Iraq vet in Omaha modifies his wheelchair into a snowplow

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Sounds like his first might be beefier motor, I’m not sure what the torque is on whatever his wheelchair was built with, but it is probably going to melt a coil sooner or later.

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Courage or madness? Who can tell the difference?

That’s pretty darn cool.

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Meanwhile, in Fargo,

Or a planetary gear in line with the motor, with lockable outer ring, to have an easy to enable/disable speed-torque tradeoff.

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Nah.

Flamethrowers.

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Radioactive heaters buried under the pavement.

Possibly go for a combo of deep-buried heaters and heat pipes transferring the heat to the surface. That would be the best way to combine heat generation with radiation shielding, and then we can go the Russian way and use cheap Sr-90 based heaters instead of bothering with overpriced Pu-238.

Or, if you want to regulate the output, a small Topaz-class reactor could do a good job. If it’s good for the radar satellites, it’s good for the household.

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Mr. Ng, of Ng Security Industries, would undoubtedly approve of this; with a possible admonition to go bigger if at all possible.

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Oh, I know. Pave everyone’s driveway with blocks of rock salt. The runoff would be terrible for the environment but it would make the commute that much more efficient.

The salt would dissolve during rains. Would have to be repaved every couple weeks at least, being rather maintenance-intensive.

An alternative could be a derivation of an irrigation system, deploying brine.

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Perhaps if it they were large paving stones on a construction scale like:

Then maybe they would only have to be replaced a trifling few times a decade, depending on geography.

Though,

In the new hotel, as in the old one, there is a rule prohibiting licking the walls (in order to prevent their degradation).

You make a very good point though. I don’t see why every house isn’t equipped with a brine barrel to wash out the driveway.

Also it would allow only extremely salt-tolerant forms of life to thrive, which is always wonderful.

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Needs a sand / salt spreader in the rear, but awesomely awesome!

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Apparently it is doable. Though this one is with a conventional heat source.

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It says a lot about someone that he’s given that much in service to others, has a perhaps terminal disease, and yet still goes to extraordinary lengths to help others. How many people’s bucket list is filled with acts of service and kindness?

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There is a guy in my 'hood that scoots his wheelchair around by holding onto a youth-sized electric dirt bike. I love that his solution is a fraction of the cost of a motorized wheel chair, and works surprisingly well.

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Why are the wheelchairs so expensive, anyway? Especially in comparison with various commodity-grade goods that contain the same kind of motor-battery-controller system with similar power rating?

Can’t there be some kind of a retrofit, or a kit, for price that’s affordable?

On one hand we have people in need of such gear. On the other hand we have cohorts of underemployed people, many with electrical and metalworking skills. Can’t this be combined together? Make designs, release the blueprints for free replication?

Or would it insult some bureaucrat and his petty rules about “medical devices” because the result wouldn’t come with its own weight in paperwork?

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