Here is a great invention to double the productivity of the girls in the typing pool at your office.
You've seen two pianists playing four-handed piano, right?
This is the same thing, except on a typewriter.
The typewrite has 2 keyboards, but other than than it is like your regular typewriter. The girls are synchronized, each one typing alternating letters, and the result is perfectly typed business letters, but at twice the speed that either girl could muster on her own.-- DavideAndrea, Dec 18 2009 Purposely Useless Inventions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChindôguPurposely Useless Inventions [csea, Dec 19 2009] Chinese character typewriter http://blog.modernm...nese_typewriter.jpg [swimswim, Dec 20 2009] csea, I think this is the link you mean :) http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Chind%C5%8Dgu [goldbb, Dec 20 2009] Coordinating every other letter between two people will be slower than a single person working alone. Better to have the second person start at the end, and type everything backwards. Software will let them know when they meet in the middle.-- Aq_Bi, Dec 19 2009 Welcome to the HB, [DavideAndrea].
But I think you may find better places for "purposely useless inventions" by searching "Chingdogu." [links]-- csea, Dec 19 2009 [+] sounds like an Olympic competition: "Synchronized Typing"; also quite difficult.-- FlyingToaster, Dec 19 2009 aren't typing pools a thing of the past? apart from that, I quite like the concept. welcome to hb, DA etc.-- po, Dec 19 2009 Why limit it to 4?
Perhaps you could have 13 typists, each with two single letters on their keyboard.-- pocmloc, Dec 19 2009 Alternatively, why do the 4 hands have to belong to 2 people? Organists manage fine playing (simpler) independent polyphonic lines with their feet....-- pocmloc, Dec 19 2009 Assuming, arguendo, typewriters, let alone typing pools, there *is* a way this could improve efficiency. Instead of alternating letters, alternate paragraphs (or, if taking dictation, have one typist do the addresses, salutation, etc. and the other the body of the letter). This really would speed things up (at the cost of an absurdly complex typewriter mechanism -- but the idea's *supposed* to be half-baked).
I can imagine this in some Gilliam-esque alternate history where huge bureaucracies push economies of scale, but in which computers had never been invented.
... or in an organization where status signaling by conspicuous consumption got out of control ("assistant vice-president and above gets *two* typists")
... or in an organization where the boss was a lecher, and the typist needed a covert chaperone ("but sir, it takes two of us to operate the machine").
... or in an organization where the boss was an even worse lecher and Personnel pandered (gets *two* pretty typists to ogle).
That's enough. I should be working.-- mouseposture, Dec 19 2009 //aren't typing pools a thing of the past?//
He's been watching Mad Men, probably.-- ldischler, Dec 19 2009 This is glorious. A grand idea. + Lot's of coffee and chatter and gossipy good bits too.-- blissmiss, Dec 19 2009 An infinite number of Siamese twin monkeys on an infinite...-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 19 2009 //better places for "purposely useless inventions"//
Whoa - hang one there for just ...one ....fecking ....minute.....-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 19 2009 // Siamese twin monkeys //
Siamese twin flying monkeys would be more appropriate.
If only William Shakespeare had had access to this technology - he could have produced "Cats", "Evita" and "Starlight Express" in slightly over half the time ...-- 8th of 7, Dec 19 2009 Ever seen those huge Chinese character typewriters? This might be useful for one of those.-- RayfordSteele, Dec 20 2009 Great use of Shor's algorithm. You forgot to say double output per added typist. (you would have to look that up, though.)
Also, it is slightly incorrect.-- 4whom, Dec 20 2009 You just wanted a reason to say 'pianist'-- afinehowdoyoudo, Dec 20 2009 For this to work you need first to invent radio-connectible corpus callosum to remotely wire the 4 hemispheres of brain.-- Inyuki, Dec 24 2009 //he could have produced "Cats"//
...and your little dog too.
Quite the profile page there [DavideAndrea].-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 25 2009 that's right perhaps DA is aiming to put one in each.-- po, Dec 25 2009 aq that is the most beautifully temporally twisted use of rhetoric I have seen in a long time. Congratulations.-- Sparkyplugclean, Dec 26 2009 random, halfbakery