Ooh, why didn’t I think of this before?

In the southwest suburbs’ local paper this week, there is a fullpage ad for a scam the EdenPURE 500 (R)(tm)(c)(processed cheese food), a space heater making all sorts of ridculous claims and using scare tactics to warn gullible readers away from those “other” space heaters. Did you know…

  • this special space heater uses a quartz element (like about 50% of all space heaters) to produce “infrared heat”, which is the safest form of heat (as opposed to, presumably, non-infrared sources of heat…?).
  • A furnace “generates a lot of dust due to the combustion.” (And here I’ve been blaming things like dead skin and clothing, when really, dust is in fact transmuted from an isolated exchanger’s hot air! But not EdenPURE’s hot air.)
  • this product will “make you healthier” because it does not reduce humidity or oxygen in the room (when you get sleepy wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket in front of another space heater, that’s because it’s burning up all your oxygen)
  • Many other portable heat sources “produce carbon monoxide, static cling, and some produce radiation.” (“Brr…honey, I think the space heater needs more plutonium.”) (Hopefully it’s not deadly infrared radiation, or dangerous electromagnetic radiation in the 400-700nm band emanating from the power-on indicator.)

It must be a profitable business seperating fools from their money. Why am I not in on this?

* * *

This weekend my folks handed me a carbon-monoxide detector from the cabin to fix (power supply crapped out). This got me thinking… Time was, the only detector a house had was a smoke detector. Then came radon gas detectors, and still more recently (within my lifetime, even) CO detectors. Now, don’t get me wrong, all of these are hazardous things in the right circumstances and concentrations, but why stop there? As modern houses become better-insulated and better at sealing out the outside wind and cold than the typical New England seive-with-a-roof, the situation screams with a need for additional safety detectors in these well-insulated coffins.

Enter Carbon Dioxide Detectors. With every breath, dangerous Carbon Dioxide is building up in your home. Every person and every pet you bring into your home increases the danger. What are you going to do, open all the windows and watch your gas bill rocket through the roof? No, friend, you need a CO2 detector. There could be a burgeoning CO2 detector market just waiting for the first high-profile death due to in-house CO2 poisoning to make the evening news. From there, national mandates for CO2 detectors in every home are an almost certainty*.

Profits from the CO2 Detector market can be used to fund the next generation of life-affirming safety innovations, namely, natural gas detectors. Similar in principle to the most common type of CO detector, a precious-metal catalyst in the CH4 detector would convert the natural gas (methane) molecules to a measurable electric current**.

The dangers of methane gas in the home are many. For one, it’s highly flammible. Have your attempts to light the stove ever resulted in flames? Regular viewers of Jackass will know that ALL sources of methane gas are a fire hazard. Fact: One Anna’s super burrito has nearly a thousand dietary calories, nearly enough energy to heat an Olympic swimming pool. The typical Anna’s customer is much smaller than an Olympic swimming pool and yet does not spontaneously combust. There is only one logical conclusion as to how all that excess energy is vented. These balls of concentrated danger could be set off by anything, such as proximity to a non-EdenPURE(r)(tm)(c)(etc) space heater. Some studies suggest that natural gas in the home may be responsible for extremely localized global warming. Are your children safe at night with all that highly combustible energy floating around?

With the soon-to-be-federally-mandated CH4 detector in every home, you will not need to worry! The detectors could be placed anywhere CH4 enters the house, such as stoves, ovens, dryers and your high-profile family flatulator’s favorite couch, using a sophisticated microprocessor to warn the household of the presence of a silent, but deadly, killer. Expect this innovative lifesaving technology in Q1 2008.

* and I will be rich, I tell ya! Rich!

** of course, we could just use a bigger element and catalyze all that fart gas directly into usable electricity, but that would require a bunch more palladium and eat away all of our profit margin.


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