Yeraze's Domain 3.0

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]

I had this idea today while I was thinking about SGI and their last major feature: NUMALink (Non Uniform Memory Access). Essentially a way of allowing a computer to access a neighboring computer’s memory as if it were it’s own, with a slight performance penalty. This is what keeps SGI afloat: Large shared memory spaces.

Now I’m going to dazzle you with my faint knowledge of Electronics & Computers. Think about it for a minute: What is memory? Just a collection of Memory chips with some IO and Clock lines. You set the Address Lines, hit the clock, and the desired value appears on the output lines (Probably simplifying, but I think it’s close to the truth). So… Why couldn’t you build a device with a large Ribbon-cable type connection that could plug into a standard DIMM slot. This could then be connected to an external brick of DIMM’s with some basic hardware to connect them together & relay the addressing information. To your computer it would simply appear as a massive 128G DIMM or whatever, when in fact it was an array of smaller DIMM’s.

Granted, access times would be slower. But this could be overcome easily I would think, either through delaying the clock signal or by setting wait states that the CPU already understands. This would make large addressable memory spaces a nearly Consumer item.

Just something to think about I guess.

Today I went to the gas station to fill up. I swiped my card (does anyone buy gas with Cash anymore?), selected the cheapest gas they had, dropped the pump in my gas tank, pulled up the level, and then squeezed the handle and pushed down the kickstand. And as soon as I let go, *thump* it stops.

I’ve noticed alot of gas stations lately have been removing the kickstand plates from the pump handles. Any idea why? It’s so convenient, especially with a kid, to just squeeze the handle and let it go. They already have automatic cutoff so it won’t overflow. Why they would remove them, on stations that previously had them, I can’t figure out.

So my idea: Made a portable one that would fit on a Keychain that you could slide into the pump handle. Then you could use the kickstand to pump gas, and take it out when you’re done. The pump handles seem to be the same at every gas station I’ve ever been to, so it should be a very easy one-size-fits-all situation. And if it’s on your keychain, you won’t leave it behind, since you’ll need your keys to start the car.

I just saw a page entitled The Military Applications of Silly String linked from Bruce Schneier’s Weblog. Apparently a few “resourceful” guys overseas have started using Silly String as an effective means of locating booby-trap triplines in the dark.

I wonder how much the government is willing to pay for silly string from a GSA approved supplier. Think it could rival the $600 hammer or $1000 toilet seat fiasco from a few years ago? If I was willing to put up with all the paperwork, I could probably make a fortune just buying in bulk and reselling it to the government for a modest %30 to %40 markup.

Here’s another strange thought I came up with years ago back in College: Automatically Blanking Windshields

One of my biggest peeves with driving at night is the blinding headlights coming at you. You’ve been driving on a lonely road for 10 minutes without a single car. Then one car comes at you with his brights on. Your eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so the initial burst of light is blinding. Even after the car is gone, it’s hard to see.

One thing we learned in my Electromagnetic Fields & Waves class is field polarization. Usually there’s horizontal and vertical polarization, but there’s also a Circular Polarization where the field rotates clockwise or counterclockwise. So, if the headlights and the windshields were both Clockwise-circularly Polarized, then when a car came at you your windshield would automatically deflect the bulk of the light, so a single blinding source would be reduced to a small glow. Enough to identify that traffic is indeed incoming, but keep it from blinding you.

How about your own headlights tho? Well, to my (limited) knowledge, the reflection of the light off the road or trees or other cars won’t change the polarization. So you’ld still be able to see the effect of your own headlights. Then, we could install counter-polarized glass in the rear windshield of you car to keep people from behind you from blinding you via the Rear View Mirror.

Update: August 27th, 2005 1:09pm
I did some digging around and found out that Edwin Land came up with this same idea back in the 1940′s and implemented it. Unfortunately, the auto manufacturer’s dropped it, presumably because it was too expensive.

I’ve added a new section to the website today entitled “Strange Thoughts”. Here I plan to catalogue some of the strange and bizarre ideas I come up with, mostly half-baked, for public discussion and ridicule.

Today’s thought: Designer Windshields

Rappers and movie stars are always doing things different, and alot of times people crack jokes about them taking mundane things and making them a popular fad. Imagine making a fortune by selling pre-broken windshields.

Imagine getting a new windshield for you car with your name as a frosted or etched graphic in the corner. Imagine getting a new windshield that’s “pre-cracked” with intricate lace-like patterns around the edges. You could get colored strips, or even stained glass! Of course it wouldn’t be legal, but who cares because it looks sooo kewl.