Attach the sonic nail finder onto the center of the back of any picture, clock, or "purely decorative" torture device that you are trying to hang. Using wavy-handy-electromagnetic spacial theremin type technology in a small chip and CR2025 battery, the small piezo speaker in it produces the highest pitch when the nail is directly above it, thus allowing you to hang said picture on its hook with ease.
-- RayfordSteele, Nov 16 2020

Engineers Explained http://bcn.boulder..../engineerhumor.html
From "The Dilbert Principle" [8th of 7, Nov 16 2020]

If the wall fixing had a small amount of a gamma-emitting nuclide like Cobalt-60 or Strontium-90 embedded* in it, then a piece of radioflourescent plastic applied to the front of the item to be hung would show a visible glowing spot as it moved over the fixing; the radiation will penetrate the material and give you an exact positioning cue, in X, Y and Z axes.

*You can't make the whole thing from them, as those metals have unsuitable mechanical properties.
-- 8th of 7, Nov 16 2020


// constantly find new applications for them. //

[kdf], you need to get out more and meet other humans.

Coming from us, that advice should worry you. Lots.
-- 8th of 7, Nov 16 2020


That's no fun, he's more deserving of pity than condemnation. The whole idea has a flavour of Scott Adams' "Engineers Explained" about it ... he actually mentions picture-hanging. <link>
-- 8th of 7, Nov 16 2020


Aw, we did that three Saturnalias ago, with the Intercalary's novelty nutcracker. Oh, how we laughed ...
-- 8th of 7, Nov 16 2020


I have rare-earth magnets holding up a piece of finish trim wood on my basement ceiling. As the area was in front of a crawl window and hiding water pipes, a gas line, a cable or two, and the Case-Western ARPAnet trunk line, removable access was important.
-- RayfordSteele, Nov 17 2020


Murphy's law, it will find that nail/screw that missed and was plastered over without removal.
-- wjt, Nov 21 2020



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