Sex and waterbeds and things one should never do with a microcontroller.
I was recently discussing sex on a waterbed – this isn’t something that I’ve ever partaken of myself that I can remember, but it seems to me that the basic problem with sex on a waterbed would be that waterbeds tend to have resonant frequencies and they would tend to want to slosh at those frequencies and no others.
Leave it to sheer to come up with a solution to a problem that he’s never actually directly observed – and I suspect such a device already exists, but..
If you take a thing like a waterproof speaker, and place it with the cone side ‘in’ the waterbed, it should be possible to counteract the natural resonance of the waterbed and instead make it slosh to whatever rhythm the occupents of said bed are currently pursuing. It should also be fairly easy to come up with sensors that can detect that rhythem. (Why can’t I think how to spell rhythym today?) Alternates are a motor connected to a crankshaft-and-piston style affair that pushed the water out of the way. Or something – you all get the idea.
It’s probably a pity I’m not patenting this – I could make billions. Of course, chances are good that someone already has patented it, and chances are also pretty good that joe consumer is not going to be interested in this product. But if anyone wants to fedex me $5 million or so, I’ll get started on the prototypes right away.
August 5th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
The whole resonance thing is an overstated problem. The resonant frequency doesn’t have to be anywhere near the, uh, operational frequency of people, and in my experience isn’t. Most newer waterbeds have baffles in them to change how it works, anyway, but even the oldschool ones didn’t really seem to me to have this problem. But it’s a cool idea for a feedback system.