4 ms·

The cognitive overhead of sketching a diagram or jotting a todo is hard to beat. I'd love to have a setup like this. I would probably let small objects pile up

The cognitive overhead of sketching a diagram or jotting a todo is hard to beat. I'd love to have a setup like this. I would probably let small objects pile up on its surface though, which would make it hard to turn.

panic 12y ago
I would probably let small objects pile up on its surface though, which would make it hard to turn. That does seem like the biggest problem with this idea. The entire surface doesn't have to be writeable, though. You could cover part of (most of?) the desk with a second surface, fixed around the front and back, that would remain stationary as the paper moves.
detaro 12y ago
Looking at my desk: Not being able to accumulate to much stuff might actually be a feature...
- koralatov 12y ago
  I'd agree with that. My desks tend to quickly end up buried under books, papers, desk tools, mail, and everything else that I lay there ``just until I put it away''. About half of the people I know do the same thing, especially when it's their desk at home. This desk almost seems to be designed to not allow that to happen, which is counts as a feature rather than a bug to my mind. A nice compromise would be to use butcher-paper that's less wide than your desk is deep, leaving perhaps the back third of the desk uncovered. That way, you can put your various permanent pieces of desk furniture --- pen-pots, charger cables, paper trays, whatever else --- at the back of your desk and still have the front two-thirds as a rolling writing surface. That also probably makes it easier to use 100% of the depth of the writing surface, because reaching right to the back of the desk isn't really practical. A relatively standard UK desk is about 800mm, or ~32", deep, so having the back 300mm/~11" uncovered would work out pretty well. Edit: Just realised that this comment describes a solution that's functionally equivalent to panic's comment one level above[0], though does vary a little in the method of implementation. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202054
- dubya 12y ago
  You could motorize it so it moves maybe half a desk width per day in the absence of any other movement. Just put a rubbish bin on the downstream end.
gcr 12y ago
A coworker in grad school used a giant roll of paper, but in a vertical setting rather than a horizontal setting. The paper scrolled underneath the table rather than across it.

panic 12y ago

I would probably let small objects pile up on its surface though, which would make it hard to turn. That does seem like the biggest problem with this idea. The entire surface doesn't have to be writeable, though. You could cover part of (most of?) the desk with a second surface, fixed around the front and back, that would remain stationary as the paper moves.

detaro 12y ago

Looking at my desk: Not being able to accumulate to much stuff might actually be a feature...

koralatov 12y ago
I'd agree with that. My desks tend to quickly end up buried under books, papers, desk tools, mail, and everything else that I lay there ``just until I put it away''. About half of the people I know do the same thing, especially when it's their desk at home. This desk almost seems to be designed to not allow that to happen, which is counts as a feature rather than a bug to my mind. A nice compromise would be to use butcher-paper that's less wide than your desk is deep, leaving perhaps the back third of the desk uncovered. That way, you can put your various permanent pieces of desk furniture --- pen-pots, charger cables, paper trays, whatever else --- at the back of your desk and still have the front two-thirds as a rolling writing surface. That also probably makes it easier to use 100% of the depth of the writing surface, because reaching right to the back of the desk isn't really practical. A relatively standard UK desk is about 800mm, or ~32", deep, so having the back 300mm/~11" uncovered would work out pretty well. Edit: Just realised that this comment describes a solution that's functionally equivalent to panic's comment one level above[0], though does vary a little in the method of implementation. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202054
dubya 12y ago
You could motorize it so it moves maybe half a desk width per day in the absence of any other movement. Just put a rubbish bin on the downstream end.

gcr 12y ago

A coworker in grad school used a giant roll of paper, but in a vertical setting rather than a horizontal setting. The paper scrolled underneath the table rather than across it.