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Month: June 2017

Teleporting Underpants killed the Toilet Paper Industry

Published by NiteMayr on June 29, 2017

I found this on Linkedin

This list annoyed me, mostly because it takes a conceit, then makes a list then makes the conceit fit.  The Conceit being people value customer service over other things (or at least it appears to, I’ll not try to determine if that was where things started, but it appears to be the case)

  1. Amazon didn’t win because of customer service.  Amazon is difficult to use if you aren’t already familiar with how the Internet works.  There are no sales people and no experts to tell you which is better when comparing things.  You have to seek that out.  Amazon is CHEAPER.  That’s where Amazon won.  It was cheaper than the store for pricey items and it’s fun to get things in the mail.
  2.  Netflix did kill Blockbuster; because it was more convenient to get DVDs in the mail and watch things online than it was to go to the store.  Notice that online game rental services aren’t really tearing up the charts though?  Yeah. but STEAM?  BUCKETS OF MONEY.  People like convenience, the late fees didn’t enter into it.  If Blockbuster wanted to win, they would have opened mini stores in theaters and sold downloads of the movies that people had just watched and upsold Physical copies with special features.- Also DOWNLOADING killed Blockbuster, free and convenient?  YES!
  3. Uber makes money by not having to pay for licensing and maintenance.  There.  That’s not success, that’s piracy.
  4. Apple didn’t invent singles, they negotiated the ability to sell them in a way that was convenient to people.  Again, being able to buy things without leaving the spot where you are is always going to be better than having to go to a store.  Had HMV made the same deal or better then Apple might still be the also ran they are.
  5. Air BnB is Uber for houses.  They sell you and make money from your property and you get some too.  Yay!

All of these things have the same thing in common, someone is able to achieve their goal without having to leave the spot they are sitting in.  When someone invents a viable teleporter you can wear as underwear people will buy it so they don’t have to leave the couch to drop a deuce.  You get me?

It’s not customer service that killed the toilet paper industry, it was teleporting underpants.

Wilson’s Diary / Cold Future

Published by NiteMayr on June 26, 2017

Premise for and outline for a season of a Police Procedural that uses the “Bootstrap Paradox” to make things works.

Premise:  A new detective is assigned to a cold case squad and is able to (with minimal prompting) make connections that could not have been made before.  They are handed the case information, they go through the motions and are able to solve the cases.  They are offered a chance to move into major crimes, etc.  They demure and stick with cold cases.

Their partner discovers that this prodigy keeps careful diaries of their work; but thinks nothing of it.  The detective has a friendly rivalry with another rising star in the Special Victims Unit; who takes down sex criminals and has been getting more and more exposure in the media.

The Hook:  The lead character “Wilson” is from the future, approximately 100 years or so.  Far enough that society has moved on but they have partial amnesia.  The good news is they have a series of detailed diaries given to them when they were in their mid teens.  Yes; those same diaries.  The Diaries are written in a code that prevents someone who isn’t from the future from reading them and understanding them.  To the casual observer they are just normal diaries.

The Twist: The other rising star is a criminal from the future who also suffers from partial amnesia.  Mid-Season the criminal comes to his senses and he uses his knowledge of the future to enrich himself and becomes a politician.  By end of season the “Future Criminal” has become an influential politician with real power.

Ugh, this is Time Cop, isn’t it?