Sometimes the solution could be staring us right in the face, but we are just too blind to see it.
A good example: There are no doubt thousands, but here is one to get you thinking.

A few years back now, I was hired by an Australian Company that had been awarded a contract to rebuild a railway line on the Island of Luzon in the Philippines. The line was 450 km long, it ran from Manila to Lagaspi city. My position was Plant Manager (plant as in Machinery and associated equipment needed for the project)

They hired me because I had worked in the Country a number of times previously so has some savvy of the country and the people, I was also married to a Filipina which also helped. As it was a rebuild, some sections of the track were still in periodic use, no regular schedule though. A situation the locals took full advantage of and who could blame them. What the locals did was construct motorised contrivances from Coconut timber and Bamboo to which they attached a roller bearing to each corner to ride on the track and another roller bearing mounted at 90 degrees again one on each corner running on side of rail to keep their frame on the track. They mounted a Briggs and Stratton gasoline engine on the frame driving a rubber tyred wheel mounted to contact the rail on one side. The wheel was powered through a v-belt operated by a simple lever that acted as a crude clutch, crude but it worked and worked well.

 

They called these contrivances Skates. I have seen Skated loaded down with up to 50 cases of beer. Not a problem for the Skates. Anyhow, the point of this yarn is not the Skates but something I discovered late one afternoon while riding one of these Skates returning to our Depot after an inspection trip along the track.
It was late and we were hot. My companion suggested that we stop at one of the numerous little stores that lined the track for a cold beer. Sounded good to me, so we stopped at one that he assured me had cold beer. So we stopped and we drank. A little later it began to get dark, so they turned on a light, that light attracted little white moths by the hundreds. We had to cover our beers with our hands to keep the little blighters out.

 

A while later, a boy climbed up on a chair and hung a pot under the light. I asked my companion what he was doing that for, he answered: just wait, you will see.
After a while he asked me if I noticed any difference. Difference I asked, about what? About the moths he answered, there are no more moths. Where did they go I asked. Climb up on that chair and look into that bowl he suggested. I did, the bowl was full of water now covered with squirming drowning moths. My puzzled look got the answer. The moths are attracted by the light, correct? he asked, sure I said, but? But when the moths start buzzing around the light, they see another light below it, so they are also attracted to it. They head there but never get there. Works better than those noisy/smelly electronic bug zappers.

 

I could not deny that. When I was a child growing up in Queensland’s outback our parents would sit on the verandah because of the stifling heat. They would have to turn the lights off because of the moths. Nobody in the bush ever woke up to that basic low tech solution those clever resourceful Filipinos discovered.