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

Inspired by a hotel breakfast:

For those communal toast makers, where you stick your bread in, and then cant remember which were yours when they pop out the other end - a roller thing that you can programme with an individual initial or sign.

pfft - just bite off a corner before you put it in.

DIY road repairs.


40 years ago I designed the road for the 22nd Century. Using a bucket dredge, the road is dug to 2m deep and the sides rendered in concrete. All services are then bolted to the walls for easy access. The road surface would be prefabricated in easy to assemble, dovetailed blocks. They'd be made of cambered, concave re-enforced concrete coated in tarmac. This would be lowered into position by crane.

Then, when a service needed repairing/replacing, access could be made to the void via service points. As the road wears out so that section would be removed and recycled, and a new section inserted. Minimum hold ups and no digging up the road or problems with potholes...

coins and plastic to have a small portion of iron in, sufficient to be picked up by magnet, so that Crips like me, who can't reach the ground, can pick these items up without relying on others.

Easy-opening blister-packs. Why can't they have tear-off strips or fold-back, perforated openings

MMF

I'm sure Peter F Hamilton had a better method of roadbuilding. Simply use your starship's fusion drive to hover just above the ground and melt the bedrock below. Moving forwards creates a road of solid rock.

*pfft - just bite off a corner before you put it in.*

I just stand there looking threating

Peter F Hamliton's road didn't have watermains, sewers or gas pipes underneath then...

I need a TV channel inventing that I'm remotely interested in watching for more than about 1 hour a week. Yes that would be nice

Are there? I missed something.

>>Easy-opening blister-packs. Why can't they have tear-off strips or fold-back, perforated openings

Why can't we have all manner of easy-to-open packaging? A carton of milk with one of those pull-off seals has a tiny tag on it, which, if it doesn't break in your fingers, requires the force of an adult combined with the finger-size of a child. Was it designed for dwarf bodybuilders?

Or kids' toys...a box can contain several different means of attachment; twisted wires, cableties, and tape. All to keep a few bits of plastic from moving slightly.

Try undoing them with the onset of arthritis/rheumatism...

MMF

22nd Century roads? The cars still have wheels then? I already ordered a flying one...

An option on mobile phones to automatically change the word predictions language according to who's the recipient of your messages.

(In fairness, it may exist already, but not on the phones I've had before.)

Id like to see BBC Weather telling you what it predicted for yesterday, so you could judge whether its likely to be right for tomorrow.

Airtight underpants.

>>Id like to see BBC Weather telling you what it predicted for yesterday, so you could judge whether its likely to be right for tomorrow.

I've often thought about this, too. It annoys me that they don't give unbiased forecasts. Either they will issue all manner of panicky storm warnings (for fear of repeating the '87 fiasco) which turn out to be unnecessary, or they talk about 'good' weather. Why is sunshine inherently good? What's more, given that the forecast only lasts a couple of minutes, why waste time telling us to "wrap up warm"? That's not meteorology. And don't get me started on the way they devote half the screen to the presenter...I want to see the forecast, not a gesticulating person.

I think I need the adult equivalent of a bib. I'm trying to eat spaghetti at my desk.

RE: Post 73 - I think electric shock treatment to weather forecasters would help accuracy - the more wrong they are, the larger the shock. They'd soon spend more time getting things accurate!

As for the invention *I* want - a portable, temporary stairlift for people moving house. Carry it in, lay it on the stairs, and hey presto, carrying the wardrobe downstairs is no longer a nightmare!

You could always get some men in.

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I believe that is called a robot.