Yeraze's Domain 3.0

Never thought of it like this before…

Following on the previous announcments, now Billy Mays has passed away.
Confirmed by Tampa Police, it first hit the interwebs as Billy’s son posted on Twitter.. Apparently Billy Mays was on the place that had a “hard landing” earlier this week, so I’m sure they’re considering a DVT or Concussion related problem.
RIP, Mr Ron Popeil of [...]

“Ed” McMahon, Jr.
b. March 6, 1923
d. June 23, 2009
Farrah Fawcett
b. February 2, 1947
d. June 25, 2009
Michael Jackson
b. August 29, 1958
d. June 25, 2009

Three famous celebrities in as many days.. They say it always happens in threes, and this one’s no different.

Now that I’m running WordPress, I setup Dan Zarella’s awesome “TweetSuite” plugin and configured it. I turned on the Auto-Tweet of new posts, but after a day of using it I saw that I was pretty effectively spamming all my twitter friends with my blog posts. To me that seemed a bit annoying [...]

Here’s an idea I had just the other day.  Of course, everyone knows about Automobile License Plates.  Serving double-duty as both a Vehicle Tax and an Automotive Registration system, they’re a requirement of every vehicle in the United States (and most other countries).  What if we could expand their functionality a bit further?

What if the state offered specialty plates (Like Vanity Plates), for a slightly higher price, that allowed the owner such benefits as a higher speed limit?  Imagine paying an extra $200 for a plate that lets you drive an additional 10 mph over the speed limit.  The tradeoff being that you can pay $200 once a year for the priveledge, or take your chances and get a $200 ticket plus the dent in your Automotive Insurance for the moving violation.  This could be coupled with your drivers license (To ensure you’re capable of managing 10 mph over) and your Inspection Sticker (to ensure your vehicle can handle 10mph over). 

Maybe there would need to be restrictions (eg. It doesn’t apply in construction areas, It only applies on Interstates & 4-lane highways, etc), but the idea seems not only desirable but a decent revenue stream for the state.  Exchanging the hit-and-miss income of Tickets for the guaranteed income of the plates.
[tag:idea][tag:licenseplates]

One of the first accessories I got for my RAZR phone was a Bluetooth Headset.  I frequently use a hands-free system when I’m driving, but the classic corded earpiece with the dangling microphone always got tangled up as I reached around the car or turned my head to check blind spots.  Not to mention they usually weren’t really hands-free, as you still had to grab the phone to do any dialing with it.  So after some research I bought a simple Jabra BT350 to try out, and I continue to be happily surprised with how well it performs.

After using it for a few days, I had an odd thought.  How far away are we from using technology very similar to this to create a literal Bluetooth headset? By this I mean created a dental implant that can operate as a universal headset for your cellphone.  Replace a tooth (or supplement it with a Cap) to operate as the Bluetooth Headset and sync it with your phone. It seemed neat, but the obvious first problem was how to recharge it?  Wouldn’t want to be pulling it in and out to recharge, but I didn’t know of any way to really (safely) recharge it inside your mouth either.

Yesterday, on Slashdot, I found an answer.  Georgia Tech has created a small nanogenerator capable of generating enough power to recharge small devices with motion as small as moving your feet, and small enough to be implanted in a shoe.  A bluetooth headset doesn’t take much power (The BT350 holds enough charge for somewhere around 600hours standby, and well over 40 hours of talk time, and I’ve tested it enough to believe it’s true), and since you obviously move your mouth to talk, that should create ample charge to sustain the device.
[tag:bluetooth][tag:invention][tag:idea]

I was in town today and noticed this game sitting on a shelf today entitled “What’s Gnu?”  Apparently it’s “The 3-letter Learning Game” designed to teach kids language and vocabulary.  Of course, most people reading this would say otherwise as I’m pretty sure the GNU Movement was around long before this was.

What do ya think the folks at gnu.org or the FSF would say about this?  Copyright infringement?  Trademark infringement?  Or just a poor choice in marketing?
[tag:game][tag:gnu][tag:fsf]

In a classic case of the cure is worse than the problem, it seems that voluntary hookworm infestation is a possible cure for Asthma, Crohn’s Disease, Irritable Bowel syndrome, and even colitis. Seems alot of groups are trying to research this and gather funding to do so. Now, I’ve had asthma all my life but never so bad that I was willing to endure something like this.

Unfortunately, or thankfully depending on your viewpoint, hookworms are eradicated in most parts of the world. The only known region left seems to be the small nation of Cameroon. On Kuro5hin there’s an article of an asthma sufferer who voluntarily ventured to Africa to infest himself with hookworm, and now manages the infestation himself to control his severe asthma symptoms.

So wow does it work? Evidently, diseases like asthma are essentially an overactive immune system attacking things that are harmless within the body. Almost the same thing as Poison ivy, where the irritant isn’t the problem, it’s the body’s response to it. So hookworms weaken your immune system to a point where the symptoms go away. Of course, you have to be careful to keep your immune system strong enough to fight off real illnesses, so there’s a careful balancing act there.

All in all, I think I’ll just stick with Claritin and Benadryl.[tag:strange][tag:asthma][tag:hookworm]

Yesterday I came across a stunning article entitled Omega and why maths has no TOEs.  “TOE” stands for “Theory of Everything“, a grand unified theory capable of explaining everything about everything.  Such a formula is the holy grail of physics and mathematics, and of the type Einstein spent the later half of his life searching for.

Anyway, there’s a few very interesting things in this article.  Perhaps one that really intrigued me is “How do you define Random?”.  Any piece of data has a pattern, but the pattern may be just as large as the data itself.  In the example they use they essentially revert to the old math standby of fitting a line through a cloud of points.  You can make a perfect fit by using a formula with as many polynomials as you have points, but what does that really prove?  Therefore, a truly “random” piece of data is one that cannot be compressed, or expressed through simpler means.  Up to a point,  Randomness = Complexity.  He then uses this nugget of information and some studies of Turing’s Halting Problem to prove that math is incapable of a Theory of Everything, because it cannot precisely define his probabilistic number “Omega”. 

On the other hand, I look at it another way.  If Randomness = Complexity, then Randomness is a approachable point.  As we get smarter & computers grow in power, the complexity of problems drops.  Essentially, as we have more time & power to look at data, we start to realize that some of it isn’t as random as we thought.  You hear about it every day on the news as new scientific studies bring things like Quarks & Quantum Theory closer to reality.  Whether or not we’ll ever be able to comprehend “infinite complexity” is tough to say, but is anything actually infinitely complex?   Could stuff that seems infinite today, just be seen as really large tomorrow?
[tag:math][tag:omega][tag:random]

Here’s a thought that occured to me today during the drive home.

Everyone is familiar with credit cards.  Seems they’ve become an integral part of the American Dream, and one thing that all heavy credit-card users know about is “Rewards Cards”.  Typically in the form of frequent flyer miles, they simply give you money or rewards whenever you make a purchase (eg. Spend $10 and earn $0.10 or $0.1 back).  It’s a neat idea that sounds really good on paper, but usually doesn’t amount to anything significant for either party.

So what would happen if you got 2 rewards cards, and then continually shuffled the balance back and forth?  It would appear as though you were always making a big (say $2000) purchase and then paying it all off.  Could you cheat the system and rack up huge amounts of rewards for effectively no cost?  I’m sure you’ll have to wait at least a few days between shuffles, just to make sure the money actually appeared in all the right systems, but it seems pretty solid to me.

So, with an idea this simple… What am I missing?
[tag:scam][tag:credit][tag:reward]