What the World Needs Now

What the World Needs Now

Camera based rear view and wing "mirrors" on cars - cuts wind resistance, gives a better view, should be cheaper to repair.

Phone holders in cars. My car has 8 cup holders, but nowhere to put my phone. (Magnetic phone holders work well. Until the steel disk that is stuck to your phone falls off. In the middle of a trip across the country. Hardware store double sided tape fails quickly. I had to buy a complete new phone holder to get a sticky back steel disk - $20.)

Soundproof stalls for bathroom airflow hand dryers. Seriously - I would just ban the things or place strict noise limits on them.

In internet browsers - the option to suppress hover actions - stop covering up what I'm reading just because I left the cursor on a hover point - I was just getting the cursor out of my view.

All smart speakers should accept the command "pause for one minute".

All dental floss should have a no flavor option.

All soaps, detergents, lotions for clothes, dishes, hair, hands, shower should have a no scent option.

All salt dispensers used in restaurant kitchens should have chef proof caps.

Overhead lights above ceiling fans should be illegal.

Laws against unnecessary blinking lights - cursors, OPEN signs, colons on digital clocks, warning lights on devices where the time has not been set, wait icons, phone app ads. They are ANNOYING and distracting. And very low frequency "operating" lights on smoke alarms - so annoying in the dark and you have stare at them interminably to see if the device is working.

Bathroom stall doors should swing OUT, NOT in.

And aloo gobi should be required on all Indian buffets. (That's cauliflower and potato - I only eat the cauliflower).

(Plus a lot of stuff from previous posts.)

Lighting

Lighting

I wrote most of this eighteen months ago. I'm not sure why I decided not to post it then. I think maybe I thought I was being too negative. Or maybe I thought it was boring. As I read it now, six months into the covid-19 crisis, it seems odd complaining - most of the issues are resolved by not leaving home.

Cracker Barrel has spotlights along the edges of the ceiling that, in general, point down at the wall. Occasional seating has direct views of the spotlights at an angle - not good, but not terrible. But a few days ago, I sat (before moving to a different seat) at a table that was beside a mirror on the wall. The spotlight reflected by the mirror was blinding. Wouldn't it make sense that if you run a restaurant that you test sit in every seat to check for annoyance problems? (I don't go to Cracker Barrel much lately, my favorite food there has gone downhill badly).

A local restaurant here has nice stained glass (maybe stained plastic, I haven't investigated) overhead light shades. Good light control. Until a bulb burned out. It was replaced with a bulb that is maybe an inch longer. A small glass cover at the bottom was removed and the new bulb sticks out of the shade. I can no longer sit at or glance at that table.

Horizontal plexiglass covers self-serve condiments at Newk's. You can't see the condiments, just the reflection of the overhead lights.

Our former contra dance hall was sometimes used as an art gallery, sometimes as an auditorium. Spotlights ring the floor. Fine if they are pointed at the wall. Not fine if they are pointed at the stage and left for the dance.

At our new dance hall, fluorescent light ballasts buzz so loudly that some people leave (they finally replaced the lights with LEDs - much better. Same fix for my kitchen lights.)

The gas discharge light ballast outside my window at a former apartment was so loud I had to disable the light.

Direct views of the sun occur regularly in automobiles. Have windshield sun shades improved in my lifetime? Not that I can tell. Why not have a pull down shade that completely covers the top of the windshield at a user chosen height. An array of little black dots or a (not very dark) blue tint does not get the job done.

My automobile instrument panel is often totally washed out by sunlight. This is sometimes due to reflection off the plastic cover and sometimes due to insufficient brightness on the new digital displays.

Reading books on my phone is good enough to be my chosen vehicle for books. But some overhead lighting makes it very difficult, needing a very narrow viewing angle. I don't blame this on the overhead lighting. Phones should offer a non reflective screen. This would be far more useful that most of the new features that are being foisted on us. There are matte screen covers for phones, but they wreck the edge sharpness of text - the matte texture needs to be finer. Or a 1/4 wavelength coating like that used for eyeglasses might help (or it might scratch too easily to be useful).

And finally, daytime driving lights. Why don't they include some rear end lighting to help people that are behind you see you in rain and fog? Or "automatic" lights could turn on the back end in fog or rain, but I've never owned a car that does this.

These are such easy problems to fix. Why don't we fix them?