Culture
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The Issue: Some people would like to drink less, but they have a hard time sticking to a small number of drinks. If only there were some sort of overcomplicated technical solution to this problem! Proposal: This “shrinking wine glass” (Figure 1) could be a solution to excessive drinking. Such a glass consists of two…
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Bring more excitement and closer games to basketball with player height–normalized basketball goals!
Background: Basketball goals normally have a defined height that is the same for both teams. Generally speaking, a taller player (unsurprisingly) is at an advantage in getting a ball into the hoop. The Issue: As a result of this, basketball teams usually consist of exceptionally tall members of the population. However, it may be valuable…
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Background: Staircases are surprisingly perilous. Most people have, at some point, attempted to step up onto a “phantom” additional top step or been surprised to encounter the ground floor a step early (Figure 1). Some commercial buildings indicate the very top and bottom of a flight of stairs with a raised pattern. However, this is…
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The Issue: Commuters often spend an hour or more in traffic every day. There are many chores in life that would be nice to handle in this hour, but it’s hard to (say) visit an optometrist while you’re in a car. Proposal: Until now, that is! This proposal is so simple, you’ll wonder why it…
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The Issue: It can be difficult to get motivated to read a textbook or dry historical tome. It’s much easier to read an action-filled story that features murder and intrigue! Proposal: In order to motivate a person to read a boring textbook, we will create a new kind of “hybrid” book: instead of printing a…
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The Issue: Climbing the world’s tallest mountain peaks can be hazardous for several reasons: a person could be blown off the mountain by gale-force winds, get frozen, or die due to insufficient oxygen in the low-atmospheric-pressure “death zone”—and this is before even considering the danger from disease, avalanches, other humans, and high-altitude cryptids such as…
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Background: Animals have varying caloric requirements: usually, larger/warmer ones need to eat more. The Issue: When a small animal eats a small portion of food, it’s hard to intuitively understand how much food that is at a human scale. For example, if a sparrow eats a single sesame seed, is that equivalent to a human…
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Background: Two obvious qualities that contribute to making an alphabet “good”: It’s quick to write. The letters can be distinguished unambiguously. (Information density might also be worth considering—we don’t want the letters to take up too much space—but we’ll be ignoring it here.) Sometimes, speed-of-writing and ease-of-reading is a tradeoff: consider the shorthand shown in…
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Background: Skylights (or light pipes) are a great way to get natural sunlight indoors. Unfortunately, installation is moderately complicated and is infeasible for renters and high-rise dwellers. Also, skylights only provide light during the daytime (unsurprisingly). Proposal: Thanks to LED lighting, it is possible to create a convincing “artificial skylight” (Figure 1) for 50 American…
WorstPlans: updated every Monday since July 2014! 