This is an ordinary lift (US: Elevator), except for the large holes in the floor and ceiling which are slightly larger in diameter than the lift's counterweight - which is suspended by the lift's pulley mechanism over the top of the lift. If you go up in this lift, say to the top floor of a ten- storey building, at about the fifth floor, the massive counterweight will plunge through the lift, decapitating anyone foolish enough to be leaning over the hole in the floor at the time.-- hippo, Oct 03 2009 pointless, dangerous... [+]-- FlyingToaster, Oct 03 2009 Obviously dangerous and stupid [-]. There should be category or an [m-f-d] rule for re-inventing things that were dismissed in the early drawing board stages. Unless the HB is not about original ideas, but things that went wrong with very old ideas.-- bigsleep, Oct 03 2009 hah, [bigsleep]
this would warrant a marvellous illustration {sigh}-- po, Oct 03 2009 [po] totally agree. Pick an old invention and illustrate a badly working and dangerous prototype. Its almost a recipe.-- bigsleep, Oct 03 2009 I think the advantage outweighs everything - higher increased efficiency, and a smoother ride.-- Ian Tindale, Oct 03 2009 of course, teenagers will want to ride the counterweight on the way up - we could incorporate this new experience into the London olympics.-- po, Oct 03 2009 //I think the advantage outweighs everything - higher increased efficiency, and a smoother ride.//
You say that like you'd want to be clean shaven before commiting suicide.
Maybe its just me having a humour failure imagining a lift/guillotine in an 'we will invent more things that will kill you because what you don't know will kill you' kinda way. Isn't this just a bit pathetic ?-- bigsleep, Oct 03 2009 A cheese wire slot would be good, separating the car into two halfs that moved perfectly together....."mind the gap!"-- xenzag, Oct 03 2009 [xenzag] wow, that sounds just like a paternoster lift. Old, badly designed and dangerous. I know what, let's draw diagram !-- bigsleep, Oct 03 2009 //Maybe its just me having a humour failure //
I think you've got a bit of company there, with the latest HB crowd, [sleepy].
[+++] for a truly excellent idea. I'm heartily in favour of anything that filters the crap out of the gene pool on a regular basis.-- UnaBubba, Oct 03 2009 The more marketable version of this idea - which I though of first, actually - would be to have the hole through the middle of the lift encased in a transparent cylinder. Then, you'd get all the thrill of seeing the counterweight plummet through the centre of the lift, with none of the concomitant carnage.-- hippo, Oct 03 2009 //with none of the concomitant carnage//
But then you would lose the teenager audience.-- bigsleep, Oct 03 2009 I would install this special elevator type in my happy ending amusement park.+-- vfrackis, Oct 03 2009 This is basically like a hybrid H5N1 / novel H1N1 reassortment, only bigger.-- Ian Tindale, Oct 03 2009 I am not usually against things just because they are dangerous, nor am I against this for the same reason. The potential footprint savings could be huge if you imagine a hotel with three hundred lifts, each now reduced by the footprint of the counterweight chamber. Hence a bun [+].-- vincevincevince, Oct 03 2009 //middle of the lift encased in a transparent cylinder// I thought of that as well!-- po, Oct 03 2009 let's also replace the "welcome" mats with bear traps and scatter the land with explosives-filled boxes labeled "do not open"! [-]
//anything that filters the crap out of the gene pool// [UB], assuming I hadn't been warned beforehand, I would probably look up/down through the holes in the elevator, out of curiosity. Are you proposing we go back to the early Industrial Revolution, before worker safety was invented, when lapses of attention resulted in bodily harm, at least for the working class? I'm sure you have some particular idiots in mind and good reason for your cynicism. Still, I like [hippo]'s version better.-- sninctown, Oct 03 2009 Life is too safe these days.
[+]-- wagster, Oct 03 2009 I'm almost on the fence on this one. I like it with the addition of the transparent cyliner, but without it, it definitely gets [Marked- for-Decapitation] for cruelty and gross-out humor. I also doubt you'll achieve much in the way of footprint savings, because you'll lose more money in the increased usage of it due to reduced passenger capacity. Unless you start charging for the ride, obviously. [-]-- 21 Quest, Oct 03 2009 If it were encased in a transparent cylinder, I could support it. Instead of one large counterweight, you could have many smaller ones distributed along the cable, on which you could display images that would animate as the elevator moved.-- tatterdemalion, Oct 03 2009 if the lift decapitated a couple of heads would the lift increase its speed due to the weight loss (and blood loss) do ya think? just curious...-- po, Oct 03 2009 It would certainly provide cheap lubricant for the counterweight lifting gear, for a short time.
Yes, I am advocating a return to earlier times and more dangerous public conveyances. Our apparent bureaucratic fascination with protection of life and limb is skewing survival rates dangerously toward the idiot end of the bell curve, in my jaundiced view.
I only want what's good for the improvement of the species, as a whole. Deliberately thwarting the ancient and efficient processes of natural selection is deleterious to that improvement.
Do I have anyone particular in mind? Yes, those in the other half of the bell.-- UnaBubba, Oct 03 2009 agreed-- Sparkyplugclean, Oct 03 2009 Hey now, you're talking about people from my birthplace...-- RayfordSteele, Oct 03 2009 If you get rid of one half of the bell curve you still will have a bell curve.-- Ian Tindale, Oct 04 2009 They'll still be in the other half, [Ian].-- UnaBubba, Oct 04 2009 Bone. In that same line of nonsense, how about an elevator that kills anyone who pushes the button that says "CEO" or "Board of Directors." It can dispense a freshly-baked bun to anyone who clicks on "Janitor's closet" or "Storage."-- kevinthenerd, Oct 04 2009 Yes, that would be nonsense. And you'll notice that I didn't suggest that.-- hippo, Oct 05 2009 I think I'd like an elevator that neuters anyone who uses the fishbone voting option; without anaesthetic if they do it gratuitously or maliciously.
That wood be reely kool, hahahaha. lol!-- UnaBubba, Oct 05 2009 [vincevincevince] does it really save space? Surely the lift has to be bigger if its going to hold the same number of people + the occasional high speed counterweight. Hmmm [sound of gears whizzing around and then getting stuck] ... ok it is an advantage. You get an overall size advantage except for traveling between 5th and 6th floors. Would need a hinged bit of floor, that gets clear when the weight goes through, but thats not a showstopper. Ok that gets a [+].-- RattyBunyip, Oct 05 2009 I find it somewhat disquieting that ideas here have had to become less whimsical and far more practical, to overcome the moanings of the low imagination engineers and bean-counters.
Killjoy fucking losers... two questions: So we can avoid finding any more of them... Where did we pick them up? Can we slit their scrawny throats with rusty saws and leave their rotting carcasses on the outskirts of cities, as a reminder to other such wankers aspiring to delusions of normalcy?-- UnaBubba, Oct 05 2009 I dunno, a rusty saw seems somewhat banal.-- kaz, Oct 05 2009 //Can we slit their scrawny throats with rusty saws// I don't think so: that would be more of a rip than a slit.-- pertinax, Oct 05 2009 //I'm heartily in favour of anything that filters the crap out of the gene pool on a regular basis//
Agreed, agreed, [UB]. But should curiosity be the triggering behavior of such a filter? Seems a little counter-evolutionary to me.
That being said, an idea that involves decapitation merits a bun from me, [Hippo].-- MikeD, Oct 05 2009 [UB] I'd like to point out that my variant does bring an improvement to the lift design in engineering terms yet still allows for Darwinian pruning of those who cant read or count and hence are standing in the wrong place and don't notice the impending '5th floor'. It should reduce the number of those lost from being 'over curious'.-- RattyBunyip, Oct 06 2009 If the primary advantage is that it eliminates the need for a seperate shaft for the counterweight, then why not take two elevators, and make each the counterweight of the other?-- goldbb, Oct 06 2009 Because that would mean forcing people to wait for one to reach the top before boarding the other from the ground floor. Not cool, dude.-- 21 Quest, Oct 06 2009 [goldbb] and if one was the counter weight for the other then it wouldnt fit through the hole unless it had very heavy people in it (sorry) [brain starts to think about possibilities of tall thin elevators fitting through holes in short fat elevators... shape changing elevators... counter weight elevators with variable length string so could go at different rates.... Shutup brain!]-- RattyBunyip, Oct 07 2009 If you drilled a hole through the earth, the counterweight could be a lift in the Antipodes on the other end of a very long rod.-- pocmloc, Oct 07 2009 Ha! Well done hippo! You've managed to get this all the way up to 29 votes and nobody has been able to summon up the strength of will to label this idea as [m-f-d] cruelty. The force is strong in you today!-- DrBob, Oct 07 2009 [admin: I see where you're coming from, but I'm ignoring the mfd. I read the dangerousness as more accidental than deliberately cruel; since it's not likely someone will build this, it doesn't really matter. If the mere thought of an accident worries you, or you insist on realism, go with the tube-encased initial version instead.]-- jutta, Oct 14 2009 Curses! Foiled again!-- DrBob, Oct 15 2009 Realism is over-rated. I've tried realism and I came back to the HB, only to find the bastard realists trying to invade the place.-- UnaBubba, Oct 15 2009 //Realism is over-rated//
Its a weird concept around here. There are some overly real m-f-d rules for prior art or technology that doesn't exist and yet blatant stupidity is not frowned upon. There are two things about this idea -
1) The magic counterweight that coexists in the same space as the suspending cable. 2) The infinitesimally small pulley and its high rotation speeds.
For me its not even a real halfbakery idea, but just an amusing mental image ... for a few seconds. Personally I think ideas need a little more than a quick joke, say two jokes or a couple of puns.-- bigsleep, Oct 15 2009 //blatant stupidity is not frowned upon// marked-for-tagline-- pocmloc, Oct 15 2009 [bigsleep], you have made up those impossible features. Obviously there are two suspension cables, which run parallel upwards about a yard apart. They run over two facing pulleys and then descend to the counterweight almost touching. If you're worried about unequal stretch, you can add a third small pulley on the counterweight and have one continuous cable that does for both ups and both downs.-- pocmloc, Oct 15 2009 Meh. Over-engineered, under-engineered. Past wombling green / prototype. I'm disappointed.-- bigsleep, Oct 15 2009 halfbakery