MetaFilter posts tagged with inventor

BECAUSE HE GODDAMN WELL COULD, THAT'S WHY

zarq — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:45:47 -0800

'News of impending fatherhood affects men in different ways. Some guys pump their fists. Others light cigars. A few flee. When 33-year-old Colin Furze learned that his girlfriend was pregnant, he channeled his paternal excitement into building the world’s fastest baby stroller.' The twin-exhaust, 10-horsepower, gasoline-fueled pram has four gears. And cupholders. And it can accelerate to 50mph in less than 30 seconds. On October 14, 2012, he broke the Guinness World Record for fastest pram with a top speed of 53.46mph. Previous record holder was just under 30mph. There's also a "Behind the Scenes" video.

Samuel Morey: an American inventor

Philosopher Dirtbike — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 03:33:53 -0800

If you've been along the Connecticut river in eastern Vermont, you may have crossed the Samuel Morey Memorial Bridge, relaxed at Lake Morey, or seen some road markers mentioning Samuel Morey. Besides being the second person in the world to be in a car accident, who was Samuel Morey? Samuel Morey, born October 23, 1762, was an early American inventor. His first known invention, patented in 1793, was a somewhat useless and forgotten method of turning a spit with steam. Many of his patents are among the earliest in American history, part of the X-patent collection. Turning a spit with steam lead to other stem applications and patents, including the steam boat (over which be had a business dispute with Robert Fulton, who is often incorrectly given credit for inventing the steamboat). According to local lore, Morey would skip church on Sunday mornings to test his early steamboat prototypes while everyone was in church, so that no one would see him and ridicule him. However, his greatest and most forward thinking invention was the internal combustion engine which he believed would change the world:

"The discovery will in good measure change greatly the commercial intercourse of the Country. There is good reason I trust to conclude that transportation on good roads or rail road may be done much cheaper as well as quicker than by locks and canals, besides having the great advantage of being done, much of it, in Winter, a time much the most convenient to the farmer. In their personal intercourse, if it should be generally thought most prudent to continue their intercourse on the earth's surface, yet I think there will be little use of horses for that purpose."

He built the first car in America with his engine, and was involved in the first American car accident (presumably he did not have car insurance, either). He also foresaw the engine's use in zeppelins:

"I see no reason why it [the gas engine] may not, in addition to the uses to which steam is applied, be applied with the greatest advantage in drawing carriages on good roads and railways and particularly for giving what seems to be much wanted direction and velocity to Balloons."

Samuel Morey died April 17, 1843, and is now largely forgotten. In modern times, the effort to revive his memory has its most high-profile proponent in Jay Leno, who penned a 2003 article called "An unknown American classic" for his "Jay Leno's garage" series in Popular Mechanics, in which he described Morey's life and inventions. (which, unfortnuately, is not available online)

I have tested Love Jet on 10,000 women

juv3nal — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:16:07 -0800

Meet the most famous inventor you’ve never heard of – whose greatest invention may be himself.

A brief history of Bulletball

dontjumplarry — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:22:18 -0800

In 2006, aspiring inventor Marc Griffin appeared on the show American Inventor with a table game he had invented called Bulletball. Convinced he had created the next Olympic sport, he had spent 26 years of his life on the idea. He'd quit his job, sold all his possessions including his wife's wedding ring, and was sleeping in his car. The judges hated the idea – and his gut-wrenching experience on the show went viral. Then in 2009, a report from a local Fox news channel was posted on YouTube. Marc was proving his doubters wrong. This year, according to Marc's website, Bulletball was featured in the St Louis Senior Olympics.

Nothing is withheld from us...

Wordshore — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:30:07 -0800

Two things about working in coffee shops. First, don't assume everyone else in there is a hipster. Second, don't assume that the elderly person who befriends you is a crazy old man telling tall tales. Else you may miss out on the meeting experience of a lifetime.

Disrupting The Period

Foci for Analysis — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:48:40 -0800

When Arunachalam Muruganantham hit a wall in his research on creating a sanitary napkin for poor women, he decided to do what most men typically wouldn’t dream of. He wore one himself--for a whole week. [...] It resulted in endless derision and almost destroyed his family. But no one is laughing at him anymore, as the sanitary napkin-making machine he went on to create is transforming the lives of rural women across India.

An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry. Arunachalam Muruganantham's company is Jayaashree Industries. Video featuring the sanitary napkin (warning: Kenny G music).

The multi-talented Hans Reichel, 1949-2011

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:57:55 -0800

Hans Reichel, of Wuppertal, Germany, maker of exquisitely beautiful guitars, on which he made exquisitely beautiful and idiosyncratic music, inventor of the delightfully expressive daxophone, on which he made delightfully expressive and often humorous music, creator of elegant fonts and architect of one of the most endearingly creative flash websites you'll ever see, has died at the age of 62. My second Metafilter post, back in 2006, was on Hans Reichel, and it didn't get a lot of notice at the time: a small reflection, I suppose, of the fact that Hans has not as yet received the wider attention that his work so greatly deserves. Hopefully this post will lead a few more people in the direction of this amazing artist's work. I'd like to just add that Hans' flash website is something that requires a bit of time, so your exploration of it should be reserved for a time when you... have some time! But there's a lot of great (often very funny) stuff there to learn about, do and explore. Highly recommended, but not for those in a hurry. RIP, Hans Reichel.

Tom Scholz

Trurl — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:18:36 -0800

Donald Thomas "Tom" Scholz (born 10 March 1947) is an American rock musician, songwriter, guitarist, pianist, inventor, and mechanical engineer, best known as the founder of the hard rock band Boston. He is also the inventor of the Rockman guitar amplifier. Scholz's royalties from the Rockman sustained him financially during the years it took for him to prevail in his legal battle with the CBS record label.

Dr Fad... Dr Fad... Dr Fad...

antifuse — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 09:49:02 -0800

In 1983, Ken Hakuta's mother in Japan sent him some toys in the mail for his kids. They were octopus shaped, and when you threw them against the wall they "walked" down the wall. Seeing some marketing potential, he bought the rights to the toys for $100,000, and the Wacky Wall Walker was born. It became a HUGE success after a slow start, being offered as a prize in Kellogg's cereals and even inspiring a Christmas special on NBC. Eventually they ended up (according to Hakuta) selling a over 240 million units! Sometime during this wildly successful period, Dr. Fad was born. Ken wanted to everybody to invent and create. From 1988 to 1994, the Dr Fad Show featured a Wall Walker-covered-sweater wearing Hakuta as "Dr Fad" in a kids' gameshow format, with contestants coming on and showing off their inventions, the winner being judged by an applause meter. The show also had a "Golden Gizmo" segment, honouring the great fads of the past - a young Rodney Mullen accepted the Golden Gizmo for skateboarding, while other "famous" folks responsible (or in some other way related to) the fads appeared to receive the award in other segments. More Dr Fad 80' TV goodness: Dr Fad clip featuring Betty James, wife of the inventor of the Slinky accepting the golden gizmo Dr Fad clip featuring a totally nonsensical 1978 flashback Dr Fad clip featuring "Fad Court", a segment with kids judging "good" and "bad" fads

Nuclear-Blast Resistant, and Also Hard to Negotiate Over.

darth_tedious — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 13:31:03 -0800

Starlite: Ineffective for Car Bonnets, Great Against Nuclear Blasts. In the late 1980s, an English amateur inventor and hair-dresser released a plastic which, he claimed, had unusual heat-resistant properties. BBC Television demonstrated the material, dubbed Starlite, keeping an egg cool despite a five-minute onslaught from a blowtorch; here the inventor provides links to the footage. After initial skepticism, the reception from industrial and military players was rapturous. But while Starlite apparently stood up to the heat of 10000 Celsius lasers, its inventor, wary of being cheated, proved equally stubborn in negotiation, and Starlite seems never have been brought to market or mass production. Though the early flurry of publicity led to negotiations with various defense contractors and chemical firms; a NASA spokesman was quoted as saying, 'We have done a lot of evaluation and … we know all the tremendous possibilities that this material has'; and an SAS team reportedly escorted a sample to an apparently successful test of Starlite against nuclear blasts at the White Sands nuclear testing range in June of 1991, no contracts are publicly known to have been finalized with the inventor, who is often described as "eccentric". (Conspiracy theories do, of course, exist.) Twenty years on, Starlite seems to have faded away.

Bell's-lettres

twoleftfeet — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 02:38:24 -0800

Alexander Graham Bell's Delightfully Weird Sketchbooks . You know him as the inventor of the telephone, but Graham Bell also came up with horse-pulled kites, really sweet airplanes, "ghost effects" with an "elliptical reflector", and a better seesaw. More of Bell's papers from the Library of Congress.

Fighting crime is surely not far behind

anigbrowl — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 00:46:36 -0800

Once, there was a boy named Yves. He lived in the mountainous country of Switzerland, and he dreamed of flying. He loved the idea of being free to soar through the air so much that he became a pilot. Later, he went on to fly bigger planes. Perhaps he's even been your pilot. But being a pilot was never quite enough. Yves still dreamed of soaring through the air, like a bird. And now, he does. Meet Jetman. Previously

Inventor Portrait

rageagainsttherobots — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:50:35 -0800

David Friedman, the guy behind sundaymagazing.org, has created a fascinating series of short docs and photos he calls Inventor Portraits. I particularly like the installment on life long inventor Brent Farley, and the man behind the Wilcraft.

Dr. Zworykin's Secret Experimental RCA Photos

tellurian — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:56:48 -0800

The Personal Photographs of Dr. Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, Television Pioneer. The screen images are time exposure photographs of the picture on the kinescope in the monitoring rack in the main control room. Some were taken with stationary frames of moving picture film projected upon the iconoscope by a standard moving picture machine. Others are actually the pictures transmitted with the iconoscope camera in the studio and outdoors.

Martin Cooper

snoktruix — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 11:29:28 -0800

Interview with Martin Cooper, inventor of the first handheld cellular phone.

Frances Gabe and the Self-Cleaning House

julen — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:42:54 -0800

Everyone has fantasized about it, usually while scrubbing a floor or cleaning a toilet. Well, Frances Gabe did something about it: she invented the self-cleaning house, the one the future has been promising us for years. (This 2007 Weird America Interview/Tour mocks her, but it's the only video of the house I could find.) Just imagine: You put your dirty dishes back in the cabinets which double as dishwashers; the closets are laundry machines. Every room has wash, rinse, and dry buttons. Sadly, sometime between this People Magazine interview (1982) and this New York Times interview (2002; missing the picture of the house in action), an earthquake damaged many of the 68 mechanisms in the house designed to clean it. Still, as of 2004, you can call her up at her home in Newberg, OR, and schedule an appointment for a private tour.

Tuesday night [his] gradfather died. He invented rewinding.

GuyZero — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:52:36 -0800

Tuesday night [his] gradfather died. He invented rewinding.

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.

infini — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:41:31 -0800

Today is R. Buckminster Fuller's 113th birthday. Visionary, designer, inventor, engineer - 'Bucky' continues to inspire us. Known as the grandfather of sustainability, even today we discover that we've barely scratched the surface of his thinking and still have far to go and much to learn about managing Spaceship Earth. [ previously]

Who really invented the telephone?

Rafaelloello — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:06:08 -0800

Who really invented the telephone? Was it this guy?, or did he just win a foot race to the patent office with this guy or was it really... ...this guy? Personally, I think it was really this guy who got the the whole telecom thing rolling.

Hacker, inventor, and former Microsoft Program Manager trains crows to do his bidding.

arnicae — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:36:59 -0800

Josh Klein is a novelist, hacker, and inventor whose Crow Vending Machine trains crows to pick coins off the ground in exchange for peanuts using Skinnerian training principles. Previously. So far, he's only succeeded with trained crows and banded crows, but he hopes to teach wild crows to use the device and collect some of the $215,000,000 in change lost in the United States each year. That, or he'd like the crows to learn how to take part in Search & Rescue operations, or maybe locate criminals, or pick up garbage. Josh has lots of ideas. Also, crows are pretty cool! Researchers at Cambridge think they are as smart as primates.

thermal appliances for the poor

Brian B. — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:04:52 -0800

Turbo stove busts the inventor. A handy stove that promises to save remaining forests can me made simply and cheaply for people who cook indoors with gathered wood. Others show how to make it yourself.

Hmm, good idea for long drives

metasonix — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:06:20 -0800

The Bladder Buddy. You can thank ABC's American Inventor for this.

A Frog Too Far

Mil — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:00:27 -0800

MacRobertson's Confectionery were, in the 1930s, trialling new ideas for their children's range. An employee suggested that as "women and children were afraid of mice," rather than a chocolate mouse, a chocolate frog would be more popular with children. Three days later, what would become Australia's most popular children's confectionery, the Freddo Frog, was born. Its supposed creator, Harry Melbourne, died last week, having never received a cent in royalties. However, to this day there remains confusion as to whether he, or rather the inventor of the Cherry Ripe, Lesley Atkison, was in fact responsible. Those that only know him in chocolate form may be surprised to find out that Freddo was also the star of Australia's first cartoon.

The future of single-wheeled transportation!

Robot Johnny — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 09:19:03 -0800

The Electric Unicycle makes transportation a breeze: "You lean forward to accelerate, lean backwards to brake, and gyrate your arms wildly to turn." (Invented by the man who thought his own homemade Segway had one wheel too many)

Invention Pioneers of Note

Devils Rancher — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 10:09:04 -0800

History of the Flame-broiled Burger! It's Flashy, it's Trashy, it's satirical, it's Fun-- it's The History Channel's Invention Pioneers of Note!