Health
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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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Background: Doorstops are pretty convenient for holding doors open. Fig. 1: A doorstop. Or a wedge of cheese. OR PERHAPS BOTH?? The issue: But sometimes, propping open a door is FORBIDDEN due to fire regulations—the door might need to be closed in order to slow the spread of fire (Fig. 2). Although there exist magnetic…
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The issue: Running on a treadmill can be quite unrewarding due to the repetitiveness and relatively long duration of most treadmill-based exercises. Fig 1: This treadmill needs to be jazzed up somehow. There are certain “gimmick”-based treadmills that connect to a monitor to give you the illusion of actually making progress toward a destination as…
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Background: There have been a number of historical attempts to bring exercise and video games together. However, these have mostly required additional attachments and/or gimmicky peripherals in order to function. But improved computer vision algorithms (plus the widespread availability of inexpensive cameras on laptops, televisions, and monitors) mean that it is now possible for the…
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One weird mythological punishment for cannibalism, reborn as a dieting fad!
all natural, cage free, cannibalism diet but not what you are expecting, cruelty free except the cruelty toward you, free range, gluten free, greek myth inspired diet, hellacious underworld punishment OR ultimate fad diet?, one weird Ancient Greek trick to losing weight fast, one weird Hadean diet fad, shade grown, tantalus diet tree, Tantalus Tree
Background: In an ancient Greek myth, King Tantalus was condemned to spend his time in the Underworld starving in a garden with a tree filled with fruit—however, any time Tantalus attempted to grab a fruit, the tree branch would bend just out of reach, preventing Tantalus from acquiring the delicious fruit. (In case you are…
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TITLE: Even the tiniest portion of food will feel satisfying when it looks like a huge meal! The one weird trick that cost-cutting dining establishments don’t want you to know! Background: Food is delicious! Consequently, it’s too easy to eat too much of it. If only there was some way to make a meal seem…
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