I just had this GREAT idea. I was watching this movie, The Mauritian, about a guy on a scientific mission to Mauritius who gets left for dead by his crew, and he has to survive on a desert island with only his wits and knowledge of mineralogy. It’s that new Yaival DuMesque film, you might have heard of it. But once upon a time I did a website design course in Melbourne, all very interesting stuff that I chose to disregard because I was an idiot and I didn’t think this internet thing was going to take off. Mistakes of youth, you know how it can be. But the point is, while this guy was on that island in Mauritius he was stranded, with no way to contact the outside world. Obviously he had no internet, even though he rigged up the exercise bike to give himself power for other things, because Mauritius is a notoriously poor spot for Wi-Fi connection.
See, the thing about websites is that they’re often made to be elaborate. People are catching onto why that might not be a good idea, because when a page takes time to load, people bail. Sad fact of the internet, and also humanity. Now, people are doing web design courses (I assume) where they’re taught that less is more. Sites are converting to clean designs that look fresh and aren’t loaded up with stuff that makes them slow to load. But what if there were sites that were SO minimal, they could be accessed from anywhere? Like, just a bit of text and a box, for people who are stranded in places and they can barely get messages out. It can be like the emergency services, but for the internet.
The scientist guy couldn’t make a call, but a few times during the movie he got intermittent signals from the hotel that was a few miles just off the coast but sadly across shark and octopus-infested waters. If he could just access a super-minimalist site…he could’ve sent out a message. I could change the world. And all with a web development course I did in Melbourne about fifteen years ago. Or, this might already be a thing. Because the internet is just like that.
-John