I wish there was a convenient and inexpensive way to do home laser hair removal. It's getting harder and harder to shave my legs and I can't see paying hundreds of dollars to a dermatologist.

Although it's only inexpensive if you can get a few people together to split the cost of the unit. Costs about as much as one laser-treatment.

http://www.amazon.com/TRIA-Hair-Removal-Laser/dp/B0029OSN4U

$395.00

That would be neat.

clears the head. I tried it about 4 or 5 times when I worked at a health food store. Worked every time.

we don't need future tech to cure obesity, we have gastric bypass which i have seen work magnificently even for people i know who had weight issues resistant to a low carb diet...we actually do have "pills" that work for obesity, they are meth and its relatives and how is that working out? weight/size is something better addressed by surgery than pills, for whatever biological reason...

as far as identifying psychopaths, in your heart of hearts, you know them almost within the first few seconds of meeting them, if you are honest with your gut...so we DO have such a brain scan, we have our brains, which we as woman are too polite to use...and what diff does it make if we have "better" diagnoses of mental health? it isn't our failure to dx that is the problem, it's our inability to cure, anybody who stands still gets diagnosed

so none of this requires future tech, it requires just using what we already have

for a true problem that we don't have a solution for, i would vote a cure for addiction, since the usual crap (aa, jail, rehab etc.) cures less than people than would be cured by random chance!

i can ID a sociopath 99 times out of 100 within moments of being introduced, but i can't cure an alcoholic if i tried for a lifetime

i honestly believe what we need to invent, which we're not even close to, is a cure for addiction, but our society profits too much from the suffering of addicts and their families and i don't see this coming any time soon in the future, whereas "proper diagnosis" of mental illness and pills/surgery for weight loss actually already exist...

I would live in that thing.

They never seem to come to pass. I'm still waiting for my Mr. Fusion Home Reactor and my Mattel Hoverboard.

and/or side effect free female birth control. I like your idea of a safe yet effective cure for obesity.

If we ever figure out force fields, I think that could be quite handy. Imagine... You form a force field to a tub or shower shape, no clean up afterward, and the space is free to use for other things the rest of the day. Depending on power requirements and eventual portability, Auto accident safety. Bicyclist, skier, etc safety. Take it to its outside edges of possibility, the star trek Holodeck or something like it becomes possible. Home protection. Personal protection. A simple way to trim all the grass in your lawn to a perfectly even level in one quick push of a button. Surround the radioactive material at fukishima with a force field, and then move it all out and put it into a solid, undamaged containment.

It would depend on energy requirements, portability, and the formability of the field, but I can think of a lot of very handy things you could do with a force field. Heck, if you can micro control them, and project through a solid, theres your side effect free birth control right there.

Also, instant transport. Be it beam me up Scotty, or transfer booths a la Niven, And again, highly dependent on power requirements, the removal of the daily commute would bring me a lot of joy.

And I get the brain scan thing. I've had several and they STILL haven't figured out what I am.

a good cheap product to rid bed bugs.

But as long as scientists continue to prioritize hair restoration, testosterone replacement and boner pills, cancer will just have to wait.

Also a Universal Translator like they had on Star Trek would be a big leap forward.

Oh, and two Heinlein inventions-- Douglas-Martin solar panels and Shipstones. With those, we could all tell Big Oil to go suck it.

Last edited Fri Feb 24, 2012, 12:11 PM - Edit history (1)

I may have to turn in my nerd card, but I hope we'll never develop Jetson-style jet packs for common use! Think Jet Skis in the sky! As someone who enjoys backcountry hiking to get away from people and human society, no place on earth would be safe and free of the scourge of humanity. I shudder at the possibility.