Culture
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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: The Romans were notorious for brutally executing people who had been accused of crimes such as: (Interestingly, these are still popular crimes in the modern era!) The Issue: These capital punishments, which include the cliche classic of being fed to lions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_ad_bestias) or being drowned in a bag full of snakes, were—arguably—a tad excessive.…
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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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Background: Diligent coworkers frequently set their email system to auto-reply with a specific “out of office” message when they’re on vacation. For example: “I’m gone on vacation until July 25, please email me after that.” The Issue: It can be annoying to have to wait for a coworker to return from vacation to ask them…
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The Issue: The human body is relatively fragile and generally does not like collisions with pointy things. Unfortunately, in the modern world, there are a huge variety of dangerous objects with sharp edges, metal spikes, thorns, and more (Figure 1)! Although it is theoretically easily avoidable by paying attention, a person must be on guard…
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Background: The ability to clean bedsheets is what separates humans from the animals. But removing, washing, and replacing bedsheets is a hassle. Who has time for it in this modern world!? If only there were some way to replace the sheets on a bed without all the work! Proposal: Shockingly, a technology that almost solves…
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Background: There are a surprisingly huge number of emoji for expressing relatively rarely-used concepts, such as 🎍 (bamboo decoration), 🤾🏻♂️ (handball), 🎠 (carousel horse), 🛖 (thatched-roof cottage), and 🛋️ (couch and lamp). The Issue: Weirdly, there is no “standard” emoji for unambiguously expressing the concept “thanks!” or “you’re welcome!” One commonly seen approximation is 🙏…
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Background: In the United States, the phrases “castle doctrine” and “home defense” most often refer to the idea of using guns to defend oneself from potential home invaders (specifically, by shooting them). However, despite the castle-related terminology, what is strangely lacking is any actual home defense (in the sense of medieval fortifications). See Figure 1…
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Background: Vendors at stadium events often wander around the stands, selling hot dogs / popcorn / etc. to sports fans. Since a cart is impractical due to the stairs, vendors typically carry their products using a special-purpose carrying harness. The Issue: For many office jobs, a person needs access to a keyboard in order to…
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