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Was just pointed to an article at Wired about this:
If millions of Christians suddenly disappear from the face of the Earth as the opening act for Armageddon, Threat Level thinks most nonbelievers will be too busy freaking the hell out to check their e-mail. But if they do log in, now they can be treated to some post-Rapture needling from their missing friends and loved ones, courtesy of web startup YouveBeenLeftBehind.com.
For just $40 a year, believers can arrange for up to 62 people to get a final message exactly six days after the Rapture, that day when — according to Christian end times dogma — Christians will be swept up to heaven, while doubters are left behind to suffer seven years of Tribulation under a global government headed by the Antichrist
Wow. There are no words to describe my complete and utter disbelief (aaaahhhh, a double entendre — see what I did there?).
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… can be an immense pain in the toochis. Actually, it is, unequivocally, an immense pain. You can’t hope to solve it, you can only hope to momentarily fend off. The ipod, camera, external hard drive, keyboard, mouse, power cable … all expected to live in peace and harmony in the vicinity of what is most likely a laptop.
I had just (temporarily) solved my problem when I ran into this product via Uncrate called the Space Station, from BlueLounge. It tucks all of your cables underneath a small stand to rest your laptop up against, to place a small monitor on top of, maybe? From only the photos on the BlueLounge website you get the feeling that this might be a winner for those trying to come up with a solution to their own exponentially multiplying cable problem.
Last weekend Sara and I were in New York City, mostly for some events she wanted to attend that were
sponsored by a blog network she’s part of. One of the things we were both looking forward to
was a brunch on Sunday morning with some of the people that work for the network (Partially because
I was allowed to go with her to this one! Ok, maybe only a little bit). Regardless, we had a really
good time and talked about a lot of different topics – one of which was a non-existent product that
I’ve been pondering for months now. A GPS-enabled card of some sort that could be used to track down
a lost wallet, bag, purse, etc. It’s a no-brainer right? One of those “I would buy that in a second
if they actually existed”, even though it doesn’t. The reason why is probably because of
technological constraints – cost of parts that are that small that could transmit instead of just
receive. But, once those parts are available – someone will prototype this up and will make a
fortune. Unfortunately that someone won’t be me. I’ll wait around with my credit card in hand,
waiting for a chance to purchase it (for my Mother and for Sara).
The conversation popped into my head today because of a post over at Mike Davidson’s blog about
some of the big ideas that powered what he calls a “Slam-Dunk Startup” – Youtube, Hot-or-Not,
Google and Amazon. One point he brings up is similar to the thought I had above, that it’s not just
the idea but the ability to execute with the overwhelmingly difficult details of providing enough
bandwidth, computing power and engineering know-how to hit it out of the park.
I often hear people say things like “if only I thought of YouTube a year before YouTube did, I’d
be rich”, implying that given first-mover advantage, that person could create a company as great
as YouTube. A statement like this completely disregards just how difficult YouTube was to build,
from having the balls to allow brazen copyright violation, to building a great user experience, to
scaling out the ability to serve millions of video streams a day. In other words, 99 out of 100
people who may have had the same idea at the same time would have failed to create anything
remotely as successful as YouTube.
I couldn’t agree more. Having the chutzpah to take that idea, to make something of it, and then
break through the barrier of monetary success and cultural ubiquity? That’s a huge mountain to
climb. The amount to which I can relate to this is by no means applicable – but being a solo
entrepreneur trying to build something (which is, by no means, that original) on his own is
extremely difficult. This is the reason why I have so much respect for the people that have done it.
The Alex Tews, Joshua Schacters and Gabe Riveras of the world have nothing but the
most tremendous respect from me. Odds are that I’ll never reach those heights, but the journey so
far has been the fun part. We’ll wait and see.
… can be an immense pain in the toochis. Actually, it is, unequivocally, an immense pain. You can’t hope to solve it, you can only hope to momentarily fend off. The ipod, camera, external hard drive, keyboard, mouse, power cable … all expected to live in peace and harmony in the vicinity of what is most likely a laptop.