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".-- 8th of 7, Jun 23 2011 //Replace the screwcap on soda bottles with a tap to keep the gas in//
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)
[ ] though: the idea has merit... can we get a diploma as well ?-- FlyingToaster, Jun 23 2011 Do you want fries with that ?-- 8th of 7, Jun 23 2011 bemoaning the lack of dedication to the artform amongst the young'uns ?
oh yeah.... "Boss Pedal".-- FlyingToaster, Jun 23 2011 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.
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.-- xaviergisz, Jun 23 2011 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..."-- Alterother, Jun 24 2011 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.-- normzone, Jun 24 2011 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.-- Alterother, Jun 24 2011 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.
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.-- nineteenthly, Jun 24 2011 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...-- xandram, Jun 24 2011 But it might be just a little too obvious, might it not ?-- 8th of 7, Jun 24 2011 "Self-evident idea", perhaps?
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?-- nineteenthly, Jun 24 2011 // I know people who find this place too intimidating ... to because .... the level of knowledge is too high for them to make ... contributions //
It's called "keeping out the riff-raff".
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.
Think of it as a way of keeping the standards high.
"Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres"
We don't want to be elitist, we just want to exclude those who don't make the grade ...-- 8th of 7, Jun 24 2011 8th, I proclaim you elitist.-- Voice, Jun 24 2011 As long as it's just us that's elitist, and no-one else, we don't mind.-- 8th of 7, Jun 24 2011 I should think that would be obvious.-- Alterother, Jun 25 2011 Roasting on here is educational for the roastees.-- nineteenthly, Jun 26 2011 Sometimes, as you learn more about a topic, you realize that some "obvious" ideas really aren't.
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.-- jutta, Jun 26 2011 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.-- nineteenthly, Jun 26 2011 //if you want to post an idea involving hard science//
I object to the implication that if your idea is based on ignorance of, say, history, then you *won't* get shredded. ;-)-- pertinax, Jun 26 2011 I object to the implicature that history isn't hard science ;}
(And to [jutta]'s comment add that it only works if the roasting's done with tact and goodwill.)-- mouseposture, Jun 26 2011 The science is in the understanding of history.-- Alterother, Jun 26 2011 How is history a science at all ?-- FlyingToaster, Jun 26 2011 See above.-- Alterother, Jun 26 2011 [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 ?
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.
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.
*Historiography's the academic discipline; history is its subject matter.-- mouseposture, Jun 26 2011 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.-- Alterother, Jun 26 2011 I don't know what's got into me. Normally, I pride myself on radical concision bordering on the totally opaque.-- mouseposture, Jun 26 2011 ...'i' want fries with that-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 27 2011 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.
We are by turns all fools and all angels here, to stand in pseuds' corner for a second.-- nineteenthly, Jun 27 2011 // bordering on the totally opaque //
Really? We assumed you had received your naturalization papers long since…
// educational for the roastees//
…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.-- 8th of 7, Jun 27 2011 There was another approach to this mooted elsewhere. A simple one-phrase reproach to outline the idea's mundanity.
"Not enough jam and bees."-- theleopard, Jun 28 2011 Wouldn't that refer to a failed attempt at surrealism or whimsey? Shirley one wouldn't use it for, e.g. weak science.-- mouseposture, Jun 29 2011 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).-- popbottle, Mar 15 2016 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.-- zen_tom, Mar 16 2016 ...And can someone tell me what in the hell [IanTindale] is being reminded of?
The clues I've followed would lead me to believe it involves a small crawling child, a hybrid railgun ram accelerator and velodrome jousting.
...and apparently it's bleeding obvious.-- MikeD, Mar 28 2016 random, halfbakery