# Why haven't They invented \_\_\_\_\_\_\_? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 25, 2005, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123 "2005-07-25T22:25:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/101 "2005-07-28T18:43:17Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > What about a microwave clothes Dryer? You still need air flow to remove the moisture. And some sort of tumble mechanism to make sure every piece of clothing is exposed to the air flow. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/102 "2005-07-28T20:52:14Z")
> [@carlotta](#): > > an alarm clock with a number pad so you could just enter the damn time rather than have to speed through all the possible times in 24 hours and then zoom right past the time you need. And would a AM/PM button be so hard? > > Um, and one touch sunscreen. You would squeeze out one blob or apply a patch or something and the stuff would crawl over your whole body on its own. Anybody’s whose ever tried to sunscreen a protesting toddler can see the utility. Sony used to make one. It had a cd player and sold for $300. Still want one? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Dark\_Side\_of\_the\_Floyd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Dark\_Side\_of\_the\_Floyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Side_of_the_Floyd)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/103 "2005-07-28T21:08:39Z")
DDR machine that you can upload your mp3s to. And that would generate steps automatically. ---
**Author:** ![Kiminy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Kiminy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiminy)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/104 "2005-07-28T21:23:23Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > Ok, I want a blanket that will automatically remove itself in the middle of the night. I am often a little chilly when I fall asleep, so I put a thin blanket over the top sheet – only to wake up sweating. So either a blanket that removes itself, or a thermostat for _just_ the bedroom. 🙂 Okay–we have something that works as “a thermostat for \*just \* the bedroom”–a heated waterbed. In the winter, it makes the bed (and the rest of the room, if it’s a small room) very comfortable, even without bed warmers. In the summer, the water in the bed can be chilly enough to suck out excess body heat. Before we had kids, we pretty much turned the heat off at night (well, down to 55F or so) and relied on the bed to keep us (and the cat) warm. After kids came, though, we had to go back to keeping the heat up at night. However, on the blanket idea–this is something I’ve actually been trying to work out for years. Hubby is almost always hot at night, while I am almost always cold. (This is slowly reversing, though, as I enter menopause.) I usually want at least one blanket on me, while hubby often prefers to sleep with nothing but the sheet. However, if he pushes off the blanket, I get uncovered too. If I pull up the blanket, it covers him too much. (The waterbed is a full-wave bed, so the bed is all one temperature.) To solve this problem, I think it would be cool to have split blankets. The bottom 2 feet of the blanket would be the same width as most blankets, so that it can be tucked in easily at the bottom. The rest of the blanket would have a slit in the middle, with each half be slightly wider than half the blanket, with some overlap between the halves. That way one person can fold down his half of the blanket when he’s hot, without disturbing the other person in the bed. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/105 "2005-07-28T23:35:04Z")
Every clock…wristwatch, vcr, cell phone, etc…with a simple radio reciever so the clock can be occasionally synched to the broadcast of an official atomic clock. Simple recording instructions for a vcr: Record channel 6 from 8:30 pm to 10:00 pm enter A natural gas powered car you fill up from a hose in your own home. A clothes dryer with climate control. 😕 See the vent outside during a cold day? Hot Steam wasted. Engineer someway to combine the dehumidifying effect of a refrigerator cooling coil with a heat exchanger, thus you recover the heat going out the vent, but that air is dry, not moist. Clothes get drier, faster. A cheap photoelectric solar panel you can lay on your roof like a tarp and later roll up and put away. ---
**Author:** ![cruel\_butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@cruel\_butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cruel_butterfly)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/106 "2005-07-29T02:21:02Z")
> [@Enola Straight](#): > > Every clock…wristwatch, vcr, cell phone, etc…with a simple radio reciever so the clock can be occasionally synched to the broadcast of an official atomic clock. > > **Simple recording instructions for a vcr:** > > Record > channel 6 > from > 8:30 pm > to > 10:00 pm > enter > A natural gas powered car you fill up from a hose in your own home. > > A clothes dryer with climate control. > 😕 > See the vent outside during a cold day? Hot Steam wasted. > Engineer someway to combine the dehumidifying effect of a refrigerator cooling coil with a heat exchanger, thus you recover the heat going out the vent, but that air is dry, not moist. > Clothes get drier, faster. > > A cheap photoelectric solar panel you can lay on your roof like a tarp and later roll up and put away. [**bolding by me**] I had a VCR once that _was_ this simple. You’d hit the menu button, choose record, select the channel, and start & end times all by inputing the numbers from the keypad. Haven’t seen one like that in a long time. The one I have now has the most cumbersome system for setting up recording time, I don’t even mess with it. ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/107 "2005-07-29T06:56:59Z")
> [@DarkSideoftheFloyd](#): > > DDR machine that you can upload your mp3s to. And that would generate steps automatically. Considering that the technology already exists for those “visualizations” in Windows Media Player, I think this is actually quite feasible. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/108 "2005-07-29T12:23:27Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > Based on the incessant nagging of my wife about junk collecting on the dining room table, I offered to build her a custom table: > > There would be a timer built in to the table that would trigger a lifter mechanism at precisely midnight that would lift the hinged top and dump all of the junk onto the floor. > > After a few broken plates and lost homework assignments, people would learn to always leave the dining room table clean at the end of the day. HA! Except you are breaking Bombecks Third Law: All flat surfaces must be covered in stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/109 "2005-07-29T12:26:58Z")
Regarding the dryer vent wasting heat on a cold day and all that $$$$ going to waste. I asked Mr. Ujest about this and why couldn’t we re-route the venting back into the same room, or even our unheated garage. I hate waste. The reason the venting is that way because of safety reasons. It’s code. If you think about how many home fires are started by dryers it makes sense. Yeah, I am with you on this one. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123/110 "2005-07-29T12:53:38Z")
Code varies, I had a dryer that vented 100% inside my apartment, through a water “filter”. Actually, the hot air just blew over a basin of water before being exhausted into the room. My parents, at one time, had a fixture on their dryer vent that returned some of the warm air to the room. There is nothing particularly dangerous with venting an electric dryer inside. As long as the vent does not get blocked, the only trouble is with lint settling on things. A gas dryer, OTOH, I could see huge problems with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-invented-_______/314123.md?page=5)