Wednesday, November 30, 2005

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

Monday, November 14, 2005

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?

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

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.