Necessity
Topic: The Invention Corner
I've invented a few things in the past. Some of them I've actually made, some of them were just concepts. Abstracts, if you will. I thought I'd list a few of them for you here, so you can save time later and not have to invent them yourself.

Many years ago, I invented a way to turn air invisible. It should be readly obvious to all that it works, unless you live in Los Angeles.

I invented a self-recharging battery, but it needs another battery to work, and that one needs changed a lot.

I took a hint from the late Douglas Adams, and invented a superintelligent breed of housefly that can find its way out of the open half of a half-open window, but they all got away.

I invented Scratch-N-Vote. It's a ballot that looks and works just like a scratch lottery ticket. I wanted something Floridans could understand. With a few changes, it also works as a Florida driver's test.

I invented a water filter that only allows impurities to pass through it.

I invented a glow-in-the-dark solar cell. I'm not proud of this one.

I invented the beehive hairdo, and I've already said I'm sorry, so leave me alone about it.

I invented a drink called The Lab Rat. It's good.

I invented a manhole cover that can be lifted easily by a four year old boy, but they kept getting stolen by four year old boys.

I invented a disposable car, but apparently someone beat me to the market and called it a Pinto.

I invented a subcutaneous device that could detect malinoma, but it turned out to be carcinogenic.

My parents invented me, and I reinvented me once I realized I was no longer marketable.

I invented a cat that's simutaneously affectionate, obedient, house-trained, loyal and protective. It's called a "dog."

I invented a device that filtered out every stupid thing said by politicians, and now I can't hear them.

I invented a two sided gaming die. It has a picture of Washington on one side and an eagle on the other. They became so popular, they are often exchanged for goods and services.

I also invented a one sided gaming die, for making your foregone conclusions feel a little more random.

And I invented the abrupt ending.

Ideas
Topic: The Invention Corner
A couple of ideas I had that I'd like to see implemented; one for simple home use, one with sweeping applications.

The first addresses a problem about which I've heard many people complain. They're upset because when they pour butter on their home-made popcorn, it makes some kernels soggy, others don't get any butter. Buttering popcorn requires a technique that not everyone can grasp, apparently.

Enter the Spidorcorp Popcorn Butterer. It's basically a water mister, like you use for your plants, or to discipline your cat. However, it's made of ceramic coated metal, including the inner tube. The reservoir is heated by an electrical, rechargeable battery powered heating element set in the base, and gets just hot enough to keep the butter melted, but not scorch it. All you have to do is spritz the butter on the popcorn, mixing the popcorn as you do so, until you've got it buttered evenly. It's also useful for buttering fry pans for cooking, or buttering corn-on-the-cob, or just about any situation in which you feel a need to spritz warm, oily substances.

The other invention started as a thought on how to make a tattoo better. A method of making a tattoo that you could change quickly and easily, allowing you to have a different tattoo, change the name of the ex-girlfriend to the incumbent, or completely remove prior to that big job interview with the Accounting Dept.

So, I looked to squids. Squids have cells called chromatophores, which they can make larger or smaller. They have them in a variety of colors. When they want to look red, they contract all the colors that aren't red, and expand the ones that are. Likewise if they want to look blue. And they can do so in a pattern as well.
So the tattoo could be made of a chromatophore emulating sub-dermal layer, connected to a small data port placed in an out-of-sight place on the skin. You can connect it to the controller console, which would have a variety of images that you could change in about 30 seconds' time.
Other applications? What if you had paint or cloth that had the same ability? Change your house, room, or car color by turning a dial. Someone at the party wearing the same dress? Well, now yours is a different color, even plaid or pin-striped. Military applications range from hiding soldiers to hiding tanks. It doesn't stop there. Imagine if the sides of trucks became animated, moving bill-boards. If the resolution could be made tight and responsive enough, televisions and computer monitors could be placed on a thin sheet, or your entire wall could be the screen.

I'd like to develop these ideas further into the physical world, but I'm more of an idea person, meaning I can't afford the patents or the research or the prototype.

Time
Topic: The Invention Corner
The Gregorian calendar is a variation of the Julian calendar. Both these calendars have been tweaked countless times, due partly to better measuring systems, and due partly to mistakes.* And the main purpose of the calendar is to measure time.

Time is measured in such a manner that tells agricultural technicians and implementing engineers** to know when they should plant, when they should harvest, and whether or not they should unload all their Burpee stock. Because of this, the Gregorian calendar is far too useful and necessary to dispense with completely. It should be kept in the form of an almanac, mainly so we'll have a handy reference with dates and numbers, instead of just sticking our head out the window.

But because it's based on an arbitrary system (how long it takes Earth to orbit Sol), it really can't be easily measured with precision. To get precision for that time period would take, literally, all year. Sure, it'd be worth the effort, but you wouldn't be able to verify it for another year, and what if the results don't match?

The fact days last more and less time during different seasons doesn't help, and Gods help you if you want to watch the passage of the sun if you live in Alaska. The earth rotates and we get days, and it orbits, giving us years. Without that simple morsel of information, the calendar system makes absolutely no sense. It's hard to count; it's not base 10. Instead, it uses multiples of 60, until you get to hours in a day, which becomes 24(ish). Then it becomes seven, but that's a dead end because days of the months are still counted by a base 10 system until you get to 31, 30, 29, or 28 (depending on the month or if it's a leap-year), at which point you have another dead end, and then you get to years, which are (suddenly and in defiance of all the other units of the calendar) counted by base 10, and it stays that way for the measure of centuries, millenium, and so on. This is, by the way, the "easy" calendar, meaning all the rest of them were rejected for common use because they were "too confusing."

Now, I've spoken about this before, but I didn't really have a good solution. I mentioned that beings of pure logic would reject such an asinine system, but I didn't say what they'd use instead. Well, I realized that the Metric system was a simple replacement to all the English measurements in common use. Couldn't that be applied to time as well?

I introduce to you the "chronon." One chronon is defined as the time it takes to bring a cubic millimeter (one milliliter) of pure water from zero degrees Celcius (freezing point at sea level) to one hundred degrees Celcius (boiling point at sea level), using a constantly applied heat of one hundred degrees celcius. I don't know how long that would take, but it's a constant, because the boiling point of pure water at sea level doesn't change. And because it's a constant, that means the time it takes is a constant.

And it can easily be broken down or multiplied in the same base 10 manner as all the other Metric system measurements. Decichronons, centichronons, decachronons... it all works out just as simply. It is independant of the Earthly seasons, so it can easily be used in space or places deep underground (or under the ocean) without confusion. As I mentioned earlier, agricultural occupations would still need an almanac, but the conversion rate would be simple, because the chronon is a constant. Hells, we could even go all the way back to the beginning of time itself, converting it all to metric measurements. The Gregorian calendar would go the way of so many other inventions based on Roman innovation; used occasionally, nostalgically, wistfully, and rarely effectively. It would be placed in the Old Dusty Attic of Roman Ideas along with Roman numerals, Latin, vomitoriums, and togas.

But we owe a lot to that system. So even if we do replace it, we'll remember it fondly, and possibly even commemorate the metric date of its passing. We'll remember it fondly, as we observe a few millichronons of silence, once every kilochronon.

See? It's just that easy to start using it.

*For example, in 9 BC, it was found that the priests in charge of computing the calendar had been adding leap years every three years instead of the four decreed by Caesar. As a result of this error, no more leap years were added until 8 AD, inspiring countless people to ask "What's the Goddamn point?"
**Pronounced "farmers"

The Word For The Day Is...
Topic: The Invention Corner
Lederhosen.

Welcome to The Invention Corner, in which I take an invention and try, without the benefit or glory of prior knowledge, to determine its history and purpose. It's kind of like a liar's club, only it's just me and I don't know what the Hell I'm talking about. Afterward, I'll research it on The Web-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (pronounced "internet"), and see how close I came. It'll be fun!

Honest.

The first invention I'll do (and maybe the last, if I embarass myself too much) is "lederhosen." Who invented it? More importantly, why did they invent it?

Lederhosen, if you don't know, are leather bib overalls that only go down to your knees. They're supposedly comfortable, but after a while they become so hard they can stop a bullet and are an acceptable alternative to the lead apron the nurse gives you when you have an X-ray.* They'll stop 90% of all neutrinos that hit them, making them better than about three and a half miles of reactor shielding.**

There is a band called "The Screaming Lederhosen," who recorded the original theme to The Ren and Stimpy Show. They are no relation to "The Screaming Trees," who recorded "I Nearly Lost You There."

They're German. Or maybe Swiss. Same thing. Chocolate, cheese, gold, funky accents. What's the freakin' difference, except one's neutral and one has a history of annexing neighboring nations. Who gives a shit. They're Germswissan. Or something.

They have been known to chafe.***

The first step in determining their origin is to determine their function, and who needs them. Their function seems to be to chafe and look ridiculous. Who needs that? Nobody. This is a dead end dry hole trail, and I have to start over.

Apparently, there's that whole clothing thing involved too. Or something. I guess. So what's wrong with making pants out of cloth that doesn't require the death of a cow that gave perfectly good milk, necessary for both cheese and chocolate, up until it was turned into stupid looking shorts with suspenders and a bib? Why make them like this?

uhmmm... 'cause?

Screw it. I'll look it up.

Oh, Gods and other omnipotent beings, there's an on-line lederhosen museum! I will never, ever think my own web page is dumb again!

It seems they're devoted to aspects of the garment that don't pertain to history. There's an entire section devoted to the fly, though. I'm pretty sure I don't need to go there.

According to The American Heritage Dictionaryof the English Language (4th Edition), they are "Leather shorts, often with suspenders, worn by men and boys, especially in Bavaria." So it seems they're Bavarian. This site on historical boys clothing seems to support the Bavaria theory, and says some stuff about it being traditional and folk dancing kind of wear. Translation: "We think they're stupid too, but they're our heritage, stupid or not, so we'll keep wearing them and we triple dog dare you to tell us to stop."

Not much seems devoted to why they're leather. Only for purposes of durability. I want to know what the Hell they're doing that requires that much protection, but only between the knees and the waist. Are they sliding down the alps without a sled? Are they participating in the 500 meter butt-scootch? Do they just love rubbing up against things? Or are they protecting themselves from being rubbed by others?

There doesn't seem to be much point to the leather, aside from an excuse to kill another cow, or pig, or whatever. If you ask me, it's creepy. And I know creepy. Creepy owes me ten bucks.

Well, it looks like all the evidence supports me. They're sort of Swiss, sort of German, pointlessly stupid pants that serve no practical function. Score one for me.

The next installment of The Invention Corner will probably be done sometime shortly after Hell freezes over. See you then.

*"Here, wear this... oh! You're wearing lederhosen! Never mind!"
**Actual statistic that I just made up.
***And not in that fun way.