While I have no doubt that once upon a time the patent system genuinely did foster innovation, lately it’s been doing anything but; and while open-source tools have brought the cost of developing many patentable inventions or processes down almost to zero, particularly in software, the cost of obtaining a patent is still well above the average person’s ability to pay.

Luckily, there’s a loophole: prior art. Anything published in any medium which describes something patentable cannot itself be patented. So, if I start a blog and publish details describing a wind-powered hot air balloon — that is, a system which generates lift by converting wind energy to heat energy, which is as far as I can tell an original invention — no one can legally receive a patent on such a system.

Will it work? I don’t know.
Has anyone tried it? I don’t think so.
Will I make money? That would be nice, but I’d rather see people do cool things with the idea.

Plans so far are up on Thingiverse — the generator: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12325 and full turbine assembly: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12326 . The idea is to attach a hairdryer and balloon to the generator; I’ll post more details as the plan progresses.