Health
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Background: When arranging furniture in a house, people generally tend to just put tall furniture (bookshelves, wardrobes, etc…) against a wall and just sort of hope that none of it falls over. Normally, this is a reasonable assumption, except during rare situations such as earthquakes or small children climbing up a bookshelf like a ladder.…
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Background: Small children are generally not known for strict adherence to hygiene or to biosafety protocols, and may have a not-fully-calibrated immune system. As a result, when dozens of children are co-mingled at a daycare, it’s highly likely that they’ll be constantly bringing diseases back to their own homes, causing their parents / siblings /…
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Background: When disaster strikes, it’s useful to have a set of easily-accessible emergency supplies that can be brought by a person fleeing danger. This is the concept of a “go” bag: a backpack full of common supplies that a person might need if they had to temporarily abandon their home due to a natural disaster.…
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Background: People frequently leave notes around the house, either as reminders to themselves or as reminders to family members or roommates. For example: “Remember to push the fridge door shut, or it stays open!” or “Remember to lock the top lock when you leave the house!“ The Issue: These reminders are all fine and good,…
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Background: One classic cause of civilization-ending apocalypse in science fiction is AI-initiated nuclear war, as variously depicted in Wargames (1983), Terminator (1984), Battlestar Galactica (2003), and other media. The Issue: Generally, humans don’t fare well in a post-nuclear-apocalypse setting, and would like to avoid it when possible. Unfortunately, security around nuclear launches may be inadequate (Figure 1): it…
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Background: Frequently, residential houses have areas that are dangerous in some way: perhaps a railing that is a little wobbly (but will probably stay attached), a garage door that is missing the “don’t crush a person” electric eye sensor, or a bookshelf with a three-hundred-pound vase that is perilously perched on the top shelf. The…
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Background: Some older home have “simple” built-in drawers that are just a wooden box that slides on some wooden rails (instead of metal drawer slides). These drawers are fine for rarely-accessed items, but can be quite annoying in frequently-used situations (such as kitchen utensil drawers). The Issue: Since these drawers typically don’t have any sort…
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The Issue: Modern food has been optimized for deliciousness and ease-of-eating. Unfortunately, this makes it easy to quickly devour an entire plate of food. This is bad news for dieting and portion control. Proposal: Dieting plans typically focus on the type and quantity of food being eaten. Strangely, these plans rarely look at the utensils…
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Background: Background: Many types of psychotherapy strive to help clients improve their lives by reducing the stress caused by certain negative emotions and thoughts. Additional background: it is sometimes possible emotional states to be temporarily overridden by an immediate existential threat, as described in detail in 2024-03-04’s “emotion displacement” idea, which explains the process of…
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Background: A previous idea (July 19, 2021: worstplans.com/2021/07/19/) was to make stairs safer by specially marking the top and bottom stairs. But why not expand this idea to the entire staircase! The Issue: Surprisingly, falling down stairs is a major source of injury. People are particularly prone to falling down stairs when they’re distracted in…
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