• Posts will be well thought out, fluid and thorough rather than disjointed and messy.
• Posts will be free of grammatical errors. I will still capitalize all articles in titles despite this being incorrect because the rule is too complex, and I can’t be bothered to memorize that.
• I will stop using cheap intensifiers like “very”, “quite” and “rather”.
• Posts will be (allegedly) insightful and substantial to some extent to prevent the blog from degenerating into another awful activity feed.

I will be revising all the old posts. While the authenticity of the moment is lost, I can’t have incoherent messes like that on this blog, especially when it has its own domain. Some revision of history is necessary.

As for the export, everything went smoothly except for some comments that didn’t transfer over properly.

Building with snow is a mixed blessing. There’s a desire to build something amazing, but doing so completely destroys the pristine landscape which is always more amazing than whatever you build. But with 6 inches this year, I didn’t have to destroy nearly as much while building because there was sufficient accumulation on the roads.

6 inches? Am I in Canada?

Now this I'd like to see every year.

There was enough snow to build an awesome arch. I intended for it to be 6 feet tall, but the structure was unstable so I had to downsize it. The arch is roughly 89 centimeters tall and 70 centimeters to the base of the keystone. It was constructed from compressed snow blocks formed in plastic container. The weight of the arch caused the legs to fracture twice causing the arch to collapse, but eventually the whole thing balanced out and it was pretty fun.

Building the arch.

Still building the arch.

Shaping the arch with an old kitchen knife.

The completed arch.

I am badly out of touch with potentially profitable product ideas. Several weeks ago there was a Shark Tank episode in which an inventor demonstrated seat belt safety product that alerts the driver if the seat belt is not in use. After turning down all of the sharks’ offers, a recent episode revealed that he was able to find distribution through some car dealerships and was making a healthy profit.

During the initial presentation of the product, I immediately thought it was not particularly useful for several reasons.

• I assumed that everyone uses their seat belts. A car is a massive hulk of metal moving at high speeds. There is a risk of injury and even death in the event of an accident. A seat belt has a decent chance of decreasing the risk of harm, therefore putting on a seat belt before hitting the roads would be reflexive.
• It is excessive and prevents the driver from having control over the vehicle. A seat belt is already a safety feature, and this product tacks on another level of safety over the first level. If this was the ignition for an ICBM a few extra precautionary measures would be great, but it just seems silly for something as mundane as a seat belt.

Marketing

There’s nothing quite as horrifying as seeing a $200 loss within a day, especially when that money was eked out at near minimum wage. Once you see that level of spending for the first time, logic flies out the window and emotions take over. I have a bit more experience now, but it’s uninspiring. After so much effort, at the end of a good day you will be left with profit, but not much else to show for your efforts aside from a good campaign. Obviously the next step would be to diversify to leave the field, but when looking at just internet marketing, it’s the kind of pursuit that can be called dull. It’s the kind of pursuit that, if I were on my deathbed, I would look back and think, “I wasted all that effort with nothing to show for it but money. No real knowledge gained. No inspiring product created. I wasted so much time pushing leads for dating websites, insurance companies, and toolbar downloads.” The optimizing aspect is interesting, but aside from that there is not much else that is interesting.

Time

The passing of time seems to be accelerating. Years ago, the minutes would pass so slowly. Now time has slapped me across the face since it’s already February 2010. So cruel and unusual.

Microsoft

Windows Mobile will likely be dead soon. I can’t imagine what Windows Mobile 7 could possibly offer to regain lost market share. Internet Explorer is also as good as dead. It’s painfully slow, has security problems and I can’t think of any redeeming features. The Zune HD is actually an impressive offering, but an app store is pretty much critical with that kind of hardware, because without one it’s just a glorified MP3 player. Bing is innovative, but in the end it still comes down to the quality of search results, a front on which Bing fails to deliver. Its only real uses are the interesting homepage photos and its cache, which is around longer than those of other search engines due to its slow crawler. Windows 7 and Office 14 are the only bright spots.

After this trip I’ve felt much saner; the wilderness distracted me from civilization, which is filled with things that are damaging but superficially pleasing. The trip reminded me of more important things.

Psychology is fascinating as well. With a good grasp of psychology, you can better understand yourself and others. By understanding yourself, I assume it must improve self control because it explains your own behavior. Better planning and other good stuff must come as a result of this. Plus there’s also the benefit of better understanding of others. It’s all a matter of understanding the big picture. By understanding yourself and understanding others you can achieve a great deal. Unfortunately, as a career it does not have the insane potential for income that I desire, a figure only business can reach. Once I get that house, and that stable income, I will have so much more time to read and learn.

Information. There’s so much of it and I don’t have enough time to learn it all. Psychology, electronics and of course all those random interesting articles from the internet. If only I could read it all. I finally had time to organize my stuff. 224 favorites, at least 10 receipts with scribbles of crap. Now it’s all sitting in folders. Wonderful.

I also realized that my dreams are not nearly wildly crazy enough.

Previous Outrageous Dream

• Decent (No more than 4,000 square feet) sized two story house with a pool somewhere near San Francisco
• Basic economy car
• Lambo or Ferrari

Updated Outrageous Dream

• Decent (No more than 4,000 square feet) sized two story house with a pool somewhere near San Francisco, Texas or Africa
• Helicopter
• Private jet
• Private island
• Nuclear powered yacht

Also of note is that I recently posted about how Facebook would be an excellent platform for applications. I knew what I had in mind, but I failed to put into words the scope of what I was thinking. Luckily GigaOm had an article on this exact trend.

I had always jokingly considered creating my own internet, Internet 2.0, where there would be no anonymity and only websites with acceptable quality would be allowed. But the social web is partially like that because of its decreased anonymity. Many sites are integrating a Facebook login to allow for a social element. Where in the past someone might be hunched over a comp playing a Flash game all alone, now he can (Surrogates) play with others socially.

It also mentions that the social web generates more information and the need to index it. Much of the information is absolute garbage, useless status updates, mindless babbling and other junk, but it might be vaguely useful as aggregate data somehow.

In the end it all comes back to the same thing. I want to be doing whatever I want on the spur of the moment. I want to wake up in the morning, and if I think, "hey, I feel like drawing today", I will be able to do so. I’ll be able to whip out paper, chair, pad sit down and draw and draw with no regard for time and no worries, stopping only when it’s dark. Sure, I could draw right now. But if I did, I would not enjoy doing so, for all the while in the back of my mind all the things I have to do would be distracting me. It would not be enjoyable. My mind is just buzzing with all the wonderful things I could be doing, learning to cook, play golf, drawing, playing piano, reading. But again, this is only possible with time. And time can only be acquired with money. Money I don’t have. Feeling a bit better now that I’ve organized this thoughts. More motivated.

Some of the industries I’ve been thinking about that seem guaranteed to have good returns such as fast food, green energy, drugs and natural resources. So most of these look pretty obvious now that I type them.