[geeks] Doorbells

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com>
>Date: 2008/03/21 Fri AM 01:34:47 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Doorbells

<snip>

>To be honest, I don't see a lot of money in selling programable
>door bells. Even if I were to get a patent, some company in China
>could make them, and sell them for a lot less than I could, and
>it would be difficult to stop them.

A friend & I were in a Pub in UK (Maidenhead), and we had a "to much Jameison moment" and "invented" a bar clock tht was programmable. In the moment, we envisioned minor weatlh would be the result, then the sun came up...

The idea was based on the fact that many (all?) pubs keep their clocks set just a bit fast (5 minutes?) so that last call is wrapped up on time. My friend & I decided that it seemed silly to have a clock that was wrong all the time, and "designed" a clock that would speed up, say from midnight to closing, running say 108% of real time, or 5 minutes an hour, so that the clock read midnight at 12:00 AM, but it read 1:00 AM at 12:55 AM and 2:00 AM at 1:50...

The idea was you could program when the drift from reality would start and when it should be corrected, maybe with a 7 day calendar (like a programmable thermostat).

We figured no one would buy the clocks out right, but if we could interest a brewery in buying/licensing our patent they could give the clocks to Pubs for free (marketing).

Lionel