Misc Ideas

There are a couple simple ways to significantly decrease the chance of a tsunami causing a serious problem at a nuclear power plant located near a coastline. The simplest method is to ensure that the site is situated at least X distance above sea level. Where X might need to be 10m or 20m, for example, or even higher. (The exact number is not important yet, and should probably be derived from professional estimates and documented evidence of actual peak tsunami sea rise hights.) Whether built on top of a naturally elevated area of land, like a hill or mountain, or, on an artificially-raised up platform, that's not as important as simply ensuring that in the event of a large water mass suddenly approaching the facility that, due to gravity, the water will go everywhere but the facility itself. It always prefers to seek out and fill in lower elevations and depressions before higher ones.

If for some reason this is not possible, a fallback solution is to construct a sufficiently tall and strong wall mass around the facility. This is more complex because such a "fortress" design would also require a way for humans, vehicles, pipes and wiring to get in and out of the wall system -- and those points would be potential chinks in the armor -- but is still possible. An ideal system might have both kinds of protection. To offer rough & common-sense proof that such a solution would work, just take a look at any video of say the 2011 Japan quake/tsunami disaster. Although plenty of places were flooded and buildings washed away, there were some structures left standing, and people and buildings on higher ground were untouched. It might not even strictly be necessary to have a nuclear power plant be located along a coast. But if it is we should put them on high ground. This is doubly important if you're talking about a region that is well-known to be prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

On a closing note, I'd like to suggest that -- as at least a thumbnail solution -- the recommendations above should have been a no-brainer to any supposed expert doing design or planning for this industry. I've had a few days to devise these ideas, yet the essence of it came to me in minutes, even mere seconds. The experts have had 50+ years. What's up with that? Is it a case of individuals-can-be-smart but groups-or-governments-are-dumb? Dunno. But this is one of those areas of human endeavor, where so much is at stake collectively, in terms of downside impact to human health and global economic impact, that I think we should be at least as smart as the smartest among us. This is the philosophy and resourcing behind how spaceships and computer chips get made. Surely nuclear power plant construction and regulation should be in the same league with those fields. And ideally our expectations should be even higher.

Non-Camouflaged Table Tops in Restaurants
Some restaurants, particularly fast food or chain restaurants, have table top designs which have a sort of camouflage pattern. Meaning, the surface is an irregular or multi-colored pattern that makes it hard to see whether the table top surface is truly clean or not, or to what degree of clean. This might be a goal and considered a 'feature' by some restaurant maangement, I dunno, but regardless it is not nice for patrons. Some patrons are concerned about minimizing the health risk from eating at a public restaurant, and by providing them with a clean (or more apparently or superficially clean) table top you're going to make them happier and get more of their business. Some folks don't even care about the health aspect of it as much as they care about not getting stains or mysterious spooge on their clothing, such as their shirt sleeves or elbows. Some folks want to place objects on the table top like a book or notepad or expensive mobile device or laptop copmuter. It also saves some patrons time and energy because it saves them from having to wipe the table top down as a precautionary measure, in the case of a camouflaged surface pattern. Some patron's time is worth a lot of money to them, and for many folks, time is critical too, so the less time and money and energy wasted by patrons means you're going to get more and happier and higher-paying patrons: all of which are good for the restaurant's bottom line.

Magazines with Clear Expiration Dates
Magazine communications to subscribers should make it clear exactly when their current subscription will expire and what the last issue will be if no renewal occurs. Right now, there seems to be a standard in the industry where they try to make it a mystery or at least intentionally obfuscated. Stop doing that. Bad user experience. Don't try to trick the very people you want to like you the most: your existing paying subscribers.

Job/Contract Postings Should Make Location Requirements and Remote Work Possibility Very Clear
I've lost track of the number of job postings or contract leads where it was not clear whether the client/employer had a requirement that you be FT at some particular location (in a seat in an office in Kansas City, for example), or whether it was intended for remote/offsite work, or whether they are at least open to it. As an independent contractor it's my number one early time waster when considering employment/contract opportunities. As a general rule, in the software industry, your number one bottleneck is finding, getting and keeping software developers who are both capable, available, interested and affordable. If you also add "local or willing to become so" then you drastically shrink both the number of potential candidates, and their average quality level. Loosen your requirements, and you are throwing a wider net, and will be more likely to find someone you like, and more likely to find someone of greater skill and experience.

Restaurants: Way to Remotely Learn Current Traffic, Children & Sound Levels
It would be great if there was a way for someone who is considering going to a restaurant, but has not settled on a definite choice yet, to learn remotely how many people and children/babies are at any particular place currently, as well as some gauge of the current sound/noise volume level. Often if I have the choice between two or more places to eat where I'd otherwise enjoy the food, the price, the travel time is acceptable, etc. I'd prefer to go to the place where I can be served faster, there will be less jostling with other patrons, and it will be quieter -- or at least, not horribly loud or with screeching/crying/screaming going on. Sometimes you just want to eat quickly in peace, perhaps while reading something and writing something, or, you'd like to meet another adult to have a business conversation, or talk on the phone. I'm not sure exactly how to implement a good solution for this, especially universally and reliably. I imagine it might involve cameras, floor vibration sensors, microphones and sound volume measurement software, and/or door opening detection/counting systems. I'll sketch out some system ideas and maybe post some specific solution proposals in the future. I think it's a solvable problem from a technical standpoint, just need to make the economics work, and deal with psychological and legal issues.

Restaurants: Hours When No Children Allowed
It would be great if more restaurants, especially ones ostensibly trying to provide a nice experience for patrons beyond merely serving food, would have certain days of the week or time periods during which no children were allowed. The goal is to improve the dining experience by drastically minimizing the chance of disruptive, annoying or stressful beahvior such as crying, screaming, shrieking, loud nonsense talking, seat wiggling, over-the-partition-staring, etc. often carried out by kids or babies. The proposal is not to completely ban children always or to entirely eliminate these incidents, merely to increase opportunities where adults wanting to having a nice, peaceful, relaxing dining experience can do so, without being forced to stay at home to eat. The current standard simply isn't working. We can't rely on assuming that parents will make smart choices, and be respectful of other patrons, or to manage their children or take them out of the restaurant if they don't behave. In theory, they should be doing this. In practice, it just isn't happening, at least not 100%. Counter-argument: in theory, banning children during any period won't guarantee a peaceful experience because adults may misbehave too. True, in theory. But in practice, any one who has been an adult long enough (at least in the US) and gone to restaurants long enough, can tell you that 99% of the time this is caused by minors, especially ages say 12 or under, and most especially probably ages 8 or under. And when kids do misbehave, an offhand crude estimate is that parents successfully manage or stop this behavior in less than 20% of real world cases (non-scientific figure, based on personal experience over a long period of time.)

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