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New Idea of the Week
As we enter the third millennium, personal data security and privacy become goals that are ever harder to achieve. You may have read about the 'flash hat' which renders flash photography of a subject impossible. How, then, to perform the same feat with a video camera? Suppose that you used infrared floods and spots to shine both onto the subject and away from the subject. The infrared would upset any black and white cameras attempting to take your photo, colour video cameras using an infrared system for range finding would also be put out, light meters and auto white balance may also suffer. The infrared shining onto the face would also cause areas of over exposure and under exposure on an infrared or black and white camera, or night sights.
A similar system could be used to ensure privacy against audio bugs and/or parabolic microphones. A suitable arrangement would be several relatively directional sound sources connected to a computer playing pink noise with a spectral frequency similar to the 'subjects'. The computer is used to advance and retard the delay on each of these speakers in order to effectively cancel the obscuring pink noise in the ears of the subject. This may require ear plugs, however if not, no system outside the perimeter of speakers (and sound) would be capable of determining what was being said inside. Laser eavesdroppers and human ears would probably be the only systems that could overcome this, and let's not forget lip readers.
Ok, here is one to upset the water board... If the afore-mentioned authorities fail to stop vast amounts of flood water gaining entry to your house every time it rains, don't despair! Put up your sandbags, then simply flood your own home with tap water, keeping the level just above that of the outside waters. This will stop the destructive deposition of silt and oil, mud and sewage that so often is all that remains to remind you of the time your house was in a foot of river.
Once the tide recedes your fresh, clean water will find it's way past the sandbags, and drain away. No silt got in because the sandbags and the fresh water prevented the in-flow of dirty water. Now just let your newly cleaned, if rather damp carpets dry out, and move the furniture back!
Sorry, this one is under wraps for now, patent pending, and all that. How about an idea about left-handers?
Why do cars have brakes? As the whole system is massively inefficient, in that all the force and energy goes into the heating of a steel or carbon fibre disk. Would it not be possible to use a regenerative braking system, in place of the front discs? Powerful magnets would induce massive currents in a coil, and these could be used for charging of batteries, which, in turn, would remove the need for an alternator and the associated loss of power it causes. This extra energy would be enough to charge a large bank of batteries, and the use for those will be explained next time..
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