Michelle Ramin, Artist

A very talented and good friend of mine from college has launched a website to showcase her artwork. Its interesting to me to see her artwork, knowing her so well, because its obvious that it genuinely comes from her soul.

Please take a look if you are interested.

http://www.michelleramin.com

Do you take WiFi with your coffee?

Disclaimer: Obligatory "homework" post ahead. 'Sup Cindy. :)

So... I've been reading Common Times lately for my news. Today they ran this story about the growing rate of prevalence of communication technology. It got me thinking about this post from Rich at Aldo Coffee, about the business risks of being a free WiFi hot spot.

I agree somewhat with the points he makes - a small business owner can't afford to take the liability of an attack based from their network as an origination point. The costs tripling bit surprised me somewhat - either Telerama is heavily subsidizing their WiFi business, pillaging their commercial broadband customers, or both. A decent speed dedicated business line shouldn't be going for more than $80/mo. Granted, his post was from 9 months ago, and costs have definitely dropped since then.

So I wondered if a technical solution would exist that might help regulate traffic for someone in the position to offer free wireless. Because, reading that story, it seems to me that in the near future, not having it is going to become the greater liability. The stuff Nintendo is doing with the DS indicates to me pretty clearly that localized, spontaneous use of networking capability is going to rapidly become the norm. And what better way to attract customers than to be a servicer of that need (as well as slinging some mean Joe to boot)?

The first time I read Rich's post, I'd envisioned a completely different set of problems; the largest being loitering. How would you mitigate the exploitation of your generosity? Also, how do you stop someone from hogging all the free 'width, slowing everyone else to a trickle?

The solution I had in mind would be a modified standard access point with some additional web interface. It would implement a ticketing system that could optionally be integrated with a cash register or credit card reader. So - user buys a latte, user gets a ticket. The ticket is good for 1 hour at a rated speed, at which point the subscription expires. But by then he's thirsty again anyway. You can't "combine" tickets (ie, get your friends to hook you up) because they're tied to a specific IP address assigned by the AP. You could make the subscription speed or length vary based on the purchase. You could also configure it to work like a debit card, which might help solve the hacker problem. Instead of a subscription you get X megabits of up/down traffic, and once you've used it it's gone.

I'd be astonished if a product with these or similar features is not available today. I'm inclined to believe that there is some sort of indemnity or insurance available as well. I don't hear about libraries being spammer dens or hacker havens, so somebody's on to something. All that leaves for Rich to figure out is how to cover the expense.

Hey, did I mention I have some ideas about that, too?

On light bulbs, contests, and other miscellany

So, given that I have this new house and all, I've had a prime opportunity to implement a migration from incandescents to the new hotness. Care to guess how many bulbs it took? So far I'm at 24 and I could easily go another half-dozen. Thanks to Home Depot though, it hasn't cost a whole lot to do. They're currently selling six-packs of the 14 Watt (60W equivalent) bulbs for $9.97. That, in layman's terms, is what they call a really sweet deal. Considering they sell a single bulb, same rating, for $5; that's 66% off. (In fact, I told the Home Depot guy as much while I was making my purchase. Got to spread the cult of CFL ya know...)

But, you say, that seemingly shameless plug for the luminous wares of the Commercial Electric corporation wasn't enough? Well then, I shall tell you, on top of the price, EnergyStar is offering a chance to pay your energy bill for a year! Which brings me to the point of this post.

Inside the six-pack of bulbs is a scratch off ticket with your id number. You can take it to this page and find out if you won. Except, with the four packs I bought, each ticket had the exact same id number. Is that legit? D08469. You too?

It got me wondering if, for these kind of promos, it's easier to print one whole big batch of "unique" identical loser numbers, and then run off the 100 odd winners as actually unique prints. Seems pretty cheap, but maybe they figured no one would catch on? I mean, how many people would buy 24 CF lightbulbs at a go, right?

Return of the Matt

Hey gang.

So you may have been wondering where I've been the past couple of months. All two of you. Well, my sincere and heartfelt thanks for your concern. In fact, over the last few weeks I've bought a new house, renovated my old house, hosted several odd birthday parties and get togethers, pushed two application releases to production (one as I post!), and otherwise encountered a large number of non-blog-oriented forms of distraction.

So, when I showed up at the Pittsburgh Blogfest IV last Wednesday, feeling oddly postless and with a faint sense of déja vu, I realized I'd best get my posting keister in gear. Prepare to be post-blasted.

If it's any consolation, I have 100+ unread emails in my work inbox. You still love me, right?

Lottery Shenanigans Part II

Last time, we explored the idea of whether or not playing every number in the PowerBall lottery was profitable.

Turns out, though, that there were several errors in my original calculations. For instance, if you take the cash up front, you receive half the jackpot value. The annuity pays the full amount. Unfortunately, the annuity really is not a good option for someone trying to buy every ticket because of the massive up-front investment cost.

Another error was my omission of non-jackpot prizes, which turns out to be much more significant than I anticipated. If you read the comments, you'll see these prizes are very significant.

I have recalculated the value at about a 63 million loss if you take the cash payout and a 50% tax. It’s a 1.3 million loss if you take the annuity with a 50% tax. (I used 35% tax before, which is too low. Taxes pretty much are what finally kills the whole concept).

I was going to talk about what practical problems you'd face if you tried to buy every ticket. But since it turns out not to be profitable, its sort of pointless.

The main three problems you'd run into are The Money, The Legality, and Getting The Tickets.

Its not explicitly illegal, but there are problems, such as anybody you'd want to share the risk and profits with would have to be from the same state.

The money is a hard problem to overcome, if you don't already have it. (Impossible, I'd argue at this point, since its mathematically unprofitable).

Getting the tickets isn't any easier, since you have to go through licensed vendors. You'd either have to buy lots of lottery machines and print them yourself, which would cost a lot of money, or you'd have to buy online which is mostly illegal, and they probably have no way to facilitate your requests for 150 million sequential tickets in time for the next drawing.

So, I’d highly recommend against buying every ticket. You'd probably wind up broke and in prison.

Should You Play Every PowerBall Number? (If you could)

The Power Ball has reached a $340 million dollar jackpot, and a lot of people are talking about it in the news.

I got to thinking, how big does the jackpot have to get before it becomes statistically profitable to buy a ticket for EVERY SINGLE NUMBER. (positive expected value, or Plus EV, to us stat geeks).

So, here are all the calculations I did. For those of you uninterested in the nitty-gritty, go all the way to the bottom for the findings.

$1 gets you a 1 in 150 million chance of winning.
The jackpot is $340 million.

If you play every number, it would then cost $150 million dollars.

If you play every number, and nobody else wins the jackpot you win $340 million.
340 - 150 = $190 million PROFIT.

If the jackpot is split with one other winner, you’d win $170 million.
170 – 150 = $20 million PROFIT.

If the jackpot is split with two other tickets, you’d win $113 million.
113 – 150 = $37 million LOSS.

The post-gazette stated yesterday that there is about a 55% chance someone will win tomorrow.

So, we can assume that if you play EVERY ticket, there is a 45% chance you’d be the only winner, and a 55% chance that you’d have to split the pot.

If we make some conjecture here, and say that the chance of only 1 other winner is 50%, a 30% chance of 2 other winners, and a 20% chance of 3 other winners, we can come up with an approximate expected value for playing every number.

So, $190 * .45 + $20 * (.55) * (.5) + (-37) * (.55) * (.3) + (-65) * (.55) * (.2) = 85.5 + 5.5 – 6.105 – 7.15

Or $77.745 million profit.

But, of course, you need to pay "the man". If tax is 35%, does that take away your advantage?

The EV equation becomes 74 * .45 + (-36.5) * .275 + (-73.55) * .165 + (-91.75) * .11 = 33.3 – 10 – 12.1 – 10

(To be more fair, I added a +3 to all those numbers, because we really only need to pay for 147 million numbers).

-- RESULTS --

Or about $1.2 million profit for playing every number. Damn, that’s still profitable, but just barely, considering you invested $150 million. You'd have a 45% chance of winning a lot of money, and 55% chance of losing money, which probably plateaus as high as a $100 million loss.

I don't recommend buying every ticket.

If there were no taxes, it would be completely different. In that case you could probably start a mutual fund just to buy lottery tickets and give away the dividends to shareholders, over time it would certainly have a net gain better than the stock market. *grin*

Also, as the jackpot continues to grow, the chance you'd have to split the pot also grows because more people play when the jackpot is high. So I'd speculate that the statistical profitability of the game is never going to make it worth buying every ticket.

Let There Be Lightbulbs - Part II (of 2)

Somebody realized it would be cool if you wired up some fiber-optic cable to a big satellite-dish shaped mirror on a roof that always points at the sun.

Fiber optic cable transmits light very well over short distances, and as such, you can run some cable from the roof into the building and get sunlight – natural sunlight – all through the building, as long as the sun is up. It even works if its partly sunny, because there’s so much more ambient light from the sun, compared to lighting we use. Ever turn on a lamp during the day in a bright sunny room? You can’t really tell the lamp is on. Same deal. You’re pumping all that super-bright sunlight into the building, so you can spread out the sun’s light to a lot of rooms.

What is this ideal for? Well, its not so good for homes, because homes like lighting during the night. No sun, no light. But guess what – Americans use more electricity for lighting during the day than at night. What it is good for is the workplace.

The ideal place is short large-area buildings commonly found in quickly-built office parks, and warehouse type construction where internal lighting is required because large parts of a building have no natural light. Sunnier regions will benefit more. Sorry Pittsburgh and Seattle.

Once you get the cable laid down, the energy cost is virtually zero. It just needs a 9 volt battery to run a GPS monitor and a little motor so that the Mirror on the roof always points at the sun. The cable is about as complicated to install as wiring up normal electric overhead lighting, though more expensive. For taller buildings, they need to use a different kind of fiber optic cable that costs way more, so anything over 4 stories is not cost saving at this point.

Like the compact-fluorescent bulb, the cost savings grow over time.

They also have a tax-benefit for installing systems like this.

There are other psychological benefits that go with using natural light too. Its an intangible, but if they can show that people working in natural light have higher attendance and less sick days, then it could add to the savings of a solar lighting system.

Only a few buildings have currently installed this solar lighting system, but I would really like to see some feedback from both people who work in these places, and the financial numbers from the companies.

I admit, this one is a lot more experimental than the compact-fluorescents, but it sure sounds cool.

Let There Be Lightbulbs - Part I

There are a lot of new technologies in the lighting business.

Part I

Compact – fluorescent bulbs give off very nice light, require one fourth the power, and last from four to sixteen times as long as a standard incandescent light bulb. They cost about $4 per bulb.

A 100 Watt incandescent bulb that you run for three hours a day, costs about a dollar a month in electricity. An equivalent fluorescent bulb costs you about a quarter. That doesn’t sound too impressive. But then – the incandescent will burn out sooner.

So, a fluorescent bulb running for 3 hours a day every day will last about four years. During that time, you’d have to change the incandescent light bulb about four times. So that’s an additional two dollars or so you save, assuming an incandescent costs about fifty cents apiece. (Not including the inconvenience of changing a light bulb).

Since the fluorescent light bulb is going to last four years, it makes sense to see how much less energy the fluorescent is over four years compared to the incandescent. That’s about $.75 * 12 months * 4 years. That comes out to $36. Now, if you consider the extra cost of replacing 4 incandescent over that time, that’s $2, but we have to take away the extra cost of the fluorescent to begin with, so that reduces our savings by $2. Still with me?

The bottom line is, over the course of four years, a fluorescent costs about $34 less compared to a standard.

Well, that’s really something now. Thirty four dollars for a light bulb? Who knew. And that’s just one light bulb. And - the total savings over the life of a bulb is the same regardless of how often you use it, but the more you use a light, the faster you’ll save.

I dunno about you, but I'm done with incandescents.

Comment Spam

Challenge Impossible has received its first Comment Spam! Yay!

I've turned word-verification on so that bots can't post bogus comments anymore. Sorry for the inconvenience, but its better than having links to PRON in the comments. After all, I agreed on Kryptia that I wouldn't post links to PRON on my blog.

Happy huntin.

Before Katrina

A few years ago I read a book about the effect of climate changes on history. Scientists are able to tell, for instance, based on tree fossils and soil sediment when Mesopotamia had cyclic periods of drought. These droughts caused famines which mostly happened at the same time as the fall of major civilizations, such as Babylon, Sumer, and others. The main modern example that the author used in the book was the growth of New Orleans since the French used it as a small port to move fur back in the 1700’s. The author, like many others was well aware of the danger of a flood on New Orleans, the weakness of the levee system, and the effect of offshore oil drilling and the draining of the swamps on the degradation of the natural protection the swamps provided to the city.

I remember reading this at the time, and thinking, “Yep, that all makes perfect sense.” Yet, I also remember being relatively unconcerned about the problem. Not because I didn’t care, but because I figured “Whatever, this country is rich and smart, we’ll figure it out, and fix whatever weak points there are before something really bad happens.” I think there was a lot of this going on for a long, long time before Katrina.

An obvious and widespread awareness of the problem existed, but there was a lackadaisical, somewhat Groupthink mentality towards solving it. After all, everything had been okay in the past when hurricanes had hit Louisiana, so there wasn’t any acute pressure for improving the infrastructure or re-growing the swamps that are now open ocean. This lack of acute pressure combined with the extreme expense of a solution pretty much prevented any serious improvements.

But nature doesn’t wait, I guess.

Maybe other time bombs get more attention in the future.

Projects That Fail To Get Off The Ground -- And What to Do About It

I often have difficulty sustaining ambitious projects. I am a creative and industrious person and I come up with a lot of cool projects to work on. Unfortunately, most of them die after the initial burst of inspiration. I know I’m not alone on this. I’ve been thinking lately about why this is the case, and how I can solve this problem. I’ve found certain circumstances where the “lose momentum and become dormant” problem does not apply.

There are a few reasons why certain projects fail to Get Off Of The Ground, and why others succeed. I currently have two similar projects that are cruising along quite successfully -- my deviant art gallery, and this blog. They share similar characteristics that promote my continued involvement.

1) Initial start-up effort is small.
2) How to continue the project is obvious and simple. (Write an article, or upload a photograph).
3) Working on the project is easy even if I haven’t thought about it for a while.
4) Updates are instantly available to the audience. (Instant gratification for my labor).

All of these characteristics are the opposite of the projects I have failed to get off the ground. Here’s an example -- I like to design games. I’m frequently inspired to design strategy games, only to build the parts that interested me most before I lose steam trying to figure out how to tie it all together.

1) Start up effort is large. You have to develop a pretty solid rule set, and then physically build the game before you can start playing.
2) How to continue the project is not obvious or simple. Its very easy to get stuck with scope problem in the design phase. Try to do too much, and it becomes overwhelming to keep track of everything. Try to do too little, and its not original enough to be worth working on.
3) If you’ve let the project go for a while, the complexity makes it difficult to recall the concepts that had made sense earlier.
4) Working on the project has no external rewards unless you finish at least a playable version.

I think a few solutions to this exist though. Here’s 5 ideas that I think would help. These are largely influenced by project management concepts that I’ve learned from being a professional software developer.

a) Have a well defined roadmap to lay out all the wide-swaths of what needs to be accomplished before you’re ‘done enough’. Make sure to complete this step before you lose the initial inspiration. If you can do this, you’re halfway there. I think.
b) Try to build the roadmap in such a way so that it has parts which don’t heavily depend on each other. That way you can dissect the project into manageable parts, and mostly forget about them once they’re in good shape. That way, you won’t get overwhelmed keeping track of everything as the project grows.
c) Always keep a written record of your progress. Even if this is just a simple paragraph or two, or a listing of items in a spreadsheet, it’ll help you immensely later on.
d) Maintain a task list which always contains some easy things to do, so that when you come back from a break, you’ll have something to ease into.
e) Try to work with other people who are enthusiastic about the project too. Even if this is just in the form of having people look at the project as it is coming along and say – “Hey man this is cool. Keep it up.”

I would love to hear other people’s thoughts on this subject. Any ideas on what might be missing are welcome, as are things that have worked for you. I just can’t imagine that pure passion alone is the reason behind all successful people’s success.

In fact, I’m my own guinea-pig. I’ve started a new, fairly large and ambitious project, but certainly something I am capable of doing in my spare time within six months or a year. I’m going to try out my new suggestions here, and see how it pans out. I’ve already created a basic roadmap. I’ve contained the scope of what I want to achieve before I’ll consider it complete. I may post more on this project as it progresses.

Like Candy From a Baby

My wife, Michele, is co-starring in an upcoming play; a performance which benefits Pittsburgh Action Against Rape. The show, "Voices Carry," will premiere at the Mt. Lebanon High School Fine Arts Theatre on Saturday, Sept. 10 at 7pm.

The play and the music were written by two good friends of my wife, who also reside in Mt. Lebanon. The script contains themes of sexual abuse and is not appropriate for children. Tickets are $10 at the door, or $8 in advance by calling 412-805-1563. The entirety of the proceeds, after costs, will go to PAAR. But I'm not here to help boost the proceeds part (though that certainly would be nice!) - I'm here to complain about the costs part.

You see, this play, which is being put on entirely for charity, will cost $450, payable to our fair township & school district. I think. No one seems to be entirely sure which shadowy taxing authority is imposing this fee, but the point stands: to use the stage, $450.

I might add - this is just the cost for the 4 hour block they will need to perform the show. If they wanted access to the stage, say for minor details - building a set, running light and audio cues, maybe something crazy, a rehearsal - they'd need to fork over an additional $450 per 4 hours.

Did I mention this production benefits a charity? As such, the company is rehearsing in living rooms and other available space, and is going to wing something for the crew setup.

This fee was thrust upon the production company after initial agreements were made to reserve the stage. Originally, the ballpark figure bandied about was on the order of $100-150, with an understanding that that covered things like preparation and rehearsal time. However, perhaps due to, hmm, a need to recoup some substantial losses, the deal has been "altered."

So please, I hope you'll attend - to help raise awareness for abused women, to help raise awareness for these insidious fees, and to help ensure that PAAR actually ends up with some proceeds to receive.

Oh, and by the way - do you know of any space that would host Brownie Troop 1093's meetings? Lincoln School is still trying to charge them $10 a pop. (That's a considerable amount of cookies.)

Hybrid Engine's Mass Appeal

Hybrid cars should appeal to every side of the landscape.

Conservatives can feel good about hybrids because they decrease the United States dependence on foreign oil to run our economy. A large portion of our oil comes from nations which are often at odds with our interests, any significant drop in our foreign oil dependence serves to improve the global position and security of the United States.

Environmentalists should be behind hybrids because they reduce the rate of harmful emissions into the atmosphere caused by burning gasoline. This primarily includes toxic materials, such as CO, and greenhouse gases. Furthermore, hybrids are available now, whereas other technologies which might lower gasoline consumption are much further from market availability.

Pragmatists should be behind hybrids because, with gas prices at $2.50 a gallon, they pay for themselves after a year or two in lower fuel costs. Additionally, hybrids are already a proven success. The industry is passing the “Early Adopter” phase as the word comes in that these cars really are of good quality.

Airlines, railroads and truck companies should be behind it because a large portion of their costs are from fuel. Several airlines currently list fuel as their #1 cost, over labor, with gas prices at their current level. Although there may not be large opportunities for improving the efficiency of jets and large diesel trucks, a decrease in the overall demand of gasoline spurred on by the adoption of hybrids would lower the market cost for all fuel types.

Auto makers stand to fall behind by not developing more efficient vehicles. Hybrid cars are being sold as fast as than they can be made. There are wait periods up to six months for some models. SUV sales, while still very high, have leveled off. Developing hybrid SUVs and hybrid domestic cars is going to become a necessity in the future.

Every industry in the US stands do gain from decreased gas prices. Cheaper costs for transporting goods and increased consumer disposable income would increase sales, profits and the availability of investment money.

Large oil companies are probably the ones to lose the most in this deal. But its not as bad as you might think. There are many costs that go into the price of gasoline, few of which impact the oil companies’ profits. Its not like with oil prices being at $60 a barrel that the oil companies are generating twice the revenue as if oil prices were $30 a barrel. They can make about as much money if gas sells for $2.50 as they do if it sells for $1.50, as long as the market competition allows for them to take a reasonable cut.

The energy bill passed two weeks ago has incentives for buying fuel efficient vehicles. This is a good first step, and I would really like to see a more aggressive approach to these sort of incentives in the future. Everybody wins.

Hardware Trends

Over the past three years or so the traditional benchmark for computer power – Processing speed -- has become less and less meaningful. Processing power just isn’t as important as it used to be. Consumers no longer need to buy a computer every three or four years just to keep up. The result is that hardware is now improving in more diverse ways than before. Consumers now look for much more than processing power, and in order to stay competitive, hardware companies have taken notice.

The biggest trend in hardware is in mobility and portability. About the same time desktop sales started dipping because processing power no longer forced them to buy a new computer every three years, laptops started improving dramatically. Laptops today are just so much more appealing than they were a few years back. They’ve closed the gap bigtime with desktops – and its not because of processing.

Its almost a blessing that battery technology has stalled for so long, because hardware companies have been forced to think up new and clever ways for miniaturizing technology and decreasing power consumption while maximizing performance. This has given us low-electricity consumption processors that still run competitively fast, affordable high quality LCD flat-panel monitors, USB, quality aesthetics, and the growth of wireless. All in an effort to promote laptops.

The mobility just adds a whole new dimension to their appeal. I like that I can sit on my couch and write this article. I like that I can watch a DVD while I’m on the trolley going to work. I like that I can take my laptop over to Matt’s house and we can collaboratively work on projects. I like that I can “work from home”, but really, be anywhere with Wi-Fi. With a laptop, Wi-Fi and a cell phone, -- I’m completely connected and my physical location is totally irrelevant. (More on this later)

This wave of hardware development is just going to keep increasing the diversity of applications as hardware companies think about ways to make people want to buy new computers. I can’t wait.

I wonder if The News is in town too...

On my way home from work I was surprised to find out that they're filming a movie just up the street. I couldn't find a thing about it on IMDB, but according to the Pittsburgh Film Office, The Graduation is filming in the area.

They had the block on Morrison blocked off between Overlook and North Meadowcroft, but when I went up there to look around all I saw were a bunch of trucks and trailers and some guys standing around doing apparently nothing. You know, just like PennDOT, minus the orange vests and helmets.

I didn't even get to see a famous movie star/rock legend like... Huey Lewis. Bummer.

Bandwidth is good for you

One thing has me totally geared up lately. In two weeks, the Verizon dude will be wheeling up to my house to hook me up with sweet, sweet bandwidth. Yes, I'm getting FIOS.

I used to really loathe Verizon, with that special kind of loathing reserved for other ruthless, monolithic, we're-a-monopoly-so-we-can-screw-you corporations (like oh, say, Adelphia). But their customer service has turned around dramatically over the past year or two. And now with FIOS on the way, they're going to start expanding to provide TV as well. I love that they're going to send the cable companies cowering.

Instead of subscribing to phone and cable separately, now you're going to have just one information service company. And that means one bill, and fewer bills is good, right? At least there will be some much needed competition. The big difference though will be in distinguishing bandwidth (as a utility) from content (as a service). More on that in future posts.

Hey everyone

Hey everyone.

Jake said it - last night's get together was a blast. Going not as bloggers but as "comment groupies" made no difference. We had a great time talking with everyone. And, yes, we also finally got the stern smacking around we needed to get started on our own. (My arm still hurts...)

So, let's get started.

Inauguration

The Pittsburgh Blogfest III tonight was a smashing success. The event was well attended and the people surprised me by how fun and motivating they were. Even the post-gazette sent a reporter and a photographer. I enjoyed talking with everyone there.

The direct effect of Pgh Blogfest III is that Matt and I are shoving our blog out the door tonight. We've been spurred on by the call to action from Cynthia over at MyBrilliantMistakes . No more bothering with all the startup overhead details. Who needs a well thought out name, a URL, or a formal theme? You can save the pre-release details for the People Who Never Actually Get a Project Off Of The Ground. (More on this in an future).

What we really have going for us is a wealth of opinions and an drive to see more coverage of things which interest us. The bottom line is, we’re stepping up to the plate and contribute to the community out there because we’re tired of just being readers. We’re not worried about what 'the community’ means at this point. Whoever takes interest in what we have to say is good enough for me.