Ideas!
My Climate Clock Idea
For about a year now I’ve had this idea to create a single page website featuring a large clock, counting down the time we have left until some sort of catastrophic global event caused by climate change.
Basically a combination of the national debt clock, the doomsday clock and a death clock.
The goal would be show the effects of climate change in very real terms, helping build awareness of the effects climate change and hopefully urge people to take action. Since most people would prefer not to know their date of death, I figure even a rough estimation would be a powerful motivator.
The city of San Jose is planning to build a physical clock, but one problem, it would be in downtown San Jose. Not exactly the hub of cultural activity. I figure, why not have it be online for all in the world to see? After all, climate change is a burden we all have to bare.
Having put a lot of thought into the idea and having done a fair amount of research, I’ve found a number of problems in coming up with a formula. What is so disturbing to me is that the problems I’ve found are the same problems that any initiative to help increase awareness in climate change would likely face.
I don’t know how the world can come together to solve the climate change problem without better information and tools to understanding the problem and the potential effects. So today being Earth Day I figured why not share some of the problems I’ve come across in trying to build a Climate Clock.
Six Sites: Is there a need for New Newsreader?
I’ve been thinking a lot about RSS Readers lately. I’ve always been partial to desktop newsreaders like Newsfire, but the allure of the multi-context flexibility of online readers like Google Reader has found me thinking about switching camps.
But one issue seems to be holding me back: All the online newsreaders are so UGLY!
Help me decide if I should tackle creating a New Newsreader.
Two more ideas today...
Argh! I just had two more great ideas this morning. Both would only take a couple weeks each to do, but the revenue potential on either wouldn’t be as high initially as the original six ideas.
Since both of these ideas would make for perfect open source projects, I wish I could just spend a few days on designs and jot down notes on the features and publish them. Maybe try to attract a handful of people looking to collaborate.
The problem is that I think taking a project public too early, with not a lot of meat on the bones yet is a bad idea. It can come off too much like vapor. I obviously believe there is value in talking about the process early on, but when is the right time to say what you intend to do?
That is a question I’m going to be asking myself a lot over the next few weeks.
If I were the United States Postal Service I would create a premium product/service to hold all paper mail, scan it and email it to households that choose to have the service. Sending all the digitized paper to recycling centers.
If USPS offered such a service, I would certainly pay a decent monthly service charge for the added conveinence, as I think many others like me would as well. It amazes me how much waste is sent to my mailbox everyday and there is no one I can tell to take me off their list.
Paper mail these days just seems like such a waste of time and resources.
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