h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello, all, friends and CLI Tourgroups alike. This is the gadgeteering workshop. This is where I work on my small gadgets and projects. Sure, I could go to the bigger labs, and get robots to do it....but every once in a while, you just need to get back to your roots. And it's the best setting for custom invention requests.

I come here a lot to think. Amazing the gadgets you can build when you're working out issues.

And today...I feel very, very busy....

You know, one problem with any invention is how to contain it.

*Begins working with an old model of the Temporal Rift Creator*

This dates all the way back to fire. Yeah, it rocks. But if you mess up, you'll get burned. So, people started building little stone circles around fires.

*Working on a setting for pathways to places that don't exist*

Lots of scientists have trouble controlling what they initially build. Sure, a light bulb or phonograph won't getcha. But look at the Internet's problems. Or Frankenstein's monster. I've got a project too, one that's tough to contain.

*Setting up a memory system*

It's a truly "Universal Solvent." Well....I guess water is *the* Universal Solvent. But there's some stuff it just won't melt, you know? Like stainless steel. But *this* can eat away at anything. Cool, right? But how on Earth do you contain that?

*Finishes building*

Well, behold! It's a micro pocket dimension generator! Pocket dimensions are inherrently limited in space, but have no true edges for a solvent to destroy. Therefore, just have the dimension be the exact dimension to contain your solvent!

Cool. Time to patent.

Now I'm tired...

You know what I hate most about waking up? It's not emerging from sleep. That's an unpleasantness that I've experienced well over 99% of the times I have arisen from slumber in my short life.

*Begins affixing a few strange contraptions to a small bed*

And besides, there are times when I just can't get enough sleep even if I *am* allowed as much as I want. Eventually, I have to wake up, and it's never wholly pleasant, unless it's one of those *really good mornings*, you know?

*Fiddles with a motor*

It's not getting out from under the cover of blankets or sheets, or remaking the bed. I suppose I'd hate making the bed if I ever bothered....it's a habit that I should get into, really....it just never looks right when I make it.

*Tinkers with a timer*

It's the alarm clock. I detest alarm clocks. I've turned off my TV (back when I watched it) just because a show or commercial might have an alarm clock similar to mine. The alarm clock is a simple invention, but it does only the bare essentials. Need to wake someone up? Fine. Use a piercing, high-pitched, loud noise or buzz!

*Solders some wire*

Radio clocks are a step in the right direction, but they're still not enough. They're still rude and abrasive and urgent. Be it a commercial, a wacky DJ, some weird song, or someone talking about what's wrong in the world and why the other side of the political spectrum is to blame; they're all there to grab your attention, not to make the transition from dreamland to wakefullness an easy one. And so, I present....The Vibralarm!

This bed is set to a timer that will begin vibrating the bed softly when it's time to get up. The vibrating will become stronger over time to ensure that this doesn't actually help get you deeper into sleep, but it will give you something that you can enjoy immediately for the first thing you feel when you wake up.

I know. It's still not nearly as good as having a friend or relative quietly open the door and shake you awake like you could've done when you were in Elementary school. But it's another step in the right direction.

Cool. Time to patent.

*Carefully building a robotic arm that holds a transmuting pen capable of changing itself depending on the task at hand*

I've never been able to draw. That's always been, in my mind, one of my biggest problems. Much bigger than the fact that I never act when I'm onstage (I always wind up looking very, very rehearsed).

*Switches to begin working on an All-Purpose Skull Cap*

There are big drawbacks to being a storyteller who can't draw. Some people are *only* interested in stories with pictures along with them.

Mind you, I don't think it's a *bad* thing that some are drawn to graphic novels before textual ones. I mean, if anyone doubts that a comic book can be a good, intellectual read, I recommend picking up a copy of Maus if you can find it. That tells a story that, quite frankly, needed a graphic novelist to tell it. Similarly I've heard good things about The Watchmen, though I've never read it and really don't feel safe heaping praises onto something with which I'm unfamiliar.

*Puzzling together some tricky circuitry*

...Neural circuitry's the worst....but anyway, sometimes I want to present something that would only be serviceable in a graphical form. Comic strips. Paintings. The written word has limitations (for instance: have you ever tried to write the sentence "There are three twos(sic) in English"? It can't be written and end up a true statement).

*Affixes a paper dispenser, with different types of paper*

Some things deserve pictures. I mean, describing little short jokes such as one might find in Dilbert or Sluggy Freelance loses some of the charm if you can't catch actually see the associated pictures.

So here I present: the Head-Eye Coordinator! Wear the skull cap, and think of your picture. It'll draw it for you, nearly perfectly.

Cool. Time to patent.

I don't have much of anything on my mind, but I wanna build something anyway.

And so I present: a pinwheel where every "scoop" is half of a moebius strip, the other half being a scoop on the opposite side.

It has no actual purpose, but I like the concept.

Cool. Time to patent.