Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio. Guess
Speaker 1: what Will?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So you know my family loves going for hikes, right,
Speaker 1: I mean the rest of my family.
Speaker 2: Right. I was going to say, I didn't want to
Speaker 2: call you out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm more of an indoor cat and my house
Speaker 1: is full of outdoor cats. But we haven't exactly been
Speaker 1: able to get out for hikes this month.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always thinking about you guys, just this morning
Speaker 2: on this Like, I imagine it is pretty tough traveling
Speaker 2: out from Brooklyn right now, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah? And Lizzie and I are pretending to be teachers
Speaker 1: all day and I can't tell you how terrible our
Speaker 1: homeschool is, but I actually do miss getting out into nature.
Speaker 1: So this week I spent some time hunting for a solution,
Speaker 1: and the best thing I could find was this greenhouse helmet.
Speaker 2: A greenhouse helmet, So, is that like a VR thing
Speaker 2: or what?
Speaker 1: No, it is much worse. So the greenhouse helmet is
Speaker 1: this fully enclosed anti fog dome that you fasten around
Speaker 1: your head. And inside this plexiglass helmet there are multiple
Speaker 1: shelves where you can place your favorite small plants. Full disclosure,
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone has actually made one of these things.
Speaker 1: This all just comes from a patent from nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: But in the diagram, and I'm going to post this
Speaker 1: to Instagram because it's so good, it shows a person
Speaker 1: with a goldfish bowl over his head and it's got
Speaker 1: a tiny potted cacti on one of the shelves, which
Speaker 1: is a pretty bold choice considering how close.
Speaker 2: It would be to your face. So why would you
Speaker 2: do this, I guess, is the question I want to know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: According to the creators, not only would the wearable greenhouse
Speaker 1: do you wonders to improve your mood, it also supplies
Speaker 1: you with this private reserve of fresh oxygen. So the
Speaker 1: idea is, as you exhale, the plants are supposed to
Speaker 1: soak up your carbon dioxide and provide you with pure
Speaker 1: oxygen and just in case the helmet starts to make
Speaker 1: you feel a little shut off from the world. It
Speaker 1: also comes with a two way intercom system, which.
Speaker 2: I guess if you think about it, like that's perfect
Speaker 2: for calling nine one one after you poke your eye
Speaker 2: out with a cactus. So I don't understand, like, why
Speaker 2: this has never made it to market. It just seems
Speaker 2: so smart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So for all you listeners out there, I don't
Speaker 1: know that the patent is still good, so there's still
Speaker 1: time to run with it on Etsy or whatever. But
Speaker 1: the greenhouse helmet isn't the only strange patent we found
Speaker 1: this week. We actually scoured the internet to find some
Speaker 1: of the weirdest patents and we found a couple of
Speaker 1: great things and a whole lot of things you won't
Speaker 1: be seeing on shark tanks.
Speaker 2: So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to
Speaker 2: Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
Speaker 2: joined by my good friend mangesh hot Ticketter. Now on
Speaker 2: the other side of that soundproof glass brainstorming ideas on
Speaker 2: his trusty whiteboard, that's our friend and producer loll Now.
Speaker 2: So far, he's just got this one concept something. It's
Speaker 2: kind of hard to read because of course we're all
Speaker 2: remote today, but it says edible timber and then a question,
Speaker 2: So I guess it's supposed to be edible timber. So
Speaker 2: I think it's still still a work in progress. I
Speaker 2: got here.
Speaker 1: I do love that idea, like a table you can
Speaker 1: eat in an emergency sounds like a pretty great option.
Speaker 1: So great work, Litt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you better get back to that patent filing pretty
Speaker 2: quickly on this. But in the meantime, we're also happy
Speaker 2: to welcome back our researcher pal, Gabe Luesier. How you doing, Gabe? Hey?
Speaker 2: Doing all right?
Speaker 3: It's nice to see some faces again that are stuck
Speaker 3: in the apartment with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think we can all agree we have been inside
Speaker 2: for too long. You know. We've spent our free time
Speaker 2: this week looking up patents and we've enjoyed it. Actually,
Speaker 2: But Gabe, you're up next. So what's the first one
Speaker 2: you want to tell us about?
Speaker 3: All right, So here's one from nineteen seventy seven that
Speaker 3: I wish had made it to market. It's a gumball
Speaker 3: dispensing T shirt.
Speaker 2: That actually sounds awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it kind of is like the shirt
Speaker 3: has a picture of an old timey gumball machine on it,
Speaker 3: and the dome part where the gumballs are stored it's
Speaker 3: actually clear and made from plastic. And so then there's
Speaker 3: this like a fabric pouch sewed behind it and you
Speaker 3: can actually, you like, keep real gumballs inside of it.
Speaker 1: These are real gumballs that you can dispense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the idea at least, Like when you push
Speaker 3: on one of the gumballs, it's supposed to slide down
Speaker 3: this kind of like built in shoot in the T
Speaker 3: shirt and it comes out through a slit near the
Speaker 3: bottom of the shirt. And like, here's the best part.
Speaker 3: There is even this variation on the patent that included
Speaker 3: a second pouch where someone could like insert coins. So
Speaker 3: you know, the idea is you could just walk up
Speaker 3: to someone on the street and buy a gumball directly
Speaker 3: from their T shirt.
Speaker 2: Of any invention, I feel like we could have come
Speaker 2: up with. This seems like the total opposite of social distancing,
Speaker 2: like walking up with money, putting it in somebody's shirt,
Speaker 2: then taking candy out of their shirt, and then putting
Speaker 2: it in your mouth. I don't know if now's the
Speaker 2: right time for this one game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's yeah, for later though,
Speaker 3: we'll put a pin in it, right, like when we
Speaker 3: emerge from the other side of this, Like we'll make
Speaker 3: it a priority to revive the shirt.
Speaker 2: Right with that, that's our pact, Like that, that's a
Speaker 2: great idea. All right. Well, my first invention is actually
Speaker 2: a pretty good idea and probably one of the least
Speaker 2: absurd ones that we will talk about today. It's something
Speaker 2: called the school bus locator system. Now, this was patented
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety two, so you have to place
Speaker 2: yourself back in the nineties before GPS tracking or cell
Speaker 2: phones became commonplace. But the way it worked was that
Speaker 2: your school bus would be outfitted with a radio transmitter
Speaker 2: and every kid on the route would be provided with
Speaker 2: a receiver. So when the bus was a few miles
Speaker 2: away from your house, the receiver would light up as
Speaker 2: an early warning, and then when the bus was much closer,
Speaker 2: like you know, a quarter of a mile away or something,
Speaker 2: the receiver would sound un alarm. And it seems like
Speaker 2: a handy way to avoid missing the bus, and also
Speaker 2: ideal for students who live in pretty cold places. You
Speaker 2: don't have to wait out in the snow for too long,
Speaker 2: just wondering if the bus is coming around the corner soon.
Speaker 2: But though, I guess if I think about it a
Speaker 2: little bit more, I'm certain there are some kids that
Speaker 2: would have, you know, maybe hidden the batteries or something
Speaker 2: and just uses as an excuse to miss school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I actually remember when I was in elementary school,
Speaker 1: there was this like persistent rumor that if the bus
Speaker 1: was half an hour later, something you didn't have to
Speaker 1: go to school? Was Was this the thing that was
Speaker 1: said in your towns too?
Speaker 2: Sadly? No, I don't thin, Gabe, have you heard this before?
Speaker 3: Definitely not.
Speaker 2: No, that sounds that's sure.
Speaker 1: It must have been a very delaware rumor. But I
Speaker 1: just remember one time the bus was actually like thirty
Speaker 1: minutes late, and so like all the kids at my
Speaker 1: bus stop just got so giddy, and we were excited,
Speaker 1: and we're looking at the watch. We were planning what
Speaker 1: to do with our day because we were certain we
Speaker 1: were going to get the day off school, and then
Speaker 1: like the last minute, this parent pulled up and crandoes
Speaker 1: into their mini van and then just drove us to school.
Speaker 1: And so anti climbac, Yeah that's a bummer. But Gabe,
Speaker 1: why don't you kick off this next round?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Well, this next one is for all you Rodent fans,
Speaker 3: and I know you're out there, So how often have
Speaker 3: you declined a dinner invitation because you just couldn't stand
Speaker 3: the thought of leaving your gerbils?
Speaker 2: At home, right, Yeah, I've had a dime for every
Speaker 2: time that happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's this is a very relatable problem, believe me, guys,
Speaker 3: and well, the gerbil vest is the answer to that problem.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety nine, some animal loving genius patented a
Speaker 3: very stylish vest with some built in tubes for your
Speaker 3: pet to run through while you're wearing it out and about,
Speaker 3: and of course there are also little chambers for your
Speaker 3: furry friend to feed and relax into. And good news
Speaker 3: for us, the tubes are transparent so that you and
Speaker 3: your friends can keep an eye on the little guy
Speaker 3: in there. And don't worry, animal lovers, the tubes are
Speaker 3: also equipped with air vents so the gerbils could breathe.
Speaker 3: We'll say that the patent it did warn against falling
Speaker 3: while wearing the vest for very obvious reasons.
Speaker 2: They got to watch out that, But otherwise I'm glad
Speaker 2: they put the air vents in there so we're not
Speaker 2: just looking at dead gerbils into I also like that
Speaker 2: you with with your patent ideas, you're sort of like
Speaker 2: a walking circus, Like people can come up and watch
Speaker 2: the gerbils and then that's not all, Like you pull
Speaker 2: back the vest and now you've got gumballs there for everybody.
Speaker 1: I know it's all vest based. I feel like, so.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, otherwise smarter. But actually I just pulled up
Speaker 2: this pick and it is pretty great, Like the easiest
Speaker 2: way to take your pet gerbils out for a walk.
Speaker 2: So this is this is this is pretty smart. But
Speaker 2: let's take a quick break and we'll be back with
Speaker 2: more great patents in just the second. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: Part Time Genius, where we're talking about some of the
Speaker 2: most wonderfully absurd inventions to ever make it out of
Speaker 2: the patent office. Now we've got five questionable inventions left
Speaker 2: to talk about, and the next one is for the
Speaker 2: true crime crowd. Now this is a podcast, so I
Speaker 2: know you're already listening out there, true crime lovers. Now,
Speaker 2: one thing that's plagued criminal investigators for centuries is just
Speaker 2: how easy it is for a suspect to retract their confession.
Speaker 2: But what if there was a simple, nonviolent way to
Speaker 2: keep a suspect from taking their confessions back. Well that's
Speaker 2: where this nineteen twenty seven patent comes in, going all
Speaker 2: the way back almost the century ago. It's officially called
Speaker 2: the quote apparatus for obtaining criminal confessions and photographically recording them.
Speaker 2: That's the name of this This invention is actually way
Speaker 2: weirder than the name. Let's on. It was basically this
Speaker 2: giant skeleton with red glowing eyes and a camera embedded
Speaker 2: in its skull. I am not making this up, and
Speaker 2: it was explicitly designed to terrify a suspect into confessing
Speaker 2: on tape. So the way that it worked was that
Speaker 2: a suspect would be confined to a small dark room
Speaker 2: about the size of a coke closet or like a
Speaker 2: church confessional or something like that, and a human interrogator
Speaker 2: would sit out of sight in a second attached chamber.
Speaker 1: This sounds so stupid, it's like a retired Disneyland ride
Speaker 1: or like straight out of Scooby Doo or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but actually it gets even worse. So when the
Speaker 2: examiner presses a button, a curtain lifts and the suspect
Speaker 2: comes face to face with this skeleton with red light
Speaker 2: bulbs and its eye sockets, and it's actually there's also
Speaker 2: supposed to be like this fog and like other lights
Speaker 2: to amplify the effect. And then the interrogator questions the
Speaker 2: suspect from a megaphone behind the skull in a super
Speaker 2: scary voice.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: It's very elaborate, and according to the these quote, illusory
Speaker 2: effects of a supernatural character will work upon the suspect's imagination,
Speaker 2: and so the suspect is supposed to get so terrified
Speaker 2: that they confess their darkest secrets, which is then of
Speaker 2: course recorded. And as far as I can tell, no
Speaker 2: one ever actually built one of these skeleton confessors, but
Speaker 2: even if they had, the invention likely would have been
Speaker 2: outlawed in nineteen sixty one anyway, when that was when
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court ruled that coerced confessions aren't admissible in court.
Speaker 2: But still, I feel like they deserve a few points
Speaker 2: for creativity, don't you guys?
Speaker 3: Thinktally?
Speaker 1: I mean, it honestly feels like a seven year old
Speaker 1: came up with that totally, and like it would work
Speaker 1: exclusively on other seven year olds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I do you feel like the next time Ruby breaks among,
Speaker 1: that's like the way I've got it, like co front
Speaker 1: those d Speaking of nonsensically dramatic things, there's an invention
Speaker 1: designed to make jazz concerts more interesting that we found
Speaker 1: this week, and it's the flaming trumpet.
Speaker 2: Now, knowing that you're a fan of jazz, my guess
Speaker 2: is that you would find this invention kind of offensive. Huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I do have a ton of like
Speaker 1: Miles Davis recordings, and I like jazz. But I could
Speaker 1: see how this would make attending a middle school concert
Speaker 1: much more interesting. Okay, all right, So the idea is
Speaker 1: basically to modify a trumpet with a gas cartridge and
Speaker 1: then to have an ignitor mounted to the end of it.
Speaker 1: And if turning a wind instrument into a flamethrower sounds
Speaker 1: like a dangerous idea to you, you are probably right.
Speaker 1: The patent claims that the musician would have complete control
Speaker 1: over the intensity and duration of the flame. But honestly,
Speaker 1: at first it sounds like a weapon of like a
Speaker 1: comic book character.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I could see how this thing might take off at
Speaker 1: burning men or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hopefully I could see that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: For my next back, I want to talk about an
Speaker 3: invention from the eighteen hundreds called the wearable lifeboat.
Speaker 2: I love that you're sticking with this wearable thing.
Speaker 3: The wearable lifeboat was basically a giant rubber bucket that
Speaker 3: you would wear around your waist like a diaper, with
Speaker 3: your legs sticking out the bottom. It had a couple
Speaker 3: inflatable air chambers to help it stay afloat, and you
Speaker 3: were supposed to steer this contraption with a paddle. The
Speaker 3: designer intended to quote for the conveyance of troops, baggage,
Speaker 3: and other articles across rivers, but also as a way
Speaker 3: to prevent drowning.
Speaker 2: So this is really interesting. But that but I have
Speaker 2: a question, and this may be super complicated here, but Gabe,
Speaker 2: why would you not just use a life jacket?
Speaker 3: Ah, very good question. But here's the thing. At the time,
Speaker 3: modern life jackets hadn't been invented yet there.
Speaker 2: Were no legs. Ah, got it.
Speaker 3: So that's why ridiculous inventions like this didn't seem as
Speaker 3: far fetched as they do now. And really as silly
Speaker 3: as swimmers and sailors would have looked in this thing,
Speaker 3: wobbling along in this like big rubber bucket, it still
Speaker 3: might have been better than the alternative. For instance, during
Speaker 3: World War One, some soldiers had to wear old mattresses
Speaker 3: as a kind of makeshift life preserver. And that's because,
Speaker 3: you know, that's all they had on hand. Thankfully, the
Speaker 3: inflatable life preserver was invented in nineteen twenty eight. A
Speaker 3: few years later, and of course that spared soldiers and
Speaker 3: civilians alike from the indignity of inventions like the wearable lifeboat.
Speaker 1: So first we Feast has a list of great patented
Speaker 1: food inventions, and it's got everything from prune beer, which
Speaker 1: sounds like the perfect drink for when you want to
Speaker 1: go to a party but also when you want to
Speaker 1: get your bowels moving, to of course, a rifle that
Speaker 1: has a shot glass attached, which just sounds like a
Speaker 1: terrible Dick Cheney like situation about to happen. But my
Speaker 1: favorite on their list is the combination hot dog hamburger bun,
Speaker 1: and it's based on a two thousand and nine patent,
Speaker 1: but as the site writes, quote, it's part hot dog bun,
Speaker 1: part hamburger bun, fully functional meat cover, which basically means
Speaker 1: it's a lot of bread and allows you to hold
Speaker 1: a lot of different meats at the same time. And
Speaker 1: it is pretty great.
Speaker 2: It sounds pretty great, especially for somebody like you who's
Speaker 2: been a vegetarian most of their life. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's pretty great mango. All right, Well, I'm actually going
Speaker 2: to stick to food with my last fact as well.
Speaker 2: And fair warning, this is the invention for the laziest
Speaker 2: of lazy people. It's the motorized ice cream cone. In
Speaker 2: this invention, it was patented in the late nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: It revolutionizes the laborious task of licking an ice cream cone.
Speaker 2: So here is how it works. It consists of a
Speaker 2: plastic device made to look like a traditional ice cream cone,
Speaker 2: and inside there's this small motor. So you're supposed to
Speaker 2: put a cup or cone of ice cream into the
Speaker 2: fake cone and then the motor would just make it spin.
Speaker 2: And as the patent explains, this allows the device to
Speaker 2: rotationally feed its contents against a person's outstretched tongue. That's
Speaker 2: what it says. And if you're wondering why on earth
Speaker 2: anyone would ever need such a device, allow the creator
Speaker 2: to educate you. So, according to the patent quote, the
Speaker 2: repetitive task of moving one's tongue up and down can
Speaker 2: become monotonous and tiring, especially for a child. Guys, we're
Speaker 2: talking about eating ice cream. It's just so weird. But
Speaker 2: I'm guessing investors somehow didn't agree with this, which is
Speaker 2: why we're stuck eating ice cream the old fashioned way,
Speaker 2: you know, using our tongues like a bunch of rubes.
Speaker 2: It's just so sad.
Speaker 3: That's a shame. Well, I mean, I think Will wins
Speaker 3: just with the ice cream fact like that description alone.
Speaker 3: Plus you had the confession skeleton, which was very dumb.
Speaker 1: I actually really like the gumball shirt and the hamster shirt.
Speaker 1: But I'm happy to throw Will a bone this week.
Speaker 2: I really want to see somebody out there putting on
Speaker 2: all of these inventions at the same time. It just
Speaker 2: seems like a great way to go out in public.
Speaker 2: But if you want to share your most ridiculous invention
Speaker 2: with us, Gabe Mango and I have a very special
Speaker 2: announcement that's right.
Speaker 1: Well, so this is the very first time we're doing this,
Speaker 1: but the person who submits the best invention idea or
Speaker 1: drawing this week to Instagram and tags it hashtag part
Speaker 1: time Genius will win six whole dollars from us. What
Speaker 1: that is all the money we want to put towards this,
Speaker 1: but it's also such a prestigious award that we just
Speaker 1: made up. So sending your invention ideas and you can
Speaker 1: be the very first Part Time Genius Grant winner in history.
Speaker 2: I mean, Gabe, you heard that right. Six dollars to
Speaker 2: whoever sends and discussed that we choose.
Speaker 3: Is that two bucks each?
Speaker 2: Look, there is a world where if let's say two
Speaker 2: people submit ideas, they go crazy. Now, no, no, no, we're
Speaker 2: not going to give them both six dollars. We'll send
Speaker 2: them each three dollars.
Speaker 3: So it seems fair.
Speaker 2: But either way it's gonna be great. So all right, Well,
Speaker 2: that's it for today's Part Time Genius from Mango, Gabe
Speaker 2: Loll and myself. Thanks so much for listening. Please stay
Speaker 2: safe and we'll be back soon with another new episode.
Speaker 2: Part Time Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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