Motorcycle practicality

A Mediterranean (or desert) climate makes motorcycles much more practical -  you only have to worry about the *possibility* of rain less than six months of the year. Someone needs to invent vehicles as small and fun as motorcycles that offer more weather protection.

Controlled Burns

While historical tribes used controlled burns, from the dawn of the industrial age, natural fires have been seen as something to prevent until very recently. It's only been in the past 20 years or so that controlled burning has been seen as a way both to prevent larger out-of-control fires, and also as necessary for the survival of certain plants that only reproduce after fire cycles.

In this regard, our controlled burns are both inadequate - insufficient in scope to prevent major fires - and primitive. We wait for the weather to be just right, and even then fires sometimes get out of control, or at minimum, create more smoke to surrounding urban areas than is desirable. Given a warming climate and more frequent, large fires, it's time for radical improvement in controlled burning.

Fire is rapid oxidation - so there's that option, though tanks of oxygen and an artificial process using oxygen might not create the sustained heat necessary for the reproduction of certain plants. I think the answer lies somewhere between more effective backburning, burning off alternating strips, and technology to both promote and extinguish fire on-site.

In some areas, the plant life produces volatile oils and fumes that rapidly combust - perhaps some sort of curtaining material could burn off patches while containing the fire to prevent spread - and potentially also a large device to capture smoke and filter it (a giant "bong" mechanism? Sorry - the notion makes the idea less serious, but a device to capture smoke and vapors coming off the controlled burn patch would be great). Another idea is to lay down a line of heat-labile material that will "explode" releasing smothering gasses once the fire reaches a certain boundary. It would be necessary to do small patches to prevent heat from leap-frogging the boundaries, but this might be more useful near urban zones, where flammable material is most dangerous, yet also most in need of being rendered benign.

I'm also imagining a large box that is just set down on grassy areas, like a BBQ lid - combusts the grass, contains the sparks, and extinguishes it once oxygen is depleted. Perhaps the "box" could be flame-proof tenting material. I'm just brainstorming here, but clearly more thought needs to go into controlled burning than just setting things on fire and creating a back-burn boundary, letting the smoke cover miles with haze, or the alternative of doing nothing, then reacting to the emergency conflagration that results.

Kitchen inventory

Problem: a) the amount of time spent digging in a refrigerator to figure out what's hidden in there b) items forgotten in the bottom bin c) amount of food wasted due to spoilage.

Answer: An app?? No one wants to spend the time actually logging in stuff, and logging it out when it's eaten. But there *is* a point when each item is individually scanned - at the cash register. What would be nice is if there were a universally recognized data code - not only would the cash register ring up your purchases, but also provide you with nutritional information and suggested expiration dates. Having the data in a portable format could help you track how much you're spending on what types of food and alert you when something is due for expiration. Of course, you should be able to override a manufacturer's suggestion that the peanut butter should be eaten within two weeks, and you keep it at room temp for a month, or in the refrigerator for a year. Alerts on expiring products would either be deleted (we ate that) or re-dated (that's still ok, in spite of manufacturer's suggestion). Can your refrigerator talk to your phone and tell you someone else has eaten all the turkey, so you don't have to search the fridge trying to find it? Rather than searching through the fridge and cupboards, just look at the snack menu on your phone.

Locals only! Pavement

Sydney has a convoluted maze of streets and overloaded main arteries not designed for peak-hour traffic loads. This overload results in cars cutting through neighborhood streets. It's not a huge problem when the drivers are respectful,  but often it's the jerk who can't wait in line with everyone else -  the one with the loud obnoxious engine who races through the quiet street.  Rather than blocking off the street,  the goal is to control speeds on it.  In this respect,  wavy pavement might do the trick -  with undulations alternating for each tire track!  Not the height of speed bumps,  but a continuous,  slight undulation in the surface that becomes more noticeable at greater speed. On the side,  a smooth bicycle lane to facilitate human powered travelers. Either this, or simply make the pavement corrugated, like a rumble strip; except for the bike lane. This would present a visual indicator to drivers that the street is primarily for locals, and slow-speed traffic has the right-of-way. Speed bumps work somewhat, but the tendency is to race up to them, brake, and race away.

Rain gutters / eave troughs

I'm not completely down with the notion of eave troughs.  They fill with leaves,  they rust,  they fall down -  there's got to be a better way.  Why do you want them in the first place? Well,  I can see not wanting sheets of water over exit doors (nor icicles),  and maybe you wouldn't be able to see out of windows or tell how much it's raining if sheets of water were flowing off the roof.  There's one more purpose -  you don't want water soaking in under your house,  which could affect the foundation -  settling,  cracking,  leaky basement. But the water around the house foundation would be better served by creating a dry, perhaps concrete, "moat"  around the house - collect all the water and run it to a distant low point. As for doors and windows,  simply have open-ended gutters above them that drain to the sides and into the moat below. No need for downpipes even unless wind blowing the water is an issue,  then you could angle the trough and run it down one side.  OK,  by the time you put downpipes on every window,  you'd equal the amount of trough to run around the eaves.  But would you really need a downpipe for every window?