What's an idea you have that should be an actual thing?

return2ozma@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 169 points –

Tourist cities should have hotel rooms by the hour that are actually clean when you just want to take a nap.

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Living wages in exchange for work.

But if labour can afford to live, how will we minimise their ability to focus what little energy we leave them with at the end of their shift on improving their situation?

Paying a living wage is a slippery slope that ends in things like healthcare, education and opportunities being available to all, and that'd make them more than just our bought and paid for production labour, that'd make them our rivals.

Look at this guy over here. They want to contribute to society and not starve from it. Wild.

Instead of mandatory military service like some countries have, people should have mandatory public work for two years. Whether it be labor, clerical/administrative, etc, it could help young people learn a new skill, get guaranteed work to get the started, and could potentially save a ton in taxes. It would also create the opportunity to start getting caught up some things that keep getting swept under the rug like bridge maintenance , etc.

We had something like that in Germany, if you opted out of military service, you had to do civil service instead, i.e. you had to work in an institution that provided some benefit to the general public.

Most of those jobs were healthcare related, such as working in a hospital, as ambulance driver, kindergarten teacher, assisted living helper etc., or working in a supervisory rule for a company that employed people with disabilities to make sure they don't get injured in the workplace.

Both my brother and I did it (they later scraped military service, and the civil service as a consequence), and it was really amazing. He went to work in a food factory where people with mental disabilities were employed to sort raw ingredients (think removing debris and washing fruit and vegetables for juice, yoghurt & pickling), I worked as a nurse in a hospital.

Gave both of us a good twist for our careers, he moved on to study education for people with disabilities and now works as a special ed teacher for an integrative school, I went on to work in the development aid sector all across Africa and Central Asia for years.

I read that as: They scrapped the whole thing as a consequence of you and your brother doing it? You must have been really bad.

So what does Germany have now that they've scrapped it?

Overworked healthcare staff since nobody can realistically replace the cheap labor coming from a government program, plus an understaffed military (180k personnel instead of 203k as per the budget).

There's the federal volunteer service, which is the spiritual successor. Basically the same thing, but without being forced into it. There also voluntary social or ecological years, which is kind of the same thing as well.

Yeah. Similar to this I think junior high should have a bigger focus on being outside. Like one semester should be spend camping or something. It’s such a formative time and so many kids spend it scrolling through reels. There is something so real and unforgiving about Mother Nature that a 13 year old should really know about.

the top 50% richest people should have

The rest of people are already working these mandatory jobs.

The rest of people are already working these mandatory jobs.

Same type of work, sure, but the fruits of their labour are going towards shareholders. The point of public work is that it's for the public good.

True, still not a huge fan of forced labour. I don’t like the idea of forced anything really.

I’d include military service in that. But yes mandatory service for everyone.

Edit. No exceptions if your mom / dad is a senator or anything… medical? Great there is tons of paperwork that needs to be done. Basically every one yeah.

In my country mandatory military service, aka conscription, is used to take away men's freedoms, you can't travel, you can't work, you can't participate in politics, you can't go to hotels... Etc.. And it's all necessary for thé but not for me, meaning the generals and the minister's children don't go to the military unstead they go to a business school and start companies all over the world, with people's money.. of course

Phones should shoot landscape video even when they’re held vertically.

🤯

The image sensor is square... it should just shoot 1:1 scale and let you crop it to an orientation later

Most image sensors are not square, they are 4:3 or 16:9. Square sensors are typically used for more specialty applications.

I agree it could be useful on a phone to have 1:1 sensors, but I would still support the direct recording to standard video resolutions and aspect ratios as otherwise encoder limitations will affect what video you can shoot.

I used to have the moto g stylus, it did that. I loved it's camera. Too bad I bricked it by trying to downgrade it to unnecessarily install a custom rom.

A robot goose with AI controlled steering

Top comment, should be pinned. We need a gaggle of these. A gagglebyte.

For me, there would be public holidays that celebrate social, cultural and scientific achievements.

A day of printing, the decoding of the human genome,... you know - real achievements, not only stories of some ancient folks being tortured to death and such.

And voting? Always felt November 4th should be a paid holiday.

Awesome idea, btw.

Is that a voting day in some country?

No, not really I suppose. I meant to say “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November“, but, well… I didn’t do it right.

“The Tuesday next after the first Monday in November” is the US’s Election Day.

Nonprofit versions of vital social tech. If I had the money sitting around, I'd love to start a nonprofit dating site/app. I met my wife on OKC in 2011 before it got bought up and enshittified. It was great and wasn't geared toward just keeping you engaged (they're soooooo bad now!). You'd probably have to gatekeep it with a small fee to disincentive bots, but with a relatively small investment, you could create something really useful for folks without preying on anyone's desperation.

Signal would be a good model for this sort of thing.

Edit: typos

Actually... a Fediverse OK Cupid clone could totally be a thing... runs away to ponder

I think this might want a clean sheet design. At least as I understand it, there are issues with privacy in the fediverse/activitypub vis-a-vis non-public messages. I think it's also an area where, in order to go the most good, you'd want simple signups and easy engagement (to say nothing of being able to trust that your info has been deleted when you delete it).

Clearly, I'm here and I value the philosophical underpinnings of the fediverse, but I think it might not be the best fit for dating.

That said, if you feel like you can solve those problems, you'd be doing a world of good if you're right.

Idk, isn't something like OKC like... literally the opposite use case from what ActivityPub/The Fediverse was built to solve?

https://github.com/Alovoa/alovoa

Now make it more popular lol

Mist-Alovoa ‘lovoa, alovoa, Mmm

They call me mista bombastic

I've got it downloaded but haven't even opened it lol, I'd have to figure out how to make a dating profile and then I'd have to put a pic of me on the internet which I haven't done in 14yr lol.

"What are your interests"

"Fuck you mean right now? 'Cause I got megaADHD that shit changes sometimes.. I like long walks on the trails and overthinking questions.."

Just as bad as Tinder = worthless compared to pre-MatchGroup OkCupid.

Copyright should go back to 14 years.

Yep, that would encourage new ideas way more than the current system.

Oh, and Disney should not be allowed to lobby for copyright law changes

Also exclusivity deals should be treated as the monopolies they are.

Turn-based King of the Hill RPG

With lawn mowing minigame

I want to see one of those Street Fighter smash up the car mini games, but it’s Bobby & you have to repeatedly kick someone in the nuts while screaming “DON’T TOUCH MY PURSE”.

That's either stupid as hell or utterly brilliant. Either way, I want it.

Is Ward one of the strongest party members you can get? I mean, he was a wizard even though he also refused the Caninus Spiritus.

Parking lot lights, that are in/ on each space. That indicates if there is a space available…. Less driving around the lot looking for a space

I have seen these in airport parking garages - green when the spot is empty, red when occupied and visible from the end of the aisle.

What really blew my mind was seeing the exact same functionality for stalls in the restroom.

Omg. Where???

It has been a minute but I want to say maybe BNA Nashville Airport had them.

Regardless, it looked like this.

Portland airport parking garage has these lights at each spot, along with a digital sign at the start of each level telling you the number of open standard spots and handicap spots on that level

Here's a picture

Some of the Portland parking garages downtown have them as well.

DWI Airport (Baltimore/DC) has bathrooms with these lights too. Very useful.

Aw yeah!

Malaysia is all over this in every major carpark.

Most every mall in Asian countries I've visited has this system already. This may just be a North America being cheap problem.

Some North American malls have them.

The problem is that a lot of American malls are in decline and can barely afford to keep the escalators working, let alone install these lights.

Many malls in Toronto have this. And as others have said, airports. Pearson International included.

When you get to baggage claim, if you then stand directly at the carousel blocking everyone's view for more than 10 seconds, trap door opens and a system of pneumatic tubes forcibly jettisons you to the furthest point away in the airport for you to walk back.

Stand back, wait for your luggage to appear, then approach and get your bag and step back to the perimeter.

To get my VC funding in 2024, id also pitch that it "has AI" which is just facial recognition and if you get jettisoned twice in the same year, the third time goes into a shark pit or scorpion pit.

Since airspace is reserved for airport traffic, the furthest point is more than likely about 50k feet straight up.

I'm ok with that.

If you don't put your shopping cart away, a turret on the roof of the grocery should just fucking shoot you.

If you play music on a speaker, on public transit, the bus driver should just fucking shoot you

You know how the FTC recently banned non-compete clauses (for non-senior roles)?

They should ban the, 'and other unspecified duties as required' clauses too.

Prostitution legalized everywhere, with a clean and safe presentation. And nobody should judge people for it in neither side.

Is a functional government based on logic and compassion too much to ask/too cliché?

Renters rights legislation with enough teeth to make present and perspective landlords, both corporate and individual, think twice before not taking care of a property as though they lived there? (Yes, there are stories behind this one)

I guess a company that actually pays me what I'm worth (which I'm not even really looking for that much).

Renters rights legislation with enough teeth to make present and perspective landlords, both corporate and individual, think twice before not taking care of a property as though they lived there? (

Isn't it mostly an issue on the US side of the pond (and in other third worlds countries). I believe that most European countries have minimum standards regarding renter right, it's not perfect (and reality is that changing a furnace takes weeks). But every time I read about US feel likes dystopia.

Over here in Portugal there's the European legislation, but whether if it is enforced or not is another story. Some places get ridiculous, and I'd imagine that happens all over Europe too.

I have been seeing reporting from and have had friends in Australia and New Zealand who have been sharing that it is actually much worse down there than it is in the US. Apparently in NZ most of the legislature is made up of landlords, so the laws are particularly egregious and abusive.

Customer focused companies. A middle ground between non-profit and for profit.

It's called a B Corp in the US. A public benefit company. It's for profit, but with a mission. Doctor Bronner's and Newman's Own are the two that come to mind.

A law that prohibits labels from being too sticky that you can't reuse the packaging. For example, I should absolutely be able to easily peel off the labels from empty wine bottles and glass jars so I can reuse them.

And one that prohibits "reduced to clear" labels from being too sticky so you can use sandwiches as gifts

Or a more general "stickers must adhere stronger to themselves than to whatever they are stuck to".

Stickers should have a greater sense of self worth and keep it together when people are trying to tear them apart.

Candidates for public office should be required to undergo a mental health assessment as part of the process of getting on the ballot, and those who score beyond (above or below, as may be relevant) particular thresholds are barred from seeking office.

I sincerely believe that there's no single thing we could do that would provide more benefit to the world than to get sociopaths and narcissists and megalomaniacs out of positions of power. Each and every one of the most notable and contentious politicians in the world today is, if you just take a step back and look at them honestly, blatantly profoundly mentally ill. Enough is enough.

The idea itself is fine, but in practice it wouldn't work. The kind of people you are trying to screen out in the process would just study do give the responses of a passing assessment, probably with the help of heavily paid mental health professionals.

Psicology is hard to test and prove, most of the things you are looking to test would not be visible in bloodwork or brainscans.

Not to mention, who is in control of making the tests? Mental health/aptitude tests have had a history of being at least a little bit racist, kinda like the old 'intelligence' tests that were designed to prevent black people from voting.

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That'll just be used as a tool to discriminate against certain groups of people. If you standardize it to avoid any personal bias, then it'll be coachable/trainable and then people will work around it.

Imo any random person should be able to run for office

Skip the psych exam. Restore the “public servant” aspect.

  1. All assets are sold and the cash is placed in a trust that earns 1% interest. When you leave office you get your money back.

  2. 24/7 audio and video coverage of your life as long as you are in office. The toilet is not filmed unless someone goes in with you. Other than that, your life is an open book.

  3. After you leave office, you can teach classes as long as your compensation is no more than the lowest-paid professor at the school that employs you. You can write books. Or you can enjoy your pension. No corporate jobs or partner positions at fancy law firms.

The minimum threshold is tricky. Sometimes due to alliance or political dynamic, a party/list struggle to reach 5%. But banning them from running again seems aggressive. An election even lost without any seat nor a public payment of the campaign fee, is a chance for a party to be heard and put back some issues in the debate. Look at the green who often do low score, but sometimes manage to win

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Voting days should be mandatory holidays

Lots of countries vote on Sundays which solves that problem

It skews the results towards christian-backed candidates - Sunday mass gets people out of their houses, clergy reminds them to vote and at least hints who they should vote for and they do on their way home.

I have never heard of that being an issue in my country where it is a constitutional requirement for elections to be held on Sundays or public holidays.

It is an issue in Poland. Close to 30% of the population is at Sunday mass and even if priests were perfectly neutral (and they very much aren't) simply people deciding "I'm already out, I might as well vote" does make an impact on the outcome. Every time liberals and socialists score an election win is after electorate mobilization that counters that.

BTW I agree that voting should happen on a statutory holiday, but it shouldn't be one associated with a majority religion.

I'm 50 years old and for as long as I can remember voting days in my country are a national holiday from the lowest government post to the highest.

But then we'd all get pissed the day before and be too hungover to go and vote

That's a thing where I am from. Also, only day where alcohol cannot be sold, as you must do your duty sober. Fair compromise if you ask me: if I already know who I am voting for, I also had the prescience to buy my booze the night before :)

Good bluetooth earbuds that are Apple earbud shaped (or an approximation far enough away to not be sued.) There's litterally "airpods," "cheap shitty airpod knockoffs," and then the largest category "skullcandy types with the bullshit in ear inserts." There's plenty of quality ones in the skullcandy style, and idk if I just have a tight earussy but they do not fit in my holes.

You should try out these so-called ear clip headphones (aka clip on buds). I got this pair at a thrift store for ~US$3 yesterday. They latch on to your ear on the outside and do not go deep into your ears. Great for tight earussies or for earussy periods.

I love my Sennheisers they work really well and dont feel weird in my earussy

I have a pair of the HD555s I love the sound quality of, but their buds look like the type I can't stand. I want to try em out but that's too much money for something that I think probably won't work for me and nobody I know has them to try.

Have you tried any IEMs? I know they are wired but I have a pair of moondrop x crinacle dusk 2s that are amazing sound. I do want to upgrade to the new dusk model with the planar drivers but I dont have the free cash atm

Honestly this is less of an issue for me with wired, there's plenty non-skullcandy style wired ones, the problem there is the world has decided phones no longer need a 3.5mm jack (which they absolutely do still need imo.) If I could still use wired I wouldn't even be complaining!

I hate to say it but the apple type c to 3.5mm jack dongle is actually really good and all you really need. You could go for a balls to the wall dongle setup with a micro DAC that plugs into the phone bit youre starting to get into the placebo effect area of audiphile stuff

If my phone had two usb c ports, one top one bottom or even right next to each other, maybe. But excess wear and tear on the only port I can use for charging on a non-repairable device, the inability to charge and use headphones simultaneously, and an OG Xbox controller style dongle like it's 200fucking3 are unfortunately not solutions to "have correct hole please."

I don't need audiophile quality, just "good enough," combined with "doesn't hurt ears or use my charging port."

My phone, laptop, & DAP all conveniently have a headphone jack so I can enjoy better quality sound, with no lantency, no spotty connectivity, no pairing lag, no need for firmware upgrades or proprietary apps, a cheaper price, easy to find the monitors since they are tethered together, & with better sustainability without lithium ion batteries while never have to worry about charge either.

What was the upside of wireless again?

The upside is "my phone is a bitch and doesn't have a jack."

I fucking wish, but GrapheneOS was more important to me.

Edit: oh sorry just realized you're on .ml, "my phone is a doody-head and doesn't have a jack."

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I understand the complaints because I hated it when Pixel dropped the jack. But it can be a smoother process than jacks.

I get in my car and no longer fumble to pull my phone out and plug it in. Pairing is quicker than plugging in a cable.

When doing yardwork I used to have to fish my cord through my shirt or it would get caught and yanked out by a tree branch. Even then it was cumbersome because of too much slack or too little slack causing disconnects or snags.

It's not perfect. A downside that still might exist (I bypassed the problem years ago so I don't know if they ever fixed it.) was Google's auto pairing that wasn't able to be turned off. When I walked close to the house from outside, my phone would decide on its own to pair with speakers in the house. But that's a Google problem, not Bluetooth. It didn't exist with Nexus because you could manually control pairing.

EWaste is a problem.

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qi charger? bluetooth to audio dongle to convert your headphones to wireless?

These are much less efficient than a cable & put additional strain on the battery

Qi charger puts less strain on the battery because it can't charge as fast. It is less efficient though.

Using it lets you protect your USB port with a plug so it lasts forever. You no longer ever have to worry that it won't work when you need it.

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Get some foam tips. I hated in ears and now they're my favorite

For 20 bucks at Walmart you can get a nice set of over the ear hook ones with a cord in between them and they have three different tiles of ear inserts and then another thing that sort of keeps them in place but is also a replaceable movable thing I don’t know how to describe it.

They are loud enough that I keep the hearing protection set on my phone and last 12 hours per charge, which covers the drive to work, 10 hour shift, and the drive home.

I was going to use them as a stopgap to better ones, but I am very pleasantly surprised, especially since they are Walmart brand.

The tips have come off when I have them around my neck but not in my ears, but they aren’t designed for that, and it’s only happened twice working and once sleeping with them in

That's why I like my galaxy beats live buds. They don't really sit in ear- mostly they sit just outside.

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I've got another one: make Mother's and Father's Days paid work holidays!

And election day

Just use the Swedish system, allow a few week of pre and mail voting, and election day is allways on a sunday.

Every citizen is automatically reigistered for voting, and get a voting card sent home, you send that in to mail vote or to pre vote with a sealed envelope with your ballots.

This means that you can even change your vote after mail or pre voting without compromising voter secrecy

I'll take any extra holidays I can get. However, voting by mail is really the way to go. I used to be reluctant to vote, but mail ballots just make it too easy.

Mandatory housing units over every strip mall and big box store in America.

Even just a few units. Hell a few mobile homes up there even would go a long way. Forced mixed use development.

I think there should be pedestrian, bike routes separate from cars, like storefronts should face both ways, and the intersections with signals, but where practical should have bridges for the walkers, so they don't have to deal with the cars.

I also really want replicator tech, want to be able to use any input to get basically any output, at least in terms of materials. Throw in the trash, it is sorted into its component elements (safely) and then those can be combined to make clean water, salt water, building materials, whatever.

I want also a floor and walls that eat the dirt, and clothing fabric that can cool even in humidity.

Paragraph one is kind of how the Vegas strip area is set up.

Tie more positive things to the federal minimum wage, for example tax brackets and retirement fund contribution limits. They go up every single year, so the government will either have to keep raising the minimum wage or go on the record to justify why the ratio is wrong.

Also, the “raise it to $15 per hour” minimum wage debate has been going on for so long that the $15 is now outdated. If the debate started again today, the number would realistically be closer to $25-$30 per hour.

And if you just got upset because you’re making $30 per hour and don’t want to be equated with minimum wage, then maybe you need to consider how much you could be making if minimum wage were higher. Here’s a hint: You’d be making much more than $30 per hour.

How about a Maximum Wage instead of Minimum. And that is tied to some overall average like GDP or something, I dunno. And all the excess goes into infrastructure and benefits that directly help people. Free healthcare, free mass transit, food, UBI, etc.

And we create a new system that ranks people and businesses on their overall benefit to society. Then the billionaire mindset people can compete to be the best, but it actually helps us all instead of hurts us all. Like, a Karma or Upvote esque system or something. I dunno. Anything besides hoarding wealth.

put all the health sensors in wireless earpiece rather than a watch.

Eh, way more comfortable to wear a watch than an earpiece / headpiece imo

if its an either or I can see that. of course many people use an earpiece anyway when they use a phone. Its a rare site for me to see someone on the phone with it up to their ear. Heck its more often I see (and hear) the folks using speakerphone.

Craggles™

Sandles for the crag allowing belayers to quickly slip them on and off. Toe area capped with light armour and good rubber soles for scrambling. Of course they have accessory loops for quickly attaching to bags for multi-pitch, Gone are the days of sore feet from belaying in climbing shoes, toe damage from catching a whip in flip-flops, or holding up your climbing partner by trying to find your approach shoes and a spot to put them on.

Also nationwide lead removal fund.

*International

Yeah but there's no real international authority for that, and how am I supposed to get my national government to join a treaty organization for that purpose when neither it nor any lower level of my government offer anything similar?

Hey, this thread is about what should be an actual thing, not what is realistic or even feasable to do.

You mention that a nationwide fund for removal of lead in the environment should be a thing, I just countered that there should be an international fund dor the removal of lead since it is an international problem.

Both funds should be a thing.

I mean, I suppose, but at that point it really hits the level of abstract principle rather than plausible policy. Kind of up there with "no more war", "ending hunger", or "socialism replacing capitalism".

And while I do believe that a better world is possible, I really wanted to speak to things that are plausible in the existing political and economic climate in my lifetime.

That's a fair point I didn't think about when I made my comment.

Now that you mention it, switching to international scale in politics/activism sounds fantastic, but if often used as a way to divert responsibillity to a party with no authority.

So yeah, a national program is better

Every airline seat should be fixed at the reclined position

I disagree and most people who fly constantly are with me.

I fly for work upwards of 4 times a month for 4 hour flights, the best flights are where no one reclines theor chair.

If you're tall your already touching the seat in front.

Then they recline you have that on top of your knees, and a chair in your face.

Nope, the recline function make almost zero comfort change for the occupant, but for the person behind it has huge impact.

Why not make sure that both are comfortable? The issue is not the reclining seat. The issue is the space in between the seats. So, the issue is the airlines, not the passengers.

Sure, but increasing the seat size will increase ticket cost.

Well, that's a different argument. The original argument was "permanent seat reclining" and you replied:

Nope, the recline function make almost zero comfort change for the occupant, but for the person behind it has huge impact.

You didn't mention cost until now.

But if you're also reclined doesn't that offset it?

Sure, but why not recline all seats permanetly?

Because then they wouldn't be able to tell you to return your seat to the upright position for landing.

It's just recliner theater, I tell ya!

To be clear: I don't recline when there's someone behind me

However

As someone who gets lower back pains from sitting in an uncomfortable position for long, the recline function makes a huuuuuge impact. Recently rode a bus with no recline (and nobody behind me) and by the end of the 1.5 hour ride, I felt horrible.

Comfort for both the reclinee and the person behind don't have to be mutually exclusive.

You sound like middle management, you come up with a simple sounding idea with zero idea on how to do it, only this simple idea is impossible without huge, HUGE changes to airplane design and vast increases in ticket cost.

What the fuck are you on? This is not an Airbus engineering war room.

The title of the post is "What's an idea you have that should be an actual thing?" not "What's an idea you have that should be an actual thing and it must realistically be made possible"?

Lighten up.

Wow, here I am making a joke, and are just calling for me to lighten up?

Calm down.

Oh. Hehe.

Sorry.

It's hard to read people's intentions with just text sometimes.

It happens, I hoped it would be clear enough when I brought up middle management, but I guess I missread the situation.

The recline is needed for overnight flights. On short haul, it's unnecessary indeed. I think some airline have ordered seats without recline already.

Bunked sleeping buses like Vietnam should be more normalized too so you can lay down for long hauls.

Red Alert 2 remaster

I'll just wait for OpenRA to integrate TS and RA2 into their enginge.

I'm too much of a boomer sadly. I want a 1 to 1 remake

You don't want that, the controlls of the original C&C franchise was terrible.

Left click to both select and order units and right click just clear the selection?

No, terrible.

I played it today and it doesn't bother me that much. That said, right click move would be better. I want that, decouple game speed and frame rate, and decouple zoom from resolution. The rest I'm fine with

I'm sure EA will do it justice

That is a fear of mine lol. They did a good job with the first remaster but who knows if they'd keep it up

of course they'll keep it up. it'll even have extra content, like multiple currencies, battlepasses, seasons and XP boosters.

git send-xmpp & darcs send --xmpp for realtime, decentralized collaborative patches. The extensibility could fix the UX issues with patches by email & wouldn’t require accounts on someone else’s server or using the severely flawed ‘pull request’ model.

Mozilla should make a search engine.

I know they will lose all that sweet google revenue.

Governments should support them to encourage a free and open internet, if Google wins a complete monopoly we all lose.

We don't have to go far back to see an example of what a browser monopoly will look like, just look at IE6...

There's this suit of useful little programs called Microsoft PowerToys, I always thought it should include a tool that allows you to quickly swap the contents of monitors around in multi-monitor setups.

e.g. move all open windows from monitor 1 to monitor 2 and vice-versa, while retaining their (approximate) position.

This may already be a thing, I haven't really checked.

Tiling window managers like i3 may be what you're looking for

That's only useful though if someone looking for this function also happens to be looking for a tiling window manager. I assume most people needing this don't want a tiling window manager.

Kde plasma does almost everything you can imagine

I use KDE Plasma on a regular basis but I'm not aware of that being a feature. Maybe you can do it with virtual desktops, though.

I have a keyboard combination shortcut for switching windows from screen to screen in kde plasma

Airport lounges where the seats are just like on the plane, with little spots for luggage to the side. Then people just get up and board in order, putting your stuff right above or in front of you. If you're late, you board last. No more airline rat race.

Why do people care when they get on a plane?

Because checking a bag became a premium feature you have to pay for. So now they’re trying to be first/early to compete for the overhead bag space, which there’s not enough of for everyone. A lot of people have anxiety about traveling and it’s not just the fear of heights or dwelling on the dangers of flying, a lot of it is based on the loss of control of their lives for those few hours. The sooner you’re in your seat with your carryon above your head, the sooner you’re back in control and can relax a little.

The REAL real trick is this (both assume you're ok with checking your carry on):

  1. If you've got some time, check in with the front desk and ask if you can check your carry on for free. They'll usually do it, especially if the flight is full (which is very common)
  2. When you get to the gate, they almost always ask if anyone will voluntarily gate check their carry on. Just do it. Now, no more having to worry about finding an overhead bin, and also not having to pack around that carry on after you get off the plane

I do this a lot, but I am ok with losing it all. I can imagine there are people who would have a much harder time if their belongings were lost.

The true solution to all of this is massive fines for lost luggage.

The real trick is to just use whichever overhead you see open as you approach your seat. It doesn’t need to be directly above your seat. You’re going to have to pass by it again on your way out of the plane anyways, so it’s not like you’ll be delaying anything during deboarding.

Which accelerated people’s desire to get on first, they know people will take over the compartments above. This is a solution for you, but makes other’s lives more difficult.

It depends entirely on how the airline boards their plane. If they board front-to-back (like boarding first class early) then any open spots in the front are just that: Open. The people sitting there have already boarded.

You are the problem my idea would solve. Those who sit at the front cannot get to the back to use open space, and you took theirs. Stop doing this. Everyone hates you for it.

I can't imagine the annoyance and pain of being in a front seat, but my carryon is at the back of the plane. That is going to make deboarding super fun for all of us.

All gamepads that have it having a BAXY control scheme. That's B right, A down, X left, Y up for the buttons on the right side of the gamepad. I can't tell you how many times I have pressed the wrong buttons when playing certain games all because the 3rd party switch controller I have uses ABYX or because I don't remember where the symbols are on a PlayStation controller. Dreamcast and original Xbox had their shit together with how they used BAXY for their controllers and to this day I may shit on Microsoft, but not on the BAXY control scheme on their gamepads.

What makes BAXY the right way?

Purely preference. That, and I've spent about a million times more time on an xbox360 than just about any other console in existence, so it's what I personally consider the best way. If you or someone you know uses any other way, that's your deal, but I just can't retrain myself to like any other format.

The Super Nintendo Standard

It's not, though. The person I replied to is saying that the lowest button of the cluster should be A, whereas the SNES standard puts B in that spot.

I'd like citizenship swapping services. Some people just don't wanna stay stuck to their country of birth, especially if renouncing that citizenship is literally impossible (I'm Moroccan, and according to Moroccan law I'll stay that way to my own detriment, even if I get another citizenship which thankfully is possible).

I bring this up regularly. Trading a doctor for a doctor seems like a fair enough trade & many folks want mobility. The irony of “if you don’t like it here, then leave” being met with your & other nations making it exceedingly difficult to do that. I know several folks would love to have my US passport but where I am at, I would get a lot more value & ease in having a local passport form entry to nearby countries, to visa woes + residency, to opening accounts (dealing with the IRS+SEC means many, many places refuse service), dual pricing, & actually getting some semblence of integration.

Global peace and security.

I've rented an airbnb for a few hours when i had a long layover. Some hotels have day rates. There's an app - hotels by day or something like that.

I was going to say that yeah, you can actually get even motels and some hotels at hourly rates, usually in high crime areas with rampant prostitution.

A cool idea I've had for a long time (or rather a dream) was a truly private and good suit auf office programs like Microsoft 356 but with privacy and the customor in mind. No anti-consumer things generally.

This exists. https://www.libreoffice.org/ Great stuff 👍

Libreoffice has some great tools but when you use Excel and Word for 8 hours a day and then switch to calc or writer it can be really frustrating. LibreOffice also lacks collaboration, as mentioned by Tehdastehdas

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An app that removes businesses that you follow on social media that have closed automatically so you don't get anxious.

Someone else actually not only had but went and made my one big idea - https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/30/22460964/vilnius-lithuania-portal-poland-connection-pandemic. The jury’s still out on whether it was a good idea.

There's been one in Ireland I think, that was closed down because a porn actress went there

The Dublin-NYC one's reopened now with automated blurring out of a bunch of stuff.

I heard that they (used to?) have public TV channels in Tokyo that show CCTV views from around the city, so of course you could tune at any time of night to see a salaryman (on the phone to his “Man-in-the-chair”) carefully manoeuvre himself into view and start whacking off.

There should be a Bluetooth headpiece (over ear preferably) that has normal functions, but ALSO will replicate the "Note to self" feature, where you tap the main button, and say "note to self" then say what you want the note to be, and have it sent to your email. That alone would be a "killer product" for me. I miss this so much.

I'd like to see a reminder app that figures out how to space out your reminders, and if you nooze a reminder then it gets slotted at some random future date.

I find I end up making reminders for shows I want to watch, books I want to read, etc. These don't have any specific day associated with them, but I do want o get to them at some point. So getting a reminder once a week or so to check out one of the items on a list would be really nice.

Maybe you can use a calender app and set a weekly reminder that goes forever. If you want to add or remove items from it, all future reminders can be edited as well

That exist already in outlook or proton calendar, probably others too. you set the repeat interval and the end date, which can be set to never.

I do that now, but it's a bit clunky I find. Basically, I don't really want a calendar, so much as just getting a reminder sometime in the future, and if I have time and I'm in a mood I'll look at it, and if not then I snooze and it'll pop up later sometime.

Headphones with an internal MicroSD slot or at least lots of internal storage to locally play back music.

Government workers should have wages and benefits that go up when the economy goes up.

Hotels not using carpet in their rooms.

This is a noise reduction thing. It’s the same reason apartments only do hardwood on the ground floor. Your downstairs neighbors don’t want to listen to you moving around, and carpet is a great insulator and cushion.

Maybe. Though, there are a lot of solutions to dampen noise while using hard flooring.

(I also know plenty of apartments/condos in my area that use both or just hard flooring in my area)

Free gender neutral public toilets, everywhere.

Everywhere? Where will we put all the existing things? You can't turn the whole world in to just toilets, that's taking the piss!

I've got a few:

  • In addition to fluoride, water supplies should be dosed with small amounts of lithium. Maybe LSD, too.
  • Incel bounties: Anyone who has trouble getting laid can check into a facility where they are assigned a bounty equal to a set rate times the days they've spent in the facility. They can leave any time, but the clock restarts if they come back. Volunteers may show up and offer to have sex with a participant. If the participant agrees and the deed is done, the bounty gets split between the volunteer and the participant.
  • Hard rationing of greenhouse gas emissions: every year everyone gets issued an equal amount of GHG vouchers that, in total, represent a safe amount of GHGs that can be emitted that year. Fossil fuel companies then need to buy these vouchers on the market and turn them into the government in order to get permission to extract the representative amount of fossil fuels. Doing so without permission would carry a severe penalty. This concept could be applied to water supplies, fisheries, and other resources as well.
  • Imputed rent as taxable income instead of flat property or wealth taxes.
  • No fares for urban public transit. Instead, a special property tax should be applied to real estate inversely proportional to its walking distance from transit stops.
  • Reintroduce wolves to suburban areas to keep the deer under control.
  • Electric airships instead of fossil fuel powered passenger jets.
  • Nuclear power plants within or adjacent to urban centers, especially in colder climate regions.
  • Gray water recovery built into homes and municipal water systems.
  • Urine collection programs for phosphate recovery.

Hard rationing of greenhouse gas emissions

You're more or less describing cap-and-trade, where corporations have a limit of carbon emissions as 'credits' which can be traded on a market. So a company that doesn't produce as much emissions can sell their surplus credits to another company, so the market as a whole doesn't exceed a set amount of CO2 emissions. As it stands, in this or other carbon tax based systems, people pay for emissions in the form of sales tax on CO2 producing products.

wolves

I'd imagine they'd just leave again eventually. If suburbia was an advantageous place for them, they'd already be there.

Nuclear power plants within or adjacent to urban centers, especially in colder climate regions.

Nuclear plants are somewhat geographically restricted to needing to be close to a suitable water source, there's plenty that are next to or inside metropolitan areas. That being said, high voltage transmission means that a plant can still be a few tens of kms outside of a city before transmission losses start to add up. Also, small-scare reactors have been under development for use in remote communities.

Gray water recovery built into homes and municipal water systems.

Any sort of dirty water recovery is more efficient at the municipal scale, and plenty of towns are already doing that.

Urine collection programs for phosphate recovery.

Seems that's not a super easy thing to do (read expensive), but there's research being done... also apparently, a good portion of it in wastewater is from laundry soap... but as in the above, more efficient to just collect all wastewater and process it on a large scale.

You’re more or less describing cap-and-trade…

I don't think I am. Under cap-and-trade, it's still possible for more than a safe amount of fossil fuels to be extracted from the ground within a given time period and subsequently burned. There's some similarity in the market mechanism, but in my scheme it's connected to actual fossil fuel extraction, not hypothetical emissions quantities.

If suburbia was an advantageous place for them, they’d already be there. …

I don't think the wolves are instinctively avoiding human populations. Wolves were deliberately exterminated from these places, so deliberate efforts are required to bring them back.

… high voltage transmission means that a plant can still be a few tens of kms outside of a city before transmission losses start to add up.

Transmission losses aren't the issue. If the plants are close to where people live and work then you can take advantage of cogeneration to provide district heating and utility steam. Also, urban nuclear plants can strengthen the relationship with agricultural regions by generating hydrogen/ammonia for GHG free fertilizer.

Any sort of dirty water recovery is more efficient at the municipal scale…

I agree, but homes should already have the plumbing to automatically collect bathing and laundry water for flushing toilets. The excess can get sent to the municipal water treatment plant and set aside for industrial uses.

Seems that’s not a super easy thing to do (read expensive)…

It gets more inefficient if the pee is mixed with the rest of the wastewater, so the idea is to adapt our bathrooms to help keep it separate. Perhaps converting to composting toilets, which collect urine separately, is the way go to here to help with gray water management as well. Anyway, if recovering phosphate from urine seems expensive, that's just relative to mining it from problematic places.

Something I have discussed before aside, a communication reform would be nice. The world of language is way too chaotic, with too many people who think their way of communicating should be universal and not enough people with that opinion questioning how they can change theirs in the name of efficiency/sufficiency.

Esperanto?

I wish. My failed attempts at mastery made me learn how messy it is.

Toki Pona/Kokanu come to mind. Something minimalist would be key.

After an impromptu upscale bar/lounge crawl with the wifey the other day.....

A shoe that can easily go back and forth from high heel/wedge to comfortable flats w/o much, if any, tooling or carrying around extra parts. She also brought a clutch purse

Wifey was dead the next day from foot pain of walking between places.

Tbh all you'd really need to do is make the heel's stick a lug and the shoe's heel a spot to catch it. Line the lugs up with the hole and twist it to lock it in, twist again to unlock it and pull it out. Or could just use screws, maybe a long one through the bottom (and inset a little to avoid clicky clacky screws) that doesn't fit all the way to the human heel but catches the shoe.