Thanks for your post! I was hoping someone would weigh in with this kind of info on the state of the art.
I have to believe there will be breakthroughs in battery technology, sooner or later…
Dry Ice is way more efficient.
E-C-G mentioned that thermoelectric coolers "aren’t the most efficient things in the world,” but he didn’t say how absolutely miserable their efficiency was. A typical refrigerator has a COP of 2-6, whereas a thermoelectric cooler might have a COP of .3 - .7.
But, Dry Ice has an enormous latent heat of sublimation - way better even than the latent heat of fusion of water, so a pound of frozen CO2 will keep bottles of water frozen for several days in a well-insulated container.
It’s called a guillotine.
Something like a car wash’s rotating brushes, only slightly abrasive, and tailored to the user’s size. Probably need to settings though: one for front and back, and one for side to side. Bonus: you’re in a car wash tunnel, so the cleanup (blood etc.) is taken care of automatically 
My microwave actually does this via a steam sensor or something. You tell it what you’re trying to do (reheat leftovers, cook a frozen entree) and say Go. I’ve never tried using it because I mostly heat frozen dinners and just use my “50% power” rule and don’t care.
We Were Promised Jet-Packs. And I’m not referring to the band.
Too late, these guys already have your whole body dryer.
That is just too difficult. I want a microwave body dryer so I can get dry faster. And experience permanent bliss.
Laughing gas is making a comeback, these days it’s called “sedation dentistry”.
Well now, if this is for hiking, then the thing you need in order to solve the battery problem is a pair of boots which generate electricity - say from the impact of heel on ground (added benefit - shock absorber!) and from the swinging motion as you walk. So that’s the invention that’s long overdue.
Hang on a minute…
OK, so to be fair there’s some optimization work to be done in terms of power output. But the pieces are falling into place…
j
/hijack
What is it that makes walkers immediately step to their LEFT when you call out “On your left” to them? Makes me crazy.
/end hijack
They seem to be doing some impressive work with lasers. The equipment lacks the bone-curdling whine of traditional drills, which is a large part of the discomfort. I had a quarter-section curretage and the dentist spotted a cavity that could be filled and said it was fortunate that I had been numbed – but I had the treatment on that quarter without novacaine. But she did the work anyway, which only took about 20 seconds with the drill, and it was fine.
I mean, just, take care of your teeth.
I want a machine that will do something with those leftover slivers of bar soap. I visualize something with a hopper that you toss the soap wafers into. When there’s enough in there, the machine would melt them down and spit out a new bar of soap. It would essentially be an automated version of what Lisa Simpson did:
On second thought, maybe I should just stick to liquid soap.
Hmm… I use liquid soap, and I want a device to allow me to utilize the last 15-20% that I can never suck out of the bottom of the bottle.
How about a device that makes “marrying” soap containers to drain the nearly empty one into the nearly full one much easier…
Several of those available on Amazon. Silly, but available.
Thanks. I didn’t know that.
Next time I see one on the gadgets ads on Facebook I’ll try to remember to copy and import it to here. That 15-20% aggravates me too so I put some water in it, shake it up and use it for awhile more, til it gets to that same level where it was before. I figure that gets me to 7.5-10% wastage, about 20 cents worth and I pitch the bottle, grumbling slightly.