If you were able to invent something, what would it be?
I would invent a cheap, 100% effective and reversible method of birth control.
One of my teachers told every class that if any of us ever invented a chalkboard that could erase itself at the touch of a button, he’d be the first to snap one up. 
For me personally, I’d like to be the one that finally invents/discovers/perfects artificial intelligence.
I have a revolutionary idea for a truly 3 dimensional visual display unit (which would create images that really look ‘solid’ from a variety of angles, like the gaming set in one of the Star Wars movies), I’ve been kicking the idea about for more than a decade now, but I’m still too damn lazy to knock up a prototype.
The truly bottomless, self-refilling coffee mug.
No you fool! Haven’t you seen the Terminator? They’ll kill us all!
I’d invent a cheap, renewable, enviromentally friendly energy source.
That, or a giant bunny you could ride around like a horse. I would love one of those.
I want to genetically engineer a plant that looks and grows like kudzu but has the THC content of the finest cannabis sativa.
A revolutionary new pimple popper, ingrown hair latchhook and tweezers all in one kind of device. Maybe also a tiny blade to cut through stubborn scar tissue to get to old reccurrent zits.
And a stronger version of the poore strip sized for the whole back.
(scribbles frantically onto notepad)
Keep those ideas coming, fellers…
Seriously, I have an idea. It’s not really an invention, just a really clever business idea. I want to create a business that makes products that would, in theory, not work well, but work just as well as a normal product of the same specifications. Like a lead life preserver that floats just as well as one of vinyl. I can just imagine it: friend A invites friend B over to a pool party. Friend B is floating on this shiny, poisonous life preserver and notices that it floats really well. Friend B asks friend A about the preserver, and friend A brags about having a really freaky-cool life preserver made out of heavy metal.
I plan to expand into inflatable dartboards and magnesium stovetops once I get the finances.
I got the idea that’s gonna make me rich! Rich I tell you.
I am going to invent the reverse microwave.
Put a warm beer in and 30 seconds later frosty.
These things will sell like hotcakes
I had an idea years ago for a toilet fan, actually in the toilet itself, where low volume air would be sucked out through the same holes where the water comes in when you flush, and expelled outside through ducting. Instead of sucking the air up, and throughout the room, and out as they do now.
Apparently, it was a shitty, sucky, idea…
An electrical storage battery that has a superior storage-to-weight ratio than gasoline.
That is, 1 kilogram of super battery + a X horsepower electric motor will provide more useful energy than 1 kilogram of gasoline + a X horsepower gasoline engine.
This would change the world.
Or a plastic/paint compound that would absorb radio waves & convert them into visible light. Cheap emergency lighting. Background radio waves from radar, commercial & civil broadcasts, etc. provide the energy.
Damn, they’re on to me already. Time to hop back into the time machine and take out Al Gore before he invents the Internet. 
Then you won’t know what hit you! Mwahahahahahahahaha…
“Exterminate! Exterminate!”
A few years ago, it occurred to me that a perfect entry for the late-nite infomercial market (or checkout-line impulse-buy racks) would be a small hinged hood you could stick on top of your alarm clock to cover the snooze button. You could flip it over to block access to the snooze button when you absolutely, positively have to get up the next morning and can’t risk a sleepy snooze-tap past your regular habit. You wouldn’t be able to unlatch it one-handed; it would require a second hand for operation.
The device would be made of cheap plastic, and would be two separate but closely fitting pieces so you could slide it wider or narrower to fit the snooze button on your particular clock-radio or alarm. There would be adhesive pads with peel-off paper on the two ends. Total cost to manufacture, maybe a buck. Cost on the shelf, eight bucks. Cost on the infomercial, $19.99, but you get four of ‘em plus a couple o’ click-lights.
Hardly a world-changing proposition like artificial intelligence or superefficient batteries, but I bet there’d be a market for it.
Have you ever watched rodeo bull-riding? Ever so often, the fool on the bull gets his hand tangled up in the rigging, and proceeds to get pounded all over the arena until the clown gets him loose.
Why not have a seat belt type buckle in the harness that is also hooked up to a garage door opener, that some official can press, release the rigging, and save one cowboy butt-stomping.
Or would that ruin the whole macho 'I sure got my ass kicked at Calgary" image?
I would invent a way for someone else to go the the loo for me…
It’s just such a pain in the arse when you’re drinking in the pub, you break the seal and you have to go every half hour…
I think someone should invent an “alarm” for apartment dwellers for the laundry room. You put your stuff in the machine…punch in your apt. number (phone number) and when the stuff is done it rings in your apartment.
Also (can you guess I just moved into an apartment) there should be a dial or something on these “low flow” toilets so that if you have, er, something a bit larger than normal you could put the flush on a higher level.
not that this happened to me this weekend or anything.
Cervaise - I’m pretty bad about hitting that snooze alarm too many times. Hell, if hitting the snooze alarm in your sleep was a sport I’d be a gold medalist. I’ve been known to hit the button for 4 hours sometimes. I solved this by buying a rather loud alarm clock and putting it across the room and setting it for 10 minutes past the one next to my bed. The only way to turn it off is to get out of bed. Since I’m out of bed already, why not hit the can? Say, the shower’s next to the throne, let’s wash up. Before I know it, I’m ready for work.
Tir Tinuviel - I s’pose you could get a catheter and one of those urine bags until your invention comes along. Just don’t expect anyone to try any pickup lines on you…
I think Jorel’s got the most sensible idea with the laundry room invention. I’m betting that someone could bang out the design, make a prototype and install it in an apartment building within six months.
holds up a drawing Does this plasma rifle that I designed count?
You load a hydrogen cartridge in, and the gas is superheated via a small chunk of plutonium. The heat from the fission of the plutonium is chanelled along osmium coils, transforming the hydrogen into plasma, pull the trigger, and…wait. The whole thing would just explode, wouldn’t it?
Does this plasma bomb I designed count?
Oh shit, that reminds me.
Thanks!