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"I'm strictly an ivory-tower person. I can explain things but I can't do things."
- Isaac Asimov

Mattress Sleep Sensor  
  Sleep problems? Make sure you get your body out of bed each day.  

Do you keep hitting the snooze alarm? Here's a fool-proof way to make sure you get out of the sack. Even if you have found the perfect bed.

Ten minutes earlier he had been snoring in his apartment at the Cowles Modular Community, with the alarm buzzing in his ears. The third time it went off, it would refuse to shut up until his 190 pounds were lifted from the sensor in the mattress.
Technovelgy from Dream Park, by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes).
Published by Ace Books in 1981
Additional resources -

Like many of Niven's fictional ideas, this one seems doable. A mechanical linkage like this has a variety of benefits. You can't throw it across the room, or cause it to snooze; you can only obey it.

It also has other applications in hospitals; I recently heard a news item about a hospital bed that could sense if a patient had gotten out of bed (an alarm would sound for the nurse). It could also be used to get data on sleep disorders (frequent rising in the night).

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Dream Park
  More Ideas and Technology by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes)
  Tech news articles related to Dream Park
  Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes)

Mattress Sleep Sensor-related news articles:
  - Mattress Alarm Perfect For Sleepy Students

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