The Wall Street Journal reports on the welcome new trend of inventions aimed at curbing the anti-social behaviors of everyone in the world who makes you want to take a Blackberry and just smash their stupid slabs of face in. The products include a "$50 device that shuts up other people's dogs by answering their barks with an ultrasonic squeal that humans can't hear" and "a luminescent screen that fits in a car's rear window and, at the driver's command, flashes any one of five messages to other motorists. These include a smiley face, a sad face and phrases like 'Back Off' and 'Idiot.'" Even better is a concept aimed at a problem New Yorkers are all too familiar with: repetitive jackassy horn-honking syndrome.

If Joseph Mauriello has his way, the entire island of Manhattan will soon be a quieter place, thanks to a gadget. For 20 years in New York City, the 55-year-old says he's been disgusted by all the honking. As a tour company operator who's on the street constantly, he says he often finds it hard to hear over the clamor.

Mr. Mauriello has spent three years and tens of thousands of dollars developing the "Automobile Horn Audit System," a device that records honk stats like time, date and duration and has a GPS component to determine where the honking occurred.

He envisions it being installed in all cars in New York so that when owners bring them in for a state inspection, the data will be sent to a central office that will be empowered to assess levies on anyone who has demonstrated a pattern of excessive honking.

We enthusiastically embrace this forward march of technology! If any budding Einsteins out there can come up with something that will completely incinerate the dumbasses who block the front of the subway entrance so they can finish their cellphone conversations, we will nominate you for a Nobel Prize. Any other ideas you'd like to see made real? Let's clean up this city, people!

Revenge by Gadget [WSJ]

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