Clever Little Ideas - Share Your Tips Here

[moose]

And my hand is on the car door handle

Damn you! You caught my typo

 

[Danger]

Alternatively, cats make great duct tape removers.

I've never tried that one, but it sounds promising. I do know that the best way to clean the fuzz clogs out of Velcro is to dip it in fish oil and give it to a cat.

Moose, the sort of situation that I'm talking about isn't conducive to arbitrary slowing. It's more for single lane roads where the oncoming driver might be inebriated, or deer-crossing zones, or the like.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

my elementary school actually used to be the field where the rams practiced before they converted it to a school and the rams left. one of the assistant teachers were the girlfriend of one of the players

Oh yeah, well my seventh grade teacher once had his butt kicked by Jack Snow.

 

[Danger]

Oh yeah, well my seventh grade teacher once had his butt kicked by Jack Snow.

Jack Frost's little brother?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Jack Frost's little brother?

No, a wide receiver.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Snow_(football)

When I was a kid, he and Roman Gabriel were quite the pair - local celebrities to be sure. To have a teacher who got his butt kicked by Jack Snow was about as cool as cool could be for a young Rams fan!

edit: I just noticed that he went to St. Anthony's in Long Beach, which is where my teacher went to HS. I never did know exactly how it was that they knew each other. Boy, I'm glad I finally got that straightened out!

Snow died last year.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

On the highway, I use cruise control to stay at 55 mph. I tried this on local roads as well but with undesirable side effects.

 

[Art]

On the highway, I use cruise control to stay at 55 mph. I tried this on local roads as well but with undesirable side effects.

says Jimmy typing from his hospital bed

 

[J77]

Never buy fish on a Monday -- not really a clever idea, but good advice

 

[Art]

Some ideas plagiarised from around the web;

Use vertical strokes when washing windows outside and horizontal for inside windows. This way you can tell which side has the streaks.

Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half, and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away

Clean a toilet. Drop in two Alka Seltzer tablets, wait twenty minutes, brush and flush. The citric acid and effervescent action clean vitreous

Clean a thermos bottle. Fill the bottle with water, drop in four Alka Seltzer tablets, and let soak for an hour (or longer, if necessary).

For icy door steps in freezing temperatures: get warm water and put Dawn dishwashing liquid in it. Pour it all over the steps. They won't refreeze.

Ants, ants, ants everywhere ... Well, they are said to never cross a chalk line. So, get your chalk out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march. See for yourself.

And my personal favourite;

If you or your wife lock keys in your vehicle, just call home on cell phone and get the person who answers the phone to get the spare set of vehicle keys with remote, and while you hold your cell phone neer the vehicle get them to unlock the door of your vehicle over the phone with the spare remote.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

If you or your wife lock keys in your vehicle, just call home on cell phone and get the person who answers the phone to get the spare set of vehicle keys with remote, and while you hold your cell phone neer the vehicle get them to unlock the door of your vehicle over the phone with the spare remote.

I tried this, but as we do not have but one remote, there was no remote inside the car at the time. It did not work.

Furthermore, I cannot lock myself out of the car in this manner as it has been designed to prevent it. When the door is closed it automatically unlocks, then it must be locked either from the inside, or if from the outside then with the remote or with a key.

I just thought of an idea though. My remote has a hole in it to facilitate my putting it on my keychain. It now occurs to me that this is a bad thing to do because the loss of one entails the loss of the other and so I have removed it.

 

[berkeman]

If you or your wife lock keys in your vehicle, just call home on cell phone and get the person who answers the phone to get the spare set of vehicle keys with remote, and while you hold your cell phone neer the vehicle get them to unlock the door of your vehicle over the phone with the spare remote.

Urban legend. Sorry.

 

[Artman]

Here's another one, to keep television screens and computer screens (the old CRT type) from getting too much static and attracting dust, rub a thin film of toothpaste on the screen.

 

[BobG]

I never lock myself out of my Wrangler. In fact, I never lock the doors.

Some thieves are stupid and might slice the top open with a knife, costing more to replace the top than anything they might steal from inside. Some thieves are smart and would just unzip the windows.

In fact, as the weather warms up, sometimes I don't even have doors.

 

[Artman]

I never lock myself out of my Wrangler. In fact, I never lock the doors.

Ummm Where is it you said you park your car? Just askin'.

 

[berkeman]

Here's another one, to keep television screens and computer screens (the old CRT type) from getting too much static and attracting dust, rub a thin film of toothpaste on the screen.

Not on my computer screens please. Toothpaste is mildly abrasive.

 

[matthyaouw]

I think I read once that the average person spends almost 24 hours of their lifetime looking for the remote for the TV. Could someone please invent a button on the tv so that when you push it, your remote starts beeping? I'm not sure if this has already been done before.

I used to be so bad with losing the remote, eventually i just tied it to the tv table with long string.

 

[Evo]

Here's another one, to keep television screens and computer screens (the old CRT type) from getting too much static and attracting dust, rub a thin film of toothpaste on the screen.

A good coating of vaseline does wonders.

 

[turbo]

If you have fluorescent fixtures with long-tube-type bulbs (I have some in my shop and garage) and a bulb seems to want to flicker instead of coming up to full brightness, just swipe your fingers along the bulb - that often does the trick.

 

[BobG]

Ummm Where is it you said you park your car? Just askin'.

I invested in a security system better than locks: http://www.stickdeath.com/2004auto.html

Actually, I have that Sentry Key security system. You'd need a tow truck to steal my Jeep. Of course, the drawback is if that I catch someone in the act, I'm not driving for a while, either. If someone tries to steal it, several systems are disabled and take around an hour to reset.

 

[turbo]

When we lived in a city here, someone kept breaking into vehicles in the lot of the apartment building. I installed a Radio Shack pager alarm in my car. There was no siren or horn in the car, just a transmitter that set off my pager when someone shook it, tried to open the doors, etc, so I could take a run downstairs with my fungo bat. I never had to beat anybody with it - just the threat had them running.

 

[Evo]

This is a good anti car theft deterrent.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1224706&postcount=2

 

[humanino]

A good coating of vaseline does wonders.

I never thought of that use before
This thread is great

 

[BobG]

This is a good anti car theft deterrent.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1224706&postcount=2

You should have linked to the entire thread. scorpa's response was priceless:

That is a really good idea. I was a bit worried about it until I read that it will not cause damage to the paint on my vehicle.

 

[BobG]

And my personal favourite;

If you or your wife lock keys in your vehicle, just call home on cell phone and get the person who answers the phone to get the spare set of vehicle keys with remote, and while you hold your cell phone neer the vehicle get them to unlock the door of your vehicle over the phone with the spare remote.

My dad's clever idea was to place a spare key in a small metal box with a magnet superglued to it, then hide the box somewhere on the frame under the car. He kept it there for years and hounded on me to do the same after I locked my keys in my car during one of my trips home.

Years later, I was in town visiting and heard a funny story from one his coworkers about half of an overheard phone conversation between my dad and mom. She'd locked herself out of the car at a shopping mall and he was trying to give her directions on where to find the key. She had to call back a few times. Finally, came my dad's shocked question, "What do you mean the only thing you could find was a magnet with some rust on it??!"

 

[Art]

Urban legend. Sorry.

Really?
It would have been fun to see how many tried it before spoiling it.

 

[berkeman]

Really?
It would have been fun to see how many tried it before spoiling it.

Sorry, its still a physics site, after all. I guess I could have moved it to the Independent Research forum...

 

[Integral]

We had 3 indoor cats, and no easy to access and reasonably out of the way place to put a cat box.
So, I cut a hole in the wall under my computer bench.
http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/catbox/HPIM0909a.JPG

And built this box in the garage.

http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/catbox/HPIM0910a.JPG

The back side opens for cleaning:

http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/catbox/HPIM0912a.JPG

My wife provided an excellent solution on how make the hole thru the wall presentable. It to me is a perfect solution at completely different levels. We cut the bottom out of a cat litter box.

http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/catbox/HPIM0911a.JPG

Then cut the hole in the wall to fit, the lid ring remains in tact so it can be closed by putting the lid on.

 

[light_bulb]

i love that

 

[renigade666]

Integral,
Quite ingenius i must say!

But how did you train the cats to go through that hole to use the litter box ??

 

[Integral]

We had already been keeping the litter box inside of a large pet carrier so they where accustomed to an enclosure. This change was no problem for them.