Train drivers used to hit train wheels with a hammer before setting off and were able to judge by the noise whether the wheel was cracked. This small USB-powered device will gently tap your biscuit and feed the sound into an analysis package to determine the biscuit's structural integrity as a safety measure before any planned dunking goes ahead.
-- hippo, Sep 07 2009

Avoid biscuit-based injury http://www.metro.co...32902&in_page_id=34
[coprocephalous, Sep 08 2009]

A nice cup of tea and a sit down. http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/
I think [hippo] would like this place. And the accompanying book which is my personal reference for all things biscuit related. [wagster, Sep 08 2009]

Perhaps a USB-powered BisCAT Scanner would be the more modern option?
-- UnaBubba, Sep 07 2009


That's the way the cookie crumbles ..... [+]
-- 8th of 7, Sep 07 2009


What happens if you create a crack in the biscuit, that then causes a sinking event?
-- UnaBubba, Sep 07 2009


It has to be non-destructive testing. The energy input shouldn't be sufficient to cause an incipient flaw to propagate.

Ultrasound pulses might be better.
-- 8th of 7, Sep 07 2009


Should definitely use aerospace tool technology like the other annos suggest. The paint thickness gizmo could be used to ascertain average choccy coating depth, which would in turn give optimal dunk time. [+]
-- bigsleep, Sep 07 2009


wheel tappers and shunters - would there be a shunting device whatever that is?
-- po, Sep 07 2009


This could, in another world, where hippo's double is a man of unlimited animus and limited social skills, have been an altogether simpler device, for serruptitious use in supermarkets and tea rooms.
-- calum, Sep 07 2009


To be used serruptitiously, one presumes?

I'm assuming a serruptition is a particularly sneaky fart?
-- UnaBubba, Sep 07 2009


Perhaps for tracle biscuits, there are syruptitious uses?
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Sep 07 2009


Ohh yeah. Another goody that got by me. I hear this as a tiny ting sound. Like the one before one meditates. On a good biscuit day that is.
-- blissmiss, Sep 07 2009


//Train drivers used to hit train wheels with a hammer //
Telephone linesmen are also trained to hit telephone poles with a hammer to judge if they're safe to climb.
If they "ring" they're dry and safe; if there's a dullness, they're rotten.
My Grandad knew this, but used to drive his GPO van into them instead.
If they fell over, they weren't safe to climb in the first place.
-- coprocephalous, Sep 08 2009


Heh, Grandad.
-- blissmiss, Sep 08 2009


re: link. Interesting research, copro, but deeply flawed Ifeel. A noticeable absentee from the list of risks associated with the deadly combination of tea & biscuits is, of course, polonium poisoning. This makes the whole provenance of the report extremely suspect as I know, from personal experience, that the streets of London are littered with the bodies of ex-pat Russians who have not exercised the appropriate caution during their tea breaks.
-- DrBob, Sep 08 2009


Never pat a Russian. You never know what he might have been slipped.
-- UnaBubba, Sep 08 2009



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