Culture
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Background: The Romans were notorious for brutally executing people who had been accused of crimes such as: “Following an unpopular religion” “A politician didn’t like you personally” “You were an employee and/or slave of the previous emperor” (Interestingly, these are still popular crimes in the modern era!) The Issue: These capital punishments, which include 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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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: Now that seemingly EVERY computer text input field is “A.I.-enhanced,” it can be somewhat difficult to remember which part of a document was generated by an AI, and which part has actually been reviewed by a human. The Issue: The classic response to this is “well just DON’T USE THE A.I. THEN!!” But it…
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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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Background: In ancient times, there was the “scroll,” which is basically a super inconvenient book where you can’t arbitrarily access information on a particular “page” without some laborious scrolling. Later, the “codex”—or “regular book”—was invented. It’s basically a stack of identically-shaped pieces of paper that are bound together on one side. So far, so good.…
