You could stick a windmill on top of your car and build up power as you drive to go faster if you drive faster
this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Thank you for the laugh (⁀ᗢ⁀)
For high rises, why not stick a turbine on the outlet for waste water at the bottom of the building? You've already spent the energy to pump it up dozens of floors why not recoup some of it when it falls back down?
Mine used to give me free water and natural gas. I filled my waterbed with hot water when I moved in.
Years later, they changed it over so that the whole building was metered and the price was divided.
That's a legal. Metered utilities can be either included in the rent, or metered on a per unit basis. In this setup, if your neighbor uses a lot of utilities your bill will go up. That's why this is illegal.
looking into my state code, it's legal if it's in the lease and they did ammend the lease on renewal to include it.
Morale? no. Legal here? it would appear to be.
It's illegal everywhere in the world?
Seems an odd thing to come together on
Maybe on some other planet, where success is deemed as failure and they all have USB ports for genitals.
You monster
And here I thought I was being clever. Thanks for sharing! That was great.
I am DELIGHTED
And either way, eventually someone from the city would probably show up to ask why you're using 40 tons of water every day.
lol
Wow. I never thought of bottling and selling water.
Was surprised xkcd didn't mention steam boiler turbines.
Wow. I never thought of bottling and selling water.
ah. yes. the nestle way.
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Love this article, but they kinda bury the lede making the Coca-cola joke about bottling and selling water.
Most bottled water you buy in stores is, in fact, tap water. If you think they're getting it from a mountain spring, even if there's a mountain on the label, you would be mistaken. You wouldn't want mountain water (with bear piss) anyway, the water you buy bottled is filtered and treated. It's good tap water, but it's still tap water. So next time your water bottle runs out, just refill it from the tap. Assuming your tap water is potable and doesn't taste like shit.
That's only correct if it's labeled as "purified water." If it says "spring water," then it came from a mountain spring.
The thing about being bottled at the source, is that it's upstream from all the "bear piss."
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You would be that asshole who ruined it for everyone else.
Not to mention considering most water pressure in... well, any country. They may be able to charge their phone and run a lamp at best.
No tv, no water heater, no fridge, no ac or heat, no white noise fans to fall asleep to.
Wth water running 24/7 there's no need for a white noise machine any more, just listen to the water.
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Turns out: nothing really.
Nice to know that someone already did the math (the monster math!)
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Oh shit, mine gives me free heat......I could just strap a Stirling engine to my radiator!
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Think harder next time. They'll be able to figure out that you're not filling an Olympic sized pool every week and water/sewer use that excessive is gonna be a breach of contract aka eviction.
What if I live in a country with renter-friendly laws where landnobility can't just kick out their tenants but have to give them opportunity to correct their behaviour? And also there is a reason that right now eludes me why my landnobleperson or anyone else won't be checking water consumption for the foreseeable future?
If they're paying the water bill they're going to know.
Yes but that's future me's problem. Present me wants to know if the thing OP is suggesting would work now.
Sort of. You could probably get enough out of it for lights and maybe an appliance, but eventually if you're using a lot you'll hit a power consumption ceiling where the water pressure even with the valve wide open is insufficient to turn the generator. In case you don't know, as demand increases the windings of a generator (any generator) get harder to turn.
You could cheat a little and have the water turn a big heavy flywheel that in turn turns the generator, it would be slow to start up but more resilient to demand spikes once it's up to speed.
There's also the noise any of it would make turning and vibrating but that can be future you's problem too.
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Most apartments with water included in the rent price (Sorry kids, there's no such thing as "free water") closely monitor their usage on a per building or floor basis. Whenever they detect irregularities they schedule inspections with the tenants to check for things like leaking toilet valves and such.
"free water" just means that they've calculated the cost of installing the meters and additional plumbing and determined that monitoring global usage and including it in the price of rent is cheaper.
Source: I have water included in my rent, I pay about $50 more a month than a similar apartment without.
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Also consider running cold water through some sort of radiator if you want free AC
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You'll be using less water than an AI data centre
Best fucking idea ever!
If you ever get free gas too, I have an idea for a wind turbine.
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Unlikely, but if any main power lines run past your walls or floor where they are regularly carrying substantial current, you can probably use a wire coil to light an led or something.
Well I can say from experience that your landlord won't be happy, but as long as it doesnt say a limit in your lease there's nothing they can do about it.
Their ain't a lease in the country that doesn't give a complex the right to toss you out for generic reasons.
And you could waste your time in court, but you'd lose.
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