Things They Should Invent: sitting pants

I recently read an article about a designer who's making clothes for people in wheelchairs:

The mainstream clothing that we buy is cut and drafted for standing. It’s something we don’t think twice about. When we sit down our clothes get all mess up. What I mean by that is that with pants they cut you in your gut and they ride down at the back; Or with a long coat, it will get all bunchy at the front.

Until I discovered Reitman's Comfort Fit, literally every single pair of pants I'd ever worn cut into my gut and rode down in the back when I sat down.  And, since I've spent the vast majority of my life in a classroom or at a computer, that meant my pants were uncomfortable the vast majority of the time.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who spends far more time sitting than standing, especially when at work or in school.  I don't know what sitting pants would look like on a person who's standing up, but some people may well be willing to make the sacrifice.  Added to that, there are situations in which people have to look good sitting down but standing up is less relevant (talk show guests come to mind, and I'm sure there are others).

I'll bet this business and others like it could expand their client base and probably earn higher margins by making sitting pants for non-disabled people who simply spend a lot of time sitting.

Unnecessary TTC announcements

I was riding a subway northbound on the Yonge line. As we travelled from Davisville to Eglinton, the driver made an announcement: "Attention all passengers: we are currently bypassing Spadina station in both directions on both lines due to a police investigation."

Problem: We were heading north from Davisville to Eglinton, which is directly away from Spadina station.  To be affected by delays at Spadina station, a passenger on our train would have to get out, board a train heading in the opposite direction, and travel quite a few stations.  It's highly unlikely that anyone would do this!

Back in my commuting days, I've been on trains where this happened quite a few times - the driver announces a delay that's behind us, or heading in the opposite direction, and therefore is not going to affect our train at all and isn't going to affect any of the passengers unless they get out and switch to a train heading in the opposite direction.  These aren't system-wide loudspeaker announcements, like you hear made by a pre-recorded voice when waiting on the platform.  These are announcements made specifically by the driver of our one train.

I don't think they should make these announcements. 

One thing I've noticed since I started following @TTCNotices on Twitter is that the vast majority of delays are cleared very quickly, often within just a couple of minutes. I also learned, back in my commuting days, that even delays for which shuttle buses are called are often cleared so quickly that it's better to wait them out than to get on a shuttle bus.

So I think having drivers make a specific effort to announce delays that don't apply to the train will just make passengers unnecessarily worry and stress and think the system is unreliable.  This is exacerbated by the fact that the audio quality of driver announcements is not as good as that of recorded announcements, so it produces some unnecessary "Wait, what did he say?" moments.

If any passengers are going to be affected by the delay in the opposite direction or behind us, they'll have plenty of time to find out when they're waiting on the platform for their opposite-direction trip, or when they look at one of the video screens on the platforms, or when they check Twitter.

But I think nothing is gained by having drivers make an announcement just within their train when the announcement definitely does not apply to that train.

Things They Should Invent: emails that self-delete once they've expired

1. Sometimes I get coupons in my email that are only good for a limited time or on a certain day, or if I spend a certain amount of money.  Often when I get them, I don't immediately know whether I might be making any purchases that qualify. But then, a few days later, I realize that I might possibly have a coupon that matches a purchase I'm going to be making.  So I search for my email, but the results turn up hundreds of coupons (since I never delete anything) and I don't know which ones are still valid and have to open more emails than should be necessary to determine whether there is in fact a relevant coupon.

2. Sometimes I email someone and get an out-of-office message.  If I'm subsequently sending group emails that are only relevant immediately (as opposed to something they'll need when they get back from their absence), I like to leave the people who are absent off the email list.  The easiest way to see who is absent is to visually scan my inbox and see whom I've received Out of Office messages from. (They have a distinctive icon in Outlook, so I can tell at a glance.)  But, again, the problem is that I can't tell at a glance if the out-of-office is still in effect, so I have to open more out-of-office messages than necessary to determine who I should leave off the group emails.

Proposed solution: optional expiry dates in emails.  If the content of the email is expired, the email is deleted from the recipient's inbox.  This would apply automatically to out-of-office messages - once the recipient is back in office, the out-of-office message is deleted from the recipient's inbox.

Variation: recipients can have the option to turn off the self-deleting (either as for all emails in their inbox or on an email-by-email basis), but the default setting is self-deletion once the email expires.


Or if that's just too much to handle, a technological solution for the out-of-office problem would be for automatically-generated out-of-office messages to state the return date in the subject line. 

Things They Should Invent: train PSWs in feminine facial hair removal techniques

A while back, I came up with the idea that nursing homes should provide free esthetics services so female patients don't have to deal with the indignity of facial hair.

Today, my shower gave me a far simpler idea: PSWs should be trained in hair removal methods that are appropriate for women's facial hair.


By general societal standards, removing facial hair is seen as more optional for men than for women. PSWs are trained in the more-optional removal of men's facial hair, so they should also be trained in the more-mandatory removal of women's facial hair.

As we know from our own firsthand experiences, tweezing out your yucky chin hairs is more of an everyday personal grooming thing that you do in your own bathroom rather than a specialized beauty treatment for which you go to a beautician.  Therefore, it should be treated as such and be part of the patient's everyday personal care done by their PSWs.  (Yes, beauticians do provide more hardcore facial hair removal services.  Barbers will also shave clients if asked, but male patients get shaved by PSWs rather than having to pay to go down to the hairdresser.)

Some will argue that PSWs are already trained in shaving and that's a hair removal method.  But it's not the a correct, appropriate, suitable method for women's facial hair. Shaving results in same-day regrowth and stubble (especially on hairier-than-average people - and any woman with facial hair is hairier than average), which means that the socially-inappropriate facial hair problem will return before the end of the day.  Removing the hair at the root means the removal will last several days and grow back more gently and less visibly, allowing the patient to retain her dignity for longer.

And that's what this really is - a question of dignity.  Tweezing or threading or otherwise removing the hair at the root spares female patients the indignity of facial hair and the indignity of suffering through the masculine-marked process of having their face shaved. PSWs are trained to retain as much as patients' dignity as possible when bathing them, dressing them, toileting them, feeding them, moving them - every single area of daily life.  This should include the removal of unsightly facial hair.

Things They Should Invent: cellular network detection device

My cellphone uses both the Rogers and Fido networks. The other day I was involved in a long texting conversation while walking around the neighbourhood doing my errands, and I noticed that in certain places I got the Rogers network but not the Fido network, and in other places I got the Fido network but not the Rogers network.

This makes me think that it might be possible for there to be certain dead zones for a particular cell phone provider even within an area that's supposed to get service from them.  Which could be an annoyance if you switch providers only to find that you can't get service in your apartment or in your office.

Proposed solution: some kind of a device that can tell you which cellular networks can be picked up in a particular place.  You carry it around, it detects networks, and it tells you which networks it detects.

These devices could be rented out by cellphone retailers for a reasonable price per day. I'm sure potential customers would be quite happy to pay a reasonable amount to confirm that a signal is available right where they need it, and I'm sure cellphone providers who try to compete on signal quality would be happy to empower potential customers to confirm the quality of their signal.

Currently, if you look on cellphone providers' websites to see where their signal is available, they give a rough geographical map. Since I live in the geographical centre of Toronto, all providers claim to provide service in my neighbourhood.  Nevertheless, there are pockets where the Rogers signal can't reach, and pockets where the Fido signal can't reach, which suggests that there may well be pockets where other signals can't reach.  Cell providers can't reasonably be expected to provide a map of all these pockets, but surely they could provide us with a device that would let us detect them ourselves.

Maybe someone could even make an app that would do this?

Improving upon the parking space management company idea

I previously came up with the idea of a parking space management company, for people who own parking spaces for their condos but don't actually use them.

This morning the shower gave me a much simpler solution: the condo corporation should fulfill this function as a service to residents.

If you own a parking space that you don't need, you sell it to the condo corporation, which buys it at assessed value.
If you want a parking space, you can buy one from the condo corporation at assessed value (if there are any available). 
If you're selling a condo and your buyer doesn't want to buy the parking space, you can sell it to the condo corporation at assessed value.
If you're buying a condo and it doesn't come with a parking space, you can buy one from the condo corporation at assessed value (if there are any available).

The condo corporation can rent out any unused parking spaces at a profit, with the revenues going into general coffers.  When I ran the numbers on my own condo, I determined that renting out a parking space at the going rate in my neighbourhood would pay for itself in 20 years, which would provide an influx of revenue just as the building comes up for major repairs.  Until then, it should be revenue-neutral.

Residents would, of course, be free to sell or rent out their own parking spaces, but if they don't want to do the work themselves, the condo corporation would provide the service.

At this point, you may be thinking "Wouldn't it be simpler for the condo to just own all the parking spaces and rent them out to residents?"  I agree, but, based on the complaints I've read when googling about condos that do this, many car + condo people don't like this approach.  Having the condo corporation manage parking spaces if there is demand for such a service would maximize options for everyone. 

Idea for a new economic indicator

This post was inspired by, but is not directly related to, this article.

When talking about whether the population as a whole is making economic gains or losses, people often talk about middle class vs. low income vs. high income, or they look at average or median incomes for the population as a whole and for various demographics.  Less often, but sometimes, they talk about the ratio of income to tuition to housing prices. (The Globe and Mail has a useful comparison tool.)

It occurs to me that another useful indicator would be to look at changes in income over time with people who bring various levels of education, skills and experience to the table.  For example, how has the income level of a person with an undergraduate degree and 10 years of work experienced evolved over the years?  What about a newly-minted Ph.D.?  What about a student working their way through college?  What about people who have been freelancing for 5 years?

It might be useful to get somewhat specific (Is the person with an undergrad degree and 10 years of work experience a translator or a teacher or a computer program?), but the data would cease to be comparable if you got too specific (I don't know how informative it would be to track the income of social media specialists or FORTRAN programmers over decades).

If the data is available, it would also be interesting to track negative factors.  How has the income of people who were laid off one year ago evolved?  (i.e. were they more or less likely to get new jobs within a year in previous decades?)  What's the situation of people who started a business within the past two years?  What about people who are involuntary entrepreneurs (i.e. they didn't want to start a business, but couldn't get hired)?

I think this would fill in some blanks, and it has the potential to draw attention to certain problems that may be hidden by the other, more commonly used indicators.

Things They Should Invent in Fiction: Getting To Know You magic spell

A trope that exists in fiction - especially fantasy genres where magic is present - is the love potion.  You get the object of your affection to ingest the love potion, and they fall madly in love with you!  Of course, the problem is that this will never be true love, because it's just the effects of the potion (e.g. Merope Gaunt in Harry Potter).

It occurred to me that what these makers of magic in fictional universes should invent instead is a "Getting To Know You" spell. You cast the spell on the object of your affection, and they instantly know you - your likes and dislikes, hopes and dream, everything that you need to learn about a person to know if they're a good match and to fall in love with them.

In fiction, the protagonist and the love interest often fall in love after plot points allow them to get past their preconceptions and get to know each other's real selves.  (And, in real life, people suffering from unrequited love often feel like this would happen if the opportunity would only arise.) 

At this point, you're probably thinking "But that would ruin the story! They'd get to know each other and fall in love instantly and then there's be no story to tell!"

But what it actually does it open up whole new story avenues!

What happens if the protagonist casts a Getting To Know You spell on their love interest, and this doesn't cause the love interest to become interested in them?

What if someone casts a Getting To Know You spell on the protagonist, but they aren't interested?  And suddenly they have all this knowledge of some random person they're not interested in?

What if the protagonist casts a Getting To Know You spell on the love interest and the love interest appears by all signs to fall in love with the protagonist, but never casts at Getting To Know You back on the protagonist, so the protagonist doesn't know the love interest as well as the love interest knows the protagonist?  Would this mean the love interest is up to something nefarious?

What if spies started trying to beguile their targets into casting a Getting To Know You spell on them in the hopes of learning their secrets, or at least making them more manipulable?

What if the spells aren't reversible, and casting them is a Big Life Step?

What if the spells are reversible, but you have to go on a quest to acquire a MacGuffin in order to reverse them?

And the person you thought was your love interest but who is in fact nefarious and now knows everything about you is trying to use this knowledge to hinder your quest?

In a universe where magic exists and the pitfalls of love potions have been proven, the next logical step would be for someone to come up with a Getting To Know You spell.  I think this would open up new and interesting story avenues.

Things They Should Invent: MoralOfTheStory.com

My fairy goddaughter has an uncommon name.  I decided I'd try to find a book with a protagonist who shares her name and, after much searching, was able to find one.  Unfortunately, it wasn't currently in print in Canada and the library didn't have it, so I had to order it from the UK.  Because of this, I didn't know how the protagonist was portrayed or what the moral of the story was.

(I prefer to curate the books I give to children as gifts.  While I don't object to people - including children - reading junk or fluff (as I'm sure you've noticed from this year's experiment of posting the books I read), I like to give them things that are quality.)

Fortunately, my fairy goddaughter can't read yet, so her parents could screen the book for appropriate message and characterization.  If it's not appropriate, they can just not read it to her.

But by this time next year, she'll probably be able to read. So if I decide to send her a book that I can't preview first for whatever reason, she will be able to read it right away without the story being screened for appropriateness first (or, at least, end up in the awkward situation of her parents wanting to take away a book she's enthusiastic about reading.)

And, just a couple of years later, she'll be reading chapter books.  It's one thing to plop down in Mabel's Fables and read a pile of picture books that are a dozen pages each with only a couple of sentences on each page, to make sure that the characterization and moral of each book is something I want to put in front of a child I love.  But it would be quite another thing to have to read several hundred pages (even in the large, easy font of children's chapter books) in order to make an informed choice.  Especially since the pool of children I buy books for is rapidly expanding (Baby Cousin 3.0 just made his debut a few days ago!) and I try not to duplicate purchases among children who are acquainted with each other and might plausibly visit each other's homes and paw through each other's bookshelves. 

 My proposed solution: a single comprehensive website (MoralOfTheStory.com) that describes the ending and moral of children's books.  (Example: "Ending: he tries green eggs and ham and likes it. Moral of the story: try new foods, you might like them.")  It could also give a brief description of the characterization of the named characters  (or, if that's too much, just the title character), so before you buy Amelia Bedelia for a little girl named Amelia, you know that Amelia Bedelia is a bit of a ditz but an excellent baker.

There are websites to tell you whether various children's media is too scary or too "adult" - the exact reasons why they're rated PG, for example.  But, at least for books that are so young they're definitely rated G, I haven't been able to find any single reliable source of the moral of the story or the characterization of the protagonist.

It would be especially useful to integrate this into Amazon, since children's books bought sight unseen would most likely be bought on the internet.

Bad condo finish selection setup

A few days ago I got a call saying I have to make an appointment to choose my condo finishes.  But there are a lot of problems with how it's set up:

1. They don't provide you with a list of the decisions you have to make ahead of time.  I'm not just choosing colours, I'm also choosing materials.  And I don't know anything about materials.  And it's certainly not feasible to research every single possible material in the world!

2. You have to do it in-person.  It's the 21st century, you'd think they'd have a website where you can log on and put the different finishes on a simulation of your suite and see how they look together.  (Sims mods have been able to do that for at least 10 years!)

3. The office where you go to do this is only open weekdays during regular business hours.  A lot of people are at work during those hours!  I have to use my vacation time to do this! (And not everyone has the luxury of vacation time!)

4. You have to make the appointment within two weeks of when they call you.  On top of the problem of getting time off myself, this means I also have to find someone to help me who's can get some free time on a weekday at the same time as I can *and* at the same time as the office has an appointment slot available.  One of my closest friends (who is the mother of my fairy goddaughter) is very enthusiastic about this whole condo finish thing so I was quite happy to hand all the decision-making over to her, but she couldn't get childcare on a weekday within such short notice, so she couldn't do this thing we were both looking forward to.  Ultimately I ended up going crying to my mommy, who is knowledgeable about such things and fortunate enough to be retired so she can come and help me.


I've been happy with my builder so far and felt they're taking my needs as a regular person (as opposed to some posh investor who picks out condo units like they're choosing wine for a party) and a first-time buyer into consideration, but this condo finish selection setup makes me worried.  It feels like they're not taking into account that these are actual homes for actual human beings, not a game of monopoly where everyone's just trying to shuffle property around to make money.  It feels like they're trying to pressure me into making bad decisions.  I just feel so much less safe with this arrangement.

So I'm going to go in with my mother (in a total adulthood fail moment) and look at the stuff, and I'm totally prepared if necessary to walk out with no decisions made and a list of stuff to research. But that would still mean more vacation time to go back and make another appointment.

Really what they should have is a website where I can log in to see my unit and put different finishes on it, design and save different combinations, and let other people log in to look at it too.  Quite a few people I've talked to during this time think choosing condo finishes would be fun, but the vast majority of these people can't take time off on a weekday on such short notice. So I'd love to have it online and open it up and crowdsource the whole thing - let everyone who's interested put together a look and let people vote on them.  My friend could put together a look for me from the comfort of her own home after my fairy goddaughter is asleep, and maybe my fairy goddaughter could even put together a look herself! 

This would be good advertising for the builder, especially if they made it sharable on social media so everyone could crowdsource. It would be far easier for the end users, and it would probably save the builder some money on setting up and staffing a design centre.  If they found that people still wanted to look at stuff in person they could still have a design centre, but there wouldn't be as much traffic through it because a lot of the work could be done online.  It would be a win-win situation!

But, barring that, the very very very least they could do is send you a list of the decisions you're going to have to make ahead of time!

Things They Should Invent: tournament-style mayoral debates

In this past election, Toronto had a ridiculous number of mayoral candidates and a ridiculous number of mayoral debates.

But, for the vast majority of debates, only the handful of candidates deemed "mainstream" by the media are invited, with the dozens and dozens of others being completely ignored.

This is a waste of perfectly good scheduled debate time!  What's the point of having such a ridiculous number of debates if you aren't going to host all the candidates?

Therefore, I propose tournament style mayoral debates.  During the first few months, candidates debate each other in a round robin sort of format, so as many people as possible debate as many people as possible.  Then the people who have won the most debates move on to debate the other people who have won the most debates, until the top debates in the city are facing each other towards the end of the election period.

I'm picturing a sort of World Cup format for this, but it wouldn't be exactly the same because debates most often have more than 2 people.  And a true round robin might not be possible, depending on the math.  But, in any case, they should do whatever most convenient mathematically and scheduling-wise to get as many people as possible to debate as many people as possible.

So how do we determine who won a particular debate and gets to move on in the debate-offs?  My first thought is an audience vote - perhaps just in person, perhaps both in person and online.  But I don't know if that could be over-influenced by candidates stacking the audience. 

Another idea is a panel of judges.   But would they assess the candidates objectively, or would they favour the big names?  Although, the existing system already favours the big names, so could it be any worse?

What if audience members are assigned tickets to a debate, but they don't know who's going to be debating at the time they sign up for tickets (which would make it impossible to stack the audience).  But would enough people actually go to debates where they don't know who's debating?

Another alternative would be not to vote on winners of individual debates.  Candidates round-robin, the videos are posted online, and online viewers can vote for which candidates they'd like to see debate some more.  But, again, how could we prevent candidates from stacking the votes?

I haven't fully worked this out.  But the fact remains: if we must have dozens of candidates and dozens of debates, all candidates should get to debate.

All Toronto municipal candidates should publicly post their Vote Compass results

I was pleased to see that there's a Vote Compass for the Toronto mayoral election, but I was disappointed that it only compared your position with that of the three candidates that the media is treating as "mainstream".  There are 65 candidates for the position of mayor alone, to say nothing of all the councillor candidates whose platforms could also be charted on the same compass.

I suspect the Vote Compass people limited themselves to the top three simply for logistical purposes.  They have to analyze platforms, break them down into issues, place them on the scale, validate them with the candidates and the public...it would probably be impossible to do it for 65 candidates, even with our ridiculously protracted municipal elections.

So as an interim measure until someone can design a vote by issue that can accommodate dozens of candidates, I propose that all candidates should take the Vote Compass quiz and post their results publicly. Then voters whose positions on the various issues don't coincide with any of the top three candidates can see which of the many other candidates actually meet their needs.

It would be extra awesome if someone could compile all the candidates' answers in one place.  It's a bit late for this election, but maybe next election the Vote Compass people could do this!

Things They Should Invent Words For: "I don't actually think it's a conspiracy, but it looks exactly like one"

I have contacted Rob Ford in my capacity as a citizen and his capacity as mayor, and not only did he not address the issues I raised, he did the exact opposite.  When, for example, I urged him to save a planned program that was at risk - even presenting my position in his preferred idiom of tax dollars, quantifying the cost to myself monetarily and demonstrating how the cost to me is more than I pay the city in taxes - he cancelled the program in question at literally the first available opportunity.

I am not under the impression that Rob Ford is out to get me.  I know full well that a simple person like me can't possibly be of interest to someone with wealth and influence and a complex life like Rob Ford. However, if Rob Ford did receive my message and said "I want to hurt this lady.  How can I use the information provided here to hurt her as much as possible?", the outcome would have been exactly what it actually was in reality.

They need to invent a word for this concept - when you genuinely don't think it's a conspiracy, but if it were a conspiracy the outcome would be exactly the same as it was in real life.

Things They Should Invent: follow-up online reviews, with automatic reminder emails

Just over a year ago, I bought a paper shredder. (Brand name Rosewill, from Newegg.)  Just days after the one-year warranty expired, the shredder's motor died, in a rather terrifying puff of smoke and sparks.

When I was buying the shredder, there were online reviews from people who had problems, with follow-up comments from the manufacturer saying to contact them and they'd replace it under warranty, and there were reviews from people saying "I don't know what you're talking about, I didn't have problems."

But I wonder how many people had problems after the warranty period expired, but never thought to write a review because who goes back to the site you bought it from a year later to write a review?

Online review sites, including retailers, should fix this by standardizing the idea of follow-up reviews.  You write a review after you get the product, and then after a certain period of time you get an automatic email asking you to write a follow-up review.

The period of time for a follow-up review would depend on the product.  A week or two would be plenty for something like nail polish, but maybe six weeks would be good for moisturizers and stuff that are supposed to produce longer-term results.  I think 110% of the warranty period would be very informative for electronics.

This would be far more useful than one-time reviews of newly-purchased products, and would significantly increase traffic to the websites.  (At a minimum, you'll double the number of visits by people writing reviews, so you can show them recommended products etc.)

Things They Should Invent: list added sugar separately in nutritional information

There has been a lot of news coverage lately about the health risks of added sugar, but the general consensus seems to be that naturally-occurring sugars (like in fruit) don't present the same health risks.

Unfortunately, the nutritional information boxes on food packaging don't distinguish between these.  For example, the organic unsweetened applesauce in my fridge contains 12g of sugar per serving.  The supermarket ice cream in my freezer contains 13g of sugar per serving.  But I suspect the ice cream has far more of the added sugars we're supposed to avoid!

It's pretty glaringly obvious if you're comparing ice cream to applesauce, but what if it were a fruit smoothie?  Some of that sugar is going to be the naturally-occurring sugar contained in the fruit, and some of it is going to be the added sugar that we're supposed to avoid.

If they want people to take this seriously, they should list the added sugars separately from the naturally-occurring sugars in the nutritional information.

Answering Social Q's

From Social Q's:

While riding in the Quiet Car on Amtrak, which prohibits speaking on cellphones and loud conversations, I sat down next to a man who was reading a Kindle. Soon, I heard his breathing grow louder and increase to full-blown snoring. I know that snorers have no control over their sound level. But neither could I imagine reading quietly for several hours with that roar coming from two feet away. What would the appropriate response have been? (Note: Snoring is not specifically prohibited on the signs.)

The columnist suggests LW either move or wake up the snorer and tell him he's snoring.  But I don't think it's necessary to tell him he's snoring.  It's not like he can do anything about it.  Just nudge him and "accidentally" wake him up.

I am regularly included in group text messages. At times, I receive as many as 100 texts from group members within a five-minute period, leaving me feeling as if I’m trapped in other people’s streams of consciousness. I rarely respond to these messages and would prefer not to be included. Is it possible to opt out of them?

I wonder if there might be a technological solution for this. With email, you can set rules that would screen out emails with multiple recipients, for example. I wonder if you can do this with texting, perhaps with some of the texting apps that people seem to find it useful to use?  If not, lets add it to the Things They Should Invent list!

Things They Should Invent Words (and Natural Consequences) For

We need a word and natural consequences for that thing where people assume that the goal/motivation behind a particular action of yours is different from your actual goal/motivation, and then lecture you because that action isn't to achieve the goal that they've unilaterally attributed to you (which you aren't even trying to achieve in the first place).

Examples:

"You shouldn't buy those Cortland apples.  You should buy Gala instead because they're organic."

Except my goal isn't to eat what's most optimally healthy or environmentally friendly, my motivation is to eat what's most yummy to me.

"You shouldn't buy that used widget on ebay.  You can get newer widgets for cheaper at Big Box Store."

Except my goal isn't to get the cheapest widget, it's to get the specific widget that's worked for me in the past when other widgets haven't.

"You shouldn't buy a new condo. The maintenance costs will go way up."  

Except my goal isn't to have maintenance costs that never go up, my goal is to live in a brand new building in a suite that no one else has ever lived in before.

Any ideas for names for this phenomenon or attendant natural consequences?

Things They Should Invent: memorial library books

Picture this: a loved one dies, so you donate a copy (or multiple copies) of their favourite book or books to the library.  The books get an elegant notation inside the cover saying "In memory of [name]", and are then added to the circulating collection. This means people who check out that book in the future learn about the existence of your deceased loved one and the fact that they enjoyed that book, thereby introducing your deceased loved one to like minds and kindred spirits. There could also be a webpage where there's a blurb about each of the memorialized people, so if the book you check out of the library turns out to be a memorial, you can look the person up and learn more about them.

Possible option: donate the deceased's own books to the library in their memory.  The suitability of this approach would depend on the nature and condition of the books (I doubt the library needs any more Harry Potters, or old dog-eared copies of books they already have better copies of) but if the books were suitable for donation it would certainly be an elegant approach.

Problems to which I don't yet have solutions:  what happens if a memorial book is lost or damaged? What happens if, after some time passes, the library needs to get rid of some of the memorial books?  (For example, they don't have nearly as many copies of Harry Potter as they had when the books first came out, so they've probably sold some copies.)

Things They Should Invent: a way to save non-stressed feelings for later

As I've mentioned before, my stress levels have been really low (and quite often zero) since I started working from home.  However, my lease renewal recently came up, which reminded me that in a bit over a year I'm going to be moving into my condo, which is surely going to be stressful - not just from the moving but from the stuff related to the condo purchase, some of which, I'm sure, I haven't anticipated at all.

Despite the fact that, at condo time, I will have had nearly two years of a zero-stress day-to-day, I'll still get stressed then.  It's just not possible to bank non-stress for when I need it.  I can save money for when I need it, I can eat sparingly today so I have room for a good pig-out tomorrow, but stress is Tetris pieces, and no matter how good you are at Tetris, you can't move the bottom of the playing area any lower, even though you know the pieces will start coming too fast to handle when you reach Level 9.

Someone should really come up with a workaround for that.  (Or, barring that, a Tetris cheat that moves the bottom of the playing area lower if you clear lines well enough.)

Things They Should Invent: "if you like...you may like..." for beauty products

I use Beautypedia, but I don't always agree with their reviews.  For example, they give my favourite eyeliner a poor rating, saying that the long skinny brush is hard to control.  But I find that the brush is easier to control specifically because it's long and skinny, and I vastly prefer it to every other brand I've tried, whose applicators are all too thick for the look I'm going for.

This means that when I'm in the market for eyeliner, Beautypedia is useless for me.

And it might also be less than perfectly useful for other products, and I'm just unaware of it.  The perfect product for me might be sitting under some pile of average reviews on Beautypedia and Makeup Alley etc., because it isn't optimal for most people in the world but is perfect for my non-standard needs.

So I'd like to see a beauty product review site that compares products to other products.  If you find Product A and Product B very similar, you say so, and perhaps articulate how they differ from each other.  If you find Product C far superiors to Products A and B, say so and explain why.  If you find Product D far inferior, say so and explain why.

If they can get a critical mass of reviews, they could even match up users with similar skin types or other similar makeup needs.  For example, if several people have the same favourite masacara and the same favourite eyeliner, it might be helpful to know what each other's favourite eyeshadow is.  Or, if a product gets discontinued, you could find out what other people who liked that discontinued product also like and dislike, and avoid some irritating trial and error.

So how do we get all these people to write all these comprehensive and detailed reviews? My idea is: what if this website was sponsored by a retailer that sells a wide range of brands of cosmetics, like Shoppers Drug Mart or even Amazon?  Users could earn points for writing reviews, and the points could be redeemable for free cosmetics at that retailer.  To encourage users to populate the site quickly, the first X reviews (where X is the number of reviews they need to make the site useful) can get exponentially more points.  They could also have easy one-click links on the review site to buy reviewed cosmetics from the retailer.