Sofa Command Surface
With this, Napoleon would never have sold us Louisiana
For decades, an organizational priority at Stern Labs has been addressing the deficiencies of the ordinary household sofa.
These are many and varied, but most glaring is that even the finest specimens fail to offer anything but a place to sit down and look at things — a book perhaps, or a television screen, or in the absence of any alternative, another person.
Users are forced to observe — never to manipulate, create, control. This manifest UX failure arises from the absence of a COMMAND SURFACE.
Passivity is death.
A place to bang a gavel, chop a scallion, trace a sigil, spin a Krugerrand, spread a map, lance a snakebite, scatter the tiles of divination, or contemptuously flick away a plea for clemency.
Superlative engineering.
Outwardly, the device is composed of black iron pipe, brass compression fittings, and two acacia wood cutting boards from IKEA.
The shielded orgone accumulator at its heart supplies a 10,000mAh power bank to keep devices charged without the need for a wall plug.
The device is almost preposterously overbuilt — you can expect it to serve and outlive generations of your kin. In the event of an earthquake, the safest place to be in any home will be underneath this device.
A revolution in personal agency
The artifact presented here represents some small progress towards a gene-level overhaul of sofas, and field testing has proven it transforms any ordinary sofa specimen from a midden of slack-jawed passivity to the Resolute Desk of a home.
Testers reported that backs immediately became a little straighter in their households. Jaws were abruptly set in determination, and the glint in every eye became perceptibly more steely.
More importantly, these test families began to get things done. Long-postponed projects were finished. Vaguely articulated ambitions were prioritized and realized. Rivals were overcome, obstacles were hurdled, brass rings reached.
Homes where prototypes are deployed have already produced Nobel laureates, Olympians, and titans of industry whose names you would recognize immediately.