What do you do when you've finished your coffee in your personal cup which remains at your desk with a residue of drying coffee in the bottom? If you have a kitchenette in the break room there might be soap and a sponge for washing. If not, do you rinse it in the bathroom sink? Do you pour water into it, slosh it around and then dump it in a plant? Do you take it home and wash it? Or do you, eh, just pour some more java in the next morning crossing your fingers that nothing anthraxy got in there overnight?
I propose a handy packet of coffee mug wipes. They clean and disinfect as well as with dish soap and water and don't leave any residual nasty taste.
# 6754 Creative education
I know. Creative teaching environment, blahdy blah, frrrt. The fact is while education has become more creative, it still is lacking. And even if the teaching has achieved something on the creative scale, testing is still very much not.
A few truisms that made me stumble on this.
- One of the reasons I tank on tests is because there's something inside of me that always wants to find a clever, innovative something. I never get rewarded for clever new ideas on tests and I sometimes get penalized. The rigid test structure is set out beforehand (that's the point) and thinking outside the box isn't encouraged.
- This even happens in creative subjects. I made a film shot in reverse (people walking backwards, etc.) that my teacher barely acknowledged. True, it wasn't a very good film, but I think he was instantly turned off by my 'gimmick'. (Which of course has been done before, if it was 'creative' from his well-informed perspective he would have been all over it. Why should a person need to be fully aware of the field before creativity is rewarded? Especially in a learning setting. Re-inventing wheels is actually a fantastic way to learn how wheels work.)
- Course structures are linear. (At least all the one's I'm aware of.)
- Sports seem to be quasi-linear. There's a regular season of so many games and then some sort of bracketed championship where you don't know the path your team will take. Even in the scheduled games, you don't know what path the game will take and creative approaches are rewarded if they are effective. (Uncreative approaches are rewarded as well, so there's something to be said for that.)
- In society we have a hard time judging creativity. The method of using a measuring stick to size up something doesn't work when the something keeps changing the nature of the measuring stick. I've noticed so many 'best actor awards' have gone to actors in bio-pics where they act like people who really existed. It's almost like the judges can finally say "now that's great acting. He totally nailed the JFK impersonation."
So could you design a course that has the linear textbook replaced with a computer program with a tree-like structure. The class is presented with a problem and they have to come up with a solution. Their way is paved with aided discovery (the teacher is the aid) of the principles/theorems/facts/logic/etc that have already been established from past academia. At the end of one branch of the tree, the program would evaluate if there are any substantial portions of the tree not covered, and would present a new problem that would take students across that ground. This sounds a bit like a computer game and I think that's a good thing.
How do you test creatively? I dunno. Perhaps it isn't possible. So maybe the test would be a similar problem to what students encountered in the course to see if they could do it again on their own.
Some of you are probably saying "yeah, this has already been done before. Do your homework." Well that's my point. So what if I'm reinventing the creative education wheel. And I do actually need to get on that homework.
A few truisms that made me stumble on this.
- One of the reasons I tank on tests is because there's something inside of me that always wants to find a clever, innovative something. I never get rewarded for clever new ideas on tests and I sometimes get penalized. The rigid test structure is set out beforehand (that's the point) and thinking outside the box isn't encouraged.
- This even happens in creative subjects. I made a film shot in reverse (people walking backwards, etc.) that my teacher barely acknowledged. True, it wasn't a very good film, but I think he was instantly turned off by my 'gimmick'. (Which of course has been done before, if it was 'creative' from his well-informed perspective he would have been all over it. Why should a person need to be fully aware of the field before creativity is rewarded? Especially in a learning setting. Re-inventing wheels is actually a fantastic way to learn how wheels work.)
- Course structures are linear. (At least all the one's I'm aware of.)
- Sports seem to be quasi-linear. There's a regular season of so many games and then some sort of bracketed championship where you don't know the path your team will take. Even in the scheduled games, you don't know what path the game will take and creative approaches are rewarded if they are effective. (Uncreative approaches are rewarded as well, so there's something to be said for that.)
- In society we have a hard time judging creativity. The method of using a measuring stick to size up something doesn't work when the something keeps changing the nature of the measuring stick. I've noticed so many 'best actor awards' have gone to actors in bio-pics where they act like people who really existed. It's almost like the judges can finally say "now that's great acting. He totally nailed the JFK impersonation."
So could you design a course that has the linear textbook replaced with a computer program with a tree-like structure. The class is presented with a problem and they have to come up with a solution. Their way is paved with aided discovery (the teacher is the aid) of the principles/theorems/facts/logic/etc that have already been established from past academia. At the end of one branch of the tree, the program would evaluate if there are any substantial portions of the tree not covered, and would present a new problem that would take students across that ground. This sounds a bit like a computer game and I think that's a good thing.
How do you test creatively? I dunno. Perhaps it isn't possible. So maybe the test would be a similar problem to what students encountered in the course to see if they could do it again on their own.
Some of you are probably saying "yeah, this has already been done before. Do your homework." Well that's my point. So what if I'm reinventing the creative education wheel. And I do actually need to get on that homework.
# 7984 Cumulative tweet debate
Okay I'm imagining a public debate platform based on twitter. You set up a time, a topic and a hashtag. Then people can log in with their twitter accounts and say something about the topic. When a thing is tweeted it shows up as a bubble floating at random around the screen. When you hover on the bubble it stops so you can read it. Then you have the option to retweet it . If you retweet it it the bubble get's bigger for you and everyone else viewing. You can tweet a new point, or you can just read and retweet what you agree with. The effect of this is a mass public discourse where thousands of people are 'heard' at the same time in real time.
# 9192 mHealth data entry
mHealth stands for mobile health and basically means using mobile phone technology to improve health systems. While visiting the MDR-TB clinic yesterday I looked into how they keep their records and how they report them. Basically each patient has a paper file, some data of which is transcribed into a register book, which is then typed into a computer. So basically data is entered 3 times at least. Health workers sometimes don't consider it a priority (surprise!) to enter their numbers in the computer and sometimes let things get backed up. In discussion with the people there, it again seemed clear to me that data should be entered once, electronically. (You may be tempted to think that triple entry improves accuracy, but actually it only reflects the accuracy of the transcribing since data is only taken from the source once.)
But there's another problem. Computers aren't so abundant. And even if they were, internet connections and power connections aren't so abundant. And even if they were, computers would stop being so abundant as machines would get nicked, as they say "they tend to walk away".
To meet these problems and the need for treatment centers to have reliable back-ups of records on hand, I propose a funky typewriter-smart phone hybrid. The two would be integrated enough that the machine would be essentially useless outside of the clinic, thus making it far less tempting to steal. When it comes time to update a record for treatment, the clinic worker looks up the record, adds the information to the record using the specific smart phone app (ie the typewriter can't be used for normal printing) and when the data are submitted, a line is instantly printed on a sheet in the typewriter part. The worker could also do the same on her own smart phone, which will also send a message to the typewriter part to print. At the end of the day, the sheet is taken from the machine and placed in the treatment book. Of course the printing could be super-basic (dot matrix?), only black and white, and perhaps use special paper like the ink-included kind that receipts are printed on.
In short, the data are entered once. The clinic has the power of computing technology to assist with patients and that technology is specialized for the clinic so it doesn't leave the clinic.
But there's another problem. Computers aren't so abundant. And even if they were, internet connections and power connections aren't so abundant. And even if they were, computers would stop being so abundant as machines would get nicked, as they say "they tend to walk away".
To meet these problems and the need for treatment centers to have reliable back-ups of records on hand, I propose a funky typewriter-smart phone hybrid. The two would be integrated enough that the machine would be essentially useless outside of the clinic, thus making it far less tempting to steal. When it comes time to update a record for treatment, the clinic worker looks up the record, adds the information to the record using the specific smart phone app (ie the typewriter can't be used for normal printing) and when the data are submitted, a line is instantly printed on a sheet in the typewriter part. The worker could also do the same on her own smart phone, which will also send a message to the typewriter part to print. At the end of the day, the sheet is taken from the machine and placed in the treatment book. Of course the printing could be super-basic (dot matrix?), only black and white, and perhaps use special paper like the ink-included kind that receipts are printed on.
In short, the data are entered once. The clinic has the power of computing technology to assist with patients and that technology is specialized for the clinic so it doesn't leave the clinic.
# 8765 MDR-TB telenovela
This may not be a good idea, but it is an idea and I had it, so here goes.
I visited a treatment center for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis yesterday. The treatment is huge. It lasts two years and requires patients to come in every day and take gut-wrenching drugs. It's often very tough for patients to continue treatment (in fact that's why most have drug resistant TB because they didn't adhere to their original treatment.) While I was there, patients were hanging around for awhile. I asked why and was told that they each have their own style of taking the drugs to make it easiest on the stomach.
So here's my idea. Create an intense telenovela series of 700 twenty-minute episodes. Play one episode a day over and over again for the patients who come in. Each episode will end with such a cliff-hanger that everyone will have to come back for the next installment. Thus adding another motivation to get to the clinic to get your daily treatment.
I visited a treatment center for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis yesterday. The treatment is huge. It lasts two years and requires patients to come in every day and take gut-wrenching drugs. It's often very tough for patients to continue treatment (in fact that's why most have drug resistant TB because they didn't adhere to their original treatment.) While I was there, patients were hanging around for awhile. I asked why and was told that they each have their own style of taking the drugs to make it easiest on the stomach.
So here's my idea. Create an intense telenovela series of 700 twenty-minute episodes. Play one episode a day over and over again for the patients who come in. Each episode will end with such a cliff-hanger that everyone will have to come back for the next installment. Thus adding another motivation to get to the clinic to get your daily treatment.
# 6023 Perpetual motion fountain
This would be way fun to build. The basic idea is a decorative water fountain that has the illusion of perpetual motion. A simple version could be a belt with buckets that brings water up to the top of a cascading waterfall sort of thing which at the end propels a wheel that turns the belt with buckets. Hidden in the water track somewhere would be a pump that would add water to the cascade and make the whole thing possible. But it would seem like it was just going by itself. Of course you could make super elaborate versions, junkart versions, elegant elitist versions. The possibilities are *wink* endless!
#4554 Entrepinc
We hire you.
You pick a business plan to develop
You make it happen
You benefit from growth as well as us
You have options later of buying us out or something else.
Kind of a business incubator idea, but we pay you.
You get job security and get to be your own boss.
We own partial rights to your start-up with the ability to negotiate purchase down the road.
We put up capital and know-how of senior entrepreneurs on your team.
After one of your ideas takes off, you become the senior entrepreneur to help someone else succeed.
This idea keeps coming back to me. The ultimate goal would be to hire and make financially comfortable as many people as possible.
You pick a business plan to develop
You make it happen
You benefit from growth as well as us
You have options later of buying us out or something else.
Kind of a business incubator idea, but we pay you.
You get job security and get to be your own boss.
We own partial rights to your start-up with the ability to negotiate purchase down the road.
We put up capital and know-how of senior entrepreneurs on your team.
After one of your ideas takes off, you become the senior entrepreneur to help someone else succeed.
This idea keeps coming back to me. The ultimate goal would be to hire and make financially comfortable as many people as possible.
# 1928 Twenny watch
"Oooh, what cute watches your kids have!"
"Thanks, they're Twennies."
"What are Twennies?"
"Funny you should ask. The Twenny watch is the latest, greatest, kid communicating and tracking device! I simply put the watches on my kids in the morning with a key we keep at home. They don't come off without the key. If they ever need to talk to me, they just push the button on the top. I can them communicate with them from my smart phone. If I ever need to talk to them, I call them in a similar way. They don't even need to answer, it automatically connects so they can hear my voice and I can hear what's around them. And with my smart phone I can see precisely where they are to within 5 meters! I can even set an alarm to tell me if my kids are more than a few meters away from me. I don't have to ask 'what's your Twenny?' I always know! The watches are waterproof and virtually indestructible. Should some low-life ever try to actually kidnap my child. I will continue to know where she is. Even when it runs out of battery for communicating, Twenny goes into reserve mode, sending out signals once a minute for an entire month."
"Wow, so it's practical for daily use and also a great protection in case of emergency or tragedy."
"Did I mention it also tells time?"
"Wow, it really does everything!"
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
"Thanks, they're Twennies."
"What are Twennies?"
"Funny you should ask. The Twenny watch is the latest, greatest, kid communicating and tracking device! I simply put the watches on my kids in the morning with a key we keep at home. They don't come off without the key. If they ever need to talk to me, they just push the button on the top. I can them communicate with them from my smart phone. If I ever need to talk to them, I call them in a similar way. They don't even need to answer, it automatically connects so they can hear my voice and I can hear what's around them. And with my smart phone I can see precisely where they are to within 5 meters! I can even set an alarm to tell me if my kids are more than a few meters away from me. I don't have to ask 'what's your Twenny?' I always know! The watches are waterproof and virtually indestructible. Should some low-life ever try to actually kidnap my child. I will continue to know where she is. Even when it runs out of battery for communicating, Twenny goes into reserve mode, sending out signals once a minute for an entire month."
"Wow, so it's practical for daily use and also a great protection in case of emergency or tragedy."
"Did I mention it also tells time?"
"Wow, it really does everything!"
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
# 6482 Aid by award
I have no idea if this would work, but let's imagine you get some wealthy-enough family from a developed country to buy into this and donate 1000 dollars.
- You find a poor community. (The poorest. The kind that even microcredit can't really help.)
- Register everyone who's interested and charge an extremely low in fee (like a nickel). Just to get some initial commitment.
- Find leaders or have community select a panel.
- Have leaders select a timeline and a few competitions that would reward model citizens of that community (like: most neighborly, hardest worker, most athletic, most improved house or whatever the community values that is acceptable to the organizers and donors.)
- Also let the donors pick 1 or 2 categories based on a range of acceptable ones from the organizers.
- Also have at least one "people's choice" award.
- Run the competition for a day, week or month or whatever's appropriate.
- Have judges or whatever was decided choose winners.
- Have an award show where everyone gets at least something worth more than their initial nickel and the winners get sizable prizes. Have a lot of winners. Like half the people as winners.
- Live stream the event to the donors, or let them fly out and attend (this might make things messy, but could work if handled properly).
Why this could work:
- There's a concept now for disaster aid of just giving people who need it some money and let them decide what to spend it on. Identifying the people and choosing how to allocate are difficult, but otherwise this seems to work.
- It can be seen as a greener way to help since goods don't have to be shipped.
- It could jumpstart some families.
- The award model has worked before for things like crossing the atlantic in an airplane.
- It wouldn't try to be anything sustainable, but would be getting money into the hands of the actual poor.
- You find a poor community. (The poorest. The kind that even microcredit can't really help.)
- Register everyone who's interested and charge an extremely low in fee (like a nickel). Just to get some initial commitment.
- Find leaders or have community select a panel.
- Have leaders select a timeline and a few competitions that would reward model citizens of that community (like: most neighborly, hardest worker, most athletic, most improved house or whatever the community values that is acceptable to the organizers and donors.)
- Also let the donors pick 1 or 2 categories based on a range of acceptable ones from the organizers.
- Also have at least one "people's choice" award.
- Run the competition for a day, week or month or whatever's appropriate.
- Have judges or whatever was decided choose winners.
- Have an award show where everyone gets at least something worth more than their initial nickel and the winners get sizable prizes. Have a lot of winners. Like half the people as winners.
- Live stream the event to the donors, or let them fly out and attend (this might make things messy, but could work if handled properly).
Why this could work:
- There's a concept now for disaster aid of just giving people who need it some money and let them decide what to spend it on. Identifying the people and choosing how to allocate are difficult, but otherwise this seems to work.
- It can be seen as a greener way to help since goods don't have to be shipped.
- It could jumpstart some families.
- The award model has worked before for things like crossing the atlantic in an airplane.
- It wouldn't try to be anything sustainable, but would be getting money into the hands of the actual poor.
# 7657 NewtonTown
"Where nerds rule!"
A theme park based on Newtonian physics. Why hasn't this been done before?!
Imagine a theme park with roller coasters like the mobius (the ride with one side). Bumper cars on a track with different surfaces with different frictional properties. Launch rocket where you can see the hydraulics at work. A giant rocking-boat-style ride run on a Foucault pendulum. Games where you try and shoot a target that is dropped when you pull the trigger. Or games where you get 5 minutes to answer some heinous physics question. Every ride has 1 or more learning spots where you can learn about what's making the thing fun. And of course you can break a few records with the largest air cannon, or the furthest speak to each other via concave disk thingy. You are greeted upon entering the park by an enormous and elaborate Rube Goldberg-inspired perpetual motion fountain. Really the possibilities are endless.
Here's why it would work:
You have two types of amusement park attendees: Families (who attend disneyland, world etc.) and teenyboppers (who attend all the others). Who rocks the theme park world I ask? Yeah you might think continuing the teenybopper tradition might be the way to go, but if you can get families all the better. And here's a truth if I ever knowed one - nerds never grow up. I can so easily imagine nerd dads bringing their nerd kids if it's marketed right. And careers are getting more and more science/math oriented, which means more parents who are (and aren't ashamed to admit it) into this stuff. They flock to science museums already, don't they?
In addition to ageless nerds (we all have some nerd in us), how easy is it for schools to justify a "field trip" here? It's education, right? They could come twice a year! If you can justify a once-a-year trip to 6 flags, this would not be difficult.
Getting rides and exhibits sponsored by tech companies who wouldn't mind smart kids seeing their brands at an impressionable age would be a snap. Google would pay for something. Apple would pony up something. A little imagination and many sponsorship opportunities would arise.
Lastly, there's a sea change in the air for math and sciences to come out of sucksville. Both on the student side and on the teacher side. Therefore the timing is important. Get on this somebody smart!
A theme park based on Newtonian physics. Why hasn't this been done before?!
Imagine a theme park with roller coasters like the mobius (the ride with one side). Bumper cars on a track with different surfaces with different frictional properties. Launch rocket where you can see the hydraulics at work. A giant rocking-boat-style ride run on a Foucault pendulum. Games where you try and shoot a target that is dropped when you pull the trigger. Or games where you get 5 minutes to answer some heinous physics question. Every ride has 1 or more learning spots where you can learn about what's making the thing fun. And of course you can break a few records with the largest air cannon, or the furthest speak to each other via concave disk thingy. You are greeted upon entering the park by an enormous and elaborate Rube Goldberg-inspired perpetual motion fountain. Really the possibilities are endless.
Here's why it would work:
You have two types of amusement park attendees: Families (who attend disneyland, world etc.) and teenyboppers (who attend all the others). Who rocks the theme park world I ask? Yeah you might think continuing the teenybopper tradition might be the way to go, but if you can get families all the better. And here's a truth if I ever knowed one - nerds never grow up. I can so easily imagine nerd dads bringing their nerd kids if it's marketed right. And careers are getting more and more science/math oriented, which means more parents who are (and aren't ashamed to admit it) into this stuff. They flock to science museums already, don't they?
In addition to ageless nerds (we all have some nerd in us), how easy is it for schools to justify a "field trip" here? It's education, right? They could come twice a year! If you can justify a once-a-year trip to 6 flags, this would not be difficult.
Getting rides and exhibits sponsored by tech companies who wouldn't mind smart kids seeing their brands at an impressionable age would be a snap. Google would pay for something. Apple would pony up something. A little imagination and many sponsorship opportunities would arise.
Lastly, there's a sea change in the air for math and sciences to come out of sucksville. Both on the student side and on the teacher side. Therefore the timing is important. Get on this somebody smart!
#9432 On-line conference
Sure we have video chat and on-line meetings, but how about a full-on on-line conference? I'm imagining a second life sort of experience (do meetings exist in second life?) where everyone has an avatar and buzzes about a virtual conference hall, checking out booths, talking with people, going into rooms and watching presentations, etc. I'm imagining a proper conference fee (to weed out the weirdos), and a full real-time audio-visual experience. Following the trend of all things virtual, first it tries to replicate real life, making it as easy to talk with someone or ask about a product as it is in a real conference. Then if that works bring in the flying cars, pegasuses, etc.
Alternatively, my brain imagines a real-conference that is only attended by remotely controlled robots. So the only humans at the conference are organizers in charge of keeping the robots up-right. But likely this is just an art experiment (which doesn't mean I don't want to do it).
Alternatively, my brain imagines a real-conference that is only attended by remotely controlled robots. So the only humans at the conference are organizers in charge of keeping the robots up-right. But likely this is just an art experiment (which doesn't mean I don't want to do it).
# 3048 Nose filter
How hard might it be to make a disposable air filter that fits in your two nostrils? Would it look weird no matter what and thus be a deal breaker or could you make it look socially acceptable?
#5927 BlacKab
Basically you have a virtual car. With a driver. Here's how BlacKab works:
You think, I should be getting to some place. You look at your smart phone and touch the BlacKab appKab. It tells you a Kab is 5 minutes away. You touch the "Come get me" button. You then finish the rest of your mango shake until a few minutes later your smart phone beeps. You walk outside to see a sleek black taxi with the words "BlacKab client priority" waiting for you. You climb inside and the driver says "Good afternoon Ms Yorname, where would you like to go?" You then go to said destination, climb out, pay nothing and go inside.
Then comes the weekend. You check your phone again and select "I drive". It tells you that cars for this weekend are this much per day and the top few cars you prefer. You select one and confirm what time you'd like it. You wake up Saturday morning with the car in front of your house with the keys in the mailbox. You take it for the weekend and then park it where it was. A guy comes, checks it over and gets the keys from you.
At the end of the month, you get a simple bill showing what you used and what was charged to your account. And what you would be paying if you owned a car of your own.
Economics speaking it should be cheaper. Isn't it like you own a car with a driver and while you aren't using it you're renting it out to other people? Implementation requires recruiting taxi drivers with decent cars, getting them smart phones and painting their cabs. And a little training. They can use their cabs as they normally would when they don't have a client buzz on their phone. And of course some GPS enriched app building is in order.
You think, I should be getting to some place. You look at your smart phone and touch the BlacKab appKab. It tells you a Kab is 5 minutes away. You touch the "Come get me" button. You then finish the rest of your mango shake until a few minutes later your smart phone beeps. You walk outside to see a sleek black taxi with the words "BlacKab client priority" waiting for you. You climb inside and the driver says "Good afternoon Ms Yorname, where would you like to go?" You then go to said destination, climb out, pay nothing and go inside.
Then comes the weekend. You check your phone again and select "I drive". It tells you that cars for this weekend are this much per day and the top few cars you prefer. You select one and confirm what time you'd like it. You wake up Saturday morning with the car in front of your house with the keys in the mailbox. You take it for the weekend and then park it where it was. A guy comes, checks it over and gets the keys from you.
At the end of the month, you get a simple bill showing what you used and what was charged to your account. And what you would be paying if you owned a car of your own.
Economics speaking it should be cheaper. Isn't it like you own a car with a driver and while you aren't using it you're renting it out to other people? Implementation requires recruiting taxi drivers with decent cars, getting them smart phones and painting their cabs. And a little training. They can use their cabs as they normally would when they don't have a client buzz on their phone. And of course some GPS enriched app building is in order.
#5467 Public transportation order
If you're wondering why this post was sent to you on a banana leaf, it's because I'm now in the Philippines! So expect a tropical/dev country slant for the next while.
This is obvious, but it's weird to me why this isn't implemented. I'm sure it's quite ubiquitous as well.
So I ride the Manila light rail system to work. I'm letting you in on this secret, because it isn't a secret. Everyone and their dog rides it as well. It's a great way to avoid Manila traffic - well automotive traffic, not human traffic, I'm not talking about the nasties that sell human beings, ok, you're right I'm not even talking...CROWDS ok? I'm just talking about crowds. Big crowds. Thank heaven I'm a head above most because I wouldn't be able to breath kind of crowds. And so we play this game. Tons (literally) of people wait on the platform. The train approaches and everyone guesstimates where a door will end up and muscles in front of one. The door opens and everyone pushes. Except here there is some civility, if someone is trying to get off, everyone yells "may bababa!" and then those pushing to get on wait a second for the person to get off and then start pushing on again. And then once inside the door, they stop where they are. There's usually ample room in the train between doors, but no one moves into that space. Why should they? They don't want to fight the crowd again to get off. And if they move it removes the illusion that the train is full and more people will try to get on, thus packing "their" train even tighter. So they get on, plant their feet and tell everyone behind them "wait for the next one". This drives my German friend crazy.
So here we go, you ready? Make two signs "enter only" and "exit only" put one on the outside and one on the inside alternating every door. On these trains, the crowd rules. That is the force. The only way to win is to use that force for good instead of evil. You can't leave the train from the same door you enter. The crowd won't let you. If you don't leave the train from the same door you enter, you're forced to move in to the middle space. If you try and exit through an enter door, the crowd will say "punta kayo sa exit!" and will not stop pushing. Of course there will be people using the wrong doors, but not when there's a whole crowd requiring them otherwise. And when there's no crowd it doesn't matter.
My finger-in-the-air calculations report that this will save 30-60 seconds at each stop and will accommodate 10-20% more people on the train. That's money in Manila's pocket and minutes off everyone's commute.
UPDATE: Even better to call the signs "enter priority" and "exit priority" that way no one's a rule-breaker for going in the wrong way.
This is obvious, but it's weird to me why this isn't implemented. I'm sure it's quite ubiquitous as well.
So I ride the Manila light rail system to work. I'm letting you in on this secret, because it isn't a secret. Everyone and their dog rides it as well. It's a great way to avoid Manila traffic - well automotive traffic, not human traffic, I'm not talking about the nasties that sell human beings, ok, you're right I'm not even talking...CROWDS ok? I'm just talking about crowds. Big crowds. Thank heaven I'm a head above most because I wouldn't be able to breath kind of crowds. And so we play this game. Tons (literally) of people wait on the platform. The train approaches and everyone guesstimates where a door will end up and muscles in front of one. The door opens and everyone pushes. Except here there is some civility, if someone is trying to get off, everyone yells "may bababa!" and then those pushing to get on wait a second for the person to get off and then start pushing on again. And then once inside the door, they stop where they are. There's usually ample room in the train between doors, but no one moves into that space. Why should they? They don't want to fight the crowd again to get off. And if they move it removes the illusion that the train is full and more people will try to get on, thus packing "their" train even tighter. So they get on, plant their feet and tell everyone behind them "wait for the next one". This drives my German friend crazy.
So here we go, you ready? Make two signs "enter only" and "exit only" put one on the outside and one on the inside alternating every door. On these trains, the crowd rules. That is the force. The only way to win is to use that force for good instead of evil. You can't leave the train from the same door you enter. The crowd won't let you. If you don't leave the train from the same door you enter, you're forced to move in to the middle space. If you try and exit through an enter door, the crowd will say "punta kayo sa exit!" and will not stop pushing. Of course there will be people using the wrong doors, but not when there's a whole crowd requiring them otherwise. And when there's no crowd it doesn't matter.
My finger-in-the-air calculations report that this will save 30-60 seconds at each stop and will accommodate 10-20% more people on the train. That's money in Manila's pocket and minutes off everyone's commute.
UPDATE: Even better to call the signs "enter priority" and "exit priority" that way no one's a rule-breaker for going in the wrong way.
#6723 Gym bike
I like the idea of beefing up at the gym, but it seems like a bit of a waste of time to me. Can we make a commuter bike with several different ways of propelling it that will work out different muscle groups? I realize this would make one look like an idiot going down the road doing curls to move, but that's not an idea I'm worried about.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)