Sometimes we have ideas and they bounce around in our mind. They are perhaps just chuck away ideas. Or they could be things we revisit. I put them down here when and if I remember or care to.
Dream Setups
A listing page or website that you build your dream setup for tech, music, clothes or homeware. Calculate the total needed to achieve it. I feel there is a lot of “gear heads” websites out there, this idea isn’t really that different. Tech is changing all the time as well, could be really boring keeping on top of it. It would probably make more sense to have a wish list of stuff that is anti amazon. Oh, could also ask others what their dream set-up would be.
Dads iPod
Website that allows you to listen to what was on my Dad’s iPod. Toggle button to access the rest of his vinyl and CD music collection. Could be fun skeuomorphic interface and joy wheel madness. How would you even do that with a mouse? I guess scroll up/down. There must be a few of these sites out there in the wild.
3D Print the Tech Stack
Website that allows engineering teams to easily 3D print objects that physically represent the software and services that make up their tech stack. Useful for complex businesses that have lots of custom tooling. Make it as simple as Moo business cards to use. Send the files off to a printing specialist. Show people how having a few of them around the office helps solve problems, speed up learning, find blindspots and more. Needs a clever way of managing the changes that happen… send them blanks and they can update the designs every 3-6 months?
Blocks Pomodoro App
Plan pomodoros with a big block interface that runs down the right of macOS. Add up the total time so it starts to feel like an abstracted calendar calculator. Theres a lot of these apps about. Not really sure its worth all the hassle. I don’t use the technique that much unless I need a kick up the arse to stop getting distracted.
Local Dealers
Dan and I had a few chats over the first lockdown about aggregating all the local food and grocery supply businesses. I’m pretty sure someone has done this in a few variations. I need to dig out some links and add them in here. Personally, I’d love a local directory for so much stuff.
Update: We chatted about this again in Feb 2024. I’ve set up a staging site where we have added merch sold by local businesses in Hackney. It’s very much a no code “sketch” at this point. Dan and I need to get into it over breakfast: https://localdealers.lawrencebrown.eu/shop/
Beats not Bants
Export all the songs shared in a music WhatsApp group and put them in a filterable website. I need to improve my back end skills before this would be possible. The idea fizzled out slightly, as did the frequency of songs shared in the group.
Update thought: What if a web wiki builder could run off a WhatsApp group. We have a neighbours group that recycles the same old Q&A. What if we could transpose stuff into a webpage and database that is helpful. No doubt someone has mocked this up at Facebook at some stage. No doubt Facebook believes you should use Facebook for this.
