Design
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Background: Some widely-used computer programs are free, and are supported exclusively as hobby projects by unpaid developers. The issue: Unfortunately, there is no financial mechanism to encourage further development and enhancement of these programs. Even if a hundred million people depend on a program, there is no simple way for them to support the developer.…
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Background: The same amount of money can represent vastly different things to different people. For a minimum-wage earner (in 2019), $10,000 represents roughly 65% of a year’s total salary. But for the very top level of executives at one of the top 350 U.S. firms, that number represents less than a day’s salary. The issue:…
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Background: Liability law is extremely complicated and counterintuitive. However, one common factor is that it appears to generally be beneficial—or legally required—for the owner of a potential hazard to warn others about that hazard (e.g. the omnipresent California Prop 65 warnings: “Warning: This location contains chemicals that are known to cause cancer”). The issue: Unfortunately,…
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The issue: Sometimes, a college lecture or work presentation goes far over the allotted time (Figure 1). Frequently, the presenter doesn’t even realize that they are over time. One simple way to prevent a presentation from going over time would be to just have the power outlets turn off at exactly the designated end-of-presentation…
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The issue: When selecting an individual for a job, an unavoidable aspect of the process is the physical appearance of the candidate. A job candidate might be unfairly penalized because of preconceptions about their age / sex / race / etc. Not only is this unfair to the candidate, but the overall situation also opens…
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Background: Some gangs are known for wearing specific colors. The issue: It occasionally happens that a non-gang-affiliated passerby’s clothing happens to match local gang colors by chance, which can lead to various unfortunate encounters. Proposal: Although it is unlikely that any existing gang will change its colors, if creating a new gang, a new “gang…
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Background: In today’s highly computerized society, it’s easy to make an expensive purchase or a life-changing decision with minimal effort. The issue: Sometimes, the importance of a decision is out of sync with how much work is required to make that decision. For example, now that online purchases are extremely “low friction,” it is possible…
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Background: Sometimes, it seems like a file is taking forever to download (or copy). A speed of 160 kilobytes per second may seem excruciatingly slow, but that’s actually an entire late-1970s floppy disk (Figure 1) per second. Proposal: Instead of just showing a slowly filling up progress bar when downloading (or copying) a file, a…
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Background: In order to support technological progress, many people are willing to endure great hardships. The issue: For example, most Americans are willing to drive for 30–60 minutes every day on their commute, just so that they can help create a market for new types of transportation [*]. One might imagine that a person in…
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Background: Credit cards are a popular payment method, especially for business transactions. The issue: Sometimes, high-value business transactions require the approval of more than one person. Additionally, if a credit card is lost or stolen, someone will have to meticulously verify that no fraudulent transactions were made on it, which can be very time-consuming! Proposal:…
WorstPlans: updated every Monday since July 2014! 