Modern software is too slow. While smartphones can do everything, they can't do most things well, because they are too slow.
I want a physical device for life logging.
My name for this idea is "Spike Train".
This would be a device sort of like a calculator with different color (and maybe shape?) buttons that just logs when you press the buttons. You can carry it with you / keep it on your desk.
The data it generates is simply a timelog of when each button was pressed. It can use the cloud, but really doesn't have to... you can just plug it in to charge / upload the spike train.
It would be pretty easy, I think, to make a basic software UI for analyzing/visualizing the spike train. You can define what the buttons mean. Foster an open-source community of developers, etc.
Somebody please make this!
There are some ideas like this out there - link from a brief search.
I have downvoted this post, as it is irrelevant to EA and not likely to be of use to anyone on the forum. You might want to check out the Quantified Self community for stuff like this :)
Thanks for the pointer! I think many EAs are interested in QS, but I agree it's a bit tangential.
Sorry, my comment seems too harsh. The reason I think that this wouldn't be useful is that it is a suggestion/request for someone in the EA community to pretty much make a business for physical QS devices (which also seems to probably exist). If you would have written something similar, but concluded with specific suggestions of devices and how to use them it would have been awesome.
I think that posts on QS, and self-improvement generally, would be awesome on the forum if they would give the readers ideas on how to improve themselves or their productivity or if the post writer is looking for an actionable answer for something. It might also be nice if a post would just serve as a vehicle to start a conversation around some aspect of QS. I think that this post seems to be a bit too much aimed at persuasion and doesn't generate anything actionable.