Personal data analysis Jun 12, 2007
Being the geek I am, I think it would be interesting to track and analyze various things that happen throughout the day.  Google already sort of does this.  They have a history feature that lets you analyze trends such as common search terms, search results, and hourly, daily, and monthly search activity.  Google Reader has a slightly similar feature that lets you see what you read, when, and how much.  But these are Google-specific features that only track Google things.  SparkPeople is a website that lets you keep track of what food you eat, the calories and fat you take in, and how much you exercise.  Pedometers let you see how many steps you take throughout the day. 

It would be really interesting to see trends for seemingly insignificant little details like how much radiation I get from my cell phone, what chemicals I come in contact with on a daily basis and in what quantities, and which words I miss in Super Text Twist.  Patterns and trends can reveal a lot.  Each individual event is somewhat random and doesn't carry much weight.  But over time, most actions develop patterns, and it's interesting to see these patterns in an organized way such as with respect to time, location, age, etc. 

The problem, as with all data logging, is that it needs to be logged.  That's the hard part.  Nobody wants to sit around and manually enter every calorie they eat throughout the day, or every cell phone interaction they make.  If this stuff was automated, it would be a lot easier and less time-consuming.  Plus, it would take the human aspect out of it.  When I used SparkPeople, I was actually keeping track of what I ate, the specific quantities, and how much of which nutrients were in each quantity.  I didn't eat some things because I didn't want to go through the hassle of entering them on the website.  But if this kind of thing was tracked automatically, I would live my life as normal and not curb things cased on the amount of difficulty they would cause. #psychology
Keys (4) Jun 12, 2007
I think at this point in the technological revolution, we should no longer be using keys.  When was the last time a key was actually beneficial?  "Gosh, I'm glad I'm carrying this pointy metal object in my pocket where it can cause mortal damage and possible death!"  It's more like, "Whoops, I locked my keys in my car!" or "I locked myself out of my house ... again!" 

My building at work has a pretty simple yet effective system:  An electronic keypad.  I know these were available on vehicles about 10 years ago, but the fad never really caught on.  For some reason, people feel more comfortable carrying a pointy metal object and/or a bulky rectangular plastic thing.  And this same device is available on garage door openers, but for whatever reason, it never spread to the front door.  I can really only think of 3 reasons it didn't become popular: 
  1. Security.  People think it's easy to guess a numerical code.  The keypad at work has 10 digits, and each entry code is 5 digits long.  That means there are 105 = 100,000 possible codes.  And while that's not an astronomically large number, if a person was willing to try 100,000 different codes to break into your house, I'd say let 'em; they deserve to get in.
  2. Reliability.  What happens if your power goes out and you need to get into your house?  This is an excellent point, but I have an excellent counterpoint:  When was the last time you tried to get into your house when the power was out?  I can think of exactly zero times this has ever happened in the history of mankind.
  3. Convenience.  This is really the only good argument.  It's more convenient to push a button on your key chain as you're walking to your car than to wait until you get to your car to type in a code.  I don't have a counterpoint to this, except maybe to use a fingerprint scanner on the door handle.
And that brings me to my next point.  My laptop has a pretty cool security feature:  Logging in with a fingerprint reader.  I don't have to carry anything around (except ... ya know ... my fingers) and I don't have to memorize a code.  There's literally no way this device can fail or mess up, as long as its scanning ability is up to par.  One argument is that all a thief would need to do is kidnap you, knock you out, and use your finger against your will.  To that I say this:  (a) A thief could do that with a key just as easily, and (b) most theft is non-violent these days.  There isn't much money to be gained in stealing 5-year-old cars and laptops.  Theft these days is more about identity and credit.  But anyway, it amazes me that the simple technology used to logon to my computer hasn't also been utilized to unlock my car and my house.  C'mon Bill Gates and Steve Jobs!  Where's Windows Vista Door Edition or the iKey? #technology