Work Revolution

Everybody knows that we need to start our own business or else our lives or going to suck. So WTF are we going to do? Lets brainstorm brothers.

Clearly the ultimate goal is to build a bullet train after we raise enough money. The genius of the bullet train business is that you get to choose where it stops if you build it. We should buy a shit load of land somewhere cheep, and then add a stop there and instantly quadruple the value of our property. In the meantime, here are my best ideas:

First – I have noticed that people place a lot of value in things that are heavy. If you are at the Bon Marche and are looking for a toaster oven, you are clearly going to apply the weight test. If one weighs about 3 times as much, there is an assumed inherent quality in that product. So why don’t we just start copying products already on the market, but inject some lead or something into it? Boom – our product is better.

Second – a bar where you can purchase an entire keg. The idea being that if we all go to the bar, we can just throw 150 bucks down as a group, and have an entire keg of PBR, which we could either drink all ourselves, or distribute to the chickies.

 Third – Selling a deal that combines the technology of the Iphone and facebook, where the Iphone uses its GPS technology to track everywhere you go, and superimposes a line on a map showing everywhere you have ever been. I’ve always thought it would be cool if you could somehow see a visual map of everywhere you have ever been since you were born. The line tracking your route of life could change from blue (day 1) to red (present time) in color, so that your route is also a timeline. Then, you could load up your map on the software we are going to make, and it will be a conduit to blogging. So when you look at your personal map, you can put a dot on the line for events that took place, and when you click on it you can post pictures/blog about what happened then and there. Then, everybody could upload these on to facebook, and have them all linked. So there would be like sponsored events, where a bunch of people would probably have one of these “dots” on their timeline. For instance, if you were at a certain bar on Friday night,a lot of other people would be there too. So when you click on the dot a few days later, you could see who all else was there, pictures they posted, blogs they wrote about it, and then could connect with people there. Maybe you saw some hot chick that you didn’t get a chance to talk to, but now you see her a few days later on this sweet new technology I’m inventing? Clearly the toughest part is some people might be uncomfortable with posting exactly where they have been and when to the public. Well, you could easily add a feature to the software so that you could block out chuncks of time from your timeline to not show to the public. Problem solved.

Fourth – our idea about taking over a small resort town somewhere. This deserves it’s own brainstorm session because I really want to do it.

Please add your own new ideas, why you think mine suck, how to make mine better…. and no, I do not want to change my blog timeline software into another BeastTube.

9 Responses to “Work Revolution”

  1. Making stuff heavy is probably a pretty good way to trick people into buying them. Maybe combine this with infomercials showing people throwing out their backs trying to lift the super heavy (lead filled) toaster.

    I think your tracking idea is known as micro-blogging. I like the idea, but I think its really weird when people update where they are or what they are doing on their myspace or facebook page. I wouldnt keep mine up to date because I dont want people to know where I am most the time. Unless, like you said every once in a while you went to a party or whatever and wanted to show people pictures or if you blog about it. I have heard people talk alot about twitter.com and how great it is but it still seems like boring technology at this point. You can download it on your phone and keep people up to date, it seems to work especially well for groups of people out of town together or wherever groups of people go and you can keep track of where people are or what they are doing. you can go to http://www.twitter.com/parkerm and find out what I have been doing (i would wager your guess would be correct). The GPS technology is probably about out to be on the market too, if people decide they want to be tracked this way it will probably work. Of course these application have probably been developing for years now, Google recently bought a Twitter clone called Jaiku for undisclosed millions, so you missed your big Google pay day on this one Kev. The google mobile phone operating system will be out by the end of the year and will focus on running all this stuff so you better get going on this idea, you have some catching up to do.

    Your bullet train idea is still stupid. If it was profitable Amtrak would have built one to go from NYC to DC many years ago. Your Seattle to Spokane bullet train to take you Elder and Winner to Spokane twice a year has no hope… im sorry.

    The keg idea seems legit… maybe look into a legal precedence of people suing the bar for alcohol poisoning or drunken vehicular homicide for selling an entire keg, which on second thought, is the obvious reason it doesnt work. In our micro-nation this will be legal.

  2. I agree that my GPS plan is to late. I’ve had this idea for like 2 years, and I think it would have panned out for me if I started on it day 1, but oh well.

    If the keg bar is not illegal – your thoughts? Westberg should know if it is illegal, right? I mean, as long as we don’t let Cole come, I don’t see why it would be a problem.

    I think this heavier product scheme would probably work, I just have no idea how to implement it.

    As far as the bullet train being stupid b/c AmTrak doesn’t think it is a good idea, see this quote on Hoover.com about AmTrak:

    “America’s ambivalence with rail travel is reflected in Amtrak. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better known as Amtrak, carries more than 24 million passengers a year in 46 states (Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, and Hawaii are excluded). The company’s system includes more than 21,000 route miles, most of which are owned by freight railroads. Yet Amtrak is a for-profit company that has never been profitable. The rail carrier is almost wholly owned by the US Department of Transportation and depends on subsidies from the federal government to maintain its operations.”

    Yeah, I mean, if a company that has never been profitable in it’s entire existance doesn’t think it is a good idea, then I guess fuck it, it will never work.

  3. Seriously though, gas prices have been artificially low in America for the past century. Public transportation has been a much greater force in other parts of the world, because for most people, it doesn’t make sense to drive around at 4-5 dollars a gallon. While a bullet train may not have made sense in the 90’s, I think it will be a lot more relevant idea in the comming decade.

  4. Like your quote from above says, apparently Amtrak is not even profitable with traditional rail lines so they are probably not going to be in the business of building new bullet train lines – unless the government is footing the bill. Maybe the investors in BigDog Bullet Trains Inc will foot the bill.

    here is a link to 10 things we would build if they weren’t so expensive (includes a space hotel and a cross country bullet train!) I read it awhile ago and thought of you. http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/10-sci-fi-techs.html

    So as a business plan, its stupid. As far as the public service part of it goes I can’t believe how long it has taken to get a goddamn rail line from downtown to Sea-Tac (and then up to UW). I guess people have traditionally loved to drive or cab to the airport, if you ask me its a waste of time and is expensive. It also sucks being asked to take people to the airport all the time. I mean really, people through out the 70’s 80’s 90’s and into 00’s just sat around and said, man I love sitting on I-5 trying to get to Sea-Tac? What the hell were they thinking? Fuck you tax payers of the 70’s 80’s and 90’s this shit should have already been paid for and implemented, we have been known to have the worst traffic for YEARS and are just now going to do something about it. You people sicken me.

    Like you were saying, maybe not now that gas is $3-5 per gallon people will put more thought in to public transport. And for the record I am completely pro- expanding the current plans to run the rail from Everett to Portland. I don’t care if it costs me another $200 a year on my real estate tax I think it would be worth it. As long as the plan is not pitched by BigDog Bullet Trains Inc and is explained as a solvent business model, because its not it will cost tax payers a shit load of money and there will never be any profits – see WA’s rusting fleet of ferries that will need to be replaced by the federal government because we can’t pay for it (as was mentioned in last month’s Economist – and no im not Steve Hitchcock and I dont subscribe to the Economist, I just happened to be enjoying a ride to San Juan island last weekend via said rusting ferry and heard people talking about it).

  5. I am pretty sure you can buy beer kegs at bars still. I don’t know about carrying them around the bar and drinking them there. Your plan is kind of being done already in a better way though.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4u89e_table-top-beer-taps_tech

  6. Parker – Given that our Government can apparently find 500 Billion dollars and counting to lose a war in Iraq that didn’t need to be faught in the first place, I think it is reasonable to spend a fraction of that on a bullet train system that could potentially at least break-even in the long run.

    And I don’t care if Amtrak can’t afford to build bullet trains. Of course they can’t, they are unprofitable with traditional obsolete slow shitty rails that smell bad.

    Big Dog Bullet Trains Inc. is going to be financed by people that understand the necessity to build sweet shit in America to drive our economy. It will be like FDR, but private sponsored rather than public. Unless you think that Starbucks coffee and Iphones are going to be paying for our paychecks for the forseable future.

    The ferry system is rediculous. I can’t believe we subsidize that with our taxes. Obviously it doesn’t make a lot of sense to build your house on the opposite side of a large body of water from where you work. If you want to do that, then you should have to pay for that. They get the cheep rent and the subsidized tranportation – those guys in Bremerton are a bunch of jerks.

    The thing we are building to Sea-Tac looks like a giant piece of shit. All the cables are above ground. Why did they do that? They should have built a bullet train to Sea-Tax. At 360 MPH you could get to the airport in like 3 or 4 minutes.

  7. I just tried to write a comment but it became an entirely other post (I will post it tomorrow). I do want to make a few comments though

    - The Keg idea is great and should still be looked into by us. That guys is in Georgia there is no reason we can’t get that going in Seattle or Panama.

    - Making things heavier is probably not worth talking about any further.

    - The train idea is without a doubt a great idea. Let one person who has experience the Eurail (Parker?) tell me it is not so much better than our current system of getting around. Cars are fucking lame and gay!

    - My main comment is that I am not really as interested in creating a business as I am creating a different life style. Unless you hit the jackpot you just end up working your ass off when you create a big new idea. What I am looking for is a way to enjoy life more. I think the best way to do that Rhymes with Bananama.

  8. As of 4 years ago tabletop beer taps (minus those silly monitoring devices) were widely popular and successful in Costa Rica. Assuming that Panama has even less regard for drinking regulations I think we could definitely create a highly dangerous but profitable alcohol-related product and market it down south.

    Corey- nothing rhymes with Bananama but you might have stumbled upon a name for the forthcoming ecolodge.

Leave a Reply