# Inventions you've come up with. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 6, 2012, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943 "2012-03-06T17:49:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/21 "2012-03-07T02:48:34Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > My thought-invention is ass-wipes. That is, a kind of moist towelette that you’d use to “finish off” after your normal wiping with dry toilet paper; it would have some kind of gunk on it to both properly clean and soothe the bunghole. It would have to be suitable for all sewerage systems of course. > > The idea being that trying to clean an irregular surface of sticky matter by wiping with dry squares of paper is, to put it mildly, unreliable. > > It would be available in small purse-packs for the ladies, but I guess for blokes would have to be in a dispenser in the cubicle. They’ve got [those up here in the US.](http://www.cottonelle.com/cottonelle-fresh-care-wipes.aspx) I usually take a packet with me when traveling to squat toilet countries. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/22 "2012-03-07T03:11:18Z")
Ouija Golf involves a booklet of small strips of paper, each depicting a golf green. As with a Ouija Board, you close your eyes to play. In this case there is no pointer, but a pencil placed on the location of the tee, and you draw a line in the direction you think the hole will be. The next stroke starts with the pencil on the point where the first stroke ended, and you close your eyes again and draw. A classmate and I thought this up in the 4th grade, so the concept may have some flaws. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/23 "2012-03-07T03:49:23Z")
I’ve invented a leaf crusher that presses down on the leaves in a paper lawn bag to compress them. It’s one thin sheet of wood, cut so it fits in the bag, with a two-by-four nailed to it as a handle. How it looks (on its side): -----| I can fit far more leaves in a bag, especially with the paper ones that make it hard to compress the leaves. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/24 "2012-03-07T04:01:44Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’ve wanted to create a combination light timer/dimmer. So that when I go into the shower first thing in the morning, I can turn on this device and have it gradually bring the brightness of the lightbulbs from 0% to 100% over the course of five minutes or so. That way, my still asleep eyes are not immediately assaulted by the bright bathroom lights. I made something similar to that to control the lights in my work area, except the brightness was turned up over 1 second, based on the idea that incandescent bulbs usually burn out when first turned on. It would be easy to reduce the rate of turn-on, since it consists of a ramp generator feeding a comparator with an RC circuit (increase by about 300 times to get 5 minutes, a variable resistor could be used to adjust the time) on the other input, so that the turn-on point of a SCR varies from 180 degrees (full-off) to 0 degrees (full-on). Of course, it only works with incandescent bulbs and for other types, they would have to work with a normal light dimmer type circuit (plus, it supplies DC since the circuit runs off rectified AC and uses the rectified waveform for the zero crossing detector/ramp generator, although CFL/LED bulbs with bridge rectifiers would work). Of course, this isn’t an original invention, since some of the houses in my neighborhood have outdoor lights that slowly turn on in the same manner (about 1 second to full brightness, so it isn’t for glare reduction). ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/25 "2012-03-07T04:23:59Z")
I have my lights do that with my Insteon dimmers; the lights in my room fade on slowly over a 9 minutes every morning at a set time (although this requires a computer interface in addition to the dimmers), every incandescent light in the house fades on over two seconds when a dimmer is turned on; saves bulbs and is easier on your eyes. ---
**Author:** ![MannyL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MannyL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MannyL)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/26 "2012-03-07T04:59:53Z")
I have an idea for a new type of insulated lunch bag but I can’t find a way to draw it well. I can describe it but not build it. I think it could be the next lunch safe ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/27 "2012-03-07T05:16:53Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As I pointed out earlier this year, the US Military has put out an SBIR for precisely this, under the wonderful name **Floral Disrupter** : > > [Quick, Worf, the Plant People are attacking! Use the Floral Disruptor! - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=634377) 😃 Awesome language. They must expend a lot of energy writing like that. The scary part for me is that I was thinking like the military. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Escantell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8dc957/32.png) [@Escantell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Escantell)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/28 "2012-03-07T05:22:25Z")
what does the military want with a laser lawn mower? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/29 "2012-03-07T05:37:06Z")
> [@Escantell](#): > > what does the military want with a laser lawn mower? To disrupt flora. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/30 "2012-03-07T05:50:01Z")
> [@Escantell](#): > > what does the military want with a laser lawn mower? Triffid attack ---
**Author:** ![PapSett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@PapSett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PapSett)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/31 "2012-03-07T05:52:48Z")
When I was about 10, I was bathing the family Collie in the back yard with the garden hose. I thought, this would be a lot easier if there was a plastic brush like thing that would screw onto the hose nozzle, and it could have a chamber that the water flowed through that held shampoo, dispensing ir a little at a time. Fast forward 25 years or so; I have seen the EXACT THING that I imagined for sale. I doubt it works as well as I pictured it working, however. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/32 "2012-03-07T10:58:25Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > Yeah, but hard drives are still the most popular storage medium, if not the best (due to cost), and most personal data is still kept on local computers (the only data that I have on the Cloud is stuff like this forum and I wouldn’t call that personal data, although in college I did have some online courses). I suppose that using the Internet for any reason counts though. Also, wireless mostly uses terrestrial transmitters, not satellite. Um… When you store stuff in “the Cloud” . . . That STILL ends up on one (or several) hard disk drives somewhere, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/33 "2012-03-07T11:02:03Z")
I like to RV camp and boat a lot. I prefer to do this in somewhat primitive areas (without utilities hookups). I prefer a quiet experience, but I also like a dvd player and air-conditioning. A generator seems the obvious solution but they’re noisy and unfortunately tend to grow legs while you’re out on the lake (they’re easily carried off). My solutions: 1. [Getting it all there at once.](http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/rbp2/a2eaf4f2.jpg) Not really an invention, but it did take quite a bit of welding, measuring, testing to get everything to work safely. Getting one pedal to apply brakes to all 12 wheels properly took a bit of wiring, and several adjustments. 2. [A 110V power source that is not visible to passersby while I’m away on the lake](http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/rbp2/truckbox_gen007.jpg). It’s there, hidden in the box. 3. [Providing sufficient cooling](http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/rbp2/truckbox_gen002.jpg) and [ventilation](http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/rbp2/truckbox_gen004.jpg) for the generator such that it can run enclosed without overheating (or drowning in its own exhaust fumes. Louvers on both ends of the box, and the fan is thermostat controlled. 4. [Making it quiet](http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/rbp2/truckbox_gen001.jpg). It’s not obvious, but the entire setup is lined with high-temp sound deadening sheets which do an amazing job of quieting it. It makes about as much noise (according to a decibel meter) as my home dishwasher. I don’t know if this qualifies as an “invention” per se, but it is something I built mostly in my garage and driveway. Note: Some of these pictures are old. The truck’s different nowadays. But they convey the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/34 "2012-03-07T13:34:35Z")
My wife works in a biochemistry lab. One day she came home with an extremely sore thumb and forefinger. She said she had been processing samples that were stored in tiny sample vials; these vials had snap-in lids that were maybe 3/8" in diameter, 5/16" tall, with tiny splines on them for grip. They formed a tight seal with the vial, and so you had to grip them very tightly to tilt them off, and push very hard to get them back on. She had dealt with a couple hundred of these on this particular day, and that was why her thumb and forefinger were seriously hurting. I was very surprised to find that the vial manufacturer didn’t offer any sort of tool for doing this, so I made one. It’s a rectangular block of plastic, maybe 4" long, 3/4" wide, 3/4" high. Near one end, there’s a through-hole with an arrangement of countersinks and steps in it, and the hole is slotted through to the end of the block, allowing it to spring open/closed just a bit as needed. Hold block in one hand with hole near thumb. Hold vial in other hand, slip lid into hole in block, lightly squeeze the nice large smooth sides of the block with your thumb and forefinger, and tip; lid comes off. The block already squeezes the lid just a bit, so you don’t need to press very hard with your thumb and finger to make this work. The lid is very lightly stuck in the hole, and it’s released from the block by pushing it down from above with your forefinger. Installing the lid is just as easy; the block provides a nice large surface for your thumb to press against, instead of a tiny lid with a sharp top edge. Wife is happy; mission accomplished. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/35 "2012-03-07T13:44:14Z")
The Caffederm Patch. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/36 "2012-03-07T14:03:41Z")
> [@Esox\_Lucius](#): > > As an aside, I once met a lawyer who helped inventors patent their work. Being an ethical kind of guy, he regularly turned work away on the grounds that perpetual motion devices aren’t supposed to use batteries. The batteries are for the flashing lights that show you it’s working, dummy. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Corcaigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Corcaigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corcaigh)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/37 "2012-03-07T14:05:43Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > My thought-invention is ass-wipes. That is, a kind of moist towelette that you’d use to “finish off” after your normal wiping with dry toilet paper; it would have some kind of gunk on it to both properly clean and soothe the bunghole. It would have to be suitable for all sewerage systems of course. > > The idea being that trying to clean an irregular surface of sticky matter by wiping with dry squares of paper is, to put it mildly, unreliable. > > It would be available in small purse-packs for the ladies, but I guess for blokes would have to be in a dispenser in the cubicle. They are already available for children, but adults can use them 🙂 I fell off my horse one day and thought “wouldn’t it be great if you could have a jacket that blew up like the air bag in your car, so that you bounced when you fell off your horse, instead of splatting” Yeah there are three types of them already on the market… I’m very very myopic, so when I take my glasses off, if I don’t pay attention to where I put them I can’t find them again. Oh for something like the flashing lights in my mobile phone, set into the legs of my specs, to let me know where they are. (yes I have had to use this method to find my mobile phone more than once, as I have it on silent permanently as it freaks my mother out when it rings) ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/38 "2012-03-07T14:09:47Z")
> [@Escantell](#): > > what does the military want with a laser lawn mower? It isn’t a laser lawn mower, silly. It’s a horizontally-deployed directed energy device for the functional minimalization of vegetative entities. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/39 "2012-03-07T14:13:14Z")
When I used to have a very long commute I designed a better travel coffee mug. It had two separate sections in one body. The larger, lower half was what you filled with your beverage. The smaller, upper section was separated by a section you opened from the outside with the touch of a thumb button. There was another button that opened the sipping hole on top. The idea was that the lower section would keep your coffee hot and fresh. You would invert the unit while pressing the thumb button to fill the top “cup” section. When you released the button it sealed off the lower section. Then you had a “cup” of coffee you could sip at your leisure without the rest of the liquid getting cold. It seemed fairly simple to design, but I changed jobs, had no real commute and lost the enthusiasm. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943/40 "2012-03-07T15:11:36Z")
I didn’t have the tinkering/engineering skills to actually develop this, but in college I mentally invented the microfreeze. Same concept as a microwave only it works in reverse. I wanted cold beer without waiting a couple hours for it to cool down in the fridge. Also needed ice fast. 😃 I was thinking that all you’d really need is a “Cool” button on your microwave, but an engineer friend talked me off the ledge because he said it’s so much easier to heat things than to cool things that it would require too much energy to freeze stuff in seconds instead of heating it in seconds. I was bummed out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventions-youve-come-up-with/614943.md?page=3)