Eclectic Views

    
Appropriate caveats and disclaimers apply.
  

    
Ever had a container of Parmesan turn hard to the point where you could 
hardly get anything out, even though it was half full?

Solution: hard cheeses formed into rods, about the size and shape of a 
stick of string cheese (individually wrapped and sealed), that fit into a 
rotary grater, much like the table grinders used for black pepper.
  

    
I like it.
  

    

reconstituted, re-grated parmesan?
  

    
I think you want a Parmasan puck. Flat and wide to present more
surface area to the little grater toothies.
  

    <scribbled by ckridge Mon 13 Feb 06 07:21>
  

    
Mmph. I hadn't realized this was public. I am not at all sure I wanted
that idea out there in the world.

OK, maybe I can make amends. Why not turn these new picture phones
into a crime-fighting tool? You could set up numbers where if you saw
someone doing something bad, you could call the police and send them
photos of the crime in progress at the same time. 
  

    
Drinking straws with one-way check valves in them for sharing drinks without
having to worry about the other person's germs getting into the drink by
backflow through the straw.
  

    
>  Mmph. I hadn't realized this was public. I am not at all sure I wanted
>  that idea out there in the world.
  
It's always your privilege to scribble ...
  

    
Done. I am repentant, and so cross-post this idea from Parenting:

I am beginning to plan out a handbook patterned after _The Action
Heroes Handbook_, called _The Teenage Boy's Handbook_. Possible
topics:

1. How to talk to police
2. How to talk with men with guns
3. How to talk with drugged men with guns
4. How to refuse drugs politely
5. How to ditch drugs
6. How to escape from a car at a stoplight
7. How to roll out of a car that has slowed down
8. How to get into a bar
9. When to get out of a bar
10. How to get out of a bar fight
11. How to get into a bar fight
12. How to look cool while getting beat up
13. How to ask a girl to dance
14. What to do when a girl wants to like put her arms around you and
dance some way you don't know how
15. How to put on a condom gracefully
16. What to do when a girl begins to laugh uncontrollably at the sight
of you with a condom on. (Reciting the A.A. Milne verse about John and
his great big waterproof mackintosh is always good, particularly if
you can time the "'That,' said John, 'is that,'" to coincide with the
final disappearance of your erection.)
17. How to yell stuff at concerts without sounding like a complete
dick
18. How to curse
19. Real trouble: how to avoid drug addiction, knocking a girl up, or
getting religion
20. How to get out of drug addiction, knocking a girl up, or religion
21. How and when to yell for lawyers, guns, and money
  

    
Oh, and one more. The world desparately needs a folding mouthpiece
shield for cell phones, to let one talk softly into them and still be
understood, and to screen out background noise. It would be like a
canopy folding up from the bottom of the phone, and would do the work
that cupping one's free hand over one's mouth and the mouthpiece does.
  

    
Once you get that written, call up the Tom Leykis show.  You'll be a hero
and sell a jillion copies.
  

    
I'm afraid that it would take more than 15 minutes to write, and so
will not happen.
  

    
Solar Cremation - using concentrated solar energy (from a large mirror or
mirror field) to dry and incinerate a corpse instead of doing it with 
burning fuel.

Dual Resolution Video Sensors - a high resolution, narrower angle field
wrapped by a lower resolution, wider angle field.  This would be useful for
helping videographers know which way to point/move the camera to catch the
action.  (might already exist)
  

    
Solar cremation?  Interesting thought. I like it. 

The below is not for the squeamish...
>
>
>
>
>
My family use to own a funeral home/crematory.  If you are going solar
don't be in a big hurry to have the ashes and for sure you will
needsome mighty big mirrors to dry it through to the bone.  Even with a
gas retort, it is impossible for every bone to turn to ash.  Sometimes
they have to be pulverized (like the pelvic bone is the hardest to
burn through).  The other thing to consider is how you will cut down on
the smell.  Even with over 3,000 degrees of gas heat, it doesn't
always burn clean.  As horrible as this sounds, I have been around some
older gas retorts that didn't burn too efficient and the air about
smelled like Burger King.  Mmm - charbroil!    
  

    
There is a going to be a big-ass crematorium built near my house soon.
  

    
I don't envy you.  Living with one for almost 20 years was plenty. 
Ugh.  
  

    
what about the rest of the body?
  

    
!!!
  

    
hahahaha!  
  

    
> Even with a gas retort, it is impossible for every bone to turn to ash.  
> Sometimes  they have to be pulverized (like the pelvic bone is the 
> hardest to burn through).  The other thing to consider is how you will 
> cut down on the smell.  Even with over 3,000 degrees of gas heat, it 
> doesn't always burn clean.

Might have something to do with the oxygen content of the surrounding 
gases.  If the body is directly in the flame, the oxygen content would be 
low.

In a solar crematorium, not using flame, the oxygen content would be 
normal.
  

    
There need to be fat suits you can rent to wear when going to see
someone you knew while young, and they got fat and you didn't, and you
don't want them to feel bad.
  

    
And thin suits, that most people can wear all the rest of the time.
  

    
Most people?
  

    
Well, people like me, surely!
  

    
Perhaps a combination, a kind of inflatable corset that would slim one
down in one social context and plump one up in another. Conceivably it
could be automated so that one always tended toward the average girth
of the crowd one was with.