October 27, 2012
Finding The Gap

I've just started taking a course online on design via Coursera, and our first week challenge (due by Sunday... yep I kind of left that one off, go me) is to find 'gaps' - some place in our lives that there is a problem that can be solved by design (using design in a very loose sense - the course is a general principles/process type thing, so it's not necessarily an aesthetic-design thing). One of these is going to be the basis for the term project, and we have to have access to five other people who share the same 'gap' - the prof would prefer in-person access but I do not have five people I interact with on even a weekly basis in-person so YEP NO. So! This is a brainstorming post, mostly, and I would love people to chime in with a 'yes I'd like that too' if, well, they would.

-Marginalia (working title for the eReader quote db project, see previous post)
-Pantry tracker (what do I have? When did I buy it? Seemed popular idea-wise in #dw)
-FUCKING WIZARD LAYERS (I will probably not tackle this but it drives me up the wall)
-FUCKING LAYER EDITOR (...see above, though Fey has given me a possible solution)
-Something to introduce recipe variety on a basic level (I love whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com in principle but most of the recipes include things I don't have, and I hate shopping)
-work-out reminder/incentives?
-semi-flexible scheduler for practicing artsy stuff (there was a discussion on learning and routines in reddit, and about how it's far better to do something EVERY DAY than a few days a week or something)
-something organization something something (my house is a constant disaster. I don't even know where to start)
-a script/extension for me to annotate my buglist on Bugzilla (because I hate going 'okay, I think I have patches in for these four for review, and this one depends on another bug, and...' because it's not easily visualized)
-highlight reddit posts by subreddit they appear in (can you tell I like visual cues?)