Evan Hahn dot com

I commit acts of awesome.permalink

Unfinished; I can't decide if I like or hate this song to death. I'll listen to it tomorrow morning.permalink We live in this new thing called the Information Age, and we owe that to the Internet. Never before has a person had so much knowledge available without leaving their chair. Never before has a friend living in England been able to see you waving in America. Never before has the human race collectively wasted billions of hours looking at stupid pictures of cats. The Internet is responsible for new businesses, better communications, a new culture, and much more.

I praise the Internet for its ability to do so many great things, but I feel that it is lacking in an important area: anonymous collaboration across a variety of mediums.

Wikipedia is, of course, the exception to this. The collective effort of thousands of people, everyone anonymous or hidden behind the likeness of usernames, has created a startlingly large sum of information that is surprisingly accurate. The Wiki software is an extraordinary achievement in anonymous, online collaboration.

But Wikipedia is only for text and limited images. While text is extraordinarily valuable, direct interaction with other mediums is more difficult.

There are Web sites that are more specific, like Google Docs's functionality, allowing a group of people to collaborate on a presentation, document, or spreadsheet. Box.net allows users to upload and discuss files. There are online whiteboards that allow people to draw things together.

The problem? It's not anonymous. You could advertise it on your Twitter page, but unless you're an Internet celebrity, only your friends would collaborate.

I want to see an Internet band, with songs composed by people who don't know each other. I want to see an Internet art gallery, made by hundreds of people who will never meet. I want to read an Internet novel, with characters and plot twists concocted by the collective Anonymous.

I don't think these kinds of things exist, and if they do, they're not well-known. A wonderful business would be one that tried to tackle this problem.

Start it with me.permalink

While I was in the car today, I had my laptop and was trying to load Gmail. The car was in range of free WiFi for only moments, so I had to frantically click around to load pages.

Then I had an nerd epiphany.

WiFi Freeloading Speedway Racing

You need three or more people to play. One person needs to drive, and everyone else needs a laptop with WiFi.

The goal of the game is to be the first person to load Google.com in a moving car, using free WiFi.

The driver must avoid any stops that they can, but stay legal.

No cheating! No downloading Google before you leave. No having satellite access. None of this madness.

Alternative methods:

It's the driver versus the people with laptops. Before the game, have all players agree on a destination. The driver is trying to get to that destination before anyone can load Google.com.
Players race to post a Twitter, which must be posted on the website.