Paying for noise

As always, I swear I am not making any of this up.

Kim has introduced me to the wonders of using a sound machine to fall asleep. It is something that took a little while to get used to as the first few nights resulted in my lying awake in bed trying to find the pattern in white noise. I mean, it couldn’t all be random static, could it? Anyway, after a while it just became a part of my routine to use a sound machine.

This led to several years of buying sound machines and then having them come to rather unfortunate ends. One blew up when I plugged it into an outlet in Iceland where, despite the fact that the converter I purchased specifically stated that it could be used worldwide, apparently has an electric grid developed by magical elves. Another was destroyed on a cruise shi[ when I mistakenly set the ourlet to European voltage instead of American. Yes, that does cause Kim to question just how I earned a degree in electrical engineering. On other occasions I have been forced to purchase a sound machine for an infant’s room as it was the only one that I could find. In that case I recommend not using the heartbeat or womb noises because they are incredibly freaky and will give you nightmares. It might explain why we are all so screwed up.

In any case I always end up buying sound machines, which typically meant a trip to Brookstone to be the only person who isn’t there just to sit in the massaging chair. Then a few weeks ago Kim was out of town and had forgotten her sound machine. I thought, “Hey, we have free mobile to mobile minutes, why don’t I just put my phone next to my sound machine and she can put her phone on speaker all night.” That didn’t work well and she spent the night sans white noise. In the middle of the night I wake up and go, “Hey, I bêt there is an iPhone app for a sound machine. She should download that.” I then immediately had three thoughts come to mind.

1) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that four hours ago so I could have helped out my wife.
2) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that a year or two ago so I wouldn’t have spent several hundred dollars on machines that have since broken.
3) It would have been even better if I had written the code for this app a few years ago when I, you know, happened to be making a living by promoting apps on cell phones.
I am still not sure which one of these three pissed me off the most, though I am most upset about the first one. But I couldn’t believe that I had missed such a simple market opportunity. All a sound machine is a speaker with a recorded sound loop on it. It probably takes five seconds to write the code for the app and someone did it and made a ton of money and I could have done it if I recognized the opportunity. It’s really upsetting to realize that you were dumb as a rock in your past (even though I realize that I am done in the present every day.)

The interesting thing about this, and why I am telling the story, is that when people talk about taking advantage of opportunities the challenge is less having the courage to take advantage but being aware that the opportunities exist. I’ve been on the cutting edge of two of the major technical revolutions in my lifetime: I was one of the first people on the web using Mosaic at Illinois and then I worked in mobile data just as cell phones were taking off. In both instances I recognized what was happening but didn’t really figure out how to take advantage of it. The web was just a neat toy and even I didn’t quite grasp the ubiquitousness of cell phones (though I think my argument that no one will ever watch TV on a phone has taken hold.) Sometimes you need the ability to take a step back and see the bigger picture and realize where the gaps are.

By the way, anyone need a sound machine suitable for an infant? It has two settings: soothing lullabye or gurgling hellbeast.