Health
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Background: Exercise routines are often extremely dry and boring. But they can be made more engaging by making a “themed” workout, with each part of a workout helping to accomplish an imaginary goal. This is not a totally new idea. For example, the game “Zombies Run” motivates a person to jog faster by providing a…
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Background: The stop sign, for all its utilitarian simplicity, has a severe and critical shortcoming: it has two different roles, both marked by the same sign (Figure 1). The two situations, and what the driver must do in each case: All-way stop: driver can casually check for other cars right there at the intersection, and…
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Background: If you have a communal coffee carafe at work, you will undoubtedly have encountered the situation where someone poured the last cup of coffee and didn’t make a new pot. With a standard coffeepot or carafe, there’s no possibility of getting “just one more cup” out of an empty container—it’s just empty. But!…
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The issue: For most snack foods, it’s easy to eat a HUGE quantity of the food in question. This is no surprise—snack foods were specifically designed to be easy to eat. Plus even after you’ve eaten a bunch, it takes a minute or two to feel full. Proposal: Here is a technique to eat fewer…
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You won’t believe how I never fell into a bottomless pit again, thanks to this one weird trick. Podiatrists hate it! Probably.
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Background: One of the leading causes of sidewalk-based injury is tripping on uneven pavement and/or falling into a manhole. Figure 1 illustrates one of the dangers inherent in modern sidewalks. This danger has become even more pronounced now that people are more likely to be looking at their cell phones as they walk. Fig. 1:…
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Background: Sometimes, your coworkers will come to work with obvious contagious diseases, coughing everywhere and spreading disease and pestilence throughout the land. Proposal: The best situation in this situation is for you or your boss to say “hey you, sick individual, go home!” This should save time and money by preventing others from getting sick, but is…
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Background: It can be hard to motivate yourself to exercise—especially since you know you can always put it off until later. Proposal: But what if we could set up a situation where you would have to exercise? Specifically: You purchase (1) a stationary bicycle and (2) a special type of heavy-duty safe (Figure 1). You…
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Background: The optimal tradeoff between privacy and security is a topic that is endlessly debated. In the past, omnipresent surveillance was not feasible—but technology is now at the point where implementation of a 1984-esque surveillance state is actually possible. On the one hand, it would be theoretically convenient to have immediate response to crimes and/or…
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The issue: Sometimes, when you’re eating an ice cream out of a cone, you will suffer the indignity of having the ice cream drip onto yourself and/or the ground (see Fig. 1). This is especially likely to occur if you are less than five years old. This can be avoided by diligently rotating the cone…
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Background: Haircuts can be time-consuming and expensive. Somehow, even though modern robotics have resulted in quad-copters, robotic surgery, and an alarm clock with a hand that slaps you in the face, the dream of automated haircuts remains elusive. Proposal: Behold, our salvation from laborious non-automated haircuts: the mechanical “haircut helmet.” Fig 1: Functional AND fashionable, the…

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