Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Transitory Coolness

Here's a potential windfall for the NYPD and other New Yorkers who get molested by *lost*, ESL tourists all day, everyday:



Pretty cool!

BUT, some of this stuff is mere coolness in search of a practical, in-demand, profitable application. Consider:



When I see hype like this I'm reminded of someone I know who, ten years ago, in the euphoria of the NASDAQ bubble, raised money to make a Palm Pilot *app* that would hook up users with local restaurants (reviews, reservations, etc.).

And here we are a decade hence, long after his venture blew up, and this ingenius idea STILL hasn't fully arrived.

Or I'm reminded of one of my old bosses who went hogwild for *internet telephony* at the same, extremely premature time.

It's a lesson of history that today's *cool*...



...quickly becomes tomorrow's bore:



Though Fonzie was just before my time....his coolness was way beyond my ken.

So you kids are will be really lost on this analogy.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

how old are you anyways. u seem like 50 years or older, based on your past few articles.

Justin Time said...

I was thinking the same thing...

I'm pretty sure you have to be younger that 32 to claim that Fonzie was before your time...

CaptiousNut said...

I'm 35.5!

Post on my aging will be up any second.

Happy Days went off the air in 1984, when I was 10. It wasn't exactly a show for people in my age bracket. Plus it was stupid!

Justin Time said...

While I might agree that it was dumb, you forget that in 1984, there were only 3 stations and no interent.

So you chose between Happy Days, Highway to Heaven and Murder She Wrote.

Unknown said...

Justin has it right...which is why a huge portion of my generation virtually never watched tv. It utterly sucked which got us outdoors, circulating in society and in the workforce with something resembling discipline and thick skin.