The perfect closet organizing business model

 A kind, compassionate, trustworthy, non-judgemental person with excellent EQ comes to your home with a measuring tape, a dressmaker's mannequin, and a box.

They measure your body, perhaps even without telling you what the measurements are, and set the dressmaker's mannequin to match your measurements.

Then they go through your closet and try every single item of clothing on the dressmaker's mannequin. You don't have to be in the room while they do this.

Every item of clothing that is too small for your body goes into the box, which they close and seal.

Then, when they're done, you have more closet space and 100% of the clothes in your closet fit your body.

You don't have to see which of your favourite clothes are too small for you, or go through the upsetting experience of trying on favourite clothes that ended up being too small.

They can take away the box of too-small clothes and donate them appropriately, or they can leave it with you, closed and sealed, for you to either revisit when you can cope with it or completely disregard.

Updated with a bonus round:

The closet organizer is paired up with a personal shopper, to whom they provide your measurements and the quantity and characteristics of the clothing that was removed from your closet, and the personal shopper finds suitable replacements that fit your current body.

Those lovely blouses in jewel tones that you bought years ago are now too small? Here's a selection of flattering blouses in jewel tones! 

You have to give up your twirly sundress? Here are a few twirly sundress options!

Things Organized Labour Should Invent

Imagine a centralized directory of all unionized employers - where they are located, what kinds of jobs they hire for, whether they have remote work, what their pay and benefits are like, etc.

 

For that matter, imagine a comparable centralized directory of all employers, which you can robustly sort and filter based on compensation or benefits or working conditions. Kind of like Glassdoor, but comprehensive, accurate, and constantly updated.

 

So you could search for exactly what you need, e.g. full-remote jobs that pay at least $X and have drug coverage. If there are zero such jobs, you'll know at a glance. If better than you imagined is available, you'd know.

This would make it easier for workers to find the right job for them, and for strong employers to attract the best talent.

This would greatly benefit labour, so maybe organized labour could organize it?

Things They Should Invent: kitchen catchers shaped like grocery bags

As I've mentioned before, I routinely use plastic grocery bags as garbage bags. However, as I've been streamlining my shopping during the pandemic, I found myself running perilously low on plastic bags, so I bought some kitchen catchers.

Turns out they're inferior in every way!

They don't fit as nicely in my kitchen garbage can, and it's harder to get the top of the bag to stay hooked over the top of the bin. The absence of handles makes it harder to tie off (even with those thingies at the top that are supposed to be for tying it off) and makes it harder to carry to the garbage chute on days when I have multiple things to carry (which is most days, because my building has a tri-sorter chute). The perforation between the bags on the rolls is imperfect, so sometimes they rip open. Also, there are sometimes manufacturing flaws so a specific bag on the roll won't open up properly, or is cut crookedly and therefore unworkable.

In short, there is nothing that kitchen catchers do that grocery bags don't do better!

Grocery bags are already being manufactured and mass produced and put in boxes and sold to grocery stores. Why not put some of those bags on the shelf for consumers to purchase at retail price as well?

Things the Library Should Invent: lend out external media readers

While rummaging through my box of 20 years of accumulated spare cables, I found some random unmarked floppy disks. I have no idea what's on them, and no longer have any computers with a floppy drive.

 

I pondered what might be on the disks, and tried to brainstorm ways I might get at a floppy drive. I wondered whether you can rent an external floppy drive. There doesn't appear to be any such thing. They're fairly cheap to buy, but I'd only need it for a few minutes to read and possibly copy the contents of the disks, and then I'd be done with it forever.

 

Then I wondered if the library computers still have floppy drives. Doubtful. Apart from the fact that floppy disks haven't been in common use for quite a while, I doubt the library wants to make it easy for people to run random programs on their computers.

Then I realized, this is a problem that the library could solve by making external media readers available to borrow - floppy drives, CD drives, maybe even cassette players and record players that can be plugged into computers to convert music to MP3s, if such a thing exists.

Surely I'm not the only one with some obsolete media that I'm no longer equipped to read or back up. Surely I'm not the only one who just needs a floppy drive briefly, with no need to own one.

An external USB floppy drive costs less than the retail price of a hardcover book, so it seems like the library should be able to afford a few to lend out. And if the library lends me a USB drive that I plug into my own computer, my computer bears the risk of whatever the contents of my mystery disks might be - the library's disk drive is just a conduit.

 

Q: But if you let people borrow electronic equipment, they might wreck it! 

A: Yes, just like if you let people borrow books, they might wreck them! I suspect libraries are accustomed to budgeting for eventual wear and tear on their items.

 

Part of the library's mission statement is to provide universal access to a broad range of information. Perhaps that could include the information that we have stored on outdated media?

Things They Should Invent: "Browsing-Friendly" sign for small businesses

When I have to do in-person shopping for clothes, I prefer to shop in a mall. That's because mall stores are more browsing-friendly - you can drift in and out, getting a sense of what's available, and it's all very low-commitment.

In contrast, I dislike shopping for clothes in small businesses with main street (Yonge St.) storefronts, because it feels like more of a commitment to walk in. I don't know what they stock, I don't know if it will meet my needs, I don't know what the prices will be like, but I still have to walk in (with the door often ringing a bell when I do so), usually walk right past the owner and either take up their time helping me or dissuade them from helping me before I can even see if the contents of the store meet my needs well enough to even try things on. And then, if nothing meets my needs, I have to look the owner dead-ass in the eye and tell them that I'm not going to be helping them with their livelihood today.

It would be so much easier - and I would be so much more likely to shop for clothes at small neighbourhood stores - if I could browse them like mall stores!

But it also occurs to me that there are likely a non-zero number of small business owners who wouldn't mind if I did just that.

If only there was a way to tell who they are!

Solution: a standardized "Browsing-Friendly" sign that small businesses can put in their window, indicating that they have no objection to people wandering in and idly browsing their wares without any commitment to buy.

This would encourage customers to browse small businesses they might otherwise be reluctant to enter, thereby increasing the likelihood of customers finding the products they need in small businesses and of small businesses capturing market share that would otherwise go to mall stores. 

 

Win-win situation!

Things They Should Invent: people who left this job went on to work at...

I recently had a new idea, inspired by an Ask A Manager column and my own job-hunting experience:

New rule: if you reject someone because you think they're going to leave for a better job, you have to tell them where to find this better job.

— "Impudent Strumpet!" (@ImpStrump) August 4, 2021

Today, my shower gave me an improvement on this idea: a "people who left this job went to work at..." website, or perhaps a LinkedIn functionality.

Scraping LinkedIn data (and other data if other useful sources are available), track which employers people went to after leaving a previous job, and look for patterns.

For example, if many people left Acme Inc. to work for Roarke Industries, and a comparable number left Roarke Industries to work for Acme Inc., that tells one story. If many people left Acme Inc. to work for Roarke Industries but there was no pattern of traffic in the other direction, that tells another story.

People can use this information to find better jobs and find employers who are likely to hire them based on their previous experience. Conversely, they might also be able to use it to plan their career path - for example, if Roarke Industries requires 5 years of experience and a lot of people go from university to Acme Inc. to Roarke Industries, then Acme Inc. might be the place to get the experience you need to be hired by Roarke Industries.

Things They Should Invent: cupboard to dishwasher to resident to dishes algorithm

The cupboard where I keep my cups is precariously full.

And I often run out of cups (or appropriate cups, e.g. I have wineglasses but don't have any coffee mugs) before my dishwasher is full. 

I didn't have this problem in my old apartment!

I feel like someone could make an algorithm to fix this.

You enter your cubic centimetres of dishwasher rack space and cupboard shelf space, the number of people in your household, and perhaps the rate at which you use dishes in a given day (e.g. 2 mugs, 1 wine glass, 1 water glass) and it calculates the optimal number of each item for you to own. Perhaps it could even tell you how to arrange your dishes in the cupboard.

Maybe it could also do the opposite when you're buying a dishwasher: you tell it what you own and the rate at which you use it, and it finds the optimal dishwasher to fit your lifestyle.

Things They Should Invent: concordance tool with a Boolean NOT function

Many words, terms and phrases have a common go-to translation, but also have scope of meaning that doesn't fall under the common go-to translation.

 

If the common go-to translation is extremely common, it can saturate concordance tool results, completely burying alternative translations. This can lead inexperienced translators to conclude there is no other possible translation (even if the go-to is inappropriate), and can even stymie experienced translators ("I know there's another translation, but I'm completely blanking on it!")

To remedy this, I want to be able to apply a Boolean NOT function to the target-language results, to eliminate the common go-to translations and see what's left.

Examples:

 

- Show me translations of porte-parole that are not "spokesperson".

- Show me translations of intervenant that are not "intervener" or "responder".

- Show me translations of animateur that are not "animator" or "facilitator".

 

With the common translations that I know are not suitable out of the way, the tool can better do its job of giving me options to pinpoint le mot juste for my particular translation needs.

I have no idea how feasible this would be from a programming perspective. I know a Boolean NOT can be used in user input, I know that you can filter output by selecting and unselecting attribute tags from a given list (like you often find in online shopping), but I have no idea about the feasibility of filtering output with user-provided Boolean operators.

If it would in fact be unfeasible, I have an idea for an alternative: sort results in alphabetical order by how the word/term/phrase in question is translated in the target text.

This would group all the translations I know I don't want to use together, making it easier to find other options.

For example, if all the instances of "spokesperson" are together (with variants like "spokesman" nearby), I can start at the beginning of the alphabetically-sorted results and scroll through until I hit "spokesperson", seeing all the available options. Then, when I hit "spokesperson", I can jump to the last result and scroll through in reverse order until I hit "spokesperson" again, thereby quickly getting an overview of all the non-"spokesperson" results.

Concordance tools do tend to provide a sentence or a snippet as output, but they "know" what the matched term is, so it seems like it should be feasible to sort alphabetically by matched term but still show snippets.

Things They Should Invent: filter online shopping products by weight

Latest pandemic malfunction: my 18-year-old TV finally gave up the ghost.

I bought a new TV easily enough, but it's a bit too big for my existing TV stand. So I'm shopping for some kind of TV stand or table or cart or something to put it on. 

Problem: the products that catch my eye keep being heavier than I can lift. 

Under normal circumstances this isn't so much of a problem. Normally, we can have furniture delivered. Normally, it's not a huge imposition to ask someone to pop by and help me move or assemble something. 

But during a global pandemic, this isn't an option. My building's pandemic rules prohibit delivery people from coming up to apartments, instead telling them to leave the deliveries at the concierge desk and residents will bring them up. My building's pandemic rules also prohibit visitors, and public health rules are also telling me not to have contact with other households. (Sometimes public health rules let single people bubble with another household, but there are zero people in my life whose risk factors permit visiting me and aren't already bubbled with another household.) So during the pandemic, I'm limited to what I can lift myself and assemble myself.

Online shopping sites could help me with this by letting me filter products by weight, so I only see those that are light enough for me to bring up to my apartment myself and assemble myself.

The websites already have this information - it tends to be listed right under dimensions.

The websites already let you filter by various variables, such as price and size. I can already tell the website "show me all the TVs under 35 inches", so why not "show me all the TV stands under 40 pounds"?

Building on this, they really should let you filter by any characteristic that is listed on the site. Country manufactured, inseam length, number of USB ports, anything. People have all kinds of oddly specific requirements, so, especially in this pandemic era where more shopping is being done online than ever before, why not let us pinpoint exactly what we need?

The Toronto Star should print URLs next to QR codes

During the pandemic, I've been reading the epaper versions of the my newspapers rather than getting my usual home delivery, and I've noticed an annoyance: links to further information on the Toronto Star site are provided as a QR code, without a corresponding URL provided.

This is an annoyance by itself in the print version, because it only gives you the option of opening the link on a mobile device, even if you'd prefer to read on a computer.

But it's all the more annoying in the epaper version, because epaper readers are already reading on their preferred device for reading a newspaper electronically! If I'm reading on my computer like I usually do, I could, theoretically, grab my phone and scan the QR code. But what if I was already reading on my phone? Surely there are many households that don't have extra mobile devices just sitting around unused for every time you want to click a link!

If the Star would simply print URLs next to (or instead of) QR codes, everyone could access the links by the means most convenient to them, thereby maximizing the number of eyeballs on the Star's website. Using the QR code alone is inconvenient to many and impenetrable to some. There's no reason not to continue printing URLs, like they have since the advent of URLs.

Things They Should Invent: beds that adults can safely jump on

One of the delights of childhood is jumping on the bed. 

But you can't jump on the bed as an adult, because you'll break the bed.

This is a marketing opportunity!

Someone should invent beds that are sturdy enough for adults to jump on! Bonus points for them being sturdy enough for two or more adults to jump on! Extra bonus points for those two or more adults being in the 80th percentile of weight! Super duper bonus points for somehow working out a way to do this without disturbing the people in the apartment downstairs!

I have no idea how to figure out what kind of bed to buy, and I would totally buy a bed I could jump on solely on the basis that I can jump on it. 

I'm sure there would also be a market among people whose bedroom activities are particularly athletic, and an additional market among people who want to give the impression that their bedroom activities are particularly athletic.

Things They Should Invent: all bathrooms must be completely slip-proof

A household accident that often has devastating results, especially for elders, is slipping and falling in the bathroom. 

 

And one of the things I dread most about eventually having to go into long-term care is that you aren't allowed to bathe unsupervised because of the risk of slipping and falling.

(Which literally adds insult to injury, because some people end up in long-term care because of a broken hip caused by slipping and falling in the bathroom!)

 

 

Both of these problems could be solved by making 100% of bathrooms completely slip-proof. Floors, tubs, showers, everything!

 

 

At this point, you might be thinking "surfaces become slippery when wet - it's just basic physics!"

 

But since time immemorial, humans have been inventing things to defy the laws of physics.

We have devices that allow us to see in the dark even without a light source. 

Most modern kitchens contain a device that will heat food without becoming warm to the touch itself.

 

We've had a device that makes it possible to safely jump out of an airplane and land unharmed since long before we even had airplanes.  

 

Surfaces becoming slippery when wet is just another physics challenge that human innovation should be able to overcome.

 

 

Googling around this idea, I did find bathroom tiles that purport to be slip-proof. 

 

However, the fact of the matter is that people still slip and fall in bathrooms, and bathing alone is still seen as an unacceptable risk for elders in care. So either the existing slip-proof tiles are not sufficiently slip-proof or they aren't being used and slippery tiles are being used instead.

 

In either case, this needs to be fixed. All bathrooms should systematically and without exception be slip-proof. Just like how all cars have seatbelts by default, all bathrooms need to be slip-proof by default.

 

It would be a vast improvement to everyone's quality of life and, if we need an economic argument, will significantly reduce medical costs.

Things They Should Invent: one-way mirror webcam cover

A challenge with video chat is eye contact. We're inclined to either look at our interlocutor's eyes on screen, or to look at ourselves on screen. This means we aren't looking at the camera, and therefore appear shifty and weird to our interlocutors.

Proposed solution: a cover for the webcam made of a one-way mirror. In other words, the webcam can see you, but you see the mirror. If you make eye contact with yourself in the mirror, you're looking directly at the camera, so it looks to your interlocutor like you're making eye contact with them.

This would also make it easier to modulate your facial expression. I know that if I leave my facial expression unmonitored during a video chat, I tend to look like I'm sneering. (Really, my lips are just asymmetrical). But if I monitor my facial expression on the screen, I'm not looking at the camera and therefore look like I'm not paying attention. A mirror over the camera would make it easier to perform up to expectations.

Things They Should Invent: search and sort grocery websites by nutritional information

In the course of ordinary, in-store, non-pandemic grocery shopping, we often pick up items off the shelf and read the labels. 

During the pandemic, we aren't supposed to be handling items we don't buy. Also during the pandemic, many people are shopping online (either for delivery or for in-store pickup), and (at least according to the marketing emails I'm being bombarded with) grocery store chains seem to be encouraging this.

One thing grocery chains could do to make online shopping easier and to discourage people from handling things in store is for store websites to have extremely robust searching and sorting by ingredients and/or nutritional information.

They often have ingredients and nutritional information that you can click on for individual products, but searchable and sortable would be far more convenient and user-friendly.

Examples:

- Show me all products from the "salad dressing" category sorted in ascending order of sugar content, so I can choose the lowest sugar salad dressing that meets my tastes.

- Let me use the Boolean NOT function to exclude all products that contain my allergens.

This information is already in grocery stores' computers - you can see it when you look up specific products on their website. People already know how to program computers to do things like sorting and boolean search. 

If they could let us do this on store website, it would improve uptake of online shopping and reducing handling of items in-store, and may also introduce consumers to new products that meet their needs better than what they were buying before. A win for everyone!

Things They Should Invent: grocery pickup edition

1. Mark items as "essential"

The first time I tried grocery pickup (in this case, PC Express at Loblaws), I was making the purchase because I had immediate need of a specific item.

In keeping with the pandemic mindset of minimizing trips and keeping two weeks of provision on hand, I didn't just buy that one item, I bought everything I expected to need for the next two weeks, regardless of whether it was on sale.

Then, shortly before pick-up time, I got an email saying that my order was ready - except they didn't have that one specific item in stock! There was no way to cancel the order at this point, so I had to put on my mask, wait in line, go into a store, talk to an employee, pay for a bunch of stuff that wasn't even on sale, lug it all home and wipe it all down - all for nothing!

Proposed solution: users should have the option of marking one or more items in their cart as "essential". If the essential item is unavailable, the order is cancelled. When the user marks more than one item as essential, they can either mark them as "ALL" or "ANY". If the essential items are marked "ALL", then the order only goes through if all the essential items are available. If they essential items are marked "ANY", the order goes through if any one of the items is available.

This should certainly be programmable - it's basically a set of IF/THEN statements - and it would certainly help during the pandemic when we're supposed to be minimizing trips and contacts.

2. "Your cart contains # bags of groceries"

Another problem with grocery pickup is that ordering groceries online is much easier than carrying those groceries home - I'd almost bought more than I can carry!

Solution: tell users how many bags of groceries their cart contains, measured in the standard grocery bags found at the checkout.

People who are accustomed to grocery shopping have a good sense of how many bags of groceries they can carry and how many will fit into their tote bag or bundle buggy or bike basket or car trunk or whatever they might be using, so this would make it easier to avoid over-ordering, and thereby finding yourself at the store faced with more groceries than you can get home in one trip.

The ideal implementation would calculate the number of bags in terms of both mass and volume, because both of those are factors in how much people can carry. But I'd imagine an immediate implementation would be possible based on mass alone. Grocery stores already have a database of the mass of all their products, since the self-checkouts have a built-in scale to make sure you're not stealing. Surely someone in human history has quantified how many grams/pounds/kilograms a grocery bag will carry, so it's a simple question of division.

Things They Should Invent: express elevators for the pandemic

Most people in my building seem to be voluntarily abiding by a one person/household per elevator rule. I do this myself. I live in the lower half of the building, so often when I'm waiting for an elevator to take me to to the ground floor, there will already be someone in it. I cheerfully wave them on, and wait for the next elevator.

However, not everyone in my building does this. Sometimes I'm taking the elevator down, it stops to pick up someone who has pressed the call button on one of the floors below me, and they get in. And there's not really much I can civilly do to stop them. (I mean, I could scream and argue, or do something gross like cough or something creepy like scratch my ass and smell my finger, but I have few options that allow me to retain what social capital I have.)

I also think, in some cases, the person waiting for the elevator might feel it's rude not to get into the elevator, as though you're suggesting that there's something wrong with the person in the elevator. (Imagine, for example, how declining to get in an elevator with someone else would have read before anyone had ever heard of the coronavirus.)

It would be useful if, for the duration of the pandemic, elevators could be put in express mode. You get in the elevator, press the button for your floor, and it goes straight to your floor without stopping. Then it goes and picks up the next person who has pressed a call button.

This would make elevator use during the pandemic as safe as possible without requiring optimal behaviour or any sort of effort from users. In my own experiences with skipping over occupied elevators and waiting for empty ones, I've never had to wait for more than three (and, about half the time, the first elevator that arrives is empty) so I don't think it would cause undue delays.

The challenge is I'm not sure whether it's technically possible without changes to how elevators work. The elevators I'm familiar with can be put in service mode with a key - you turn the key, the elevator goes your destination floor without stopping and then waits for you there. But if you don't turn the key back to the normal setting, the elevator will sit and wait for you rather than picking up the next passenger. And if you do turn the key back to the normal setting, it will go back to stopping wherever there's a call button pressed.

So I'm not sure if elevators can currently be programmed to take each passenger to their floor then go back for the next passenger without constant intervention. But if they can, they should be. And if they can't, elevator manufacturers should figure out how to introduce this functionality for the next time we need it.

Things They Should Invent: pandemic shopping edition

1. Glassdoor for the pandemic

With some jurisdictions permitting businesses to reopen, I wonder whether the employees of those businesses feel safe going back to work, or if they have no choice.

I do need to buy more things as the pandemic stretches on (so many things, ranging from my kettle to my mesh laundry bag, have broken somehow!), but if I have the option, I'd rather buy from somewhere that respects their employees' health and safety.

I'd very much like to have a single centralized website where workers post information about how well their employer actually is keeping them safe, so customers can make informed decisions about where to spend their money.

I mean, they could do this on Glassdoor too, but I haven't seen it yet for the businesses I've searched for.


2. Shopping search engine for boycotters

There's a lot in the news lately about how Amazon is making tons of money from the pandemic, but has horrible working conditions.

I've found that if I search the internet for a product description without having a specific brand or source in mind (for example, light cotton pyjamas or 4-cup coffee filters), I get results primarily from Amazon, and to a lesser extent from Walmart (which also has bad working conditions).  If I exclude Amazon from the results, I most often get wholesalers, retailers from other countries, and other such unsuitable sources.

This happens even when I use search engines other than Google. It's way harder than it should be to find an ethical place to buy things when you don't already know where to buy them!

As I've mentioned many times before for many other reasons, I'd very much like to have a single comprehensive search engine of all online shopping. But I'd also like to have it set up to help people boycott.

You could boycott a specific retailer by excluding them from your search, but it would be even more helpful to be able to boycott by cause. For example, search for light cotton pyjamas and exclude sources with bad working conditions.

"But what if they all have bad working conditions?"  Then you've done everything you can and don't have to knock yourself out looking for the ethical source that doesn't exist.

Of course, the complexity is that this would only work if they could index literally all retailers.

Things They Should Invent: tell everyone what information contact tracers need

In this pandemic, we're hearing a lot about contact tracing. We're hearing a lot about how it's a time-intensive and labour-intensive task.

We're hearing about the possibility of apps to help, but, in addition to the privacy issues, those also have a strong risk of false positives (e.g., people in different apartments in the same building) and false negatives (e.g., if one or more parties don't have a phone on their person with the app installed and GPS enabled that is turned on and has a signal at the moment of contact.) So a time-intensive and labour-intensive task still remains.

They could make this easier by telling the public exactly what information the contact tracers will need, so people can keep track if they choose to do so.

For example, with contact tracing in mind, I'm making all my purchases on the same credit card and using my loyalty cards on every transaction. This means that I can pull up my credit card account and tell you at a glance the last time I was in a particular store, and the store also has a record.

On days when I have to talk to the concierge, I make a note of which concierge was on duty and what day I talked to them, in case one of us is later found to have COVID.

But is this the information that contact tracers would need? Or is irrelevant? Is there other information they would need that it hasn't occurred to me to collect?  Should I be keeping track of who got in the elevator with me on which day? Should I be keeping track of what streets I walked down on which date and time?

I have no idea! I'm not trained in public health!

They might be able to make the task of contact tracing easier by circulating information about what the contact tracers would need to know.  Then anyone who is inclined to do so can keep their own records.

And, if public health ever calls you for contact tracing, you'll be able to give them a list of the specifics they're looking for, rather than having to go through a painstaking interview full of questions you didn't even know would be on the test.

This might also help reinforce in the public consciousness exactly what kinds of contacts we need to be avoiding. If we're told "Keep track of who gets in the elevator with you for contact tracing purposes", that reinforces the idea that getting in the elevator with someone outside your household is a potential for transmission (if it is in fact a potential for transmission - I don't actually know), and maybe more people will wait for the next elevator.

Things They Should Invent: free supply delivery for self-isolating people

People who come back from travel or otherwise may have been exposed to COVID-19 are supposed to self-isolate for 14 days, without even stopping at the grocery store!

Also, grocery delivery times are multiple days!

Solution: free supply delivery for self-isolating people

You make a list, and they bring you everything on your list. Then a few days later, they bring you another delivery of whatever else you need.

To make this work, they'll need to provide people with what they actually want. Not a pre-made kit of what you theoretically should need, not a list of "basic" foods to select from. They need to actually bring people any commercially-available item they want.  No test of "worthiness".

And it shouldn't be limited to just food. Maybe you need shampoo or socks or sauvignon blanc. Maybe if you're going to be working from home for two weeks, you desperately need a desk and chair. So that people maintain their self-isolation, they need to be promptly delivered whatever it is they might need, so they have no incentive to go to the store!

But how do we keep people from taking advantage of this and getting infinite free stuff?

Solution: everyone self-isolating gets a self-isolating allowance. A fairly generous amount regardless of their financial situation and ability to earn income in isolation - for argument's sake, let's say $1,000 for a 14-day self-isolation.

The self-isolation delivery service will give them up to $1,000 per person of stuff for free. At the end of the 14-day period, they get a cheque or direct deposit for any remaining balance. So if they had $500 worth of stuff delivered, they get a $500 cheque at the end. If they had $20 worth of stuff delivered, they get a $980 cheque at the end. If they had nothing delivered, they get a $1,000 cheque at the end.

If people need or want more than $1,000 worth of stuff delivered, they have to pay for the portion in excess of $1,000. So if you need some diamonds delivered to your home as soon as you get back from vacation because you're fresh out, that can totally be made to happen, you just have to pay for them.

The goal here is to remove any temptation to go out, and the way to do that is to give people whatever they would normally be going out for, without value judgement.

Things They Should Invent: "helpful" "funny" "agree" buttons on advice column comments

As I've mentioned before, I enjoy reading advice columns.

Many columns have robust commenting communities, where commenters provide helpful advice, insight and perspective.

Many columns have robust commenting communities where commenters provide entertaining snark.

Many columns have robust commenting communities where commenters provide unpleasant toxicity.

And, often, these three types of communities overlap.

For a while, I've been thinking that advice column communities should have an upvote/downvote system or a system where you can click Like on a comment, so helpful comments can rise to the top and toxic ones can be buried.

But, on further reflection, I think a three-factor voting system would be more helpful.

On Yelp, you can mark a review as "useful", "funny" or "cool". 

I'd like to see this adapted to advice columns, so you could mark a comment as "helpful", "funny", or "agree" (or any combination thereof), and sort the comments view by any one of these three factors.

Letter-writers and anyone with the same problem could sort the comments by "helpful" to see the best ideas for addressing their problem, without all the other clutter and judgement.

People who are there for the popcorn could sort the comments by "funny" to see the most entertaining comments.

And people who are interested in avoiding toxicity can sort comments by "agree", so bad comments are buried.

Voting on comments might also reduce arguments and other clutter in the comments section, because the fact that a comment has a lot of votes or no votes tends to speak for itself, and people don't feel the need to respond with "THIS!" or "BULLSHIT!" or whatever.