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by wvl 6046 days ago
You know what sucks, commuting. I need go go out of the house into the cold, heat up my car, drive through traffic, find a place to park. This is obviously bad for the environment, and heck, it's almost 2010! Why are we still living with a broken 1930's solution?

So, despite the issues involved with bringing a total new commuting paradigm to market, let's look at what a perfect commuting workflow would like like. First, I'd have a box in my house that I'd step in. Then, using a combination of specialized nanobots and nuclear energy, I'd be transported directly to a compartment in my office.

Of course you could poke a hundred different holes in this plan, but if some random nobody like me can crank out an idea like that in a few minutes, just imagine what kind of real progress we could make if some of the world's smartest engineers and entrepreneurs got to work on this?
2 comments
astartupaday 6046 days ago
I know you're being facetious, but I'd argue that's exactly the type of problem that we should look at solving. And admittedly there was a ton of hand waving around my potential solution, but ultrasonic cleaning techniques have been around for years, it's not impossible to think that the techniques could be applied to clothing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_cleaner).

Maybe the nanobots were a bit out there, though. :)

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pbhjpbhj 6046 days ago
People have been working on teleportation (admittedly not macroscopic teleportation) just as they have been working on washing machines.

He could have at least mentioned some advances, eg http://www.washerhelp.co.uk/reviews/dyson-CR01-review.html or http://www.google.com/patents?q=%22washing%20machine%22&...

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astartupaday 6046 days ago
Thanks for the link on the washing machine patents, I'm going to add that to the post. And I was actually going to mention the Dyson, until I saw that they had been discontinued due to lack of profitability.

From that review: "Unfortunately, although Dyson announced plans to bring another Dyson washing machine out, for the moment, the Dyson washing machine is no longer being made in the UK (although you will still be able to get them repaired)"

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