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A Fly to a Flashlight

If I’m anything, I’m a sucker for a novel idea. No matter how terribly impractical or far-out an idea ay be, if there’s a possibility that the idea is interesting, I get sucked in really easily. I think it’s because I often think of things as what they could be rather than what they are. I see the United States as a country of freedom-loving, smart, talented, and tolerant people, no matter what the data says or I actually see in our culture. If I imagine space travel, it’s not the shuttle launches, nor even the tales of Firefly or Star Trek. I envision us instead beaming through space as data, from Dyson shell to Dyson shell, after we’ve uploaded our consciousnesses into our virtual worlds. Have I been reading too much Charles Stross? Most likely. It does seem like the most sensible path to the future, though. I just wish I wasn’t going to miss it.

Enough talk of libertarian nations and singularities. Let me show you two remarkable ideas that are part of our current reality and that have sucked me in like a fly to a flashlight.

Bitcoins

If you are one of those bitcoin haters from HN, you better leave now. Ah, bitcoins, the decentralized, peer-to-peer, digital currency that has been sweeping the internet. What attracts me to such an odd system of currency? Well, that’s simple: I’m a Paranoid Bastard. The benefit of this currency system is that no one controls it in any way. The entire workings of the system is completely transparent, down to every last bitcoin. Some anonymity is given by the fact that coins are sent to public key addresses, rather than names, and it is fairly easy to launder the money through other addresses. The genius idea of having the market’s overhead (processing transactions) via the nodes on the network while also being tied to the bitcoin generation system just astounds me. Very elegant, indeed. Not to mention it’s a completely digital currency, from its inner cryptographic workings to it’s main transaction method. I don’t have to trust the Federal Reserve, Treasury, banks, and countless other people that touch my money anymore, because I can trust the system. And the openness of the system almost guarantees that I know exactly what is going on. Bitcoins are gaining momentum and currently trading at close to $19 a coin, so I suggest you look into it now at bitcoin.org.

RepRap

The second big idea that I am currently enthralled with is 3D printing. 3D printing is not a new idea, but it is getting cheaper and cheaper by the day. DIY hobbyists and other individuals are building and using their very own 3D printers inside their homes now. A 3D printer, if you are not informed, is a device that creates object our of plastic by layering the material in 3D space, much like your 2D printer prints out pictures. One analogy is that your desktop printer is to a printing press as a 3D printer is to a factory. These DIY 3D printers are in their infancy, but momentum is again growing, especially with a project called RepRap. This projects goal is to create a 3D printer that can not only print useful goods, but can also replicate itself. That way, after you received a RepRap, you could print the parts and assemble one for your friend. The philosophy, modeled after biological symbiosis and evolution, will lead to better printers and a higher proliferation of the printers into the world. I am excited about this project and am hoping to build one myself to tinker with in the future. For more information on RepRap, I would recommend that you watch this video, visit the official site, or contribute to this Kickstarter effort.

Well, thanks for listening to me ramble. I’m going to go find another idea.

O Glorious Day!

(download)

Click here to download:

O_Glorious_Day.zip (3.97 MB)

Vector Marketing: Too Good to Be True?

What is Vector Marketing?

According to their website:

Vector Marketing Corporation™ is a single-level direct sales firm that market Cutco Cutlery®, a line of kitchen cutlery, accessories and sporting knives of the highest quality. With its administrative headquarters in Olean, NY, Vector Marketing is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cutco Corporation, which has been manufacturing Cutco Cutlery since 1949.

It is actually a “marketing” firm designed to entice high school graduates into selling their knives to family and friends. After being contacted by a few friends who “work” there (actually independent contractors) I received a phone call to come in and interview. After suiting up and grabbing an umbrella to face the onslaught of rain, I pulled out my phone to do a little more research on the company since I had only read their website by that point. Here’s what I found out. Let’s see if you can figure out what is going on here.

The Hiring Process

1. Vector Marketing receives your contact information from one or more of their new recruits who are fresh out of training (Hint: They get a bonus for recommending people.).
2. You receive a phone call offering you an interview. Details are very vague about the actual job, but the manager is very personable (Hint: He gets a bonus for interviewing and hiring you.)
3. They send a very nice email with great directions on how to get there, although the email is clearly a form email (Hint: They really want you to show up.)
4. You arrive at the office which seems to be rather small and contains almost no permanent fixtures (That should be a warning sign!).
5. There might appear to be a lot of phones ringing. Anyways, you will be quickly swept into an office for an alarmingly shot interview followed by a 90 minute seminar on the company. You will be informed that you have been hired and sent home.
6. You will then receive three days worth of unpaid (!) training. your job will be to ring up anyone you can, set up an appointment, and attempt to sell them a set of CutCo kitchen knives.
7. You will be paid $16 an appointment and receive a small commission on any set that you manage to sell.

Sounds like a good deal right?

Let’s do Some Math

1. Cost to train a new recruit: $0
2. Hourly pay: $0/hour
3. Total Cost = $0/hire

(Interesting. It costs VM a minimal amount of money to hire you, and there is all kinds of incentives in place to get more hires. You are actually worth close to nothing to this company.)

1. Money you make per hour: $0
2. Money you make per appointment: $16

3. Money you make IF you make a sale: 10% off a (starter set price) 150$ sale = 15$

4. Money you could be making at your average $10/hour job: $400/week

5. Appointments you have to make an keep to make that amount of money: 25/week

Can you make a guaranteed 25 appointments every week while factoring in driving time? And don’t forget the gas prices these days!

So you are making somewhere between $16 and $31 an appointment (assuming you make a sale, which isn’t something that likely happens enough to make it worth your while). Let’s consider some other points:

• As an independent contractor, you will not be reimbursed for gas money.
• You can only sustain that level of income ($16 an appointment) for as may people as you have in your contact list.
• Vector may or may not charge you a security deposit on your knife demo set.

Don’t Believe Me?

I’d be pretty wary already, but if none of that does it for you, let’s look at Vector Marketing’s Wikipedia page:

Vector was sued in 1990 by the Arizona Attorney General and in 1999 by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. In 1994, the state of Wisconsin ordered Vector to stop providing dishonest information to recruits. The state and Vector agreed to a settlement that punctuated a series of state actions against Vector’s Tucson manager that spanned seven years. Vector agreed not to misrepresent its compensation system as part of the settlement. As a result, Vector no longer recruits in the US state of Wisconsin.

In 1996, The Washington Post reported that of “940 Vector recruits surveyed, nearly half either earned no money or actually lost money through working with the company.”

Conclusion

While Vector Marking isn’t technically doing anything illegal (at least in Illinois currently), the fact is that their business model revolves around exploiting young high school and college students who are not experienced enough to see exactly what is going on here. While I’m sure it is possible to make some money working for them, I can assure you that your time and talent is better spent elsewhere, either at a job where you are actually a valuable employee or just doing something you like (unless you really love selling knives).

Meet the Paranoid Bastard

This is why hackers worry. The government spying on people doesn’t literally make programmers write worse code. It just leads eventually to a world in which bad ideas win. And because this is so important to hackers, they’re especially sensitive to it. They can sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm. — Paul Graham (Hackers & Painters)

I’ve been reading Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham recently. There’s something about Paul Graham’s writing that really appeals to me, and I think it’s because I read it and feel validated. I think, “Hey, he’s talking about me!” Maybe I’m not that crazy, you know? For example, that quote above is exactly what I feel whenever I read another post about DMCA lawsuits, the PATRIOT ACT extensions, or PROTECT IP drafts. Of course I don’t really think these laws are going to single-handedly bring down the United States, but as a hacker and a Libertarian, I can feel the freedom slipping away. I know the slippery slope is supposed to be a fallacious argument and all, but how far away is regulatory backscatter machines at the airport from backscatter machines in Times Square? All it would take would be another act of terrorism or two. I think Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother paints a pretty good picture of the slippery slope down that path.

So, as all excuses for a bit of security are used by our wonderful government to gain some control, our freedoms begin to dry up. And I get a little bit more paranoid. Another password is placed on my computer. At one point a few years ago, I even burned and taped a DBAN disk (now out of date) to the bottom of my desk for quick use. I’m not even doing anything illegal! I just don’t like people getting at my data.

Then again, maybe I just am a little bit crazy.

Shiny

Well, I finished The Glasshouse last night, and I thought it was a fairly good book, although the ending seemed a bit rushed. Go read it right now. I got it on my Kindle for a good price. I just really enjoy Charles Stross's vision of the future. Almost as much as I enjoy Firefly's vision of the future. It's a constant battle in my head, deciding if I'd rather be a space pirate (romantic) or a piece of data floating in between T-gates and switching bodies and backing up and all that fun and practical stuff. I just really hope the Singularity happens before I die. At least let me go into space!

But, yeah, I sat through ten episodes of Firefly today. I say that as if I'm mad, but it is a great show. It's got a great mix of action, witty one-liners, and space. Every nerd's dream. If you, for some reason, have not yet seen this show, you are missing out. We did notice one odd thing though. It seems the trash bins of the future run Windows, which is either something I should worry about, or be okay with since it's trash running trash.

Hello, Posterous!

I decided I was sick of my inadequate Django skills and my Amazon EC2 hosting, so I am trying out Posterous. I enjoy the feature set and themes (there is no way any CSS I wrote would ever look this good!), but I am still pretty wary of losing my control over the full stack. I also am in the process of moving my domain from WebHostingPad to Gandi. That should give me a significant amount of control over my A records and such, as I hate waiting for support teams to answer my emails.

In other news, I’ve been reading a book called The Glasshouse by Charles Stross, and it is a great book. I really enjoy his writing (I also read Accelerando by him) mainly due to his unique sci-fi vision of the future. He focuses less on giant spaceships shooting each other, and more on the inherent identity problem that plague a civilization that has transcended their natural bodies. Hopefully I can post a full review sometime in the near future. I stayed up until 6 AM the other night reading The Glasshouse, so I should be done tonight. I’m going to go read that right now.

Stop the Car!

Oh my god! There’s one right there! Did you see it, son? By the side of the road? A wild blog post!

I’m sorry that I never post for you readers (who am I kidding?), but I just haven’t been motivated lately. I’ve decided to get back on track. The end of senior year is quickly approaching, so I will be attempting to keep posting even in these hectic times. I’m also looking at doing a little site redesign, as the color scheme never really clicked with me. Anyways, check back in a few more months and maybe I’ll have a new post.

Google Code Jam: Store Credit

The following code is a solution for the Google Code Jam 2010 Qualification Round for Africa. I’m practicing for tomorrow’s round. Check it out.

with open("A-large-practice.in","r") as input:
    lines = input.readlines()
#Sort lines into sets of [amount, number, [values])]
sets = [[int(lines[i]), int(lines[i+1]), map(int, lines[i+2].split())]\
for i in xrange(1,3*int(lines[0])+1,3)]
answers = []
for set in sets:
    set[2] = sorted([(set[2][x], x+1) for x in range(0, set[1])])
    i, j = 0, set[1]-1
    while set[2][i][0] + set[2][j][0] != set[0]:
        if set[2][i][0] + set[2][j][0] < set[0]:
            i += 1
        if set[2][i][0] + set[2][j][0] > set[0]:
            j -= 1
    answer = sorted([set[2][i][1],set[2][j][1]])
    answers.append(answer)
print answers
with open("A-large.out","w") as output:
    for x in range(0,len(answers)):
         line="Case #%d: %d %d\n"%(x+1,answers[x][0],answers[x][1])
         output.write(line)

You Can't Stop the Signal

It's all over the news. "The first infowar has started and Wikileaks is
the battlefield!" Well, guess what?

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College Craziness

I’ve been doing the college application dance lately, and I’m getting a
little sick of it. The first bone I have to pick is that not all of them
use the Common Application. I am applying to eight schools, and only
three of them use the common app. And those three schools that use it
make you fill out supplements as well as the normal application. I’m not
saying schools shouldn’t filter their applicants, but at least agree on
a standard. Secondly, I feel that a lot of the questions are a tad
ridiculous. Why do these colleges need to know where my parents went to college or even my religious preferences. The colleges claim the questions aren’t even important to the application process, so why are they even in there? Third, why am I paying $50-$90 per application? Some of these schools get a VERY large amount of applications, so they take in quite a hefty sum from kids that might not even attend. It’s not like they are really stripped for cash with the rising tuition costs these days, right?

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