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All Planned Projects
(a very much
work-in-progress page)
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Grid Keyboard |
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A keyboard with keys laid out in a grid, specifically
trying to surpass QWERTY keyboards. |
At the moment, only a tiny
percentage of the world population knows how to type,
and I think we desperately need to introduce a new,
better keyboard layout, while
QWERTY is still small.
Unfortunately,
QWERTY is a nightmare concocted in hell; just about the
worst design that you could even imagine
befalling us. It's believed that the keys were
intentionally scrambled, so that typewriters would jam
less (they didn't want commonly used keys too close to
each other), and typewriters required a diagonal layout,
so that the keys wouldn't crash into each other when
moving down.
Within 15 years, the entire planet
will be addicted to QWERTY (and qwerty-based keyboards
in other languages), and all the lost progress from the
world typing on that will be immense. So, I think a new
layout is badly needed.
(I'm almost done with a
prototype design.
See here. We've
also got the
Dvorak layout, released in
1936, but it's still diagonal-based, and its key
arrangement was calculated from
letter-frequencies in older English.)
Here's a small study done on a grid keyboard called
the
TypeMatrix 2030. |
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Home Design
Psychology |
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Develop theories for home design that boosts the
psychologies of the people living in them. |
We need to develop ideas of how
better home/building layouts might improve
life for the people inside.
Examples:
- Should home kitchens be designed so that
the cook can ALWAYS see rest of the family, without
having to turn around? (so, should stoves face outward,
rather than into a wall, so that eye-contact can be
maintained at all times?)
- Should bedrooms be
side-by-side, or spaced apart? (such as putting
bathrooms/closets between them, or just putting bedrooms
in different parts of the house?) What is the most
common psychological effect of being able to hear
family-members clunking around in the next room? Does it
make more people feel crowded or comforted?
(surely it's a mix, but we need to see which factor
weighs most, on average)
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What are some ingenious ways to lay out tiny houses, for
all the people around the world who are forced to live
in them?
(example here)
- Is it better to have 2 separate
living rooms, or remove the dividing walls, and have one
giant one? What setups would benefit from one method over
the other?
- Does having vast windows usually lean
toward enhancing the view, or spoiling it? Is it better
when a view is ever-present, or something you have to
reach for?
Since expensive ideas, like each
bedroom having a swimming pool, can't realistically be
implemented in 99% of all situations, the majority of
the thinking here should cover cheap, realistic designs... cheap enough that a purely
money-driven house developer, with no interest in the
well-being of people whatsoever, would have no excuse to not utilize at
least some of these
ideas.
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The Survey (working
title) |
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Something written here... |
Something written here...
maybe
show
this infographic to show exactly what kind of info
the survey would reveal.
massive survey asking
people a load of important questions, so we can build an
index of how one answer affects another. would show what
exact forces are causing what in peoples lives, and in
the world, etc... coupled with an app that lets you
easily see how everything connects, and research how X
affects Y. (unbelievably powerful if done right - i
think it could be the biggest surge of insight that
psychology ever gets, and could mcdonaldize psychology
for the mainstream, so people finally start
understanding not only how THEY think, but what all of
their actions and behaviors MEAN, and what they cause,
etc...) |
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cheap software theory |
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originally, wanted to make an app store
I've long wanted to launch an app store
(first on windows), centered on low-price apps (like
under $2).
something about my belief
that all computer software is fundamentally overpriced.
(like any utils that you can get off the net, usually
for between $20-40) idea is: everyone in the industry will make more money if
it's an impulse buy (example: if you turn Photoshop into a
$5 impulse buy who knows what volume but this has
to be
(people pickup $10 DVD's as an impulse
buy... if software were an impulse buy, i think mass
volumes of it would be sold, and everyone selling it
would make a lot more money. nobody wants to pay $27 for
a video converting program that they'll use once, and
then lose when they get a new computer.) software being
cheap would also help the computer industry to expand,
and gets zillions more people "into it", instead of
using their computers as mere net-stations. (apps should
be like a candy store, not a "buy some stupid utility
for $50" careful investment store) |
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'Green Cities' pitch |
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Contact every city council |
Put together a bullet-proof pitch for greening up cities
(with attractive graphs, and videos
like this one), and email it to every government
representative physically reachable, in the world.
(for anyone reading this, you
could even start by emailing the above link to your
nearby city councils/mayors. They probably all have
websites with easy contact forms.)
Eventually spread the message to company leaders, and
regular people, when it's more clear (to me) what,
exactly, can be pitched that they can make use of
instantly.
According to my understanding of psychology, there's a
huge difference between having heard about a bad reality
out there, knowing you should PROBABLY do something, and
having the actual motivation to get off your rear.
Having a vague understand that something needs to be
done isn't enough to create a drive. The right
information/motivation needs to be injected hard, in
order for one's beliefs to actually materialize into
action. |
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