For those of you with a passion for people watching there are few more poignant examples of the human condition than seeing dreams and aspirations come and go. And nowhere can you find that in more stark relief at the moment, than on the pages of Kickstarter, the online crowdfunding service.

Sidekick is a basic free service which lets you look at all of the Kickstarter projects currently running in a tabular form. The ostensible idea is to let you see how much chance each project has of successfully completing its funding round, and it’s definitely pretty good at doing that via the Success column.

However to my mind the most powerful part of the site is the ability to peek into the dreams of various people across the world, as they lay out their vision of success for their particular project. Just by taking a look at the projects with zero backers, as the time runs out, we can watch the whole tapestry of life as it parades in front of ineptly focused video screens and dodgy audio quality.

Some projects look like they might actually be worth backing, if only the project owner had asked for something in the video, while others just seem weird. There is an old saying that if you stand in Piccadilly Circus in London for long enough, the whole world will walk past, but for my money Kickstarter offers a much better vantage point.

[Tip: to visit the actual Kickstarter project page, click on the earth icon at the far left of each row]