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I was recently filling up my car at the gas station when I noticed the vehicle on the other side of the pump. It was a third-gen Acura Integra, dark green, produced between 1994 to 2001. On the windshield there was a black and white sticker that read "No Airbags, We Die Like Real Men."
Let's analyze this statement by breaking it down into its elements: cars, death, and honor.
First, let's talk about the car.
In the United States, the safety of automobile passengers has historically taken a backseat compared to other vehicle innovations in design, power, and fuel economy. Seat belts were required on all new vehicles sold starting in 1968, which was 75 years after the first practical American automobile was produced in 1893. Later still were airbags, which were required on all new vehicles sold after September 1, 1998 per a law passed in 1991. This was nearly 50 years after the first airbags were developed in the early 1950s.
When the 3rd generation Integra debuted in 1994, it featured dual front airbags to protect the occupants in the event of a crash. Like many other auto manufacturers, Acura was compliant with the 1991 law well before it was fully enforced in 1998. The only cars on the road today that do not have airbags as standard equipment are vintage/classic cars, such as those built in the 1950s-1980s which are mostly driven by collectors to car shows. The Integra next to me at the gas station was certainly not a classic car.
Next, we will talk about death.
On a long enough timeline, no one escapes death. But there is a difference between dying from an unpreventable situation versus dying early from a preventable cause. Dying before reaching your full life expectancy is often a tragic affair for one's family and friends.
The grief-stricken family will be especially upset if they learn that the death of their friend or family member could have been avoided through some small amount of caution like wearing a helmet, looking both ways, living a healthy lifestyle, wearing a seat belt, or driving a car equipped with functioning air bags. Each of these choices have been proven to significantly reduce the risk of dying early from a preventable cause or accident.
Finally, we come to the last topic which is honor.
When a person dies, their friends and family must deal with the situation. In their grief, they may evaluate the circumstances of the deceased person's passing. The death of a person can be dishonorable, like when a terrorist injures or kills other people and then kills themselves. Death can be neutral, like when a person passes away quietly in their sleep. And death can also be honorable, like a soldier who dies from injuries sustained while performing a heroic deed, like saving fellow soldiers from a dangerous situation.
All this is to say that modern cars come equipped with airbags to help save lives in the event of a survivable accident. The idea that making a reckless decision and dying in a survivable crash is somehow honorable or something to be proud of is absolutely absurd. The idea that this makes you a "real man" is so stupid, it's almost beyond comprehension.
If the sticker was a joke, it's not very funny or clever. If the sticker was completely serious, then it is no great loss to the human race if you should die unnecessarily as a result of your own ignorance.
Everyone has bills to pay. Rent, groceries, and some kind of utility payments such as electricity/water/gas are unavoidable no matter where you live. You may or may not have a car payment, student loan payment, mortgage, and other things such as a cell phone or cable TV/Internet service. It can be disheartening to watch so much of your hard-earned money go out the window each month to these basic expenses.
As if that weren't enough, there are a number of services that have come out recently that have taken traditional consumer goods and "reinvented" them by turning the purchase cycle from "as needed" into a monthly subscription model.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, the typical American household would have had relatively few subscription services. Perhaps their local newspaper, maybe a magazine like Time or Reader's Digest, and very likely a Cable TV service. Today there are innumberable services you could be subscribing to, all with the goal of "disrupting" an established big industry.
Now instead of cable, you can pay $9.99/month for Netflix, $7.99/month for Hulu, $12.99/month for Amazon Prime Video, $15/month for HBO Now, $20/month for Sling TV, $35/month for YouTube TV, or $39/month for a PlayStation Vue subscription. Any one of them offers substantial savings over the traditional $90-$150 cable bill from Comcast, Charter, Cox, Cable One, and other providers. But if you want to watch both Game of Thrones (HBO) and House of Cards (Netflix), you must subscribe to each service, which can quickly add up.
Now instead of buying shaving razors at the drugstore as needed, you can subscribe to Dollar Shave Club or Harry's for anywhere from $9 to $21 per month for mail-order shaving supplies. Somehow men have managed to stay clean shaven for generations without having supplies "delivered to your doorstep," so I question the value add of these services.
Home security is another market quickly transitioning to the monthly-subscription model. My local cable company offers home security cameras and monitoring for $30/month ($40/month if not bundled with any other services). Nest also offers cloud-based backups of your home security cameras for $5 to $30 per month. While a home security system can help identify a burglar, these services to little to secure the home in the first place and provide peace-of-mind rather than actual security.
Adding to the monthly cost for creative professionals is online data storage and photo backup, which will run you $6 a month for Carbonite or $0.99/month with Apple's iCloud service. Adobe's famous Creative Suite has also switched to a cloud-based, monthly subscription service at $49/month for the full suite.
Vanity services recently experienced a boom in popularity. Services like BirchBox, BarkBox, NatureBox, LootCrate, and many imitators provide a monthly box of samples and goodies for whatever you are into - makeup, pet accessories, gaming culture, or anything else you can imagine.
Finally, we come to meal delivery services. Between Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Plated, Sun Basket, and others have created meal kits that can be assembled by people with limited to no cooking experience. These services have taken home meal preparation - historically one of the cheapest ways of eating - and turned it into a "premium" experience that costs anywhere from $9 to $12 per meal.
There is an old Chinese expression called "lingchi" which roughly translates to "death by a thousand cuts." I feel like it is very easy to sign up for a free trial for each of these services and before you know it, your bank account is being silently drained by a multitude of small subscriptions each month.
While I don't doubt that one or two of them might add real value to your everyday life, the sheer proliferation of these services during the last 5-8 years feels like an all-out war for my hard-earned dollars.
They're also not that innovative, doing the slightly modernized version of what the Sears Catalog did a century ago. Combining an existing consumer product with a monthly subscription does not make it an innovative new business model. It looks great to investors to have that Monthly Recurring Revenue, but all of these businesses are targeted towards price-conscious consumers who will jump ship to your competitor if they have a better price or offer.
I'm not the only one who feels this way:
https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/05/09/182426256/consumers-facing-subscription-service-overload-will-only-get-more-choices
https://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2016/11/03/has-the-subscription-box-boom-turned-into-a-bubble/
https://qz.com/index/1161993/americans-are-overwhelmed-by-too-many-available-tv-subscription-services/
A few years ago, I wrote about a trend I noticed where hardcore bands were adopting these "verb-the-noun" names en masse.
Now, I've spotted a new trend among indie bands trying to come up with the ultimate ironic band name. Many of them are trying to be funny, but mostly they are just ripping off the status of a celebrity.
Take these band names for example:
- Gnarls Barkley
- Ylvis
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
- Com Truise
- Danananaykyrod
- Joy Orbison
- Hoodie Allen
- Gringo Starr
- Ringo Deathstarr
- Tiger & Woods
- Andrew Jackson Jihad
- Abraham Drinkin
- George Moshington
This is a ridiculous trend for several reasons. First of all, it's not very original. Second, basing your band on a misspelling is a terrible way to get people to find you online in the Internet age. Third, most of them are pretty childish. Fourth, it's just piggybacking on someone else's status.
I'm not the only one who feels this way:
http://breezyk.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/when-did-vowels-stop-being-cool/
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/monocle/band_names_referencing_celebrities/
http://rateyourmusic.com/board_message?message_id=3455249
Like it or not, the new age of electric cars is upon us. The Nissan Leaf, Ford Focus Electric, and Tesla Model S are the latest generation of pure electric vehicles to go on sale in the US.
Now I am not against the idea of electric cars. As a motoring enthusiast, my curiosity is piqued by anything with wheels and and engine, regardless of whether it runs on gasoline, diesel, propane, biofuel, electricity, or expensive champagne. However, there is one glaring inaccuracy about electric vehicles that I feel the need to correct.
I have read a great deal of news articles extolling the benefits of electric vehicles. Indeed, if you live in a city and primarily use your car for commuting, an electric car is a smart, environmentally sound, and efficient way to get around.
The part that gets me flustered is when a reporter claims that electric vehicles are "maintenance free." I can't tell you how many articles I've read that mention how the drivetrain in the Tesla Model S is so simple, it only has 3 moving parts. Buy one and all you will ever have to do is plug in the charger, right? Wrong.
While it's true that an electric car will never need to have its oil changed or a muffler replaced, there is still plenty of maintenance to be done.
Because it is still a vehicle that travels on the road, electric cars rely on rubber tires which must be rotated and kept at the proper pressure. By virtue of the fact that it has wheels, electric cars also need wheel bearings to help the car roll smoothly and brake pads to help the car stop - two more components which have a finite service life.
Electric cars have moving parts in the suspension and steering that use bushings which will, over long periods of time, wear out just like a fossil-fuel powered vehicle. Electric cars also have traditional car parts which are prone to breaking such as power windows, hinges, handles, and latches. Many of them have cabin air filters for the air conditioning system - another user-replaceable part.
Besides that, there are a number of specialty systems on an electric car which may need to be serviced. A pure electric vehicle will often rely on an electric powered blower motor for the heat and air conditioning. In the case of the Tesla Roadster, the battery pack is cooled with liquid, much like antifreeze/coolant in a traditional engine.
Again, I am not saying any of this to put down electric cars. Yes, I am aware that electric car owners will never have to get their hands dirty to change spark plugs and wires, an air filter, or engine oil. The traditional "tune up" will be a thing of the past. What I want to do is disspell the myth that by buying an electric car, you will be driving a magical "maintenance free" machine. There's still a lot to keep track of as a safe and responsible driver.
One of the most important things a company can do for itself is pick a good name. Historically, blue-chip American companies have names such as Bank of America, Coca-Cola, General Mills, and IBM. Lately, I've been noticing a trend in upstart American companies: they are all picking one-word company names.
Are these new generation of entrepreneurs trying to copy the success of Apple and Google? Possibly. Here are some of the new company names I've run across lately:
Box - Secure online file storage
Bump - Media sharing for smartphones
Canary - Wireless home security system
Coin - Replace multiple credit cards with one single card
Nest - The "learning" thermostat
Paper - Digital sketch book for iPad
Simple - Personal finance software
Square - Mobile payment processing
Stripe - Web payment processing
Vine - Looping video app from Twitter
Based on these companies, I have developed a formula for people looking to launch their own one-word startup company. Follow these easy steps and you'll be on your way to startup success in no time!
1. The Name
Obviously, it has to be a one-word name. It should not be a portmanteau or empty vessel name like Groupon or Hulu, but an everyday word from the dictionary (preferably a noun).
2. The Website
The website must look really slick. Clean design with lots of whitespace and no more than 3 colors. Bonus points if your entire website is one long scrolling page (like an Apple product page).
3. The Video
The focus of your website is to get people to watch your introductory video, which is naturally hosted on Vimeo instead of YouTube, lending credence to the far more artistic-thinking audience your company cultivates. The video should not have any spoken dialogue, but should illustrate your company's product or service through a clever sequence of shots backed by an upbeat instrumental track and some inspirational words at the end.
(The similarities between Nest, Simple and Paper's videos are stunning).
4. The Press
Your company has to be mentioned absolutely everywhere. Not in mainstream media like the New York Times or Time Magazine, but on the web! You need profiles in FastCompany, TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo, Huffington Post, Reddit, and all of the lower tier websites that scrape or syndicate content from the bigger ones.
5. The App
Whether the app IS your product/service or simply facilitates one, you need a mobile app. It has to be available for both iOS and Android platforms.
6. The Business Model
The product should use the freemium model in which some of the functionality is given for free, and members can subscribe for a low monthly fee to enable complete functionality. For product based models (such as Tesla or Nest) there should be no more than 3 variations of the product. Keep it simple.
Here are some new companies I have just now invented using my own formula:
Bound - An on-demand publishing service similar to LuLu, Blurb, and others.
Chain - A social app for cyclists. Hu ge with the fixed-gear hipster crowd.
Green - Um, I don't know? Something to do with finance and smartphones...
Ink - A cloud based printing service of some sort.
Ring - A virtual telephone number service (similar to Google Voice and Skype).
Snooze - Find a hotel room from your smartphone.
Whirl - A location-based photo sharing app (FourSquare meets Instagram).
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