Eclectic Views

    
On additional point.  If the handle were to open out like the bell (mouth)  
of a trumpet, such that the wires, cords, fibers, ... that protrude from it 
leaned against its inner, curved surface when more than slightly bent, that 
would prevent sharp bends at the base and most breakage that might result 
from it.
  

    
If you ride a bicycle in the city, one thing you get used to is having
strollers shoved out in front of you. Out come the front wheels, out
come the little kicking baby feet, out comes the little, anxious baby
face, and then, after all that, out comes the mother's head, looking
around, much too late, to see if there is anything coming.

Back when I had a baby, I found out that the defect is in stroller
design. The things stick out too far in front. At every intersection,
if you want to look out for what is coming, you have to slew them
sideways, blocking other people's way, so as to be able to see safely.
I dealt with this by getting rid of the stroller and carrying the
child, first in a backpack and then up on my shoulders, but not
everyone is as big as me.

What you want is a 2-wheeled stroller built along the lines of a short
hand truck. It would sit on its two wheels and a platform, and would
be canted back to push. The kid would ride sitting higher up, so you
could talk with him, and much closer in, so she would not be
continually thrust out into traffic and so you wouldn't take up so much
sidewalk space. It would be more prone to falling over, because
higher, but what sane person ever takes their hands off of a stroller
with a child in it anyway?
  

    
What a great post.  How could this great idea be brought to fruition?
  

    
I have no idea. (See topic title.) 

To think the idea through, one would have to talk with someone who can
draw. Mechanical drawing is a way of thinking about how things go
together. One could get a better idea of just how to place the child's
chair, what kind of handles to use, where to put an auxilary cargo bin,
and so on. Then, with drawings in hand, one could go on to the next
step, whatever that might be.
  

    
A stopgap that might be easier to start with would be mirrors on the front
corners of a conventional stroller or baby carriage.  That way you can see
more of what kind of traffic you're about to push the kid out into.

Or maybe instead of mirrors, have little video cameras feeding a screen
mounted on the handles.  That would allow more flexibility in where the
things could be mounted to give an unobstructed view.

There's at least one model of laptop in the preliminary stages of
production with a screen that can be viewed in a wide variety of lighting
conditions, including direct sunlight.  So it looks sort of feasible. 
  

    
Assume you have a device with cell-phone and GPS navigation capabilities.  
I think it would be good to be able to give it a command like "I'm going
to [Location X].  When we get [close to Location X], send [Message Y] to
[Person Z]."

The definition of "close" could be specified by the user in terms of
distance or travel time, with the messages ranging from pre-defined things
like "I'm five minutes away from where I said I'd meet you" to whatever
text or audio the user wanted to type in or record.

Has this been done yet?
  

    
I heard from someone who wrote a program to have his cell phone open his
garage door when it comes within range of his home wifi.  He says the
GPS on his G1 doesn't have good enough resolution to use for this purpose.
This is so he doesn't have to take the opener out of his pocket while
he's riding his motorcycle.
  

    
Those are applications for which you'd need to leave a third-party (not
supplied by the phone manufacturer) process running, to determine whether
your current location fell within a predetermined radius of a specified
location, or whether the wifi circuitry had located a specific network.

There are devices on which this would be possible, but leave more than a
few such processes running and your phone/PDA is likely to have pretty
poor battery life, and a device on which third-party background processes
are possible is likely to be prone to security issues.

Still, cool ideas!
  

    
During a previous water shortage the relevant authorities suggested not 
flushing toilets as often:  

   If it's yellow, let it mellow.
   If it's brown, flush it down.  

Thing is, many people consider a toilet bowl full of unflushed wee-wee to 
be rather unattractive.  

So how about something sort of like traditional toilet-bowl cleaners that
you drop into the tank, but formulated for the specific purpose of making
it easier to not flush as often.  Hide the color, and eliminate any odors,
or something like that.

Or has this been done already?
  

    
just google eco toilet

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=eco+toilet&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=