Inventors you know

My grandad was an inventor and he also had friends he helped who were also inventors.

Coke in Britain is no longer made. Coke used to be coal after gas was extracted from it by putting coal in a sealed container with an outlet tube to extract the gas from it. It was a skilled profession where a good worker could extract gas from coal up to seven times. The gas was cleaned and some chemicals were added before it was used in factories and houses before North Sea Gas took over in the UK (For those blessed to be living in an area near a gas main).
NOTE. USA GAS IS WHAT WE CALL PETROL. WHAT WE CALL GAS IN THE UK IS DIFFERENT. IT IS WHAT HEATS ONES HOME.
The coal that had the gas extracted from it was called coke. It was lighter in weight then normal coal and (I'm not old enough to remember) gave good heat for the fire and was cheaper to buy then coal. Coke was a stable fuel so was used in factories.
Coke was a most excellent use in recycling.

Also reminds me about an author who noticed in wikipedia that someone had the wrong idea about some of the characters of his book. He changed the article to correct it and wiki changed it back. He changed it again many times until he finally complained directly to wiki. The reply came back that the article was written by a person who had a degree on the subject of the book and he didn't have such a degree, they have to rely on the opinion of the qualified person! His replies stating he was the author seemed to land on deaf ears!
In a similar light, my mum who is an author looked up her name on wiki and she has extra books acrediter to her on a rather complex professional subject that she never wrote. Turns out there is an author in the USA sharing the same name, and my mum is a credited on wiki as an expert in the field of her books! We felt sorry for the lady but we do not know how to correct it. The problem being, once it is on wiki, it gets round the whole internet on many other sites and can't be changed.
That is the largest issue of the internet is that once something is written it is recorded and can't be changed if one knows or finds out the statement is untrue or incorrect, or the situation has changed.

My Dad is the closest thing to an inventor I know. He was the first person to use a specialty tool in the oilfield used to under-ream rock formations that had a habit of collapsing a hole and bringing drilling operations to a stand-still. The tool was invented and developed by engineers in Texas, but it was deployed the first time outside of Evanston, Wyoming, and the first time my Dad used it, he had some recommended changes that the engineering crew implemented on-site. After the changes, the tool functioned flawlessly and the changes were implemented in all future versions of that tool.

I invented a game show called countdown!

As I kid in church, when I got bored I use to look at the numbers on the hymn
board. Think of a number and try to make the hymn board numbers come up with it.

Then years later countdown came on the TV. I should have sued them for copy right.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(game_show)

A few years ago I was doing some work on a ladder and my legs were getting sore standing on the narrow rung. So I took some plywood and a few chains and invented a collapsible step for the ladder. It took about an hour.

I have also invented a clever deweeding tool, a device to put poison in mole burrows, a new kind of chiropractic table, a computerized control system for chiropractic tables, a cool computer cart with a swing arm that lets me view my computer monitor from my easy chair, a silicon cure tester, a tap water ozonator and lots of other things that don't come to mind at the moment.

Got to ask, what's a tap water ozonator?

Quite a lot of things. He designed the first electric vehiclesmfor use in UK hospitals he ca!led "Sprogs and Trogs". He designed the first machine to peel, top and tail onions for industrial use. My mum remembers him shooting onions across the attic using compressed air for his experimental calculations! The machine he made stands today in the front of Parsons Pickles factory in Burry Port in Wales (If they have not scrapped it!)
I was told soon after he invented the machine a rival firm to the company he invented it for tried to sue the firm for copying their idea. The boss and my branded went to court and the boss had brought a small tape recorder with him (New technology back then!) and the boss was sitting in a toilet cubicle during a court break where he heard a conversation between the other side and their lawyers. He recorded the conversation where they were discussing how they were going to steal the odd and make millions! The boss played the tape in the court room to the shock of the opposition, and the boss sued them for what they did!
I believe somewhere my mum still has the engineering plans my grandad drew for the machine.
Other areas my grandad was said to have designed are electric windows for car doors which we assumed were the first but later found out unknown to UK residence that USA had beetnus to it (UK didn't know they had)... Here is how electric windows were invented...
My grandad worked for a factory in the Midlands in the UK where they were using large fork lift trucks with cabs where these would be driven out of the factory and along the road to be used elsewhere as part of their work. Every time the fork lift trucks left the factory or came back in, they would need to wind down the window and get a signature on a sheet on their clipboard retained in the cab. Trying to drive the vehicle and have the sheet signed each time in or out was not easy as the driver could have done with three hands, so my grandad designed electrically operating windows worked by a conveniently located switch (I believe it was a foot switchbut not 100% sure).
The factory opposite where he worked built cars and were so impressed with this that they used the idea for their cars. That factory was Aston Martin.
Other things he designed were various trailers (He once worked for Ford and once worked for Renault while in Wales, UK) including some that had to be designed in sections and only erected as a trailer when built after being shipped to the far east to carry pipes used for oil pipelines. The trailer was said to be absolutely huge and far to big to be assembled and tried in the UK.
I was told he invented up and over garage doors. (He always worked for companies so never recieved riches through what he designed other then his wages as a designer.
He did a lot of designing electric vehicles of various sorts for factory or industrial use. He disndesign an electric motor scooter that touched 60mph and go up a 1 in 4 hill and last for 60 miles on a charge using an ordinary car battery, but back then due to UK law where every electric vehicle used on the public roads having to have large display boards showing it was electric (Milkfloats and other large electric vehicles had more room), it wasn't legal to be used and impractical with such large boards needed to comply with the law.
An idea one of his friends took to him which he helped him develop were cats eyes. Reflective devices mounted in the road which were designed originally for the reflectors to be self cleaning every time a car went over them. Most have kept this aspect of the design.
His dad was a coach builder who also designed many things. He had been an aircraft pilot during the first world war and during the medical after they came out the war they found he was blind in one eye as he never knew as he was born with that. Hence when WW2 came they had him design various aspects of aircraft wings etc. He had something to do with developing the Spitfire wings for war use though I have no idea what this was as I found out the plane was already designed prior to WW2.
The double deck busses he would design and build were designed to lean 23½° before they tip, an aspect I'm told they still build to today? (I was told that about 25-30 years ago).
I never remember my great grandad as he lived in England. I was probably far to young to remember if I had, but I often wrote the thank you letters after birthdays and Christmasses. He had had a heart attack when he was 18 so he was told to take life easy. He did and he died not long before my grandad (73) did at the age of 98. He had many brothers and sisters who also lived to be 98 years old.

A tap water ozinator uses ozone to purify tap water.

So what's the difference between ozone and chlorine for purifying tap water?
Just wondering.

I don't know any

but year and years and years ago, on a cold winters day, I remember saying "Someone needs to invent clothes with heating wires built into them" .... and by now someone has! Wohooo