h a l f b a k e r yIt might be better to just get another gerbil.
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An HB category "The Bleedin' Obvious", either under Other: or Halfbakery:
Essentially a "dumping ground" for no-brainer ideas like "Put a voicemail client in mobile phone handset software" or "Replace the screwcap on soda bottles with a tap to keep the gas in".
[link]
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//Replace the screwcap on soda bottles with a tap to keep the gas in// |
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You have to pressurize the half-empty soda bottle to keep the CO2, which is less soluble than air, in the liquid. Otherwise its umm "vapour pressure" will make it go flatter as the volume it can escape into grows larger. A plain tap won't work. (edit: they're called FizzKeepers, and it's just a plastic pump integrated into a bottle cap) |
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[ ] though: the idea has merit... can we get a diploma as well ? |
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Do you want fries with that ? |
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bemoaning the lack of dedication to the artform amongst the young'uns ? |
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oh yeah.... "Boss Pedal". |
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I admit to posting a "Put a voicemail client in mobile phone handset software" a while back. However, I am proud to never have posted a 'rumble strip music' or 'gym energy production' idea. |
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Anyway I think everyone should post 'bleeding obvious' without hesitation or regret (or the need for special category). The worst that can happen is it will be deleted for being redundant; the best that could happen is that it is bleeding obvious to you but novel/inventive to everyone else. |
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I actually kind of like it when a bleedin' obvious pops up
and gets mega-boned into oblivion, only to have a really
intense scientific discussion start up in the annos when
somebody goes "y'know, if it was kind of like this
instead..." |
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Don't be putting down making macaroni lamp bases. Many a family has been fed, several wars have been won, and the entire macaroni farming community have been supported by that humble effort. |
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I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular, save maybe one of
my own ideas from a couple of years ago, an idea for
cleaning up industrial emissions that turned out to be
completely baked and was the target of widespread, if
nominally polite, derision, but spawned a lengthy micro-
botany discussion just the same. |
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What's obvious to one person isn't to another. For instance, i never post an idea about using variable ingredients to add to drugs (e.g. replace lactose with another sugar for the lactose-intolerant) because i think it's bleedin' obvious but i've never sussed out whether it is. |
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Edit: Just saw the reference to me. I think it probably proves my point. Obvious sort of depends on a shared way of looking at the world. As it happens, i used to get that thing about discussion written on my school reports. |
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Whilst *bleeding* (bloody) is typically a British slang term, it wouldn't be so obvious to those of other nations. Fucking Obvious might be more universal... |
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But it might be just a little too obvious, might it not ? |
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"Self-evident idea", perhaps? |
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I still don't think they really exist. There are doubtless cliche ideas, like the gym generator thing, and ideas which would occur to a large number of people, e.g. "make planes out of black box material", but is that the same as being obvious? The black box thing is clearly flawed but also depends on the awareness of the existence of tough flight recorders and not-so-tough aircraft, which is obvious probably to everyone who contributes to this website, but people make assumptions about what others know. For instance, the "French" ideas depend on people knowing French and the custard ideas on knowledge of that kind of non-Newtonian fluid properties. I know people who find this place too intimidating to contribute to because they believe the level of knowledge is too high for them to make sensible contributions. The gym generator thing probably isn't obvious to them. So do we mean obvious to us, obvious to most of us, or what? |
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// I know people who find this place too intimidating ... to because .... the level of knowledge is too high for them to make ... contributions // |
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It's called "keeping out the riff-raff". |
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You don't have to have a PhD in Physics or Molecular Biology to sensibly post an idea like Flocking Traffic Cones, or Knit Lamp Bases From Macaroni. But, and it's a BIG "But", in nine-mile-high illuminated letters, if you want to post an idea involving hard science - aerodynamics, chemistry, recombinant DNA, explosives - you'd better be very sure of your ground or you'll get shredded by the resident eggheads. |
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Think of it as a way of keeping the standards high. |
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"Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres" |
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We don't want to be elitist, we just want to exclude those who don't make the grade ... |
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8th, I proclaim you elitist. |
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As long as it's just us that's elitist, and no-one else, we don't mind. |
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I should think that would be obvious. |
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Roasting on here is educational for the roastees. |
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Sometimes, as you learn more about a topic, you
realize that some "obvious" ideas really aren't. |
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Someone posting an "obvious" idea can be a good
excuse to learn enough about a subject to figure out
why it doesn't work the way the poster thinks it
should. |
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In that case, i can sort of imagine endless concentric rings of obviousness emanating from a neonate. Something seems obvious, then the difficulties emerge, then they're resolved and become second nature, then another set of difficulties arises, which are resolved and become third nature, and so on. Then again, i just stuck a glass alarm on the front door when the doorbell broke and failed to use Baudrillard's work in the toilet, whereof both seemed obvious to me. |
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//if you want to post an idea involving hard science// |
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I object to the implication that if your idea is based on ignorance of, say, history, then you *won't* get shredded. ;-) |
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I object to the implicature that history isn't hard
science ;} |
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(And to [jutta]'s comment add that it only works if
the roasting's done with tact and goodwill.) |
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The science is in the understanding of history. |
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How is history a science at all ? |
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[FT] Well, I said it mainly for effect, but the
position is defensible. Can we stipulate that the
essence of science is: theory - hypothesis -
experiment - results -
refutation/semiconfirmation ? |
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Academic historiography* does actually work like
that. I imagine you're thinking of narrative
historians who just recount events in
chronological order. They, however, are usually
writing for a lay audience, and frequently aren't
academics in the sense of being faculty at a
university. I've noticed that, when I read works of
narrative historiography by professional
historians, the authors seem defensive about
doing
it the "old fashioned" narrative way. |
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One rather more academic approach to studying
history starts with theories, e.g. about the causes
of
classes of historical events. The historians then
exercise some ingenuity in deriving from the
theory a specific hypothesis, which is testable by
data. They then exercise the technical skill which
defines their discipline, conducting something
very like an experiment: they go into some
hitherto unstudied archive, or they dig up some
hitherto un-dug-up archaeological site, or they
conduct interviews of elderly people whose
recollections haven't been collected and analyzed
before. And it agrees or doesn't agree with the
hypothesis. Rinse, lather, repeat. |
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*Historiography's the academic discipline; history
is its subject matter. |
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For the second time in as many days, I bow to
[mouseposture] for illuminating my point in a way that, in
my present state, I was unable to do. Thank you. |
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I don't know what's got into me. Normally, I pride
myself on radical concision bordering on the totally
opaque. |
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...'i' want fries with that |
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Some ideas on here are posted in the light of
understanding, others in the darkness of
ignorance, and the light or darkness in which they
are discussed varies according to the ignorance or
educatedness of contributors who respond to
them. If an idea impinges on engineering in some
way, it stands a good chance of being addressed in
an informed manner, whether or not it's naive. If
it was in the field of, i don't know, a novel genre
of sculpture (deliberately chose something
whereof i'm ignorant there), it probably won't fly
either in terms of interest or informed discussion. |
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We are by turns all fools and all angels here, to
stand in pseuds' corner for a second. |
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// bordering on the totally opaque // |
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Really? We assumed you had received your naturalization papers
long since… |
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// educational for the roastees// |
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…and indeed for the roasters, who get a chance to improve
basting techniques, exchange sauce recipes, and discuss the
relative merits of lumpwood charcoal versus briquettes, all in an
atmosphere of good natured and slightly inebriated bonhomie. |
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There was another approach to this mooted
elsewhere. A simple one-phrase reproach to outline
the idea's mundanity. |
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"Not enough jam and bees." |
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Wouldn't that refer to a failed attempt at surrealism
or whimsey?
Shirley one wouldn't use it for, e.g. weak science. |
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So "the not bleeding obvious" would be everything else ? |
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A sort of middling category would be:
The bleeding obvious to anyone who ever studied... ( fill in the blank). |
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Like an onomatopoeia, only instead of sounding like what it means, it means like what it means, which we might term as being a semanatopoeia. |
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...And can someone tell me what in the hell [IanTindale] is being reminded of? |
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The clues I've followed would lead me to believe it involves a small crawling child, a hybrid railgun ram accelerator and velodrome jousting. |
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...and apparently it's bleeding obvious. |
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