Design
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The Issue: It’s common for people to compulsively and unthinkingly pull out their cell phone and fiddle with it at all times. If only there were some way to subtly discourage “snacking” on the Internet! Proposal: The solution is simple: every time you unlock your cell phone, it should display a yawning “groggy” face for…
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Background: Many countries today have incredibly old leaders. This isn’t a problem per se, but as elected representatives (and un-elected dictators) reach their 80s and 90s, the likelihood of them not being mentally sharp enough to reliably run a country greatly increases. Most people would be skeptical of allowing a 10-year-old to run a country,…
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The Issue: Thousands of pedestrian fatalities occur every year. It can be easy for the driver of a fast-moving car to not see a person crossing the road ahead until it’s too late. Often, these collisions occur at night, even in areas with good streetlight coverage. But if streetlights aren’t sufficient, what else can be…
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The Issue: In the “open plan” office (a more-cramped version of the classic “cubicle” office plan), there are typically there are many rows of desks with narrow aisles between them (Figure 1). Often, these aisles are quite long, and they may be completely cluttered with office chairs. Proposal: Although in a perfect world, people would…
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Background: Vertical blinds (https://www.google.com/search?q=vertical+blinds) are a popular method of providing privacy for a large window or sliding door. These blinds are usually controlled by two different looped cords: The Issue: Unfortunately, since these cords are both loops, they really appears as TWO cords. The user must somehow know which of these unlabeled-and-often-twisted cords is the…
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The Issue: It can be easy to run out of certain household consumables without realizing it. For example, a person may think they have six more rolls of toilet paper, but they’re actually using the last one. It can be quite annoying to run out unexpectedly! This impacts many categories of product: soap, dental floss,…
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Background: Some workplaces provide snacks for their employees, and employees frequently find it very difficult to avoid constantly snacking on these delicious treats. The Issue: It is hard to avoid snacking, especially when snacks are free. Proposal: The solution is simple (Figure 1): just wear a shirt that says “I’ll give you $20 if you…
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Background: A year is apparently around 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds long. This is annoying, since that isn’t an exact multiple of 24 hours. To account for this situation, February will occasionally have either 28 or 29 total days on it. Aggravatingly, the exact calculations for 28-vs-29 are based on several…
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Background: In some climbing gyms, there are introductory climbing walls for children where the climbable hand holds are shaped like a recognizable object (Figure 1), instead of a random-looking piece of stone. Using the 26-letter (capital letters only) English alphabet, we can assemble a reasonably sized climbing wall wall without using any duplicate letters. The…
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Background: There has been surprisingly little development in world-destroying technology since the 1960s, when the ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) made it possible for modern civilization to be ended in a just a few hours (Figure 1). Proposal: Unfortunately, as a result of the extremely efficient approach to destruction shown in Figure 1, very little development…
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