Loony business ideas
Solutions for gipsy scholars
Temporary academic staff at
last have a place to lie up
Tired of
going from one temporary university teaching job to another? Weary of packing,
uprooting yourself and worrying about where you’re going to live once you have
arrived at your next job? GipsySchol Holdings Inc. has just the solution. The company
has bought up disused athletic fields from cash-strapped universities and
converted them into trailer parks. Temporary teaching staff – or junior teaching
staff too badly paid to afford proper housing – may rent, buy or hire-purchase
mobile homes and tow them to their next job, where a suitably located park will
be waiting for them. Each home comes with a study area fitted with ergonomic
desks and enough electrical fittings for reading lamps and modern computers –
plus, of course, plenty of book space.
Global babysitting service
Remote child care wired to a centralized hub
Reliable
babysitters are hard to find nowadays. Who will mind the childminders?
Multimind™ would therefore seem to be an idea whose
time has come. Parents subscribe to the scheme by fitting video and audio
equipment in the rooms of their house, and a childminder
several miles or even time-zones away sits in front of several monitors and can
mind children in up to a dozen homes at a time. The various childminders
are in their turn monitored, supported and co-ordinated
from a centralized hub.
A two-way
microphone system provides communication with the children, and, at an extra
cost, a monitor can be provided to allow children to see the childminder. In cases of emergency, a button in front of
the appropriate screen provides instant access to the parents and to the local
police, fire and ambulance services, whichever is required. The DeLuxe version of the project, MultiTask
ChildminderPlus™, allows parents to provide
child-friendly robots (Mickey Mouse, Miffy the Bunny,
Tarzan etc.) to make bath-time and story-telling more fun, and provide
first-aid services when necessary. The robots are remote-controlled by the childminder using a computer. The most successful companies
exploit different time zones to enhance their productivity. For example, a Multimind operational unit in California can start work in
the
Triangular books bring
convenience to old-world charm
Make the most of those hard-to-fill spaces in
the attic
Old houses in the Netherlands score high when it comes to charm and atmosphere, but convenience is often thrown out the window. For instance, most of the pre-1900 houses in the Netherlands have long sloping roofs, so that there is a lack of wall space for placing bookshelves. That is, assuming the bookshelves and the books themselves are rectangular. But the shape of things to come may turn out to be triangular, to judge from the recent success of Het Dwarsboek BV, a small publishing company based near Groningen in the Netherlands. In triangular books the lines at the top of the page are very short and become progressively longer as one goes down the page. This characteristic has already spawned a literary form, the driehoekgedicht or triangular poem, but the publisher has also produced a triangular bible and a triangular coffee-table book illustrating the life and works of the Dutch painter Mondriaan. Now Het Dwarsboek plans to go global by producing books in English: a prestigious Shakespeare edition is in the offing, based on the 1622 Folio edition, as is also a triangular Atlas, a triangular guide to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescos and a booklet containing Pythagoras’s theorem. Intellectuals in attics all over the world will be hurrying place their orders now, as demand is likely to be intense. Before placing an order, make sure you have measured the angle of your roof. Most books are available in a 80-degree (rhomboid), 60- or 45-degree (triangular) slope, and cannot be exchanged.
Love leads
Two new products from the Promenade Co. Ltd are
available to make the art of walking with your loved one and/or dog even more
pleasant.
To avoid
clashes with other dogs, SmartLead™ is equipped with
a scent-driven early warning device. On detecting a dog within a 50-yard radius
it emits a beeping sound, and a small monitor displays your whereabouts in
relation to the alien pet, allowing you time to take evasive action. With SmartLead you will no longer be vulnerable to legal suits
resulting from wounds to third-party dogs. SmartLead
Plus comes with mobile phone and Internet, allowing you to check your stocks
and call your broker without having to worry about what your dog gets up to.
When you
are out walking it is hard to hold your partner’s hand and keep warm at the
same time. The ergonomically designed LoveGlove™
overcomes this problem. Its elegant, sleek shape and soft, flexible material
provides security and warmth for two interlocked hands (one right and one
left).