[lit-ideas] Re: Hmmm... all hype?
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 09:26:27 -0800
While whomever is at it, could they please make an efficient mop?
How about an efficient cork screw?
I'm sure you all know that the Greeks invented the sun dial and the Romans copied the Greek
sun dials. But the Romans, those engineering wizards, never bothered to figure out the sun
dial. The gnomon (the angle of the sun dial) is specific to the location. The Greeks figured
out the correct angle for Athens, so the sun dials were accurate for Athens. The Romans just
copied this and took sun dials across the empire, to Egype and Germany and England. Guess
what? The sun dials showed the wrong time. And nobody noticed or fixed this for 800 years.
Okay, you're thinking: those wacky Romans! We're smarter than that!
Ha. The good ol' wing corkscrew is (so to speak) screwed up. It doesn't work correctly.
Yet... every single wing corkscrew is based on the same principle. Every new company copies
the original. And they're all screwed up.
I'm talking about the wing screw. Here's a mugshot of the culprit:
http://www.wineultra.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2304
Most of you have this type of corkscrew.
When you use it, you screw into the cork. The wings rise. The screw reaches bottom. You
lower the wings to withdraw the cork. But... it doesn't go far enough. So you have to screw
down some more.
Why doesn't it reach? By adjusting the number of teeth on the wheels, the cork screw would
be able to make it in one go. But the inventor miscalculated and it takes two cycles. What's
really crazy is that every single company has slavishly copied this design without noticing
the problem nor fixing it.
There. One of you can file for a patent on this. I give the idea freely, so the world may
become a (slightly) better place.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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