Have you ever been barbecuing or travelling with you bike or done some other outdoor activity, and you looked at the overcast sky worrying when exactly it was gonna start raining? Well, when the rain finally hits you, it has already been falling for some time (a minute or possibly more). So I'm wondering if it's possible to create a cheap device that'll detect the exact moment the rain starts falling and warn you. A minute advance notice can be extremely valuable - you can evacuate...

When you can't find what you're looking for in a shop, you'll ask the clerk. But what if the same thing happens to you at a fleamarket? The solution: special fleamarket guides who help you find what you're looking for. There could be specially trained people who are in charge of a certain stretch of the fleamarket and can tell you what's going on. If it's too much to remember (possibly!), the stands could also enter their stuff into a database, so everybody would know that e.g. stand...

There are several European countries (Ireland, Norway) where you're not allowed to smoke in public bars. However, the law isn't explicitly against smoking in bars, it just says that smoking at the work place is prohibited - and bars are the working places of bar tenders and waiters. The obvious solution would be to create automatic bars - places where nobody works and you can buy the beer by tossing coins into a slot machine. Or put the barmaids into a plexiglass box where they can...

I can remember that someone invented a video recorder years ago that was supposed to omit the commercial breaks when recording a movie. I guess the system wasn't fail-safe, so it never made it to my home. Anyway, it should be much easier to cut off all the talking from a radio station. I've given up listening to our local radio stations a long time ago because of all the commercials and brainless blabla, but if all the talking could be replaced by silence (or maybe by music from...

It's the disgusting side of summer: You get into a tram on a hot day, and the air is filled with the smell of old sweat. Wisely, the constructors of trams have mounted the bars to hold on to well above your head (I think it's like that in every country) to ensure that there will always be a fresh supply of stale smells. This way, everybody can point their spelly armpits directly at your face (and nose). I propose that there should be a mandatory deo spray in every car. This way,...

I usually don't carry a wallet with me, so if I take a credit or ATM card along, I typically put it into a pocket of my pants. When you keep sitting on your plactic cards, they will start to bend, and eventually break (so you will have to get a new one). I propose that plastic cards come in two flavors - the usual straight type, and a second model that comes with a natural curve. Of course, using a more elastic material might also work.

Now I wonder why nobody ever came up with this one... If you have EVER been biking with a mixed group of people, you'll have noticed that it's always the same thing: the guys wait for the girls, the girls wait for the smokers, those with the coolest equipment wait for those with the... well, uncoolest equipment. The bike handicapper solves this issue by making biking a social experience again (if it ever was). You attach the handicapper to the hub, enter the handicap of the OTHER...

In times where the US are trying to spread their home-made type of democracy all over the world, it's time to think about new forms of government. I'll call my invention "Automatocracy" - the idea is that elections should be abolished, instead the results should be created by a random generator. The most important achievement of democracy (as opposed to monarchy or dictatorship) is the regular rotation of government. Automatocracy would definitely have this advantage - plus a couple of...

I wonder why so many ideas are about inventing the perfect TV... Anyway, here's another one. You probably know those postcards where you can flip the card and suddenly you see a different image. I've also seem money machines where the screen will turn black when you're standing just a few degrees away from the center of the screen. Why not combine both, and invent a TV screen that will show two or even three different programs depending on your viewing angle? Ever noticed that...

Don't know about other people, but I find it particulary rewarding to try out new jobs now and then. I'm not talking about switching companies, but testing my abilities in an entirely DIFFERENT field. After all, everyone has different talents, and no single job or profession satisfies all of them. One thing I find disturbing is that conservatively thinking employers (the vast majority) make this task unnecessarily difficult. Even if they have a position available, most of them refuse...