(On reflection, this is a bit like a HHGttG idea...)

Convert your front doorstep into sensitive scales. Then your 'Net Weight Home' would weigh you every time you came in with the week's shopping and every time you took the rubbish out. It would weigh the postman delivering letters. It would weigh your guests coming (+ gifts for you?) and going (+ any food they've eaten at your house, - did they go to the loo at your house?) Water-flow meters on the mains pipes would calculate the amount and weight of water being consumed - likewise for sewage pipes.
The 'end of year report' would tell you the net change in weight of your house's contents. A big increase in weight might suggest it's time for a clearout. It would be possible to work out the weight impact of a new baby (i.e. Weight of baby = 8lb, Weight of baby's stuff = about 200lb).
OK, so this isn't really a very useful idea, but this *is* the HalfBakery.
-- hippo, Jan 16 2001

There was a monk who determined how heavy was a tree's soul by planting it in a pot and weighing everthing that was added to the tree by man through the time allowed. Obviously, the tree grew out of proportion to the water and food added and from that was a measurement derived.

Not that I care to mention the exchange of gas.
-- reensure, Jan 17 2001


What about the effluvia that leaves by the bathroom drainage system?
-- dgeiser13, Jan 17 2001


This kinda' sorta' reminds me of a sci-fi short I read once. A distant planet enforced a rule, to conserve resources, that stated that no one may leave the planet any heavier than they arrived.

Also, I am sure that a new weight tax, or "change of weight" tax would be enacted as soon as the net weight houses became popular.
-- bristolz, Jan 18 2001


Wasn't a short, was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
-- StarChaser, Jan 18 2001


Ah, Hitchhikers . . . How could I be so despicable as to forget that.
-- bristolz, Jan 20 2001


That _is_ why I wrote "On reflection, this is a bit like a HHGttG idea..." in the idea's text.
-- hippo, Mar 19 2001


PS: maybe if you use TWO scales.
-- nick_n_uit, Mar 20 2001


A further issue was touched on in Hippo's idea itself; how would you distinguish between a friend delivering a present and a visiting tradesman using your toilet? Incidentally, I would hate to see everything that I've removed from my house in the past five years stacked up outside it!
-- IanBennett, Apr 19 2001


>It would be possible to work out the weight impact of >a new baby (i.e. Weight of baby = 8lb, Weight of >baby's stuff = about 200lb).

Weight of baby's diapers in the course of a year = 1,000 pounds? (If you use disposables) Anyone have any idea?
-- arghblah, Oct 01 2001


What should I do about the large quantity of helium filled ballons that my daughter has crammed her room with. Are these to be added or subtracted?
-- Mygo, Oct 01 2001



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