Culture
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Never get on the wrong train again (assuming your city has a functional public transit system), thanks to these new musical cues—enjoy country music and/or smooth jazz on your entire commute! Also, it’s the same songs every single day.
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The issue: In cities with extensive public transit systems, it can be easy to get on the wrong bus/train/subway or miss your stop. Obviously, an astute transit-taker could realize their mistake by noticing the following: Stop names being verbally announced Stop names being indicated on a screen, even on buses. In some places, different metro…
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Background: Most laptops include a built-in camera, typically located just above the top edge of the screen. This type of camera is generally marketed as a “video chat” or “conference call” camera. The issue: When a person is on a video call, they tend to look at the image on the screen instead of directly…
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Background: Written languages have generally been optimized for the most meaningful elements of speech, so sometimes strange workarounds are required to capture certain subtleties: e.g. capital letters for YELLING, alternating capitalization for “thE spEaKer is VEry StUpid,” ellipses for a stilted-last-gasps sort of speech (“tell… them… the… killer… was…”), or the HTML-inspired “/s” for “please…
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Background: When an action is routine and uninteresting (e.g. locking a door, turning off a light, etc.), it’s sometimes hard to remember if you did it at all. The issue: Occasionally, people find themselves wondering “did I close the garage when I left the house?” or “did I remember to lock the car when I…
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Background: During the times of the COVID-plague, it has been recommended that people maintain “social distancing”—keeping apart by approximately six feet. The issue: Unfortunately, this advice is difficult to follow in many situations, for example, on public transit, in an elevator, etc. Proposal: This snake-based “sssssssssocial distancing” plan involves training a territorial species of snake…
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Background: Diet fads come and go, but most have at least one element in common: the requirement that individuals be deliberate about what they eat (rather than ravenously consuming everything like a starved beast). The issue: Unfortunately, it’s difficult to have self-control when food is delicious and plentiful. Thus, most people eat larger portions of…
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Background: It is well known that washing hands for a surprisingly long time (30 seconds!) substantially reduces microbial contamination (Figure W1). The issue: Unfortunately, people generally feel, psychologically speaking, that their hands are clean immediately upon rinsing them with even the slightest hint of water. The challenge, therefore, is to encourage people to wash…
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Background: It has been demonstrated that people tend to over-eat in situations in which they can quickly consume a meal. If a person has to consume a meal more slowly, they will (generally) realize that they are full and eat less. The issue: Unfortunately, in today’s decadent world, nearly every meal can be quickly devoured.…
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The issue: Sometimes, it’s hard to get out of a comfy bed and face the cruel and merciless world. Proposal: We can solve this problem by making a bed that becomes progressively less comfortable as the desired wakeup time arrives. Certain mattresses already have the ability to dynamically adjust their firmness (for example, the “Sleep…
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Background: In programming, there is the notion of “code smell”—a subtle indication that something is terribly wrong in a piece of source code, but without any (obvious) actual mistake. For example, if you saw the following: print(“E”); print(“RR”); print(“OR”); print(“!”); instead of print(“ERROR!”); that would be a good indication that something extremely bizarre was going…
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