the World of Tomorrow

crinkle free candy for movie theaters

katerli — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:19:00 +0000

I really like candy mixed with popcorn (think raisinettes, jr mints, etc) but there is no moment, even before the movie starts, that I want the amount of sound associated with movie theater candy. I feel like it’s even crinklier than usual (and more packaging heavy) because often you open the box and there’s a cellophane style bag holding the candy inside. there ought to be a better way.

also, if you haven’t seen teenage mutant ninja turtles since it came out in the 80s, you should. I don’t remember it being funny, but I went and saw it last night at BAM and it is hilarious now.

wheels of steel

katerli — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:22:21 +0000

I would like solid tires for my bicycle so that they can’t pop, and i don’t have to fill them. they make them for wheelbarrows (out of weird blue rubber that reminds me of eraser caps, the pink kind that you put on the end of your pencil, but they actually just leave black marks instead of erasing because the rubber is too hard?), why not bikes? the first bikes had iron wheels, which I’m sure was bad for shock absorption, but in this modern era of synthetic plastics we can’t come up with something better?

my front bike tire has an annoying slow leak, slow enough that it doesn’t feel urgent to take it off the rim and patch, but fast enough that it feels likely that hitting a bad pothole would blow out the side…

success!

katerli — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:02:36 +0000

so as part of a friend’s misfortunate almost disaster involving microchips in volkswagon keys, I got to spend an extra half an hour in St Regis Canoe Outfitters in the Adirondacks. Buried on a shelf, with a cream and tan and yellow label straight out of the 70s font-wise, was a filterless one-cup coffee brewer! it has revolutionized my morning and I love it. it has a little compartment with a filter that you put ground coffee in and then screw on, and the water drips through at just the right pace to make one delicious cup at a time. then it unscrews easily, you dump the grounds out into a handy houseplant, rinse, and voila! no waste. its amazing.

double header

katerli — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:45:53 +0000

I could just name this whole thing that, since I seem not to post until I have at least two ideas that won’t stop circling in my head…

1. backpack prop-ups – so you know how old school computer keyboards (like from when we didn’t all use laptops and handheld devices?) had those little doohickeys at the bottom that you could pop out to make the keyboard slant and be more ergonomic? I want a set of those for the bottom of my backpack for humid weather, so I can pop them out and hold my bag that crucial half-inch away from my back, but still have it rest on both my shoulders for easy carrying.

2. a neurally stimulated I’m thinking about you and how I ought to call you/write you a letter/catch up/wonder how you are transmitter – I am terrible, t. e. r. r. i. b. l. e., at actually being in touch with people, though I often think of them with niceness and interest – I am circuited to live in a place where I run into the people I want to see and just chat with them on the street with no special effort or timing required. not functional in a globalized world! where most of my friends emphatically do not live down the street – even the ones who live in the same city! It would be nice if the thoughts could just wing their own way to their intended recipients…

cat-oomba

katerli — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 17:35:26 +0000

do they make a roomba-style vaccuum cleaner that’s programmed to follow your cat around? it could double as an exciting toy! and perform the all-important function of sucking up the 2nd cat’s worth of fur which is rubbed onto every available surface in little cat shaped slicks when its humid out…

sunglasses at night

katerli — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:34:58 +0000

why don’t they design windows the same way they design light-sensitive sunglasses? So that they automatically tint in response to direct sunlight, but you can still see out – itd be a great passive heat regulation technique, and you woldn’t have to remember to pull the shades – or use the lights inside during daytime because the shades are down.

book proposal, for the NYC geeks of the world

katerli — Sun, 30 May 2010 18:45:59 +0000

Can somebody please write a companion book to manahatta that explains what all the interstitial material stuff changed the map from hudson to now in NY? you can start with the same map, and Moses kept great notes about where they dumped stuff and what fill went where… it’d be excellent to have a guidebook to what the “ground” under the fdr is made of, what soundview park is capped with, where its crazy household trash like the old nehi bottles and old prescription vials crinkle up to the surface like at gerritsen beach. And it would be an thought provoking engagement with new york interstitial space, an explication of how 400 yrs of building and unbuilding and rebuilding on a relatively small piece of land happens.

waterworld

katerli — Sat, 29 May 2010 22:00:21 +0000

I can’t decide if this is a good idea or a terrible one -

it is a pain to carry water, water being bulky and heavy. but we need it! and pulling water wheels for long distances seems unpleasant. so, what about a water suit? like an upgrade from a camel backpack, it’d be a full body suit that allowed for 1/4 in to 1/2 of water in any given place, and had a sucition powered vaccuum to make sure that the water stayed where it was most available for drinking if you didn’t want to fill it all the way… it’d be great for long hikes in cold weather because it’d be insulating!

hip hip

katerli — Sat, 22 May 2010 03:10:13 +0000

double dose

katerli — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 22:02:23 +0000

convertible sneakers – like the pants they make now that zip off into shorts, you know? I’d like a set of sneaks that comfortably and stylishly turns into sandals please.

bit more complex, but also probably easier to accomplish – you know how they have a computer program where you can put different outfits and hairstyles on your picture (a la sandra bullock in – what the hell is the name of the miss america movie?)? I’d like a similar thing but for landscaping – I want to be able to plug in a picture of someone’s yard, and then put in various common horticultural shrub tree flower etc species in layers, and have it show me what it would look like in different seasons and after 5 years/10 years and so on. that would be the bomb. I would have so much fun with that.

happy earth day (belated)! and happy birthday to the golden child (not much of a child these days though, lemme tell you)!