Monday, February 16, 2009
Workflow
When you take a taxi ride, you sit there for the duration of the ride with nothing to do but look out the window, then when you arrive at your destination, and are blocking traffic, you must scramble to calculate the tip and pay the driver.
That is stupid. NYC Taxis now take credit card. You should be able to swipe your card at any point during the trip and enter a percentage tip. The system could pre-auth some amount on your card, and when the ride is over you'd just have to, at most, hit a confirm button and hop out. This would save both you and the driver time and minimize traffic disruption.
When you take a taxi ride, you sit there for the duration of the ride with nothing to do but look out the window, then when you arrive at your destination, and are blocking traffic, you must scramble to calculate the tip and pay the driver.
That is stupid. NYC Taxis now take credit card. You should be able to swipe your card at any point during the trip and enter a percentage tip. The system could pre-auth some amount on your card, and when the ride is over you'd just have to, at most, hit a confirm button and hop out. This would save both you and the driver time and minimize traffic disruption.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Friday the 13th, 2004 was a day like any other. I had nothing to do at work. So I started this blog. Which means today is the 5th year anniversary!
I'm sure you are wondering about some key stats about this blog. Well, they are 428 total posts (net) and 8731 hits, which if you are a fan of meaningless ratios and unnecessary precision is 20.399953 hits per post.
In celebration, I'm going to link back to the post that started it all, and is probably still the best one. Enjoy.
I'm sure you are wondering about some key stats about this blog. Well, they are 428 total posts (net) and 8731 hits, which if you are a fan of meaningless ratios and unnecessary precision is 20.399953 hits per post.
In celebration, I'm going to link back to the post that started it all, and is probably still the best one. Enjoy.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
For spending our nation's resources,
"The market" : Congressional Appropriatorsis most similar to, for entrusting your household budget,
a) Your Jewish accountant : Your toddler
b) Your Goldman private banker : A heroin addict
c) Your Fidelity broker : Bernie Madoff
d) All of the above
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
New Idea for iPhone App
When you download it, it automatically sells your iPhone on eBay and orders you a blackberry.
When you download it, it automatically sells your iPhone on eBay and orders you a blackberry.
Monday, February 02, 2009
New Business Idea [probably already exists]
Sell a high quality notebook that comes with a sturdy but removable binding and a prepaid envelope to mail the notebook back when it is full. When the notebook is returned, it will be scanned and OCR'd (to the extent possible based on the content), and you will get a searchable PDF emailed to you.
I really would've liked to have this product/service in college and grad school. Instead of having all of my notes readily available, I either threw out the notebooks after the class ended or it's in a pile of crap somewhere I will probably never look at again.
This would also be great for professional services firms. Upon starting a new project each team member gets a notebook. At the end of the project, or when a team member "rotates off," the notebook is scanned and added to the project's digital files, for compliance purposes and retention of institutional knowledge.
With some of those industrial Google library scanners, it would probably be fairly cheap to implement the service.
Sell a high quality notebook that comes with a sturdy but removable binding and a prepaid envelope to mail the notebook back when it is full. When the notebook is returned, it will be scanned and OCR'd (to the extent possible based on the content), and you will get a searchable PDF emailed to you.
I really would've liked to have this product/service in college and grad school. Instead of having all of my notes readily available, I either threw out the notebooks after the class ended or it's in a pile of crap somewhere I will probably never look at again.
This would also be great for professional services firms. Upon starting a new project each team member gets a notebook. At the end of the project, or when a team member "rotates off," the notebook is scanned and added to the project's digital files, for compliance purposes and retention of institutional knowledge.
With some of those industrial Google library scanners, it would probably be fairly cheap to implement the service.
