I wrote to Sainsburys (large UK grocery store chain) in 1993, suggesting an idea for a "self checkout", where you would scan items yourself as you put them into your shipping cart. My anti-theft solution was that they'd weigh your cart as you left, to make sure you'd scanned everything!
I never expected a reply, but was so stoked when I received a letter with a similar generic-but-enthusiastic reply, along the lines of "Thanks for such a creative idea!"
Do kids still get the opportunity to experience things like this? I can't imagine that sending an email to a company's generic contact@ address is ever going to get the save kind of response - and certainly not something that they can proudly pin on their wall for motivation.
It wouldn't solve every issue. Nothing will. But hopefully cameras could prevent the situations that I've heard about directly from people, where drivers wouldn't let them out the car and we asking for their number, or were asking for dates/propositioning them, etc.
And who knows, if the situations you quoted there began with a driver forcing them into his place, or following the rider into her house, then a camera could also have prevented them - or have been clear evidence.
Well, we looked at those gigantic pyramids, translated the hieroglyphs in some places to mean that a dangerous curse would afflict anyone who entered, and then went in to explore / loot the places.
So... yeah. That's the level of being willing to ignore warnings that we have to prepare for.
Except the Touch didn't have a data connection. 'Voice calls' isn't the killer feature of a contemporary smart phone, an always-on internet connection is.
I was in Manila last month, and mostly took Uber; the experience was exactly like using it in the US.
I took one Grab ride, and the experience couldn't have been more different. I booked the ride on Grab, and saw the car coming towards me on the map. Just as it arrived, the driver waved to me out of his car, and then canceled the ride in the app. The car & licence plate were completely different to the one shown in the app.
Next to the driver was sat his friend, who talked to me throughout the 10 minute ride, and gave me his cards in case I needed to book a hotel or ride on my next visit.
When we arrived, I gave cash to the driver (the amount that the app had priced it at originally) and bolted. I couldn't leave any feedback in the app, because the canceled ride had disappeared.
It's hard to tell if this is a one-off weird experience, or a typical Grab ride. Either way, it made me unlikely to want to use it again, and I was planning to go back to Uber on my next trip to SE Asia.
I don't know how well known Rand or Moz are on here, but it's great to see this posted.
I feel like SEO has been an area that gets looked down upon from certain sectors. In the 10+ years that Rand built up the company, the industry changed a lot - and he's been a voice for consistently doing things authentically and in a way that makes the internet better.
You'd also be hard pressed to find anyone who has been so transparent in sharing everything they've learned along the way - a LOT of folks in digital marketing began learning from his blog posts and videos.
I'm pretty excited for all his next ventures, and looking forward to the book for his take on advice for startup founders.
Plus, the 'safer-events project' is in response to incidents that one would hope no one has to experience again.
(And despite some harder times, Moz seems to be on the up again; they have some top-class products, should have some interesting new tools over the coming year.)
I've never heard 'up to London'; being from Manchester, London was definitely "down South".
Coming 'up' to Cambridge had a specific meaning, of matriculating at the University. For example: I came up to Cambridge in 2002. I assume that the University of Oxford uses it in the same way?
I'm just inferring, but it sounds like it's possible to get a car loan/lease through Uber. It might be more tax efficient to have Uber take repayments directly from your earnings? So if first $X earned on Uber that day go to your repayments, it's worth earning $X on Uber to pay off the car, and then drive on whatever app pays the most.
I never expected a reply, but was so stoked when I received a letter with a similar generic-but-enthusiastic reply, along the lines of "Thanks for such a creative idea!"
Do kids still get the opportunity to experience things like this? I can't imagine that sending an email to a company's generic contact@ address is ever going to get the save kind of response - and certainly not something that they can proudly pin on their wall for motivation.