Office coffee. Sometimes you can trust your colleagues, sometimes not. It would be great to have a small, cheap device you could insert into the brew and get a readout. You then know if somwbody really made decaf, or the decaf carrafe(sp?) was closest at the time. You also get a heads up on coffee that you can resurface roads with (especially prominent in IT/IS departments). This could spin off into a whole series of meters - for alcohol content, fat in milk, etc. The Swiss Army Knife model would include several of the more common meters, "Made in China" of course.
-- jetckalz, Nov 15 2001

Caffeine Detector http://www.adventpr...m/10280/default.htm
Great minds? [DrBob, Nov 15 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

ThinkGeek.com-caffience section http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/all/
caffinated soap, caffinated water, can ship you cases of jolt monthly automatically... good stuff. [dumpstergirl, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Coffee "litmus" paper?
-- bristolz, Nov 15 2001


I like the idea of a Swiss Army Knife probe that performs a variety of chemical analyses, such as for caffeine or alcohol, or botulism, Sarin, anthrax, or whatever the indicator is in a pregnancy test.

Incidentally, don't test the pH of a standard carbonated soda if you don't already know what it's likely to be. It can be pretty scary.
-- beauxeault, Nov 15 2001


Ah, right on cue beauxeault. I've just tried to send you an email but your address has been deleted. Can you get in contact?
-- DrBob, Nov 15 2001


cue?
-- bristolz, Nov 15 2001


What? WHAT??
-- DrBob, Nov 15 2001


Nice trick, Doc. Make me look the fool, will ya'?
-- bristolz, Nov 15 2001


I wouldn't dream of it. For some reason I've had q-u-e-u-e going round & round in my head like a chant all afternoon and I can't for the life of me work out why. So it just sort of slipped out.
-- DrBob, Nov 15 2001


'sok, I am a fool anyway.
-- bristolz, Nov 16 2001


<aside purpose="supporting argument">Back in the days when my working day started at 4:00 am, I had a house-guest who was an insomniac US serviceman. He 'kindly' made coffee for me each morning, and it took me til Thursday to figure out that the reason for my pounding headache was that his 'coffee' was that evil de-caf stuff (which was pretty much unknown in UK, but widely available at the PX).</aside>
-- angel, Nov 16 2001


i think the indicator woud always turn brown.
-- ASSS, Nov 17 2001


When I read "caffeinometer" I thought it would indicate just how caffeinated you are personally. As if you couldn't already tell by the accelerated heartbeat, shaky hands & quick reaction time.
-- bluerowan, Nov 19 2001


How about a caffeine-pump? Serious diabetics have insulin-pumps that inject the required amount of insulin when its needed. A caffeine pump would detect how drowsy you were and zap you with the go-juice.
-- FloridaManatee, Dec 30 2002


injecting caffiene isnt necessary unless prone to stomach ulcers- as an insomnic and engineering student my "3amSuperSlurry"(R) does well for those with caffience-resistance. just take 1 part of caffinated instant coffee crystals and dissolve in just enough expresso to make a saturated solution. add poprocks right before comsumption. good for midterms. take w/ water or may cause hallucinations. also, "tang-expresso-blast"(R) for the daring. it would be nice to have a meter that registers how drowsy you are, but also how close you are to overdose, w/ a needle that points along yellow-green-red-black bar, like in sci-fi movies. maybe one that automatically can call an ambulance, like rich-people-fire alarms.
-- dumpstergirl, Mar 23 2003



random, halfbakery