Trash-Bot

Nehmo Sergheyev wrote:


Is this so that Americans can get fatter still by taking even less exercise
?

My suggestion is that your idea's stupid.

Graham

Not all us Americans are fat...  some are disabled and can't walk, so this
device could be quite useful.  The problems are that you need a buried wire
or some means of guiding it, or an expensive differential GPS system.  The
thing has got to know where it is, and you can't do it by dead reckoning.
Another problem is that the unit might get thrown away with the trash, or
that someone would steal it.  Also, if a baby is lying on the ground in
front if it, and its litigious mother is nearby watching, are you confident
you'll remain financially solvent?  All these are common problems to robots
you send away on errands and expect to come back.

Mike Ross

Plus snow, ice, rain, ambient temperature.

Mitch

Mike Ross wrote:


It is however home to the 400 pound human.


No - it's a joke. In fact I suspect it's a troll really. Makes you wonder how
ppl manage to live without machines to do everything for them doesn't it ?

How about a breathing machine to take away the effort of using your own lungs
too ?

Graham

My next design is a device that emits bursts of H2S heavily diluted with
CH3 and CO2, and triggers an MP3 player at the same time, playing God
Save the Queen on a bassoon.

What is CH3?

A typo for 4

Bite your tongue, obesity in Britain is growing at a much faster rate
than in the US.  Not that most British look the picture of health
anyway. ;-)

http://www.beefusa.org/NEWSSharpriseinobesityinUSBritainAustraliaOECD13705.aspx

"Obesity levels have risen sharply in the past 20 years in many
countries with the number of overweight people growing fastest in
Britain, the United States and Australia, an OECD report warned."

"The report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
said in two decades obesity had doubled in the United States and
Australia, while in Britain the rate had tripled."

"Twenty percent of the adult population in both Australia and Britain is
now regarded as officially overweight, the same percentage of US
citizens considered obese at the beginning of the 1990s."

Looks like Britain is the most obese country in Europe.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/obes-a29.shtml

I don't know about a breathing machine, but it's obvious that a great
number of Brits haven't taken up the electric toothbrush in droves - or
even the manual version for that matter!   ...and then there's nothing
quite as healthy as warm beer and bangers to keep the ol' ticker
ticking.

From:Pooh Bear
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com

BruceR wrote...

 Sorry, but what's a banger?


--
 Thanks,
    - Win

British word for sausage.

From:Winfield Hill
Winfield_member@newsguy.com

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:18:24 GMT, the renowned "BruceR"


As in "Bangers & mash", British (not so haute) cusine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangers_and_mash

Apparently (I don't see anything definitive on it) bangers are
so-called because they were made of particularly poor quality
ingredients during WWII and tended to pop when cooked. J. Woodgate
would know for sure, but I hesitate to add sci.lang.translation to the
list.
 

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

try multiple four hundred pound people, many of whom are forced to use
breathing machines ironicly.

Spehro Pefhany wrote:


Yes, I reckon a 'banger' would be a poor example.

There are some absolutely fabulous sausages around these days. A favouite of
mine is pork and apple.

Some of the finest sausages are traditionally made locally. We used to have here
a combination 'wet fish shop' and game butcher. They made some remarkable
sauasges containing all manner of exotic ingrediaents and had numerous awards on
display. Sadly the demand for such shops ahs been in decline as supermarkets
offer a wider range of produce and it's now closed.

Sauage and mash is great comfort food btw and a 'pub-fare' classic !

Graham

What worries me is that our English migrants in Oz refer to public swimming
pools as "public baths". Doesn't translate too well.

Or more that your posting is stupid.  I mean, really, why be such an ass
about it?


You could hack the brains out of one of those robotic lawn mowers.  I don't
recall them needing buried wire.  Likewise a radar sensor could deal with
unexpected obstructions.  Even machine vision would work. Since it's
following a regular track it'd be simple comparison against a known-clear
path, not actual pattern recognition.

Dealing with someone stealing it isn't technological, but some sort of "I'm
too far from my base station, scream like a banshee" feature might be
entertaining.  Heh, have it scream "help, help, I've been stolen from..."
and start frantically running it's drive wheels.

Hmmm, if they're cheap enough one of those robo-mowers might indeed be a
cool starting point.  Teach it to traverse a fake lawn path and then hack it
onto something with enough drive motor horsepower to move the weight.

You could start the experiment by building the cart and using a radio
controlled car circuit to operate it manually.  Prove that the drive
hardware works and then cobble up the brain for doing it automagically.
Hmm, an R/C car design using a gas motor and some sort of battery operated
starter would probably get around the rather hefty battery requirements that
moving several cans of trash might require.

-Bill Kearney

"....scream like a banshee...." reminds me of a problem we once had in a
medical
center setting.  The facility consisted of multiple buildings spread over a
wide
campus area, and were essentially freely open to the public.  Thieves kept
stealing
tv sets from various locations, and security was unable to patrol open areas
effectively (this was before the advent of camera surveillance and other tv
security devices).  We decided to install a sonalert in series with a 9v
battery,
a tilt switch, and a key-operated switch to arm the system and allow the
technicians
to install the sets without activating the sonalert.  For the next six
months or so we
would almost daily find squawking tv sets in hallways or classrooms, but we
didn't
lose a single tv after that.

Steve

I apologize to the group for the above quote mess - I am thoroughly
chastized and have added QuoteFix to my OE.

Steve

Hey.  Maybe in order to reduce car thefts, cars could make a lot of noise if
they're being tampered with.  Oh, wait - never mind.

Mitch