Heat Map Monkey

Way back in the day, I worked for a telecommunications company called Flowers Direct. The idea was to connect you, as close as they could, to a florist where you were actually sending the flowers. None of the mess of finding out they sent gladiolas instead of roses because they were out of roses that day ...

Not as useful in the Internet era and flat-rate calling, but this was back when Linux was being sold on card tables at the back corners of computer trade shows.

Learned a lot - like how zip codes and area codes aren't these semi-permanent things but change crazy fast, if viewed on a national scale. Or that there really are weird people who call up just to hear the automated voices speaking to them - and they will go down a line of pay phones as you block them off one-by-one. And I learned about marketing.

See, the marketing group at Flowers Direct was, essentially, the kiss-of-death. Everyone who had worked on that team was, in some way or another, forced out of the company in disgrace. Even the consultants weren't having a good time of it. And so, being the junior programmer and the junior employee - well, the marketing team needed a programmer, and I was going to be the sacrafice.

That's when I learned about the Census Bureau and their whacky statistics. And companies like Melissa Data, who aggregate it and a whole mess of other facts besides.

So I hatched a plan. If I was going to be driven out in disgrace, then I wasn't going to go quietly into that night. I was going to go out with a bang. I was going to correlate the data we had on our customers and produce the most far-fetched marketing plans that they'd have no choice but to conclude somebody had lost their sanity - and since I was the one with the data, it would be clear THEY needed the straight jacket.

"Sixty percent of the people who use our service have pools and guns," I would announce. "We need a promotional piece to emphasize firearm use and water sports!" They undoubtedly had visions of the skeet surfing from "Top Secret!" pop in their brains. "All of our customers our calling from the largest MSAs (metropolitan statistical areas) - we're losing the rural customers!"

They did not ask for these statistics. They did not want these statistics. And I made sure they really and truly did not want them. I would always tack one or two at the end of every report, every memo, and into every conversation.

I survived the marketing group. Sure - I eventually fell to the axe when the company hit bad times, but it wasn't because of marketing.

And then I read XKCD today

http://xkcd.com/1138/

Skylab Weather

The amount of orbital debris currently circling the planet is simply staggering. Of course most of it is in the paint-chips and urine-icicles. But, according to NASA, there are more than a half-million pieces that are between 1 and 10cm in diameter. Now, a lot of it will burn up if it reenters the Earth’s atmosphere, but there’s always that chance.

Is anyone old enough to remember Skylab?

In July 1979, after six years in orbit, the space station known as Skylab was de-orbited by ground control and aimed at a spot in the middle of the ocean. They missed. Skylab did not disintegrate as planned and, combined with other errors, portions of the space station struck Western Australia.

The TV show “Max Headroom” would later parody the fall of Skylab, with the falling of space debris a time of celebration and partying, with everyone wearing fanciful hats or carrying decorative umbrellas.

NASA had estimated the chances of Skylab debris hitting a human being at 1:152, with a 1:7 chance that debris would strike a populated city. The Orbital Debris Program Office official position is that modern-day orbital debris poses no significant risk to life or property; most of the debris burns up, and anything that survives is more likely to hit a body of water than land.

I sense a conspiracy theory possibility!

The same NASA office that tells us that there is no risk from orbital debris slamming into the Earth also readily admits that, on average, one piece of debris fell back to Earth EVERY DAY FOR THE LAST 50 YEARS!

I think it would be awesome to have an app for that.

Pros:

• Anything that supports a conspiracy theory sells. If you combine it with outer-space it sells even better. If it could potentially pose a direct threat, it sells better still!
• It is the right combination of technical precision with abominable accuracy that directly appeals to geeks. Done properly, a good portion of geekdom will download the app simply for the nerd appeal

Cons:

• Niche hobby app - the app solves no real problems and isn’t likely to be entertaining after the first 5 minutes
• If you don’t pull the debris catalogs and do real math, you’ll face a lot of negative comments. If you do, you’ll truly have wasted your time
• For best results, the app is going to be graphics-loaded. A good app will be a tricky design

-- --- -. -.- . -.--

So here is the first of the app ideas from that grab-bag-o-stupidity discussed in the previous entry. The title is your clue: write a Morse Code decoder!

There are a bazillion Morse-style apps in the app store, but I was only able to find one of them that decoded Morse Code (from the microphone, that is) into text. It's a fairly simple-looking app and it sells for $9.99. The ratings are either very high and very low - there are few ratings in the middle. There appear to have been only two releases, with the last one in March 2012 - in other words, you won't be fighting a massively entrenched player!

This is exactly the type of idea that is worth pursuing. If the user interface can be made to appear friendlier you'd certainly be able to steal some sales. And coming in at less than $9.99 would almost certainly get you some sales - you could go freemium by including ads and selling an upgrade to remove them.

Pros:

• Morse Code is well established and easy, so learning curve is not hard
• The iOS devices include sophisticated audio capabilities that will make identifying tones and pulses easier than having to do all that by hand
• Good portfolio app: it solves a real-world problem that even non-geeks can intuitively understand

Cons:

• Well motivated enemy: the established app writer is a Morse Code fanatic and no slouch with audio
• Difficult to stand-out: the App Store is overflowing with Morse Code apps
• Limited general applicability: more of a "neat-to-have" than a "must-have" or everyday utility

Ideas Are Worth Peanuts ...

... a perfect setup for a blog post from a Code Monkey!

So periodically across the various iOS web forums various posters begin moaning about their lack of ideas for new mobile applications.  I have never understood either the point of these posts or the method behind them.  Yes, once upon a time I was a child who would bother my parents with cries of "there's nothing do" when there was truly a vast world open for experience not more than a few yards outside ... youth is wasted upon the young.  How can a person lack an idea for development?

Posting snarky responses to these complaints was always fun, but I'd usually also open up my grab-bag-o'-stupidity and throw out a few of the ideas contained therein.  True, some of them were truly useless, such as the shoe-sizer estimator app - snap a pic of your foot and it calculates your shoe size! - but perhaps a few ideas had merit.

I think the real complaint, never expressly stated, was that the original poster wanted an app idea as successful as Angry Birds and as easy to code as Tic-Tac-Toe (though other posters seem to have inordinate trouble with TTT too!).  With Tetris and PacMan already taken, though, I could only leave our angst-ridden posters disappointed.

And yet this idea that the IDEA is all-encompassing seems quite misplaced.  It's not - success requires hard work and there aren't any shortcuts.  Defining success as a $100B Facebook evaluation seems misplaced and pointless - that level isn't going to happen to a lot of people.  But success in terms of a good salary, a good life, and enough toys to stay happy?  Seems easy enough.

Of course, if there's an excessive valuation on the IDEA of the idea, then I'd be a foolish monkey not to capitalize.  As the stock market always teaches - there's bound to be a bigger fool out there somewhere (note: if you can't spot him - tag!).

So I've got about 50 ideas sitting here on my desk gathering dust.  That's easily going to make 50 more blog posts.  And with a few more days of thought I can push that number up to the magical 101 - and then I've got a book.

Heck, in my time I've bought more than my share of "101 Circuit Diagrams", "The Engineer's Mini-Notebook", "Make", etc.  It's rather embarrassing, really - shameful.  It seems to be a successful bandwagon, though - watch this monkey grab his cymbals and bang!