Science Week Ireland Competition

Curses. I missed the deadline for yesterday’s competition over on Mulley.net to win a Wii in National Science week.

I will not make the same mistake twice. Today’s question is “What invention would you like to see most in the future?“.

Given I missed yesterday’s deadline I was tempted to go for a TARDIS or similar time travel machine (not a De Lorean as Simon would probably try to open the gull wing doors to make it fly, thus not breaking the “rules of the game”). However I dismissed this as that would open up the whole time travellers paradox… If I’d posted and been in with a chance to win the Wii would I have wished for a time machine to bring me back in time to post and win the Wii and if I hadn’t would I have won or would the original timeline have continued on.. (ohhh my brain hurts after that).

I then thought about Giant Killer Robots (ideally made of gold). However Roosta beat me to it. Curses. Perhaps I should ask for my time machine?

However a more mature pondering of the question made me consider my commuting and the implications for future family life (I live in Wexford, work in Dublin) and my carbon foot print (I tend to travel to the UK and US a few times a year to speak at conferences) and the fact that it took a colleague 2.5 hours to get from Swords to the city centre yesterday due to the buses – or specifically the lack thereof.

So the invention I’d most like to see in the future is a transporter like wot they have on Star Trek. My commute to the office would be a lot shorter (speed of light vs speed of bus eireann), I could zip back to wexford for lunch with the family, work late for my wage-masters and be back home for tea and tucking in etc. And my colleague would be able to get from Swords to Dublin before he has to turn around again and retire.

And I’d never have to deal with Ryanair’s baggage allowance or Baggage manglers handlers ever again.

Yup. Transporters it is. And interestingly we are getting closer to this technology… extend the range and move from simple matter to slightly overweight bloggers.