Patrick's Invention Ideas

No. 0063 - Occupy Death Star

2011-12-24T08:06:00.016-05:00

The eggshell has never been thinner for the government to walk on than ever. It seems like no matter what they do these day, someone or something or some group or some entity from all walks of life WILL be offended. Well embrace yourselves reader because I'm about to vent.

Why do I feel like I'm the only one who is paying taxes these days? Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the government requires me to pay more just to compensate for other people who doesn't? (Actually wait a minute, doesn't health care works the same way too? I think I'm onto something here!).

But wait, there's more. Last night I learned from NPR about who is going to pay for this two month payroll taxcut. At first I was going expecting them to say the "top 1%", you know, the evil empire ran by Darth Vader himself. And guess what, nope. Not Darth Vader, but the mortgage lenders. And guess who really ends up paying for it? Yep, the ones taking out the mortgage or refinancing (aka people like me). Here is the scenario NPR posed, a $200,000 home on a 30 year fixed rate of 4.25% will be effectively be paying an extra .1%, that equates to about $4000 (and that only pays for the next two months of payroll taxcut).

THAT'S IT! No more of this! We need to have a rebellion. Fuel up the Millennial Falcon because we are going to the Death Star. We will dock all of our spaceships on their docks, that will show them. We will harass all of the storm troopers. "Hey there, you know I have siblings too, but guess what, they don't look like me 'cause I'm NOT CLONED". Where's Luke? Where's the Princess? Where's Hans Solo? Someone should bring Jabba the Hutt too because I think this type of movement should fit pretty well with people (or aliens) like them. Now this is truly what I call the 99% (that's 99% of all living, breathing, crawling, sliming, tenacle-ly things). I can see how these movements are going to play out already. It will take us 6 rounds to successful overthrow the government (and then we'll go back digitally remaster the first three afterwards). Watch out Darth Vader, Palpatine and the rest of Galactic Senate, you may find your Death Star occupied real soon!

No. 0062 - Recessionopoly

2011-12-24T07:05:00.003-05:00

Editorial Note: So I've outsourced my blogging to an unpaid (but highly valued) employee, Sarah Chow aka my wife. Please note that the first-person mentioned has been tainted with the writer's perspective.

I am a big fan of Monopoly. I've already developed two Monopoly inventions on this blog: Invention No. 0043: Monopoly Extended Play and Invention No. 0019: "Communist: The Game. So my natural instinct when I woke up on my own at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning was to play Monopoly on my iPod. And my wife's natural reaction when she woke up to me playing Monopoly at that hour was to tell me 1) go back to sleep and 2) that game doesn't make any sense in today's economy anyway.

Actually, Monopoly is a perfect game for today's economic climate, given that it was first invented in the Great Depression. But I have to agree that some of the details for how to get rich in the game aren't necessarily relevant to the Great Recession. Which is why I'm proposing a few modifications to update Monopoly for today.

Recession Monopoly starts with everyone having property, with each property square having 3 mortgaged houses on it. The goal of the game? Have no mortgages. The first person to either pay off or discard all their homes wins. When you land on someone's property, you have to take their mortgage. And if you land on your own property, you have to take out a second mortgage.

In Recession Monopoly, borrowing money is easy and spending it is encouraged. Things will be a little more interesting with the Chance and Community Chest cards, too. They'll include cards such as "CEO parachute: collect 50% of all other player's cash and spend half a turn in jail"; "Invent an Apple iProduct: collect $500 from other players"; "Discover your investments are in European bonds: pay $750 to the bank"; "Sue for miscellaneous damages: collect $500 from the bank"; etc. And in addition to losing to the ordinary tax cards (which already go straight to the bank and not into the schools and roads they claim to), you can cash in big with a government bailout card (applicable only to the player already in the lead).

Would a game this painful be successful? It shouldn't be, but do the right thing for the economy: increase your consumer spending and buy it.

No. 0061 - Wife-Fi

2011-10-21T21:37:00.015-04:00

Last week at the mall we walked past the Apple store and saw a line with about a hundred people in it. I thought, "did Apple decide to open up a club in the middle of the mall? ... oh wait, they are all Apple geeks waiting to buy the new iPhone."

Don't get me wrong: I think the iPhone 4 is a pretty awesome device. I mean, who doesn't want constant web access, GPS support and Facebook stalking at a push of an app. But who needs an iPhone when you have Wife-Fi!?

My wife and I recently have been house hunting. I had yesterday off from work so I decided to drive around to check out some of these places that our realtor sent us. Here I am at the first house as I'm peeking in through the windows like a burglar to see what's inside. Lo and behold, there is a SKELETON hanging in the middle of the garage. Then my logically brain kicks in and thought "I wonder if this place has central AC? ... TO THE WIFE-FI!" Speed dial the wife at work and BINGO - MLS listing. After a short discussion of my assessment of the property with my wife, then on to the next place. I ended the call saying "oh yeah, by the way there is a skeleton hanging in the middle of a dusty garage."

Now when you have a GPS that has been out of date for the last 2 years like mine, you would find Wife-Fi very useful too. Considering the next place that I was going to check out is a spanking new home, the street was probably paved yesterday. So I speed dial the wife again, and BLAMO! ... turn by turn directions to my next destination. Can you just feel the sheer awesomeness of this invention yet?! I mean, does your GPS or iPhone say "I love you!" or "see you at dinner!" every time you turn it off? (Oh and let's not also forget the live traffic report update feature as well. "How's the I90 doing? Are the Bruins or Red Sox playing tonight AGAIN! because that usually means gridlock" Very cool feature.)

When you think about it, Wife-Fi really is a simple invention. All you need is a phone and a wife. It is safe to use because you don't have to push any buttons while driving or look into any screens at all. Just a simple speed dial and you're there; instant spousal IT support. I love my Wife(-Fi)!

No. 0060 - Sarah "The Wife"

2011-05-23T22:12:00.020-04:00

I think marriage is rather a genius invention. Two people coming together, sharing everything, co-habitating, co-cooking, car-pooling and etc. etc. I honestly think the global energy crisis can be solved if more people would get married and live together just because life becomes so much more efficient that way. But I don't want to talk about the invention of marriage, I want to talk about . . . Sarah "the Wife".

We actually address each other by that title. Everyday I come home and I would say "hello Wife". Sarah would reply "Husband?!" I'm not bringing this up to be sappy but really, marriage is great. Why? Well for starters, my wife Sarah always spoils me. I asked her to stop but she won't. She would always try to pull a double-reverse-psychology on me. Say it is dinner time and she doesn't want to have pizza. Then I would ask what would she like for dinner. She will stick to neutrality like a snapping turtle onto a fish. After much interrogation of non-option from her part, I'd say "let's have Chinese". Then she'll say "yeah, let's have Chinese" with that enthusiastic smile that she always have. Me, being wishy-washy as I always am, would then say "nah, lets do pizza". Then my sweet wife would say "YEAH!! we haven't had pizza for a long time! I know a place". The inconsistency of enthusiasm is usually what gives it away but I don't always pick up on it. It isn't usually until afterwards or during dinner when she only eats 1/3 of a slice. I would then point out "uh, so I guess you didn't want pizza huh". Then she'll be like "yeah". You see what I'm talking about? It's like she is conning me into doing something that she doesn't like just because she knows that's what I want. Who does that? Nobody but Sarah "the Wife".

One thing that really drew me to her in the first place (besides her stunning beauty and quirk) is her brain. I'm not speaking from a standpoint of a zombie but her mind is truly one of beauty and smarts. I can always take my petty spelling questions to her and she would never judge me. She would proof read my stuff all the time. She knows I hate to write formal business emails to lame people like the United Airline or the postcard printing place, so she'll just do it for me. Besides being a quick-witted-beauty, her brain is also very accommodating. Before we were dating, she doesn't listen to NPR 'cause she said it was boring. Now she forces upon herself to listen to it all the time just so that she can bring interesting stories home to tell me about. Now that we've been married for two months, we religiously listen to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and she would totally slaughter me on Listener Limerick Challenge (I can never get those things!).

Sarah "the Wife" is truly one of the best invention that ever happened to me and am glad that I get to be Patrick "the Husband". I love her dearly. I just would like to point out that while I was writing this blog, Sarah woke up several times, smiled, snuggled closer, said something incoherent and went right back to sleep. Isn't that just pure adorableness?!

PS - Sweetie, I'm sure there are a handful of grammatical errors in this piece, you don't judge right?

No. 0059 - Wi-Fi Mothers

2010-05-08T14:27:00.000-04:00

When I was traveling through China about a month ago, I overheard something that caught my attention: a mother turned to her young son, about 8 or 9 years old, and asked if he needed to go pee. My first thought was, "This boy is walking and talking and everything." I wasn't bright or gifted or anything but I can vaguely remember that when I was 8 or 9, I KNEW when I needed to go pee and didn't need any reminders. My second thought was, "How come this reminds me so much of my own mother?" I can't remember any particular recent incident but I'm sure my mother has uttered those words even in my adult age (I'm sure she said something like this the last time she visited me here in Boston). Sad, I know, but then there is something that is worth discussing here.

You see, for as annoying and embarrassing as these pee reminders may be, more often than not they hit it dead on (at least with me), as if there is this mysterious connection between children and their mothers. It is almost like there is this full bars Wi-Fi connection. This is something that neither needs to be invented or manufactured: it is inherent! Isn't that scary? What's even scarier is that this connection is not password-protected, so she can tap in anytime she wants. If there are anything that needs to be invented, it is on stuff that can regulate this connection for privacy's sake. Something like "Norton Anti-Mom" or "Mother Firewall."

Bladder urges are just one of the many things that a mother has access to via this WiFi connection, I'm afraid. With my mother, I don't know how but she can even hack past my "shared folders" in this "network connection." I've experienced 3 major breakups in my life, and 2 out of 3 times, she called it dead on within 6-7 days of the occurrence without my saying anything at all. My mother usually works long hours so we hardly have any chances to talk on the phone. We exchange short emails and gchat occasionally, but conversations there rarely gets deep enough to talk about girls. At first I thought maybe Facebook had something to do with it, but I think I do a pretty good job of keeping my profile neutral. I like to reason with empirical evidence and I think 2 out of 3 times is pretty good: that's better than a 50% chance. In fact, she probably missed incident #1 only because I jumped the gun and told her, so I may have stolen her thunder there.

Also, another thing I've learned about a mother's Wi-Fi connection is that it not only works on her own sons but also on "across son's network." When I was still in college, I always hung out at my church's Institute of Religion between classes. When I was there, I usually did a variety of things: do homework, attend classes, play pool, talk with people, general goof off stuff. One day, a senior sister missionary there (Sis. Peterson for those who remember) came up to me and said, "You can't play the piano today because they are doing something to the carpet in the room." That comment blew my mind: How did she know that I wanted to play the piano? I do not play regularly but instead on an impulse (in fact I don't think I ever decided to play more than 5 mins before I decided that I wanted to), so I don't think it was a pattern recognition on her part. I asked her how she knew that I wanted to go play then, and she said it has something to do with my making popcorn at the microwave. I was like, "What?! That made no sense!"

Considering this is Mother's Day, this one is for you Mom. I know I don't say it enough, but I love you (but you would know this already since you have this transcontinental Wi-Fi connection on me). Happy Mother's Day!

No. 0058 - Flushable Microwave

2010-04-02T23:39:00.000-04:00

I hate cleaning microwaves. Our hands and arms are not good with cleaning rectangular internal spaces, especially at the height they are typically situated which is either counter top or slightly above eye level. Even if you don't mind twisting your arm and wrist to reach inside a box, the stains are harder than most to clean. Debris usually have hardened by the time you get to them which would require more effort on your part to remove. Even after you have cleaned it, it only takes one bowl of curry to bring you back to square one. That is why I'm obsessed about using a plastic cover thing to prevent any food eruption debris from getting on the inside walls of my microwave. But even then, my cover has such low profile that the roof of the cover would dip inside my food as things are being nuked. As a result, the cover would melt a little bit.

At first I thought, wouldn't it just be easier if the inside of the microwave has a spherical shape instead of a rectangular shape. At least that may be easier on the wrist when people go clean it with a sponge. But the greater idea came as my friends and I were discussing this over dinner. What if the microwave is flushable?! Awesome! Put whatever nasty gooey food you have in your microwave. Cook it for hours if you so wish so half of the content ends up on the inside walls of the microwave. So while the food is still fresh and liquidy on the wall, just close the door and push on a lever (or a plumb bob on a rope for the real old school style flusher) and swish goes the debris. How awesome is that?!

*Note: this invention was a collaborative effort of Raj, Jenny, Jacqueline and myself. I give credit where credit is due.

No. 0057 - Smooth Braking Assistance

2010-03-13T08:43:00.000-05:00

I few weeks ago, I was returning back to Hong Kong from a remote village in China as I found myself on a bus ride that have inspired this invention. In fact, I was mentally writing this as I was stuck in this "less than ideal" situation. Let me explain.

It has been 3 days since I've been visiting the more remote parts of China. Though I had a great trip in the Kaiping county seeking out my ancestors, I was ready to head back home to Hong Kong. I was tired, out of fresh laundry and was ready to head back to civilization. However, what stood between me and Hong Kong was this 4 hour bus ride. Since it was the end of a weekend, a lot of people were trying to head down as well. Needless to say, the bus was packed. The bus trip started out fine and we were cutting through traffic like a hot knife through a stick of butter. However, my joyride ended about 2 hours later when I woke up to a dead stop. Traffic Jam!! I'm typically pretty optimistic about traffic jams but this one is an absolute doozy. What made this even worse is that I've realize the bus driver can't drive for the life of him. He doesn't seem to know how to ease the gas and brake pedals. He would gun it for 3 inches to come to a screeching halt. He guns it enough that you would feel the pressure in the back of your seat and he would brake enough that you would lean forward. Imagine this for the following 3 hours of your life. It was miserable.

It is now 7pm and already 1 hour behind schedule. Still stuck in the traffic jam and I was starting to get a bit hungary 'cause it was dinner time. Out of no where I smelled this cheese like smell which triggered me to crave lasagna (I've been away from the states for almost 2 weeks at this point and I was pretty sick of Chinese food). But right at that moment, in the cabin of this quiet bus, I heard this noise that send chills down my spine, it sounded like this "uuururrrrghhhg, uuururrrghhg, rrrurrghurhg!". That wasn't cheese!! Someone is blowing chunks on the bus because the bus driver doesn't know how to ease the stupid brakes!! Then it became clear unto me as I see Grandma two rows up has been emptying her box of tissue to her family members (plural) on the left and right and handing out plastic bags. I thought "Grandma, THANK YOU for carrying random plastic bags with you!!!". Then it all clicked for me, "I thought I've been hearing some kid coughing in the back of the bus for the past hour but the coughing sound didn't quite follow through . . . oh my goodness, I hope there is a grandma back there too handing out plastic bags".

The smell is absolutely overwhelming at this point of the trip and I still got 2-3 hrs ahead of me. I thought about getting up to get my earbuds so I can at least mask out the barfing chorus in the background but I didn't want to stand up; I was afraid what I was going to see. It was just then I heard this toddler in the back said "I need to go poop". Now if I was in the US, I wouldn't have feared but China don't exactly uphold the same cleanliness standards. Once again, I've been visiting China for 2 weeks, I've "seen" things. I was hesterical by now. I actually laughed out loud. I thought this is one of those situations that can not possibly get any worse. Actually, now that I think back, the guy next to me probably had it worse - barfy passengers, pooping kids and a crazy guy that is laughing for no reason (Dude, if you are reading this, I'm not crazy). I looked back at my mother who sits behind me, she chuckled and threw a jacket over her head.

As I reflect on this experience, I can't blame the people for barfing. No body in their right mind would ever want to vomit for the heck of it. I can't blame the kid for having No. 2 urges, nature calls happen. Can't blame the traffic, it's the weekend. But the driver, the driver's foot is to blame. Only if he would know how to ease, all this would have been averted.

No. 0056 - 3D Clone Brush

2010-01-17T08:10:00.001-05:00

Clone brush is the greatest Photoshop tool ever! For those who are not familiar with clone brush, here goes the crash course. Once you have selected the clone brush tool in Photoshop, you can point your target at any part of the picture and while holding down Alt, left click so the program would register where you want to start copying from. Then, point your pointer somewhere else in the picture and mouse left click. Now you will see your original registered image location showing up in your current target location. Move your mouse around and you will see portion of your image from your original location showing up in your current location; essentially copying and pasting within the same picture.

Typically this tool is used for covering blemishes in a photo such as dust, specks, hairs and other common photography noises in a picture. Great for cover pimples on people's faces or even an open fly. Personally, what's even funnier is giving people third arms or Chinese eyes (good times!).

Then I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have a 3D clone brush? Say you are at dinner and you are still hungry after your portion. Just take out your clone brush and target your sibling's pork chop and eureka! More pork chop for you! Is someone annoying the heck out of you at work from talking too much? Target your co-work's face and clone away their mouth! (This maybe a problem when you decide to give them a mouth back because technically, he or she would never get their original mouth back, maybe this 3D clone blush should have an option to clone from a 2D picture as well). Need an extra hand to do some thing? Want to learn how to fly with wings? Want to have jet engines sticking out of your shoulders? . . . . you get the idea.

No. 0054 - Self Folding Clothes

2009-12-09T22:58:00.000-05:00

I tell my friends all the time that to be an engineer is really a sick way of being lazy; "sick" as in we work really hard to come up with ideas and gadgets that would allow us all to be lazier. I think the invention of the Segway is the perfect example. I'm sure numerous engineers have spent countless hours in researching and developing this technology, but to what cause? To substitute one of the most basic function of our everyday lives - walking.

I'm going to explore this laziness a little further. I personally hate folding clothes after laundry. I've always thought that whoever invented the washer and dryer, why couldn't have they just gone the extra mile and invent a clothes folder. Here is my invention, and it all boils down to one key technology that has been around for a long time - the answer is shape memory alloy or SMA. SMA is a material that you can deform in any manner you want, but upon applying heat or electrical current, the metal will automatically return to its original shape. The last time I learned about this technology, people were thinking about developing artificial limbs with this material because they mimic the function of muscle cells so much.

Here is how I would use this material in clothes. Imagine a t-shirt with SMA strands along all the crease line. With all the strands hooked up to a tiny permanent connector on the shirt, all you would need to do is plug the shirt in and it would fold itself. Better yet, if we use the heat sensitivity SMA, then all we would need to do is throw the clothes into the dryer and they will come out folded. How cool is that? I actually did some youtube research before I wrote this blog and guess what? People have already integrated heat SMA with textile, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdRRy7hItgI.

No. 0053 - A Girl Named "NPR"

2009-11-24T22:55:00.001-05:00

If NPR (National Public Radio) is a girl, I would ask her to marry me. She is funny. She is smart. She is witty. She always have something interesting to tell me. She cares about things that really matter in the world today, yet she is never too busy to tell me a few random fun facts (picking lock for a sport! who would have thought!? http://www.wbur.org/2009/11/19/locksport).

She introduces me to new music all the time. And we are not talking about playing the same pop song every three hours like most others but instead excerpt of songs from rising stars from all sorts of genre (she introduced me to Zee Avi, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a46VZ-dE8-4).

She is unbiased on most political views, but yet she is not a push over even in front of the most formidable figure. She examines topics from all angles allowing me the freedom to process the information in which ever manner I wish.

She asks intelligent questions which often times does a good job of stirring up my brain juices, while at the same time also asks questions that make me feel.

She likes to talk science on Fridays (Science Friday) which combines two of my all time favorite things together: Science and Fridays.

She knows how to fix cars on weekends (Car Talk) but then right after that, she'll jump right into an engaging discussion of making fun of current events (Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me), which is also one of my favorite things to do and that is poking fun at whatever.

Though she does repeat herself during the night time (in some places Latin music) but I don't mind.

She is way popular, with lots of people always trying to call her. One time I've finally mustered up enough courage to call her to voice an opinion but her line was busy. I was pretty crushed.

And you know this attraction is 100% genuine and not one bit shallow because she doesn't even have a body or a face.

Some of you may say, "wow, Patrick has really lost it this time" or "that last breakup must have really messed him up in the head!" Messed up in the head? Maybe. But one thing I do know from an interest-based analysis standpoint, that if NPR is a girl, I would find her dang attractive.

Disclaimer: Please don't interpret this as "Patrick's Future (Human) Wife Wish List". I'll never post such a thing, even though this would be pretty close. If you follow this blog regularly, you would know that the spirit of this blog is an attempt to approach everything in life analytically. Please don't consider me crazy. Thank you.

No. 0052 - Vacation Sync

2009-11-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

Just a few weeks back, I had some of old college friends visit me from the west coast. In the mean time, I took some vacation to go with them on a road trip to visit another college friend of ours in DC. Needless to say, there were a lot of planning involved but nevertheless, they were good times. Idealistically speaking, I wished some of my other friends would have been able to join us for the reunion tour but because now that we all have graduated and have moved on with our lives, it is getting harder and harder to sync up our PTO to go on a trip together just like the good old days. When we were still in college, syncing holidays are easy because we all went to the same school so we would share holidays. But now that we all work, PTO's can be taken anytime in the year. Unless you plan something out a year in advance, taking vacation as a bunch of friends is nearly impossible. I wish there is some program out there that would simply sync up our holidays, you know, kind of like black out dates. So say you are trying to book a flight for a family reunion, this program would automatically bounce back an error saying "Black out dates! You need to save your PTO and money for the camping trip next month!". Or say you are trying to get marry, have kids and start a family and stuff "Black out dates! Can't get marry until after your road trip to Mexico!" I would imagine a program like this would have only 2 outcomes: (1) all the friends would be able to meet up and have a great time on a vacation together or (2) you would lose a lot of good friends really fast.

No. 0051 - 6 Sigma Idiot

2009-10-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

Currently at work, I've been assigned to a project where I have to design a capbank (as in a collection of capacitors housed in one box). Now for those of you who are not familiar with capacitors, they are more or less like a battery. Actually, a lot of them do shape like a battery, but unlike any traditional batteries from the grocery stores, if you touch the terminals, the chances are you will get a good jolt depending on the capacitance. The general rule is you don't touch them unless you have touch the terminals with a screw driver (with an insulated handle of course) first to discharge it.

As my teammates and I are about done with designing this thing, of course safety people would have to review it before it gets built. In my previous experience, these meetings never go well. They have always caused me nothing but a great deal of frustrations and anguish. Now don't get me wrong, I'm an advocate for safety but I'm just not sure if these meetings does the job. I usually call them the "What If" meetings because that is pretty much what the safety guys do; proposing a list of "what if" scenarios with an increasing order of ridiculousness. Here is usually how they go.

Safety Guy (SG): What if the operator forgets to discharge the capacitors?
Design team (DT): We've designed it to discharge automatically.
SG: Then what if the discharge is not quick enough?
DT: We can design it to make it real labor intensive to dissemble so it will take longer.
SG: How about what if it blows up. . . spontaneously?
Me in my head: The box is freakn' Aluminum!!
SG: What if the operator is really good at unscrewing screws and pulling things apart?
Me in my head: Then he deserves to get fried!? Anyone would know better than to treat lightly of MULTIPLE capacitors that are each a size of a SODA CAN!
SG: What if some one forgets to turn off everything?
Me in my head: What if the operator licks the terminals?! Come on?!?

My dilemma is where exactly should this "what if" game stop? The whole idea is to protect people from doing dumb things and hurting themselves in the process, but is there a measurement to that? To what level of idiots am I suppose to protect? Is there a measurement of idiocy? I propose that there should be one. In my everyday design tasks, we often deal with the term "6 sigma". A sigma is a standard deviation. So what 6 sigma really means is whatever we design, the final distribution curve of this thing should fit within a 6 standard deviation window or roughly 99.99966% of the time. Or in another word, whatever it is that I'm designing, it better work 99.99966% of the time. Now take that same paradigm and apply it to measuring idiots. Given a normal distribution (or bell curve). The middle bulk part would represent people with average intelligence. People to the right and left edge of the curve would represent the extreme genius and idiots, respectively. With such a curve, I think the safety guy will have a better idea of where should the "what if" questions stop because now there is a demarcation of idiots that can be saved (near the left edge of the curve but within the 6 sigma window) and those that may just jump into a swimming pool with a live capbank, what I also call the "6 sigma idiots" or people outside the left side of the bell curve.

***Note: Knock on wood, knock on wood, rabbit's foot . . . that I won't become that 6 sigma idiot and fry myself.

No. 0050 - Thoughts Separator

2009-05-23T20:14:00.001-04:00

Has anyone ever suffers from a collision of thoughts? Let me explain. Sometimes, when either people ask me a question or I'm just thinking or pondering about something, several great ideas/thoughts/answers would arrive in my head at the exactly same time or in quick rapid firing sequence. As a result, the ideas would collide with each other and I would end up instantaneously forgetting them all. It is actually quite annoying and I wonder if this is an actual disease.

The worst thing about thoughts collision (we'll call it TC for now) isn't just the deletion of the first few good ideas/comments, the worst is when the dumb and irrelevant ideas that trickles in afterward. So for people like me who has a "direct-brain-to-mouth" syndrome (bad combo with TC), it is surely a double whammy.

I was sitting in Sunday School once and the teacher asked one of those "what do you think" type question. There was a pause then TC happened to me, but by then my hand was already half way up, it was too late. Sure enough, I lost all the good comments and the stupid irrelevant one was made (I know, because the teacher had to do some polite patch up work to my comment to bring it back into the topic). After that, some other people raised their hands and gave the respond that I would have given almost verbatim. In my mind, I threw my hands up and said, "that's what I was going to say!!" (felt like an idiot).

I think what I need (and those who suffers from TC) is a thought separator that would work like an inbox to an email account. Something that would capture it all in a flash so I can go back and review them one by one. Even better, have a spam filter that would filter out all the dumb and irrelevant stuff (you see it just happened to me right now, when I typed "spam", I thought, "hmmm maybe I should have spam for dinner"). That would be the best. Or maybe something that would at least slow down the sequence of ideas coming into my head. Only if I can digest each ideas individually, I think I would be a much much much smarter person, instead of being that weirdo that makes irrelevant off-topic comments at church.

No. 0049 - 25 Random Things About Me

2009-02-08T23:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, this is not really my invention. I'm just following the crowd with this whole "25 random things about you" movement. In fact at one point, I vowed to not do it but then again, here I am simply because I get bored very easily. To be quite honest, I'm only adding this as an invention idea because I didn't want to mess up my whole invention motif to my notes section in my Facebook. Here are the instructions that I guess we are suppose to copy and paste at the beginning. My 25 follows that. Enjoy.

Suggested Guidelines: Once tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You are supposed to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.

1. It seems like I do not have any short term memory. If you physically bump me, I would forget even faster as if thoughts are falling out of my ear. I also can’t retain anything if multiple thoughts arrive at the same time (I get real frustrated when that happens).

2. I can only breathe through one nostril at a time and my nose choices which nostril to breathe through (It would often reroute the airflow at random times of the day). But when it gets mad or irritated, it would just block both passages. (You can suffocate me just by covering my mouth).

3. I once had a pet “cyclop-ed” parakeet as a child (no I did not hurt it nor did I get it from a pirate) probably because it watched too much TV.

4. I asked Roseanne out to a dance as our first date but she wasn’t feeling well, so I bought her a tube of Airborne as our date gift.

5. Whenever I get hungry back in college, I just go open up my fridge and cabinets, and my appetite would go away. (It still works sometimes these days).

6. I like tripe (the Chinese way).

7. For the longest time, I thought the thundering and misting of the vegetables in grocery stores is all apart of “Plant Psychology”, as in we are trying to trick the plant to think that it is still in the fields therefore have reasons to stay alive and fresh.

8. I once had a very heated argument (even to tears) with my cousins when I was ~8 about how ants don’t have any eyes. (I was behind the no-eyes proposition).

9. Unlike most Asians, I hate seafood.

10. I used to think 99 degrees was cool, but now I think 30+ is warm.

11. I prefer noodles rather than rice.

12. I once installed my camera in my friend’s RC plane, flew it above the mountain ranges and captured movie of the Pacific Ocean.

13. I have only ditched class twice in my entire life besides honest sick day. I faked sick once in 3rd grade and I ditched a welding lecture once just so that I can make it to this professor’s office hour.

14. I get noxious when I smell Spaghettio because back in 6th grade, my science teacher used it to represent intestines to a fake murder scene at the baseball field. He was trying to teach us the Scientific Method.

15. I love McDonald fries.

16. I get annoyed when I see little kids wearing their soccer cleats off the field (e.g. grocery stores, downtown sidewalks).

17. If I didn’t become an engineer, I would have been an architect. (And if not that, then a photographer)

18. I learned how to speak fluent English from watching the Simpsons and Full House.

19. My first crush on a foreigner (Caucasian) was the girl in Labyrinth when I was a little boy. (I’ve recently found out that the girl happens to be Sarah Connelly, who ironically is also the star to A Beautiful Mind, my number one favorite movie of all times. Roseanne accuses me of sub-consciously favoring that movie not because of the story but simply because Sarah Connelly is in it. I dispute that accusation, John Nash is awesome . . . for the most part).

20. I have driven to places before where I would be so tired when I was driving that I forgot how I got to a certain places. (For example, I once drove from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara during the night. I was so tired, that I’ve pretty much shut down my brain to the lowest running capability as in simply making sure the front of my car is in between the white lines not know where I was going. When I’ve received full mental power again, I did not remember driving through the switch backs or the tunnel of the 101 and I’ve noticed the ocean to my right. Cold sweat ran down my back as I’ve realized I’ve just cheated death. I’ve vowed to never do that again.)

21. Drinking Gatorade makes me thirstier.

22. I have yet to finishing up using an entire stick of chapstick but I’ve set that as one of the many goals in my life.

23. I hold my breath when I remove the lens of my camera.

24. I despise, loathe and can’t stand the High School Musical and all other teenie bopper movies like it. (Get real and get a job! . . . excuse my candor).

25. I hate insects of all sorts, especially those that can fly and may freak out on you. My general rule is if you have more than two pair of legs, I probably won’t like you.

No. 0048 - Wild Card Birthday

2009-01-27T22:41:00.000-05:00

I am going to be 29 soon. And it feels a lot like someone is holding my feet to the fire. Every year that goes by, someone is pulling me incrementally closer to the fire and by the time I hit 30, that's when I go up in flames. I think that is a pretty accurate description of how I feel about my age. Since I've moved to Massachusetts, I've been looking out for a soccer league to join. They have leagues for all ages but one thing that bothers me is that they called the 30 and plus years old team "Over-the-hill league". I didn't realize I was so close to the top of the hill?! How come no one warned me about this hill?! I didn't realized I was even climbing this hill?! I thought I was still in the FOOT-hills!

I'm sure a lot of you out there are dreading to have that "3" sneak up into the tens unit of you age. The 20's were great, weren't they? You're out of the house on your own so you can have ice cream for dinner and stay out 'till 3 in the morning. You can be a couch potato or sit in front of your computer for days, but still be able to get on your feet and play some hardcore ultimate Frisbee for hours and hours without complaining "my knees are hurting". If I can choose to be 20's forever, I would. Even if I can stay in the 20's for just one more year, I would do it. That's is why my invention this month is called the Wild Card Birthday.

Here is how it works. Everybody get issued a wild card that they can keep. During any part of their life, that person may use it to legally keep the same age for another year. That simple. So if I have such a wild card, I would use it during my next birthday and give myself a second 28th birthday party (all are invited). I mean seriously, who really cares about age anyway; it's all relative. Did you feel any different when you turned 24? Not really (at least not for me). Legally you didn't really gain anything unlike 21. But will I feel something when I cross over to the 30's? Heck yes I will because I would be branded as over-the-hill according to the MPS (Mass Premier Soccer). Considering average lifespan in the US is in the hi 70's and low 80's, what is it going to hurt if we can just roll back our age by one year? That's only roughly 1.25% of our entire lifespan.

No. 0047 - Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V Appreciation Day

2008-12-19T16:46:00.000-05:00

As Christmas is fast approach in this holiday season, it is very important for us to be a little bit more grateful for the things we may have taken for granted during the year. That's is why I'm dedicating this invention to two commands that we all PC users have grown to love: copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V). I use them so much that I think the left Ctrl key on my work keyboard is probably the shiniest key from my pinky polishing it every time that I pressed it.

We all have used them, probably on a daily basis. What is so great about them is that they are universal commands that can be used between different programs, even outside the realm of the "World of Microsoft Word" (WoMW). My favorite 'inter-program-Ctrl-C&V-ing' is pulling stuff off of Adobe Acrobat/Reader. It is so easy, sometimes I feel like I'm plagiarizing. If you are reading something online and don't understand a certain word or phrase and it doesn't have a link? No worries, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V and Google search in the corner will save the day. Got a long string of numbers such as credit card numbers? Ctrl+C & V will take care of you. Another favorite Ctrl+C & Ctrl+Ving moment of mine is when I'm pulling a JPEG from the web or pdfs to put into my power point. You see, I have a pep-peeve of saving separate JPEGs onto my hard drive and then insert my pictures into my document from my hard drive. My goal has always been to keep my HD as lean as possible and Ctrl+C&V allows me to bypass saving anything.

Today at work, I wrote 400-500 lines of code in Matlab in one sitting. How was I able to achieve that you may ask? Nothing but a little magic that I pulled with my pinky and ring finger. Some of you that are more programming savvy may ask "if you need to use copy & paste so much, why don't you just write some loops instead?" My answer to you is that it's complicated, OK!!!

Let us not take things for granted this holiday season and appreciate something that is so simple yet so powerful such as these two quick key commands. Maybe the next time you are cleaning and dusting your keyboard, you can give the Ctrl, C and V key an extra shine so they would stand out amongst all the other keys on the keyboard. Or maybe give those three buttons a tune up/check up every once in awhile. The Ctrl key is very prone to looseness since it typically sits on the corner of the keyboard. And lets not forget that 'C' and 'V' also has double duties serving as 2 of the 26 members of our alphabets ('C' probably gets used more so if you have to pick a favorite one to baby, I would pick C). Since the holiday seasons are also about being a little nicer than usual, I'll also give a shout out to the Apple's Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V counterparts: Apple+C & Apple+V (Unix's 'highlight' and 'double mouse button/middle mouse' are not bad either). I invite all to share their favorite copy and paste moments as we celebrate Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V Appreciation Day.

Note* Ctrl+X is not too bad either, but I don't use it nearly as much. I think Ctrl+X is a bit more barbaric than Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V, as I may accidentally delete stuff when I don't mean to (back-to-back Ctrl+X action will do that to you). Maybe next year I may grow comfortable enough to appreciate it as well. Ctrl+Z is a very strong runner-up for next year too.

No. 0046 - Engineers on Wall Street

2008-11-21T22:34:00.001-05:00

Let me try to say this as tactfully as possible; I think all those who works at Wall Street should be fired and replaced with engineers, period! The economy is in trouble, we hear about it everyday; shrinking 401k's, shrinking job markets, shrinking GDP and etc. People are pointing fingers at each other playing the blame game. In own opinion, I couldn't really find anyone else to blame besides the greed of Wall Street and those who works there. Let me explain to you why I think an engineer (especially ME, AERO, Civil and maybe EEs) would do a better job and we wouldn't have been in this whole mess in the first place if engineers were to call the shot.

My fellow engineering friends or those who have taken more than 2 quarters of college physics can resonant with me on this one. You see, in the engineering field, we all have been exposed to this topic call Thermodynamics. Yes, the dreaded Thermo! I personally never really excelled or found interest in this branch of my ME curriculum , nevertheless, as a helpless engineering student like I was back then, this stuff was beaten into my head. As some of you may painfully recall the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. Let me explain to you how understanding these laws could have prevented us from this whole economic mess.

The first law of thermodynamics pretty much illustrates the fact that energy may be manipulated in any shape or form we want in a closed system, but it all adds up in the end meaning the end states remain fixed. Does Conservation of Energy ring a bell? Energy is neither created or destroyed, that simple. In this economic turmoil that we are living in, credit is rapidly disappearing and prices of things are falling. Why? Because the economy has violated the very fundamentals of the first law. I never quite understood the phrase "money breeds money" because the only way that this could happen is to have someone infusing cash into the system. Not unless we started doing business with the Martians or aliens from out of space, I believe an economy is a closed system. I don't care how global this economy is, it is one giant CLOSED system. Money ought to just flow around and not spontaneously reproduces itself. I don't care how or what kind of business transactions we do, or what "credit default swaps" are performed or however complicated a business deal gets, the ends state is the same meaning if there is $100 running around out there in the economy, then $100 it remains, not $1000 all of a sudden in ten years.

Second law of thermodynamics has to do with entropy. A standard high school definition is that entropy is the measurement of chaos or disorder in the world and that it is constantly increasing (I suppose that is analogous to the way the economy is spinning out of control). For as ominous as that may sound, there is actually more to it. The second law more or less points out how things spontaneously move or go the direction they do. For example, heat transfer naturally goes from hot to cold or pressure always goes from high to low. The key take away point from the second law is its opportunity to do work as energy is spontaneous flowing around. For example, the released pressure may be used to blow into a turbine to do work, or heat released from a hot source could be used to heat the water to create steam power. Same thing with money in the economy, its health (work) is predicated by its flow or liquidity. Oh by the way, one more minor detail about the second law, it is only valid as long as the CONSERVATION OF ENERGY IS SATISFIED!!! Once again, where did all these extra money (aka credit) came from??

As I refer back to my good old trusty thermo book, it actually mentions in a chapter that these theories has been applied to other fields such as psychology and ECONOMY! Now I'm really scratching my head, where are all the engineers on Wall Street? Probably next to none, but instead they are replaced with the type of people that don't have classes on Fridays also known as Cal Poly Business Majors! (Shirk-Dog, this is a satirical piece, you know I love you like a brother man). Am I bitter you may ask? Yeah, I would say. I mean how can I not be when I was drudging my way to my Friday 4 pm continuum mechanics "beat down" midterm when all the business majors are half drunk already. As you can tell by now, I really don't like business people.

Oh and by the way, while I'm on a rant, another profession that I despise - statisticians. Don't "Student-T" me?!?! I save this one for a later day.

No. 0045 - More-than-Full Gas Tank Gauge

2008-10-20T22:06:00.000-04:00

When I first got my driver's license at 18, gas costed $1.13/gal. When I got off my mission in 2001, I can fill up my tank to my Honda around $15. As some of you would have similar memories of the good-old-days of cheap gas, well, I got some bad news for you (and most of you have probably made peace with this thought already), those days are gone! I travel 80 some miles round trip everyday to work in both stop-go and white knuckle speed driving. For as gas efficient as my Civic is, I have to fill it up just about once a week. It has been a very nice treat to see national gas prices dropped about 50 cents/gal recently (I filled up my car from the gas light to full under $30 tonight, I cheered "YESSSSS!" out loud at the gas station), nevertheless, it is still not the good old days.

There are four gauges on my dashboard and it is sad to say that the one gauge I pay most attention to is the gas gauge. Every tick that the needle drops, I drive a little differently. Every tank I go through, it is like an emotional roller coaster. Here is how it usually goes and what I would say to myself:

Full - clean slate, "let's see how for I can go with this one?", "ready for that road trip!"

3/4 tank - "what?! I filled up yesterday?!"

1/2 tank - the long haul, mileage check, "this thing better say at least 150 miles or more!"

1/4 tank - "better start looking for cheap gas station", "I love how gas price cycles and I always catch the peaks!!", this zone usually last longer for some reason, "I really ought to fill it up so I can keep it under $30, that makes me feel like a winner (sad I know)".

Empty - "crap, it is not one week yet!, keep going!"

Gas light - "I wonder how many miles can I go before my car dies (inspired by Kramer)"

As some of you may notice, out of all those tank levels I've described above, there is one portion of the gas gauge that I didn't mentioned - yes, my favorite region, the "more-than-full" region. This is kind of sick but it gives me much satisfaction to see my little orange needle pointing to the darkness that is beyond the big white full bar, pushing against the needle stop. I especially enjoy it when I turn on my car and see the needle rushing for that zone. Why is it so gratifying? Because I know I can drive and drive and drive for some unknown time, that needle will not move ever so slightly! I'm not sure if you share this similar joy as I do in a "more-tank-full" tank, but I propose that all gas tank gauges should have a needle that could point beyond full, and stay there for a while. The key is not seeing that needle move. I mean come on. . . . give the poor needle a break once in a while. Let it rest so I can pay more attention to my other gauges on my dash board, such as the speed!

No. 0044 - Help Patrick Train for the 2012 London Olympic Games

2008-09-19T10:51:00.001-04:00

What a spectacular show the Beijing Olympic was! With all the world class athletes coming together under one stadium and competing, it makes it well worth the four year wait. Beside the sporting events, my favorite has got to be the parade of nations during the opening ceremony. That is where you can get the scoops on all the likely gold contenders and which events to look forward to. I can't begin to image how cool it must be for all the athletes walking into the stadium representing their perspective county, while also in the presence of so many elite athletes from all over the world. You know? I love it so much, watching this year's parade of nations gave me the inspiration to make a goal for myself: I WANT TO MAKE IT TO THE PARADE OF NATIONS IN THE 2012 LONDON OLYMPIC AS AN ATHLETE!

Great, I got a goal. Now I just need to pick a sport, train for 4 years and elevate myself to the world class levels (or at least better than everyone else in the US). Now, like I said, all I have to do is to make it to the parade; I don't have to get a metal or anything. I just want to make it to the parade! I'm somewhat athletic but definitely not world class. I love to play soccer but I'm often the "last-pick" guy. I have ping-pong paddles and everybody thinks I'm automatically good 'cause I'm Chinese, but I'm definitely no Forrest Gump. The problem with having Olympic dreams at age 28 is that I'm a bit late. Most Olympic athletes start their training almost as soon as they can walk. Gymnasts for instance, how do you think they can flip and fold themselves up like that if they don't start when their bones and joints are still malleable, unlike mine when it hurts just to sit on the floor for an extended period of time . So basically, main stream sports are off limits for me. This is where I need your help (this month's invention is more of a collaborative effort), I need you to help me find a sport.

I have given this some thought and came up with three strategies. (1)Get into a non-popular US sport, (2)revive an old Olympic event and (3)make up a new sport.

I need to find a sport that is relatively new and foreign in the US so I may get good fast and stand out. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the only event that the US didn't participate in Beijing was team hand-ball. From what I've observed, I think the strategies are a lot like soccer but you play with a size 2 soccer ball, with your hands and on a smaller field (what a deal! less running). I like this option because I think my chances in a team sport are much higher than an individual sport since all I need to do is to make it to the "bench".

Second strategy, revive an old sport. I visited the Olympic website and shopped around for that. And guess what?! I found Tug-of-War! It was last competed back in the 1920 Antwerp Belgium summer games. I was pretty excited when I saw that. How many people in the world play Tug-of-War on a regular basis? Heck, if I can start a team and practice like mad man for the next four years, I think gold is in site people! But the biggest obstacle remains, we would have to convince the IOC to put it back on the games. Come join the cause at my Facebook group "US Tug-of-War Olympic Team". I would imagine convincing the IOC to put events back will be tough after all, they have just given softball the pink slip for 2012 (sorry girls) because of US dominance. But here's the thing, I don't think Tug-of-War is biased towards any country. It is simply one of those sports that people all over the world have left behind. Now some of you may argue if it is even a sport and we will save that debate for another day (Yes it is!).

Third, making up a new sport. I'm not really creative with games (that's why I need your help) but if I were to make one up, it would have to be something that I'm already good with. All I got so far is parallel parking and poking fun at things. It would be a pretty long stretch before either of these things would become a sport. For those of you who knows me well, are there any random things that I'm good at that remotely resembles a sport? If so, do tell.

I've also done some research locally and seen what training is available. The closet thing I've come to is fencing (the website post actually said Olympic training). But me, fencing!? I'm not really good with sports that involve holding anything. I used to do Tae Kwan Do when I was young but I'm afraid of getting kicked in the groin (bad experience, don't want to talk about it). I need your help people! I'm also open to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic games (Curling maybe?) but that's only two years away. So whatever you suggest, it has got to be dang easy and unpopular.

P.S. - I've attached the most athletic and toughest picture that I can find of myself. Hopefully this might give you an idea of my physiques so you may suggest according.

No. 0043 - Monopoly Extended Play

2008-06-17T01:11:00.000-04:00

I think Monopoly is the greatest board game ever! I understand that Monopoly is not exactly a new invention, but that doesn't bar me from pointing good invention already made. For as much as I did enjoy writing about "Communism" the Game (See No. 0019 in June, one of my personal favorite), I'm a proponent of capitalism and there is no better way to learn about it than playing Monopoly. I think the game effectively encapsulates the workings of the economy that we all live in today, and by mastering it would do much good to the way we do our finances. In fact, I think anyone who is old enough to make or handle money should master the game first.

A week or two ago, I have gotten this sudden urge to play Monopoly. So I went online, downloaded the game and started rolling dices. Now the traditional strategy is to make sure you are the last surviving player while bankrupting your opponents one by one. With this strategy, it didn't take very long before I was challenging and conquering "tycoon" difficulty level opponents. It was then I have devised a new strategy of playing the game; I started targeting the bank instead of my opponents. The trick is you must not kill of your opponents off but instead keep them in the game to make money for you. Here is how it's done.

First, you have to build an empire and accumulate cash. Get enough property for the steady income (traditional strategy, one to two streets would be fine). But the trick is build just enough houses so that your opponents can afford to pay you in cash and not be bankrupted. Second step, start acquiring your opponents' properties but pay only cash for it. Yes, their accounts would have way more money than you but they will all come back to you 'cause you are the one with the properties. Once again, build houses but don't make it a death row (i.e. lay off the hotels on Broadway even if you can afford it). The main goal here is to keep you opponents from making deals and expanding. Warning, those pesky house and hotel repairs can cripple you at this point. Just remember that the most expensive bill the bank can throw at you is $2600 (32 houses X $40 and 12 hotels X $110) so plan accordingly. Third, keep your opponents in play. What this means is to make obvious bad deals with your opponents (cash only) from time to time, for example, sell a railroad for a dollar and buy it back for $3000. What you are doing is putting money in your opponents' pocket so they can pay you back when they land on your stuff (kind of like paying salary to your workers).

If you can get to this point, then you have effectively started the vicious cycle against the bank. Why? Because the game naturally inflates. Every time you and your opponents (assume you are able to keep 3 other ones alive) crosses "GO", that's $800 of income to your conglomeration. Not including all the free parkings, chances and community chest cards which tend to award a higher value in cash than they penalize. I've gotten to this same situation before but with only one opponent left. I conducted a little experiment. I've purchased the get out of jail free card from my opponent for $18000 (I've kept $2600 in my pocket just in case). By this point I've purchased all houses and hotels available and own the entire board. I know all that money will come back to me eventually and the bankrupting of my final opponent will mark the end of the experiment. The goal is to figure out how much money I would have made from the bank in one such cycle (from $18000 to zero for my opponent's account). Transaction between me and my associate don't count, only money that comes in and out of the bank. The results? I ended up making about $8000 from the bank! ONE CYCLE?! And what does this simulates? Inflation!! Talk about the purest form of money breeding money! Some people may wonder why things are getting more and more expensive such as the housing market (well not now because of all the foreclosures but overall yes). Why? Because there are more cash out there. Baltic Ave. can easily go for $3000-$4000 by this point of the game. Another lesson learned: a healthy economy comes from lots of money transactions, why? Because rich people make money off of other rich people, kind of like the relationship I have with my opponents. I give them wads of cash, they land on my stuff and I get that same wad back and then some from the bank.

I can't say I now know all that there is to know about money from playing Monopoly. In fact, I still don't understand a lot on how businesses and the economy works. Econ 211 is as far as I've gone back in college (i.e. supply and demand, cash flow, surplus. . . the basic stuff) and that was boring to me. That explains a lot why I do what I do today (technical and not business). But if I would have learn these principles early on as a child by mastering this game, I think my career path would have turned out a little differently. I honestly think that I would get a better grasp (and interests) of these principles if my econ class would have just played Monopoly day in and day out. Heck, why have tests and finals? Just have the whole class play a gigantic game of Monopoly and who ever survives gets the A. Done deal!!!

No. 0042 - Laxative Tolerance

2008-06-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, my cube-mate came into work with one of the funniest experience with burglary ever. For the sake of protecting his identity from his "assailant", we'll call my cube-mate Bob for the time being. Bob woke up that morning with all his roommates perplexedly standing around the crime scene. In addition to the tell-tale evidence they found on the kitchen table, they also found their back door as well as their refrigerator door wide open when they woke up. Throughout the entire morning, my cube-mate were making phone calls to neighbors, family and even the police department. I couldn't help but to laugh when Bob identify to the police what the loot was: a box of Hooter's chicken wings. At first I thought could it have been a wild animal such as a javelina. But then again, if that was the case then it would have been one smart javelina to have opened the refrigerator door and leave the chicken wing bones on top of the kitchen counter. As the story unfolds, it turns out a homeless person has broken into several homes in the neighborhood during the night looking for food.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against hungry people. If anyone would ask for food because they don't have money to buy food, I would most definitely buy them lunch (I've done it before). But then again, how do you protect yourself from that? If a burglar was about money and valuables, then that would justify one home owner to get an alarm system for protection. But who would ever protect their home because of food? A food thief is petty enough that the only victim in the crime is your stomach. I propose that we all should accustom ourselves and build tolerances to laxative. For all you college kids out there, do you have roommates or visitors that help themselves to your sector of the fridge? Well, this will most definitely stop if you would put a touch of laxative in your food that you have build a tolerance to overtime. Now of course don't put so much that would kill your friends but just enough to get them sick. Most humans are smart animals, if they get "burned" once, they won't touch the fire again. Disclaimer - I'll not be responsible for the laxa-dative friends you poison.

No. 0041 - Better Disease's Name

2008-04-17T02:15:00.000-04:00

I've been suffering from a stye in my eyelids for the past 3-4 days (thank goodness it is starting to get better now). For those of you who don't know, a stye is basically a pimple that grows either inside or around your eyelids. It is mainly caused by an infected tear duct. Fun stuff huh?! NOT! Out of all the places, it was growing right on the ridge of my bottom left eyelid, dead center! My left eye was swollen, tender and tearing for the past 2 days intensively. What's worst is that it does grow like a pimple so I got this white little dot on my eyelid that obstructs my vision. Every time I look down, I only get like 3/4 of the total vision. . . it was so annoying. For the first day or two, I thought my eye was just getting irritated from the allergies until the little bump started to appear. So I went online to my trusty WebMD, and sure enough, my symptoms told me that I was getting a STYE. A STYE!!! My first thought was "what a stupid name!" I mean who comes up with this stuff? Did the guy that discovered this raises pigs for a living or something?!? The reason why I bought this up is because when people asked me what was happening to my left eye, I told them I was getting a stye in my eye; that totally made me feel like as if I was telling them I have leprosy or something like that and needed to be quarantined at the janitor's closet. It is bad enough to suffer through the pain of having a pimple in your eye, but can't the name be at least something more pleasant to counteract the embarrassment? Why can't it be called a "lolly pop" instead? "Oh I just have a lolly pop in my eye, so anyway . . .. blah blah blah". See? Much better.

Another good example - "breaking out in hives". For some strange reasons, I'm allergic to the Arizona sun. If I stay out too long, anywhere of my skin that sees the sun breaks out in hives. It is itchy as heck and I can't stop it. Now let me ask what do you think of when people mention hives? I think of thousands of little holes with bugs and larvae squirming inside. . . . nasty huh? Why can't they call it "blooming daises" or something like that.

I'm sure there are more good examples out there but these are the two that I can immediately think of. So to those readers that are going to be a famous scientist or physicians in the future that would discover some crazy bacteria which would turn your skin purple with yellow polka dots, be a little creative and come up with a better name. Here are some good examples: "Strawberry and Banana Smoothie Disease, Teddy Bear Syndrome, Bunny Rabbit Virus, or Tri-Tip Disorder".

No. 0040 - Balloons Traffic

2008-03-12T00:02:00.000-04:00

Recently I used an excel file to estimate the miles that I travel in my car every month. Well it turns out to be 1428 miles a month with 78% of the time for work. I was pretty shocked. I'm literally driving my car to the ground. If anyone knows Tucson, they would know that it is extremely inefficient to travel around town. With highway exits blocked off to most major streets to town, this whole setup really forces you to learn your streets around town. Now here is the thing I don't understand, we live in a three dimensional world and yet we have limited our day-to-day travel to a 2-D plane. With all the space above us, why are we not using it? I'm proposing the use of personalize hot air balloons.

For one, hot air balloons runs on propane and is probably much cleaner than cars (all you are doing is heating up trapped air). So every where you go is no different than starting up a barbecue grill. Second, there will be less traffic because we are now using available space that we haven't been using before. Third, it will probably be faster to get to where you want. I can see where I live from where I work so with a hot air balloon, it will be a straight shot. Fourth, it will probably be way fun and a lot less stressful because of no more traffic jams, stop lights or watching out for that pesky police officer.

Now, not all of my inventions are without the need of details to be figured out. For example, parking. You can imagine how complicated it can be with everybody's balloon bouncing each other around. I propose this fix. May there can be some giant hanger that you can steer towards and hang your deflated balloons at. Another problem that may arise: landing and taking off quickly. How about this, don't land the balloon! Just throw a rope over and descend that way. And for going up? Just mount a towing hook at the bottom of the balloon and give it a remote control. So the next time you are done with grocery shopping, just lower the hook and up you go.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to replace my beloved Honda. However, when you travel and get stuck in traffic as much as I do every month, a hot air balloon may actually be not that bad of an idea.

No. 0039 - "Rush Hour Traffic" the Game

2008-01-31T19:34:00.000-05:00

There are no better waste of time than sitting in rush hour traffic in your car. On average, I spend 45 minutes to a hour in my car everyday after work going home. Here is a game that I've devised that might motivate you during those dull moments.

There are basically two main goals you are trying to achieve:
(1) Pass as many people as possible.
(2) Don't let other people pass you.

Here are some simple rules and guidelines.
- The definition of pass is when your front bumper passes another car's front bumper; you don't need to pass the other car entirely.
- Every time you pass someone, you get 1 point.
- When other car passes you, you loose 2 points.
- The cars you pass must be traveling the same direction you are. On coming traffic don't count.
- You can only score off of cars on the lanes next to you. (e.g - if you are in a 4 lane road, you can only count the lanes on your left and right. And if you are in two lane road, then you will only have one score-able lane and so on.)
- The cars you pass must have a driver. No scoring off of parallel parked cars.
- Turning lanes or suicide lanes are unscoreable. Likewise, you can't lose points if you are in one.
- Parking lots don't count.

Strategies:
- Stop lights are great scoring opportunities. The trick is picking the right lane to wait in. For example, you could approach the right lane with lesser stopped cars and bank the points on the people on your left. But people tends to turn right on the right lane, so then you might just end up loosing more points than you gain by the time the light turns green.
- Stay away from buses or semi's. Their sluggishness may cause you big points.
- Don't just pass for the one or two pointers and get stuck behind a slowpoke. Wait for a "sure kill" path to appear then execute.
- This game is all about positioning. Blind spots may be a good place to hang out while waiting for that golden opportunity. (Don't stay so blind that the other driver can't see you, stay behind 1-2 feet behind the other bumper would be fine)
- You may end up loosing more point than you gain by going at the same speed with a car next to you if your bumpers are too close. Remember, you only gain 1 if you pass, but you loose 2 when you get pass. Once you pass, you better give yourself some cushion.

I did a trial run after Costco today and I scored only 2 points by the time I got home (that is only after hanging onto -2 points for the longest time. . . got caught on the right lane trap). I was on a busy main road (Ina) when I realized I'm going to get spanked from the heavy traffic at the time, so I took an alternate route that has a lot more one lane road (non scoring Shannon and Magee). I was only able to get back to the black from a little section of passing lane on Magee (that was the first time I've ever traveled on that passing lane). That reminds me of another strategy, chose your route wisely.

This game definitely promotes and practices skillful driving (maybe less than defensive driving). And I know most of my friends who reads my blog regularly are sensible enough to not drive stupid. But since this blog is search-able on the world wide web, I must give this disclaimer: IF YOU CRASH OR GET HURT OR GET A TICKET FROM PLAYING THE GAME, IT IS SOLELY YOUR FAULT FOR DRIVING STUPID.

No. 0038 - Bad Movie Commission

2008-01-19T02:29:00.000-05:00

I've seen my fair share of bad movies, but never in my life I've ever gone to the movie theaters and have to apologize to my friends for having invited them to come along with me. The movie that I'm talking about is . . . . CLOVERFIELD. To all those that are within the reaches my voice (or this blog), DON'T WATCH IT!!!! Let my $10 (or $20 since one of my friend is refusing to pay me back) be the only money that all of us will lose to this movie. The only thing that this movie did well was that it setup the suspense through TV advertisements and online trailers. It made all of us wonder "what could be so horrifying?" or "what da heck could this thing be?". Well, the movie more or less in a hour and a half just simply says "here's the monster. . . ra." Monster thriller has never been my genre from the start but I do know a few thing about this kind of movies . . . you never show the monster in the movie at the half way point, especially in its entirety (Oh, and by the way, the monster isn't even all that scary)! The movie overall has no plot. It casts a group of unknown actors so all of them could die at any moment (and they did. . big surprise). There were a few random horrifying scenes, but when you are sitting at the third role from the screen and the movie takes on a home video style of shooting, all the stuff happens so fast that it doesn't really even give you a chance to get scared. I'm a die hard fan of "Lost", but JJ Abrams, what were you thinking when you produced this?!

Here is my invention; a government run Bad Movie Commission that is setup to protect us from bad movies such as Cloverfield. The commission ought to be opening their phone lines for complaints and refund requests right now. I most certainly want my money back. If I could, I wish to get my hour and a half back as well. Armed with the number of complaints received, the commission would then take action accordingly to go after the people that dreams up this stuff. I proposed commission should have the rights to initiate arrests and detentions of those responsible as well.

After the movie tonight, I came home to look for bad reviews for the movie online. To my surprise, Cloverfield had better ratings than I thought. I wondered if the Cloverfield I saw tonight was the same Cloverfield critiqued. Maybe I saw "27 Dresses" instead. In any case, tonight's experience brought the audiences nothing but motion sickness; these are the kind of injustice that I'm talking about which can only be justified by the Bad Movie Commission.

No. 0037 - Pirates Cruise Line

2007-12-14T02:07:00.000-05:00

There are certain crimes that you don't hear about as much anymore, almost as if they are going extinct. For example, bank robberies. How often do you hear people say that "Boy am I poor?!. . . I'm going to go rob a bank!" Totally dangerous and chances of getting caught is high. Nowadays, you would more likely to hear "I'm poor. . . . I'm going to steal that guy's identity" or "I'm broke . . . I'm going to put a Trojan horse at that guy's computer". A even more prevalent example of crime extinction; piracy! (arrgh) I'm sure this must have been a topic that has been feared by many travelers back in the early ages but now it is nothing more than a joke, a Halloween character. . . better yet, a Hollywood franchise. The matter of fact is, pirates still live amongst us today and still pose a danger for those who travel the high seas. Instead of the stereotypical peg leg, eye patch or that monkey on the captain's shoulder, pirates today carry assault rifles, rocket launchers and grenades. So I pose the question to you now. . . what ever happen to the good old fashion piracy?! What happened to the stripe shirts and du-rags? The only place I can find stripe clothing these days is at OLD NAVY (no pun intended). What happened to pirates swinging on the ropes to get on board the doomed ship?! What happened to the cannons!!? WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT PARROT?!

My invention is to bring back those traditions. I attended a bachelor party (Mormon standard) a week or two ago at which my friend, Nate, will be spending his honeymoon on a seven day cruise to Mexico. I suggested my invention to him. I said how cool would it be if at some point during your cruise, some old fashion pirates would stage an attack on the cruise ship (with a frigate of sort). They would jump on board equipped with nothing but rapiers and small swords. They will have eye patches, peg legs, hook hands and gold teeth. . . the whole nine yards. They will rob you at knife point, make you walk the plank and bury you in the sand with only your head exposed (aka pirate's neck tie). Of course none of this will be for real (no one will die) but while you are in the process of begin robbed by these fake pirates, little did you know, you are indeed helping to keep the art of traditional piracy alive. So how about it, Carnival Cruise Line? Maybe you can start up a brand new cruise vacation package that is totally free up front. All the passengers need is to bring enough cash (or booty) on board for the staged pirates to rob from, in essence paying for the cruise. Even better yet, have a pirate ship as the cruise liner where the passengers themselves can be the pirates to go attack on other cruise liners/competitors. Save the actors hiring cost even. You can't deny that this is indeed the purest form of laissez faire!

No. 0036 - Popsicle Rink

2007-10-27T01:43:00.001-04:00

I went to a hockey game last month, it was pretty fun I must say. However, I really don't know much about hockey, in fact, I don't even know how to skate (I have this fear of falling and then have other skaters skate over my fingers and cut them off, I wonder if severing fingers has ever been a problem at most skating rinks). During the 3 periods of the game, I didn't really have a clue as to what was going on with the calls that the refs were making. But there is one thing I can relate; the fist fight. I don't what is so entertaining about seeing grown men beating the crap out of each other over a little circular disk. Considering how easy it was for them to just start fighting at the drop of a hat, I couldn't imagine how tempting it must have been for the players to keep from swinging their hockey stick in the heat of battle. I would so break out in a frenzy with my hockey stick if some other hockey player has be by my neck, driving his fist into my face. The great thing about this is the ref would actually let them fight a bit and then break them up, send them to their little "jail" box and then game goes on.

Besides the fights, another great thing about hockey is the speed. As the players would carve left and right careening down the rink, and then coming down to a dead stop, I couldn't help but to notice this fine mist of shaved ice that gets kicked up in the air. Then it hit me, what if the rink was flavored? Instant shave ice! All you need to do is to open your mouth and the ice would land on your tongue. How great is that? I've always wondered how a hockey rink is put together in the middle of a basketball stadium. In fact, the very stadium that we were watching the hockey is also the stadium for the Phoenix Suns. How do they do it? How is the ice maintained frozen? Well I can care less about that, but the tear down. . . how would they get rid of all that ice. Now if that was a flavored rink, then you can just open the place up, charge each kids 10 bucks and skate(or shave) away. Some of my friends raised some concern of sanitation of the Popsicle rink. Think about it, all that is touching the ice are the blades which has a small surface area. And how often do people take their skates and walk around town with them? People are usually all padded up to go skating anyway so you wouldn't have to worry about dirty hands or body parts touching the ice. So I figure this, it you are going to melt the ice and get some pump to suck out all the water from the rink when the basketball seasons begins anyway, why not make it flavored and let the people have at it and make a little side profit.

No. 0035 - Chapstick Subscription

2007-10-20T05:15:00.001-04:00

This is more or less a follow-up invention to No. 0009 - Alternately Shaped Chapstick (http://patricksinventionideas.blogspot.com/2007/04/patricks-invention-idea-no-0009.html) in attempt to do away with my problem with prematurely losing chapstick. As some of you may know, my chapstick losing problem hasn't gone away by itself. I've tried new strategies where I pretty much treat my chapsticks like a high school sport; there is a varsity team, and then there is a junior varsity team. I keep one main chapstick that I carry with me where ever I go as the "varsity" and the other jacked up one which melted partially in my car as the "junior varsity" or the backup that I always leave at home. The season started out fine until the junior varsity decided to get lost and disappeared at my own home! So then all I had left with me was the traveling varsity that I always take with me on the "away games". It was doing pretty good until it also decided to make a run for it. With both teams gone, I was left with chapped lips once again.

I was actually quite fed up with the whole "loosing the chap stick" thing, in which that quickly jump started the invention side of my brain once again, only this time the ideas were quite irrational. I thought to making the chap stick casing with barbs or spikes on the outside so every time I put it in my pocket, it would prick my thigh so the moment I don't feel the prick (or blood running down my leg), I would know my chap stick ran away again. My irrationality went from bad to worst when I was contemplating giving up one of my fingers and have a chap stick surgically implant where the pinky used to be. As you can see, I don't like having chapped lips. I think my rationale finally came back to me after purchasing my latest and currently in service chap stick. It was then, a great epiphany came to me. I've come to the realization that I'll never get to use a chap stick all the way to the end; I'll always lose them after a few usage. If that is the case, then maybe chap stick ought to be 3 times shorter, so every time I loose it, I won't be loosing that much. How about have them come in tiny eye drop tubes, you can use them once or twice and then throw them away. Now since I anticipate loosing them all the time, that is where the subscription comes in handy. Maybe they can come in boxes every month so I'll always have an endless supply of it. All I need to do now is to convince ChapStick or Blistex to have such a service.

No. 0034 - Butt Elastic Modulus Material

2007-10-05T02:53:00.000-04:00

One night, I saw one of those bicycle seat pad that is made of some gel, sitting on a dinning table. I picked it up to play with it and immediately the thought came to my head, "this material feels like a butt!?!?". I pressed it and poked it; yep, it feels exactly like a butt. Then the idea came to me, why can't everything else (bed, chairs, car seats, etc) be made of material properties (i.e. elastic modulus) that is similar to that of the butt. Let's put on our engineering hat and hear out my theory. For those readers that have an engineering background, correct me when you think I'm teaching blasphemy.

Recently at work, I've been doing this analysis that involves creating a 2-D non-linear FEA (finite element analysis) model in order to study some stress distribution of this mechanical connection; in another word, it generates really cool pictures. For the confidential nature of my work, I can't describe in great detail what exactly that I studied on but I can tell you what I've learned from the project that I've never really realized before. Here is what I've learned. I've noticed a trend that when you put two similar materials and press them together and compare that with two dissimilar materials (i.e. one being softer), the one set that has similar material properties tends to experience lesser stress. Whereas in the dissimilar material case, the softer part would deform faster and therefore causing stress risers to show up, especially when the interface is not flat.

I think now is a good time to explain the title of my invention. In one or two sentence, elastic modulus is a good measurement/description of a material's properties. Mathematically speaking, see it as a slope; it is a measurement of the stress that a material feels over the distance that it has deformed from its original shape (strain). Together, they effectively describe how "hard" or "soft" a material really is. Now that you guys are all experts in mechanics of material, you will be able to appreciate the beauty of this invention. I ask again, why don't we make more things out of material that has the elastic modulus value closer to that of our butts?! Let me use an example. Have you ever sat through a high school sporting event at the metal bleachers? Can you remember the pain after the 2 hour long football game? Now you know why it hurts; it is because of the "dissimilar of elastic modulus" between the aluminum bleacher and your butt. The pain came from the stress riser in your butt (the softer material in this case) developed by the hard bleacher seat. Solution: make the seat out of material properties similar to that of your bum.

No. 0033 - Get Well Card For My Car

2007-10-03T23:56:00.000-04:00

It is ironic how my last invention was about how I've cherished the memories with my comrade, my friend, my partner in crime . . . my beloved car. Just a matter of a week or two after my last invention post, I was at the stake center playing some pick up indoor soccer. I was parked in the middle row with the trunk facing the church, and sure enough there is a row of cars parked right up in the first row, including a gigantic F350 (lifted maybe?). In any case, towards the end right as everybody is leaving, my relatively low profile car hidden in the darkness of the 2nd row didn't stand a chance against a piece of solid steel with 125 horses pushing it. The driver didn't see my parked car and careened into my defenseless Honda (he was very sorry and I quickly forgave him). Evidently, my trunk was crushed, bumper warped, and side fender bent; F350, broken tail light. I know the impact must have been pretty crazy because as some of you might have remembered from riding in my car that I have this little dragon statuette dangling from from rear view mirror, well, that dragon was found wrapped one revolution around the mirror from the jolt. If my Honda and the Ford had arms and legs, the equivalent scenario will be like having Frodo getting whooped by Evander Holyfield (without the ethereal and the orc sword of course).

So the damages has been done and the next day I was more worried about if they are fixable or not. The catch here is that once I've turned it over to my insurance, it is up to them to determine if the car is fixable or not; in essence, they are really like doctors because they will determine if my car has to be "put down" or not. Luckily, they called me later on the same day that they can fix him up and no permanent damages has been done. Even though he will be "hospitalized" for 3 weeks, they promise he will be as good as new. I was relieved. As for my invention, this particular blog has now become an official "Get Well Soon" site for my Honda. You may leave kind messages or words of encouragement for my car. You can say things like "hey, you'll get a new bumper!" or "hey, look at it this way, now you'll have bragging rights in front of other chick cars from withstanding such a blow!" All will be appreciated. Just to illustrate some of the mental and physical pain that my Honda had to go through. The day following the "beat down", I drove him down to the shop (in which I shouldn't have). I don't think people have ever given me this much space on the road before. People were driving and stopping a full car length behind me; they treated my car like as if it was diseased or mad or something?! It's not like the crushed metal will miraculously come off and jump onto theirs like a rash?! It's not like I'll drive recklessly now because I got this crazy crunch in my trunk?! If you see your friend with a black eye or a broken arm, you are not going to suddenly avoid them like a plague and think that he or she will randomly hit you?! Gosh people, cars have feelings too, especially my car! So there, say something nice. My girlfriend is going to buy balloons when he gets out of the shop, so what are you going to do?

No. 0032 - Odometer Time Machine

2007-09-11T02:09:00.000-04:00

The picture to the left was taken on the return trip from a Havasupai backpacking trip that Liz, Jen and I took back in 2005. As I was cruising through the Mojave desert freeway going about 80-85 mph, I can see that my odometer was at 29999. I told Liz "quick, grab a camera and help me take a picture when it hits 30000". During the 29999th mile, as Liz stuck her face and her camera between my arms and through the steering wheel waiting for the momentous turn of the digit, she dared to tell me "Stop turning the steering wheel, Patrick!". I quickly rebuked her and reminded her that we are currently traveling at ludicrous speeds and careening off the freeway wasn't exactly a good idea. But sure enough, the picture was taken and a memory was documented. A slight diversion to the story, shortly after this picture was taken, my gas light came on. So here we are, in the middle of the Mojave desert, the sun was setting, we saw nothing but mountainous landscape and no sign of city lights nor signs. To make the long story short, I freaked out, Jen and Liz laughed hysterically and out of no where came the town of Ludrow ("Ludrow, you're my hero!", I've never seen my car fill up 11 plus gallons before). To this day I still remember that little town that saved us from what could have been a horrible death of dehydration and coyotes attack.

As I was driving tonight home from a game of Frisbee, I glanced down at my odometer and saw it barely passed 66000, then I thought to myself how cool would it be if I can fast forward to 100,000? Where would I be then? Or better yet, how about rewinding the odometer and re-live some of those mileage that I've been through. I would rewind back to 20,000 some odd miles when I was driving home 3am in the morning from the Mechatronics Lab, feeling tired, cold and hungary. Or how about at 40,000 miles or so when I was driving through Yosemite Nat. Park trying to drive and look at Half Dome between the trees at the same time. Better yet, at 100 miles when I first got back from my mission and feeling like the sky is the limit yet uncertain about which directions to take in life. As I think back, truly my car was the one object that I utilized everyday (with the exception of vacations). Everyday as I step inside that car and during every mile that I put on the odometer, I did so with a certain state of mind or emotion; in essence, the interior of my car has captured a snap shot in time kind of like a journal. If such a invention does exists, how fun must it be to be able to rewind back and see myself going through those nervous moments before a midterm or those giddy moments before/during a date by the simple dial of the odometer.

Now I'm not sure where I would be when my Honda gets to 99,999 miles. I may be rushing my way to work, or may have children screaming or kicking in the back seat. I'm not even sure if it will bear an Arizona plate anymore (it was surely a sad day when I unscrewed my California's plate). But one thing I know I'll do by the time the zeros replaces the nines, I'll definitely pull aside off the freeway or into a parking lot, take a picture of the odometer and reminisce the past 100,000 miles of memories that has been logged onto my car.

No. 0031 - Grocery Cart Static Generator

2007-08-31T02:26:00.000-04:00

Some of you that has been my friends for awhile, might know very well of my problem with static electricity shock. It doesn't kill me or anything but it hurts and it is very annoying. For some reason, I seem to get it worse than anyone I know. I can get shock at just about anywhere, anytime. For example, one time I got out of my car, walked inside a building, drank from the water fountain and I got shock at my tongue (clarification, I got shocked from the stream of water and not from the metal faucet. It is not like I licked water fountain. . .that's sick!). In another occasion, I was driving with my flip-flops and as I stepped out of my car, my pinky toe touched the asphalt and established an arc. I have attempted and tried many different ways to avoid being shocked. Some of you might remember that in my collection of keys, included this funny electrical looking key chain. Well, my friend, that key chain wasn't any ordinary key chain but a static discharger. Inside it consisted of a LED or a buzzer, used to dissipate the electrical charge. I was so charged up from time to time that I burnt out two of those things. I've tried discharging the static on metal doors with other parts of my body that is less sensitive such as my shoulders, legs, even my butt. (FYI, if you ever see my pant leg dirty, that's because I sometimes press my leg against the bottom part of my car door before I get out in order to establish electrical ground with the car, in avoiding the shock). As you can imagine how sometimes you might catch me brushing the metal door first with my shoulders. Now you know that I'm not so stupid that I'm trying to ram the door down but instead discharging the shock. My current method is to tap the metal door firmly holding my key. This way, I would still get a slight jolt, but at least the arc won't be on my skin.

Now not all of my methods mentioned above can entirely prevent me from getting shocked. On one particular instance, I was at Costco grocery shopping with a metal cart. I was holding the metal handle bar as I was maneuvering the cart around the store until I felt a slight but sharp poke at my palm. That occurred 2-3 more times afterwards so I thought I was grabbing a sharp corner of the metal weld. Then I started to push the cart with my hands gripping the side of the cart. Same thing! After feeling being pricked several times, I started to inspect the welds of the shopping cart and it looked smooth and fine. It was then I realized it was the cart that was shocking me repeatedly as the plastic wheel was generating the charge as it is rubbing with the floor. Out of this experience came an idea. What if each shopper that shops at a grocery store is asked to connect themselves to a store central battery of sort via a cable. As the shopper moves about the store with their cart, he or she will generate the charge and the cable will take that charge towards the storage (i.e. battery). Now I can assure you the charges and current from only one shopper might not be very significant, but imagine how many grocery stores are out there in this nation? Imagine how many people travel in and out of those stores everyday? With this type of masses, I would have to say that this stored up electricity might be able to add up to something. Now it would be pretty ridiculous to see millions of shopper all connected at the wrist to the building because eventually all will get tangled up pretty easily. But considering the energy crunch that we are all experiencing as a country today, should a few knots or trip and tumble really matter?

No. 0030 - Mood Baby

2007-08-25T01:32:00.000-04:00

Even though I haven't yet been married or made a child of my own, I can sometimes see the frustration that some of my somewhat newly wed friends with their babies. Let's take my friends Tyler and Amanda for instant, they wish to make Lillian a mood chameleon. Here is an excerpt of what they have to say.

"Often, Amanda and I find it difficult to figure out what exactly is wrong with Lillian. We end up running through the list of usual suspects: is she hungry? is she tired? is she thirsty? does she just want to be held? is she bored? The list can go on and on and usually does until we finally give up and give her some children's tylenol. My idea would be to genetically engineer a baby so that they would change colors according to their mood. That way, there is no guessing game and possibly fewer visits to Rite Aid to get more tylenol."

SO, if you don't mind your baby turning into a Smurf, then you really ought to consider this. But then again, there are only a few distinctive colors so moods availability are pretty limited and would get kinda difficult to determine once it gets into the many different shades of color. However, this problem can easily be solved by creating some sort of color spectrum detector. These kind of things are actually quick possible to make and maybe it could be sensitive enough to pick up the specific shade that would generate some code that you can look up in a hand book somewhere. For example, Code # 348A-2 (Grey-asparagus): I totally don't like it when you scoop a spoon across my mouth as you are feeding me because that simply makes a bigger mess around my lips. Wow, imagine the possibility, it is endless!

My friends even extended this invention to teenage years and adulthood. They said "this mood baby, if female, could also prove to be the most desirable girlfriend ever when she grew up. When the potential suitor asks her out, he could see how excited she is by whether or not she was a pretty pink or a nice shade of puke. Although this mood girl may end up backfiring in the teenage years since her emotions would be fluctuating so much that either she would look like a psychedelic strobe light or the color frosting gets when you keep adding all of the different food coloring".

Now how much more effective can you get in a church dance situation than this?! Just put yourself in the middle of the crowd and walk around all the boys and girls you are interested in. When the color is right then make a move! (if such a thing does exist, I would love to be at the ceiling looking down at the dance floor and just pick out all the party poopers). And if the color didn't turn the way you wish to after a run or two, you can might as well go home and play video games. You know, one of the greatest battle for singles to face is trying to figure out what your interest think of you. Well, cut the crap and start learning your primary colors!

No. 0029 - Google Chorus

2007-08-15T02:19:00.000-04:00

Most typical way to search for a song that you don't know: remember one line of the song (ideally the chorus) and then Google it. The chances are you will find it. However, tonight as Roseanne and I were pulling up to TGIFridays, we came across a song on the radio that has caught my attention for the last few weeks. It was a punk song with a girl lead singer. The beat is pretty rocking but I have no clue or way to find out who that was or what the song's name was. I tried to listen for a phrase or something in the chorus but it was already towards the end of the song. All I have left in my head is the tune of the chorus. It goes a little something like this "do do . . .do do do do do . . . .dodo . . .do do do do dodo". That's all I got. So now I'm got a song in my head (more or less just the chorus line) stuck on replay. I may or may not ever will find out who this band was or the name of the song. In fact, I'm pretty much at the mercy of the radio station to play that song again. Now I'm a major advocate of Google; you can Google just about everything. But how about this, a Google Chorus search. All you need is a microphone and the search engine. So in my situation, I would go to Google Chorus, hook up my mic and "do do do" away. Now I must admit all my other invention ideas are often time stupid and impossible, but this one you must agree might actually be doable.

No. 0028 - Excel Battleship

2007-08-01T23:10:00.000-04:00

8 to 5 schedule is a lot harder than what most would think. As for me and my work, we do 9-hour days and on certain days, that extra hour is like pulling hair. And today is no different, just like any other day as a hard day of work is about to wind down with less than one hour to go, both my cube-mate and my own momentum is just about to stop. Out of the blue, my cube-mate suggested to play battleship, then I said "we can use Excel!"

The setup is quite easy. Change the cell width to 2.5, draw two big borders as boundaries, add a few borders here and there as battleships and let the war begin! At first we would call out the coordinates out loud but that quickly drew some attentions from our cube neighbors as we were giggling like some 6 grader boys that just got off school. Luckily, our email service provides us with chat, so our battle immediately relocated to the cyber-space.

Patrick: 6G
Mike: miss, 27K
Patrick: hit, 3I
Mike: SUNK!, 20B

The great thing about Excel Battleship is that the size of the battlefield is endless. You can virtually make the grid as big or as small as you wish. In addition to a vast ocean, your NAVY can also be as big as you want. In fact, have multiple carriers, subs and destroyers. Heck, pepper the board with 40 PT boats, even though a PT boat fleet of this size would honestly drive me crazy. So go ahead, attach your xls file to a mass e-mail, get on chat and let's play Battleship!

P.S.- I'm challenging anyone to a giant game of Excel Battleship. One turn a day over e-mail and have a battlefield that will take up 365 spaces (actually a grid of 20X20) so the game will take one year.

No. 0027 - Monsters with Shoulders

2007-07-31T02:11:00.000-04:00

I've recently had a random conversation with my friends about the Power Rangers the other day. We talked about how dumb it was and how I despised the show, even as a young child. I like to consider myself to be somewhat of a decent film critic, and I know what I don't like in a show; and I know I didn't like the Power Rangers. The show is so predictable, so predictable that it has a pattern. They all start out with some elusive monster wreaking a havoc, then the Power Rangers investigate, then somehow the monster freakishly grows ten times bigger and starts to topple buildings. The Power Rangers would then conjure up their dinosaur themed robots, get their butt kicked a little bit for dramatic purposes, then they would combine into one big robot and kicks the trash out of the monster; every episode, same pattern. (Unfortunately, I've seen enough episodes to point out these observations). Let's think back with me for a minute. Have you ever realized how all of the monsters that the Power Rangers defeats, most of them really don't have the full mobility of their shoulders? The monsters often just swirl their arms around aimlessly as their death rays emitting eyes or fiery breath are doing most of the damages? I mean come on, if you are a monster and are going to take on some advance dinosaur-like robots, wouldn't you want your shoulder cuffs to rotate so you can use one arm to put the Power Rangers in a head lock and use your other arm to grab a semi truck or something to beat the Power Rangers silly?! (A little side note: I especially love those monsters where it is just one giant eye ball with legs and stuff. Real smart! Let's choose one of the most vulnerable parts of our body, make it big and see what kind of damage it can do. . . . maybe it can stare down something . . . duh. Power Rangers, leave your robots at home because a giant case of mace would be sufficient). So to all those future villains out there that are planning on taking over the world, please, give your monsters some shoulders would ya?

No. 0026 - Call-in-Sick Detector

2007-07-29T21:01:00.000-04:00

Call-in-sick. What a concept! When people call in sick, employer normally don't check doctor's notes or proof because they wouldn't want to challenge the "employee/employer trust". Yet, people abuse them all the time. And the darn thing is that everyone suffers when one call in sick, even you as a co-worker, because guess what?! You've just been asked to cover for the little boy (or girl) who cried wolf. What do you do then? Call them on their bluff and don't cover for them while they might be coughing up blood at work, or cover for them and wonder if your co-worker is joy riding their way to San Diego?
For all the bosses and managers and co-workers out there, here is an invention for you: a call-in-sick detector. The detector sits inside the cell phones. It will take samples of the breath of the caller and run an analysis on it to see if indeed the caller is sick. On your cell phone, it will have an indicator showing how sick the person really is; simple as that. So the next time your co-worker is calling in sick and asking for your help to cover for them, check your call-in-sick detector on your phone. If it indicates ". . . strong as an ox", then you could give response like "sorry, I've already decided to get sick today as I'm on my way to the beach."

No. 0025 - Self Destructing Wedding Announcements

2007-07-17T22:25:00.000-04:00

Being in the singles world, it is only natural for me to receive lots of wedding announcements from my friends. Typically, I hear my married friends would spend in the units of hundreds of dollars on their wedding announcements. And guess where most of them will end up? In the trash! With this knowledge in mind, it makes me feel real guilty to throw away my friends' wedding announcements. With their fancy cursive lettering on its quality paper, double enveloping and along with that waxy paper to protect the glossy portrait, I feel like I'm throwing money away. Sometimes I would have to make sure the picture is facing down in the trash can as I'm throwing it away to prevent the illusion of my friends from looking straight back at me from the trash can. Currently, my system is to have only one wedding announcement up at a time; the prior couple will be ousted with the up coming couple. In general, most of my friends like to get marry in the summer time so as a result, the couple that gets married in the beginning of Fall would end up on my fridge for the entire year.

To relieve of me of this guilt, why can't wedding announcements self destruct? It really can't be that hard. Timer chips are cheap (555, Elton!). All you need is a trigger that would set the timer off upon opening of the announcements and a pyro charge. Here is how I would envision the announcement would go. "Mr and Mrs. So-and-so are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter Dah Dah Dah to Blah Blah Blah, son of Mr and Mrs. So-and-so. . . . this announcement will self destruct in 5 days." There! Problem solve! Of course, you might want to leave the wedding announcement in the sink or something like that on the fifth day before you go to work in order to prevent your house from catching fire. Besides that little draw back, I honestly would be quite intrigued by such a wedding announcement. In fact, I might just sit around 5 days later to see the thing self destruct.

No. 0024 - Baby's First Book

2007-07-14T02:55:00.000-04:00

Unlike most of my other inventions, this one actually exists. A friend of mine, Amanda, gave birth to a baby awhile back, however you see, Amanda is really different because she decided to make her baby shower co-ed. Considering this is the first baby shower that I got invited to, I wasn't going to embarrass myself and in front of my friends because of a crappy gift; I was determined to make it good. Then it hit me, I'll make her a book, not just any book but a book for babies with advance mathematic and engineering theories. Another friend also helped me out at this and I must say, it was pretty good. Here an excerpt from our book:

"In “Baby’s First Book”, Elton and Chow presented some advance topics that sometimes they don’t even know in its entirety. However, this book has come forth targeting children as young as newborns with the intention to give gifted babies a head start . . . a major head start.

Imagine how amazing it would be to see your newborns to identify turbulent flow out of the milk bottle, or to recognize the founding father of Physics, Sir Isaac Newton, before they can even count. How impressive it would be to see your very own baby is trying to figure out the stability of a bifurcation diagram using a TI-86 while other newborns are slobbering on their nasty chew toys. Elton and Chow provide that opportunity for newborns to take their intellects into a level that surpasses any soft felt story books ever made.

This book is decorated with colorful illustrations and interesting looking text intended to tantalize the young minds into remembering the topics presented. It will change and revolutionize the way you raise your newborn."

Side note: with another friend of mine, Josh, we purchased a doggy sweat shirt for the baby as my second gift. I mean come on! Dog crawls, dog gets doggy sweater; baby crawls, then why can't baby get doggy sweater too! Here's the link if you are interested

http://usandthings.blogspot.com/2007/04/dog-sweater.html

No. 0023 - PII Blog

2007-07-09T03:52:00.000-04:00

In respond to popular demands (popular as in two people), Patrick's Invention Ideas are going public!! From this day on, the following blog address will take care of the housekeeping of all the ideas to come:

http://patricksinventionideas.blogspot.com

All the old ideas have been copied and pasted over there already along with the comments. To all the old PII commentators and visitors, your comments have been identified with your real name. If you don't want your real name to be posted, please let me know and I'll weed them out and put in place a nickname of my choosing instead. Here is the list of nicknames I'm thinking about: Thor, Skud, Spudnik, Optimus Prime, Bone Crusher. . . even Bumble Bee (yes I saw Transformers and I loved it).

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to deal with your future comments as yet but the new ideas will definitely be coming out of the blog first. Comment at the blog if you can but I won't cane you if you comment in Facebook instead. I may just put the title of future inventions in Facebook just to let you know and reference you back to the blog each time. I couldn't quite figure out the import a blog option so I might just have to do some extra work with your comments.

So tell your friends, send them the link! Now you won't have to be my friends to criticize my mindless rambling and satirical comments.

No. 0022 - Conversation Pacer

2007-07-04T03:17:00.000-04:00

I'm all against awkward moments, especially the ones that commonly occurs in office places as you may have notice the office theme in some of my invention ideas. This week, I wish to take on the awkward short talks that you may have as you are going from point A to point B.

I work in a very big office place, which means there exist an intricate network of hallways. So intricate, that there are numerous combinations of routes that I could take simply to go from the front door to my desk. However, on any given mornings, I would walk in the front door along side with co-workers that I know somewhat well. To be courteous, sometimes the person would start a little short talk as we are walking along together. However, on some occasions, those little short talks can spawn into a longer conversation. Can't you see the dilemma here?! I have no idea where the other person sits! I have no idea where he is going? One day on a similar situation, I kinda got stuck to this "little more than a short talk" conversation from the front door as we are approaching the first big intersection of hallways. I needed to turn left but as for him? I had no idea. I didn't know if I should slow down or stop to complete this conversation that isn't going anywhere. Eventually, he went straight and the conversation just ended with him muttering something as I physically removed myself from the conversation to the left. Another time, I was walking with an intern having a somewhat lengthy conversation. I thought we had the same destination until I made a right turn as he went straight. I didn't even realized he was gone until I was almost halfway down the hallway. So I suppose I was talking to myself from the turn on to the point of my realization (how embarrassing).

Wouldn't it be nice to have a conversation pacer. The pacer will somehow know of your destination and be color coded relative to the distance between you and your destination, let's say red means "getting closer". So the next time you walk into the front door, just look for the green lights and walk with them instead. In fact, you can talk your little heart out with the greens but as for the reds, I wouldn't even bother to say hi to them. Also, if you can see their lights are slowly turning red, then you know it is your queue to wrap things up in order to avoid a dropped conversation just as I have experienced.

No. 0021 - Traffic Strategist

2007-06-26T15:04:00.000-04:00

Invention warning: this is a long one!

I drive roughly 22 miles to work everyday. I take Oracle all the way down to Speedway. Hit I-10 and off I go. 35 minutes later, I'm sitting in my desk. However, as some of my Tucsonian friends have also realized, multiple I-10 off and on ramps will be closed for a freeway widening project for the next 3 years. We're not talking about just one exit, we are talking about multiple of exits in which effectively cut of all access to I-10 from the city of Tucson (real smart! the person who made that decision should be sentenced to hug a cactus for a year). For as much frustrations this project stirs up, the reality is we all have to deal with it and find new ways to get to work cutting through town; this is the job for the traffic strategist!

I tried a new path yesterday morning cutting through town, it took me 1 hour, ridiculous! However this morning, I've applied some simple traffic strategies in chosing and executing my new path, I made it to work in 40 mins (25 miles - not bad for cutting through town). I'm not petitioning to be a traffic strategist but wouldn't it be nice to have a such a person to consult with? This could be a career thing by holding classes and seminars. Here is a sample of some lesson topics and strategies that you might see in the syllabus.

Choose the fewest left turns in your route:
I drove the entire 25 miles through town with only 2 left turns.

Try to drive through retirement communities:
Old people don't work so rush hours don't apply to them. There are fewer cops there too. As I was speeding through Skyline 10 mph over, people were still passing me, amazing!

Take the middle lane:
An all too common trap as the middle appears to be the most backed up, yet it is the most consistent. You might get ahead for a short while on the side lanes until you will either run into an unprotected left turner (on the left lane) or a public bus (right lane). Another great thing about the middle lane is there are suckers that would fall for these traps and leave the middle. That's is when you drive right up against the next guy and block them from coming back in (it's a cruel world out there. . sorry). I'm not saying avoid all side lanes travel, but just use it sparingly.

Choose carefully which lane to put yourself in as you come to a red light (advance coursework):
If there are multiple lanes and each has one vehicle stopped at a red light, it is common sense to not put yourself behind the dump truck but behind the Mustang. But what if there are multiple of cars? One semi truck vs. 3 soccer moms? Who would you bet on then? How about a grandpa driving a V8 Jag vs. a bunch of teenagers joyriding with their parents' van? These are all very complicated choices to make you know.

Spotting and following skillfull drivers:
There is a difference between stupid speeders and skillful fast drivers. Skillful drivers are good to follow because they do all the dirty work for you in trail blazing and pressuring all the slower cars to move aside. They often blast through a path such that you may enjoy "the fruits of their labor" by following them. They often don't care if you follow them, however it could be a difference of running a yellow or be halted by the red.

And the lesson goes on. I would totally hire a traffic strategist (at least for the next three years) as DOT officials are hugging cactuses (grrrr). But I must say, the only downfall to this new path that I'm taking is that I will be getting into work from a different access point, which means I won't get to wave my badge to this very cool old security dude at the old gate anymore. With his cool Oakley sun glasses, this 60 year old is the coolest old dude I get to meet all day.

No. 0020 - Microwave Network

2007-06-13T04:06:00.000-04:00

Everyday around 11:30 pm at my work, without failing, there is promised to have this aroma that generates from the vincinity of the copier; that area happens to be where our microwave situates. And within the minute of this first scent, there is also promised to have a queue of frozen dinners and left overs lining up on the table. This is the exact reason why I usually have my lunch slightly before the "microwave rush". However, on this one day, I failed to beat the rush so I actually ended up second in the queue. Luckily, my cube is close enough to the microwave where I can hear the beep, so I can actually get back to my cube and work while the microwave is cooking. But on this particular day, this lady before me must have been cooking a turkey or something (those were my exact wording in my thought. . . . . ironically also the same words my cube-mate used on her just a few days after this incident) because she ding'd her frozen dinner like 50 times at "forever" intervals. Each time I hear the ding, I would get up to find out she is putting it back in which kind of frustrated me a bit.

Now we all live in an age of neighborhood networking and internet; how about linking up our office microwave to the network too? Here is what I'm thinking. There can be this little window program where it will indicate the time left over on the microwave so people can time themselves accordingly. Better yet, how about have the queue on the network where the program will have pop up messages that will warn you when you are up in "approximately 30 seconds" or "now serving ticket No. 34". If networking is too difficult, then how about those devices they give you at restaurants when you are waiting for a table, where the device will vibrate and flash lights (basically freak-out on you) to tell you that you are being summoned. Honestly, with such a device, it would save me from all the anxiety and false alarms that the "turkey lady" puts me (and my cube-mate) through.

Side note: this invention idea is dedicated to Claire for this is her last week at her office. Like many of us, she have also suffered similar "turkey lady" situations (for bathrooms instead) and offered this solution. Bravo!

No. 0019 - "Communist" the game

2007-06-04T02:48:00.000-04:00

I was over at some friends house tonight for a game of monopoly as a fine Sunday afternoon hangout. I've always enjoyed a good game of Monopoly with my friends, however, some have brought up the point that such game could be quite contentious. I thought about it and I can't help but to agree with them. Afterall, it does depict, in a smaller scale, of the political economy that we live in; a dog-eat-dog world. In essence, we all are immersed in an economical Darwinist society where business "survival the fittest" does apply. Why wonder this game is contentious?!

This is why my invention idea would suit those that would perfer a less competitive, less contentious Sunday afternoon family game - "Communist" the game. Instead of having the great value distinction (classism) between the slums of Baltic Ave to the ritzy Broadwalk, the board would be ridden with rice paddies, blacksmith shops, and coal mines. All places would cost the same and as soon as a player makes a profit on anything, the money must be equalized between all players or go to the central government. Instead of having "Chances" and "Community Chest" cards in the middle, it would have "Corruption" and "Coercion" cards. Corruption would have cards like "Pay the central government $100 yuan for your DVD bootlegging establishment". As for coercion, it would have cards like "Face the firing squad for having capitalistic ideas" or "Go to labor correctional camp for going to church". There are no such thing as free parking in China. When you pass GO, instead of collecting $200, you have to instead rehearse a verse from Mao's little red book. Instead of having only one going to jail spot at the northeast corner of the board, this game would have at least six. Now of course the "get out of jail free" card would have to come from the corruption pile. I can even picture the pewter character pieces already, instead of having a car, a shoe or a thimble, the "Communist" game would have characters like Joseph Stallin, some random Chinese guy, a sickle, a hammer, even Sputnik! Now such a game you can imagine would last quite a while and probably be pretty boring. I guess the only way the game would end is when you buy the expansion set to the "Communist" game where companies like McDonalds or Cadillac are allowed to build restaurants and factories on your rice paddies, then things would really start to shake up.

P.S. - Props to Killen and Andy for encouraging me to put this up.

No. 0018 - Clt-Alt-Delete on People

2007-05-23T12:50:00.000-04:00

For all those Windows user, Clt-Alt-Delete should not be anything of a surprise to you. For as sad as it is that we need to use it all the time, nonetheless, it is a very useful function. What's even better is that Clt-Alt-Delete brings up the task manager in which would allow you to end whatever specific task that is stuck or not responding. Imagine that function with people. Imagine the next time you get stuck in a bad conversation with some stranger at a party. . . . Clt-Alt-Delete, Task Manager, End Task "Conversation with Wierdo". Then that's it!!! How beautiful is that! Another great feature to task manager is the performance tab. It would tell you how hard the computer is working for you. So the next time you feel stressed about anything or that you have too many things to do, Clt-Alt-Delete, task manager, end task "drop out of school".

Disclamer: this invention idea will not be responsible for any rash decision made nor responsible for any system crashes or failure to your mind (ie going crazy)

No. 0017 - Task Rewarder

2007-05-16T11:08:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how many of you actually uses a software of sort to keep track of daily tasks (ie. Outlook or Lotus or some Palm software), in anycase, I do. My list at work has pretty much became my slave driver with due dates and stuff. For as much as it has became my source of stress, I couldn't describe the joy I receive from clicking the little box to mark it done. Sometimes I would even hold down the mouse button as I'm pressing the "mark complete" button to extend my few short fragments of a second of satisfaction. Here is a suggestion, what about integrating a task rewarder to our PCs (or Macs to be politically correct). It is quite a simple contraption. All it does is that whenever you get done with a task and you hit that "done" check box, a treat, like candy, will pop up to reward you for a job well done. In this way, your enjoyment will extend from simply clicking the button to a lengthen enjoyment in your mouth. Now of course, computer programs would have to be written to prevent the abuse of the task rewarder. In essences, you can't get rewarded for tasks like "going to the bathroom" or "chit-chatting with your cube-mate" (You get the idea). I can even envision the second generation of the task rewarder already, also known as task punisher. Instead of a reward, it will shock you (ie through your mouse) when a task is not done on a specific date.

No. 0016 - Underground GPS

2007-05-13T19:38:00.000-04:00

I logged this invention in a registry in the depths of the Peppersauce caverine in Oracle AZ. If you want to read it, you must enter the caverine and find the registry book. Good Luck!

No. 0015 - Life Expectancy Calculator

2007-05-05T15:48:00.000-04:00

This morning I've made a determination to pay more attention at my health, so I started to look more into what are some of the health benefits that my employer has to offer. I came across this online test where you can input your health info and then it will give you an assessment of where you stand and what you can do to improve your health. But one thing that really surprised me about this test is that it also asked about my driving habits and mileage (just in case you are interested, if I decide to drive the speed limit for the rest of my life, I can increase my life expectancy by 1.98 years). Then it hits me, wouldn't it be nice if we can calculate how long we are going to live by considering all aspects of life: type of job we do, where we live, how many kids we're going to have, what kind of foods we like, the kind of risks that we like to take and etc. Imagine how useful such a report can be. From a single's perspective, I think such a report should be required before a marriage proposals, or maybe even on your first date. One might say "considering I'm going to die 5 years before you, you sure you still would want to date me?" or as for a proposal case, an eager fiance might say "if you still want to marry me, then we really need to start some sort of savings to take care of you during those 5 years that I'm DEAD before you DIE too!" Yes, death is not a topic that most would find entertaining to talk about, but the bottom line is that it is hard to predict and it will happen to all of us. That is why a "life expectancy calculator" can come in handy to take out all uncertainties so we can make better decision in life and plan up to the day we die!

Digression: I'm currently 27.25 years old but I'm really living at 27.97 so I'm technically dying .72 years ahead of myself. . . I definitely need some improvement here.

No. 0014 - Piñata con el Coche

2007-05-02T16:13:00.000-04:00

I was over at a friend's house for a birthday party this week and of course, there was a piñata. Besides the birthday boy, most of us had an opportunity to take a swing at it with a broom stick, mainly because this piñata was quite sturdy. Then I think back, I couldn't recall the one time when a piñata would get hit and explode in such a manner that the candy would go all over the place. Search your piñata memory bank real quick. What usually happens? First thing, the string always breaks first. Then, after you re-tie it, maybe an appendage would break off (in this case, it was Spoonge Bob's leg). Then what?! Then the candy would slowly trickle out of a piñata fracture and would still retain most of the candy. The bottom line is that the satisfaction of the out pour of candy is taken away due to the over sturdyness of the piñata. After a few batters, my friend Nate suggested "maybe we should us a car instead." This is where I took that idea to the n-th degree. Why not a car?! Here's how I envision it. Blindfold the birthday person and put them in a car. Dangle the piñata with a long stick and give it to the "runner". Yes it would suck to be the person holding the stick with the piñata running around in an empty parking lot (with no light poles of course), but imagine the fun and entertainment the spectators will have. To ensure the safety of the "runner", all you need to do is to have an extra long stick which would give the runner ample of time to dodge the charging vehicle. . . . kind of like bull fighting with a car.

No. 0013 - Barcoded Produce

2007-04-26T00:24:00.000-04:00

I was at the self check out one time and this man in front of me had like a bag of cilantros, potatos, beets and some other random vegetables (who knows what he was about to cook). Anyway, it took him forever to go through because he had to first chose the categories, then the sub categories and on and on. . . . Essentially, he needed assistant on each item. I think I was buying some batteries so I got out of there before he even got to the beets. Heres what I suggest. How about growing the barcode right on the vegetables? I've seen Chinese people have taped a word on the apples and a few days later, the taped part would become lighter. How about taping a barcode there next time so it can be imprinted on the fruit? I'm not sure what to do with stuff like lettuce or carrots, but I'm confident that with the advance technology and briliant scientists out there today, we can grow just about anything, even barcodes for impatient shopper such as I.

No. 0012 - Car Locator Display

2007-04-26T00:07:00.000-04:00

Today, this man saw me aimlessly walking around the parking lot with my arm raised up high with my car keys in my hand; immediately he commented "lost your car huh?" I'm not sure about you but this happens to me a lot. It doesn't matter how sweet of a parking spot I get in the morning, everyday after work, I always manage to find myself walking the "tour de parking lot". How hard is it to put a little tracker on your car and then put a display on your car remote key thing? All the display needs is an arrow, pointing the way to your car. Maybe the arrow can even be color coded to let you know how close you are. I've seen it in movies; car tracker that can track cars across towns. If that is possible, then why not in a parking lot. This seem to be an all too simple solution to a way too common problem.

No. 0011 - Zip-line to work

2007-04-21T12:15:00.000-04:00

I must confess that this invention idea won't serve many people, in fact, it is quite selfish but I still think it is a good idea (for me at least). I spent roughly 30-40 mins to travel 30 miles to work everyday. And that's only one way my friend, the return trip is even worse. The ironic thing is that once I've arrived at the parking lot of my office, I can see clearly of the end of the mountain ranges where my apartment is located; it is a straight shot. What if I were to build two columns, one by my apartment and the other right by my work. Connect a zip-line between the two columns and hook a basket (cockpit) on the line. I can make the column at home adjustable in height by remote control so I can manipulate the elevation ensuring two way traffic on the zip line (it would really suck to get stuck at work just because my column at home can't be lowered). However, this invention isn't exactly flawless. One must consider all the telephone poles and power lines along the way; it would really suck to be "clothes lined" at 300 mph while being electricuted at the same time. Also, this can only serve a few people as "zip-line traffic" can get real dangerous and real messy really fast.

No. 0010 - Cookbook for Engineers

2007-04-13T19:52:00.000-04:00

Last night I was trying to make some Chinese BBQ pork and the sauce instructed "16 oz of pork to every 5 tablespoon of sauce". I though to myself how on earth can people measure pork with the units of volume?! I honestly thought the instructions were bogus and blamed to the fact that the sauce was made in China and people there don't know what they are talking about. So I busted out my trusty TI and started to do some unit analysis. Given I have 1.85 lb (that's pound force) of pork chops, I first divided it by the gravity of earth which would give me 0.0575 slugs (British mass unit) of pork. Then I ran into a wall, because now that I know the mass of the pork, in order to translate that into volume, I must know the density of pork. I have access to handbooks and information to just about any material properties there are on this earth but density of pork!? Common?! I even have the thermal conductivity constant for bananas and cake batter but the density of pork?! As hunger and frustration begin to set in, I had no choice but to give it up for the night. Later did I find out that 16 oz = 1 lbf which makes no sense to me. Wouldn't it be nice if all the cooking units would just standardize (better yet, stay away from the British units and stick to SI)? Imagine cooking instruction that would say "marinade 3.5 newtons of beef" or "mix in 4.73E-4 cubic meter of flour". The beauty of SI is that gravity is about 10 m/s^2 so that would makes the math really nice. I would also suggest cooking instruction to have the density values of the ingridents as well so I can always calculate for the total volume of the meal. This is handy because I can always solve for the volume of food that I'm cooking and set that equal to the volume of stomachs that I'll be feeding. How wonderful is that! No left overs!

P.S. - I must give half the credit to my friend, Tyler Ball, for this invention because we came up with this idea together about 1-2 years ago and it just came to me that "yeah, that was a good idea!"

No. 0009 - Alternate Shaped Chapstick

2007-04-10T14:02:00.000-04:00

I have never finished using a chapstick from the beginning to the end before in my entire life. In fact, I think I've recently broke my all time record of losing a chapstick in the shortest amount of time (I bought it last Saturday, used it like 5 times and it's gone today). If there was ever a sweepstake of a one million dollar price at the bottom of the chapstck base, then I will have absolutely 0% chance of winning that. You know what the problem is? The problem is that most chapsticks are round at the body. I see this happen all the time; I come home, I empty my pockets and as soon as my hand leaves the stuff, the chapstick makes a run for it. Once it gets on the floor, then the sky is the limit as to where it will be kicked to. Why can't they make it in a triangular shape? How about a square? I'll even settle for an oval, anything but a circle.

No, I don't like the "finger" applicating method such as caramex (actually, that cylinder can run too) or the "toothpaste" packaging (too greasy).

No. 0008 - Grocery Traffic Controller

2007-04-08T05:12:00.000-04:00

The average temperature to most produce section of the grocery store is usually lower. Some grocery store even have the entire room refrigerated for the produce, such as the one grocery store I visited today. The store (17th street market for my Arizonian friends) is truely one of the greatest grocery store that I've visited in a long time. It has quite a variety of vegetables and exotic fruits, some that I've only seen in places such as Chinatown. While I was still at awed of the selections of produce there, an unprecedent amount of asian people starting flooding into the refrigerated produce room. Before I even realize it, I found myself in an ocean of people. So here I am, caught somewhere between the bok choy and the bitter melon section, wearing a hawaiian short and t-shirt; I was starting to freeze. By that point I had no choice but to crash out before frost bite sets in. After side swipping and rear ending a few people and shopping carts, I was out. The warmth feels good but I could have freezed to death in there. That is why we need a traffic controler in the refrigerated produce room such as this one. Maybe they can establish a loop, or a round about where carts can only travel in one direction. All abandoned cart will be towed at the user's expense. Parallel parking time must be limited to keep the flow going. All violations of such traffic rules will be subjected to the punishment of the Grocery Traffic Law Enforcer (GTLE). His or her job is to keep an eye for any offenders of the grocery store's traffic laws. When such violations occur, the GTLE have every rights to take away produce from violators' cart at the check out and say, for example "NO SHITAKE MUSHROOMs FOR YOU!"

No. 0007 - Vincinty Velocity Detector

2007-04-05T15:56:00.000-04:00

This morning as I was about to walk into my office building, this nice man in front of me held the door open for me. My velocity was just right that he didn't really have to wait for me to come, neither did I have to speed up to catch the door; it was perfect timing. However, as I looked back, this lady was behind me about 10-15 feet away. Here's my dilemma, should I wait or should I go? If I stay, then this lady with 15 briefcases, a carry-on and a lunch sac will feel obligated to speed up to catch the door; if not, then she would have to open the door herself. I'm sure a lot of you have experienced similar situations and that's why a vincinty velocity detector will come in handy. What it does is that it will detect all those that are around right as you are approaching the door and measures the average velocity of those around you versus your own velocity (aka relative velocity). And based upon this data, this device will give you a simple go-no-go instruction right as you arrive at the door way whether you should keep the door open for the one behind you or not. As a result, this device can help us avoid much awkward situations of waiting for people to speed up to catch your courtesy. To finish the story, no I didn't wait for that lady this morning.

No. 0006 - Home Depot Gladiators

2007-04-04T01:23:00.000-04:00

I'm not a violent person, neither do I condone violence. But, lets just make an assumption that colosseum games are a thing of American pastime, then Home Depot Gladiators could be quite entertaining. Here's how it works. You throw in a few gladiators in a Home Depot with no weapons, release a few hungary lions and tigers and let the game begin. For survival sake, the gladiators must be creative and must know their way around Home Depot because the idea is that they must make their weapons and protection along the way. The gladiators could make something like a "modified morning star" thing with an axe attached at the end of a chain, imagine the damage you can do with that! How about screwing a cabinet handle to the back of a toilet seat cover, you get a shield! Throwing saw blades like a ninja star could be quite dangerous too (don't even get me started with the power tools - simply deadly). Basically, the sky is the limit when it comes to variety. To make things even more interesting, put up those orange gates that would block the isles! Turn the whole place into a labyrinth! Let them even drive those crazy fork lifts! Just remember, if you ever become one of these Home Depot gladiators, just don't get stuck in the gardening section; a leaf rig is just as deadly as it gets.

No. 0005 - Married Couple Foam

2007-04-03T03:30:00.000-04:00

It was brought up to my attention once from my married friends that when they retire to their bed, there is this cold draft travelling between them. I can see how that is the case even though I'm still a single guy. Sleeping by myself, I could wrap myself up entirely like a burrito with all the covers I want; a perfectly insulated system. Whereas for married couples, you don't get that luxury anymore. Here is what I propose. Make a straight long piece of foam that would curve on the opposite sides such that it would form around the shoulders and arms of the married couple. In this way, that would block the cold draft between them and keeping the heat from escaping the pocket. Then my married friends asked me "what if we want to cuddle?". My response was "simply remove the foam."

No. 0004 - "ish" Watch

2007-04-03T03:14:00.000-04:00

Often time I would ask people "When are we meeting?" In response, some would say "5 -ish". The concept of -ish in time keeping is really creeping into day to day conversation. And tonight, for the first time, I was given a response of "7:45 ish". What that tells me is that the tolerance in time telling have decreased from 60 mins to 5 mins. If that is the case, watch maker should really consider this. Still print in the traditional numbers 1 thru 12 at their perspective location on a watch. But instead of putting in five tiny-ier ticks inbetween the numbers, just print in "-ish". I honestly think that would accommodate real well with the emersion of the "-ish" time telling culture.

No. 0003 - Baby Muffler

2007-04-03T02:55:00.000-04:00

Kids crying is probably one of the greatest distractions during church. How about putting a muffler on that kid? But some might say that is so cruel. That's why I propose to put a sound sensor on that muffler. The sensor will measure the loudness to the screaming and indicate that information through a spectrum of lights. For example, green would equates to a "simple whimper" while red indicates "I HATE YOU!".

No. 0002 - Screaming Germ Soap

2007-04-03T02:44:00.000-04:00

I'm a germ-a-phob. I think I've read somewhere before that it is the amount of water that you use to clean your hands that determines the cleanliness, not the amount of soap. However, wouldn't it be nice to have a soap that can effective kill germs but also at the same time causes the germs to scream. So the next time you wash your hands, you can put them close to your ears, wait for the "ah ah . . . ah .aah" to slowly die down, then you will KNOW your hands are clean. Kill germs effectively and save water. . .what a deal!

No. 0001 - Edible Camp Gear

2007-04-03T02:32:00.000-04:00

I just came back from a camping trip. For as much as I do love backpacking, a heavy pack sure can do a number on your back and shoulders. Imagine this, you are on you last day of camp and you are packing up your stuff. Instead of packing up your tent, you can just eat it up! Sleeping bag? Just eat it up. Mess kit? You get the idea.