF > HTML google cache [64.233.183.104]
Re:HTML cache of PDF (Score:1)
Re:sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)
A fun entry? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Call me old-fashioned, but how exactly cruelty towards animals can be considered fun?
Re:A fun entry? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A fun entry? (Score:2, Funny)
Erick R Williams, M.A., M.S.
Re:A fun entry? (Score:2, Funny)
leaving the mice running free is not an option
How 'bout lettin' em run, just not free. Hook the little guys up to a generator or something :-)
Or how about a few cats...
Re:A fun entry? (Score:1, Interesting)
It's sort of strange how people talk about being more humane to mice, but then think that it's okay for a cat to catch a mouse and eat it. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but cats (or nature in general) aren't very kind when it comes to eating their prey.
That said, cats really are the best solution. My uncle's ranch has been infested with mice as long as I can remember. Well his daughter-in-law liked cats and introduced a bunch to the place. Within a year there were no m
Re:A fun entry? (Score:5, Funny)
You sick S.O.B.
That certainly was an interesting typo!
Re:A fun entry? (Score:1)
Re:A fun entry? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A fun entry? (Score:1)
We don't run them out into the woods. Our extra mice get dumped out in the ditch on the way to check the cows.
Helps keep the cat population down.
Re:A fun entry? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmn... if you want to make it cruel AND make it fun... exchange the bucket for the feeding mechanism of a tennis ball launcher! Now that's cruel. AND fun!
*squeek* *squeek* nibble nibb.. slide scrabble pause... Thwump! Wheee!
Might not be fun for the mouse but install enough of them on your farm and the fields will be alive with the sight of airbourne rodents this summer!!!
Re:A fun entry? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A fun entry? (Score:2)
Outpost.com tried something similar to this as an ad campaign, with gerbils and a cannon (not real gerbils, naturally), but it was nicely done.
Check it out [humorcentral.net]
Not as good as the pack of ravenous wolves attacking a high-school marching band though, which was another of their ads. Aah, the good old dot.com days.
Re:A fun entry? (Score:1)
This deserves a HotW:PT1 ref... (Score:1)
+ a mouse is flung into the air, BANG King shoots and misses +
King: Drifting to the left.
+ another mouse is catapulted skyward, BANG King nails it +
King: Fell like a stone.
My favourite mousetrap. (Score:1)
Re:Other: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Other: (Score:1)
If you can patent children
Drug companies are moving toward that very result.
A more novel invention (Score:5, Funny)
Oooh! Oooh! Clip that article! (Score:2, Funny)
"Too late."
"Ah well. It'll probably come up as a dupe again later."
Re:A more novel invention (Score:2)
Re:A more novel invention (Score:2)
Re:A more novel invention (Score:1)
The Times (a British broadsheet, in case of ambiguity) is far better for toilet paper than either Pravda or Granma.
You have your grandmother clean out your behind?
Re:A more novel invention (Score:2)
Re:A more novel invention (Score:2)
The old FT was best. I haven't bought it for a while so I don't know if it still has that softer, pink paper. Any of the papers will be improved after being kept for a week however. This allows them to absorb a little moisture and thus become softer on the bottom.
I quite like the Burnside mobile (Score:2)
Re:I quite like the Burnside mobile (Score:2)
Once you come home with your mobile it senses that it's in range of a basestation and any calls you make from that point on go out over a land line... basicly turning your mobile into a cordless phone.
One address book to update. Maybe calls to your cell could be routed to your landline while you were home as well.
I actually don't have a mobile so I don't quite keep up with these things.
Very useful??? (Score:1, Troll)
The MouseMaster??? This doesn't seem like a big improvement to me. You Brits sure get excited about some pointless shit!
At least in America we get excited about things like "Ginger" (or IT if you prefer). I mean I could run over as many mice as that trap holds in a few minutes on a Segway.
Just poking fun at you folks East of the Pacific. Mostly because There's a lot of trash talk to us US folks as well.
Re:Very useful??? (Score:1)
I don't think anyone in the U.S. was offended.
Mumbling off to the side, "East of the Atlantic"
Re:Very useful??? (Score:2)
Not to self...
Food+Beer+TV+Slashdot != Good Idea
My bad, gotta pay more attention to what I am doing next time, or try to defend it by saying that you will get to Europe by going east over the Pacific from Hawaii...which is clearly where I am. Nah...I give up.
Not so sure about the inventions... (Score:5, Informative)
One of his more entertaining ideas was "The Great Egg Race". Build a machine out of ordinary household junk. Any household junk you like. The only requirements are that it be able to carry a raw egg across a course without damaging or breaking the egg, and to do so in the least possible time. The only motive power allowed was a tiny elastic band.
The idea was simple, ingenious, and triggered several fairly successful (yet geeky) competitive tech shows and inspired The Power Game - a national contest between schools along similar lines.
(The first "Power Game" was a simple variation of the Egg Race, involving dropping coins along a race track at specific points. Missing the target was penalized heavily. The following year, competitors were asked to build near-frictionless mobile platforms that could carry a person over the longest possible distance around a complex course. Oh, and the platform had to be made of cardboard.)
To be honest, it matters little if the BIS, any geek television show, or any techie contest, ever shows anything much. What matters is whether they inspire people to come up with things that maybe are useful. Nobody could accuse the entrants of, say, the Great Egg Race or the Micromouse Championships of producing something fundamentally worthwhile. At the same time, I'm willing to bet that many more of those people who have built things that are useful have been inspired by demonstrations of how to do a great deal with very little, than those who are fed a diet of "nobody could do that, it's too complicated!" or "only big corporations can invent!"
Re:Not so sure about the inventions... (Score:1)
AUTOMATIC RADIATOR BLEEDER (Score:2)
here's an item that's existed prior as on our boiler at my work [controlsdepot.com] we also use one on top of the sand filter for the pool, it has a float valve, just like a toilet, that allows air to escape, but not water..
Re:AUTOMATIC RADIATOR BLEEDER (Score:2)
I want.... (Score:2, Funny)
Every "invention" listed already exists (Score:5, Informative)
The "expandable airport walkway" is found at smaller airports today. Santa Barbara, California, has several.
Tilting-ramp mousetraps [barrettine.co.uk] have been around for years and are quite effective.
Retractable parking posts [ledabollards.com] are widely used. Most are solid (there's now a big "security" market for the things) but there are lightweight ones that can be driven over.
Everything else listed has been found by someone else, so I won't rehash that.
Cripes! (Score:1, Flamebait)
Bloody queer name for a teapot brush, but whatever works, eh mate?
(Runs and hides from enraged Englishmen)