i am desperate to lose my current umbrella. it gets stuck but its still functional enough that i dont want to throw it away but its irritating enough that i want to get rid of it.
any novel ideas for how to lose an umbrella without feeling guilty about the loss ,i.e., new and interesting ways of being absent minded
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
lax policy enforcement
A. How to steal a book from a library:
If you happen to take a book that has not been officially checked out the library has some sort of detector that checks if the item has been demagnetized or not (something that happens only when you officially checks out). in case the item has not been demagnetized an alarm goes off and a security guard asks for your receipt .. theres apparently a non trivial false alarm rate which entails the manual check.
however, heres a simple trick: officially check out item A but steal items B,C.... when the alarm goes off show the receipt for item A and the guard will let you go.
easy fixes:
1. always check all belongings when alarm goes off (high cost for consumers and security guard)
2. keep item A aside and make you walk through the detector again (if it still rings do step 1)
B. How to get free soda at a fast food joint:
simple thing is to ask for a cup for water -- they obviously wont deny you a cup. then you can easily get anything you want from the soda vending machine.
fixes:
1. make all filling (soda/water) go through a salesperson (i have seen these in some places)
2. have special water glasses that will make a loud noise if you fill anything else and thus serve as an embarrassing deterrent.
3. make only bottled water available!
in B the cost of implement it seems that the cost of implementing the fix is greater than the perceived benefit, so it probably justifies why stores dont care about the occasional guy stealing soda, but it doesnt seem to be the case in A (since a book/dvd lost means denying access to a potentially large userbase and high overhead in replacement etc).
P.S: I havent really implemented these attacks in practice :-)
If you happen to take a book that has not been officially checked out the library has some sort of detector that checks if the item has been demagnetized or not (something that happens only when you officially checks out). in case the item has not been demagnetized an alarm goes off and a security guard asks for your receipt .. theres apparently a non trivial false alarm rate which entails the manual check.
however, heres a simple trick: officially check out item A but steal items B,C.... when the alarm goes off show the receipt for item A and the guard will let you go.
easy fixes:
1. always check all belongings when alarm goes off (high cost for consumers and security guard)
2. keep item A aside and make you walk through the detector again (if it still rings do step 1)
B. How to get free soda at a fast food joint:
simple thing is to ask for a cup for water -- they obviously wont deny you a cup. then you can easily get anything you want from the soda vending machine.
fixes:
1. make all filling (soda/water) go through a salesperson (i have seen these in some places)
2. have special water glasses that will make a loud noise if you fill anything else and thus serve as an embarrassing deterrent.
3. make only bottled water available!
in B the cost of implement it seems that the cost of implementing the fix is greater than the perceived benefit, so it probably justifies why stores dont care about the occasional guy stealing soda, but it doesnt seem to be the case in A (since a book/dvd lost means denying access to a potentially large userbase and high overhead in replacement etc).
P.S: I havent really implemented these attacks in practice :-)
gotcha!
finally figured out and downloaded the really catchy tune that i heard last summer being played on hutch commercials
link for the non-classically inclined
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd8HhENZbYg
the classically inclined can continue to despise me.
link for the non-classically inclined
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd8HhENZbYg
the classically inclined can continue to despise me.
nice quote from a lousy movie
from "the passenger" a stunningly boring movie starring jack nicholson
"your question reveals more about yourself than my answers will ever reveal about me"
--african witch doctor
"your question reveals more about yourself than my answers will ever reveal about me"
--african witch doctor
Monday, June 04, 2007
Saturday, June 02, 2007
maya.
before heading off to sleep last night i thought i saw a cockroach-like insect in the apartment and also thought i had killed it with a rather heavy book.
in the morning when i woke up the insect wasnt to be found -- either it had miraculously recovered and escaped, or the whole thing was just a figment of my imagination .. now im not so sure if i really saw and killed the insect.
made me wonder we need some sort of logging mechanism for the brain would be useful .. it would help to distinguish physically recorded events and things that are just figments of imagination .. which leads to the question of whether it is really possible to distinguish between observations and what we think to be observations (my intuition is that the neurological patterns characterizing real events and imagined events would be quite similar, i.e. the same set of neurons fire both in the real and imagined worlds) ?
p.s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_%28illusion%29
in the morning when i woke up the insect wasnt to be found -- either it had miraculously recovered and escaped, or the whole thing was just a figment of my imagination .. now im not so sure if i really saw and killed the insect.
made me wonder we need some sort of logging mechanism for the brain would be useful .. it would help to distinguish physically recorded events and things that are just figments of imagination .. which leads to the question of whether it is really possible to distinguish between observations and what we think to be observations (my intuition is that the neurological patterns characterizing real events and imagined events would be quite similar, i.e. the same set of neurons fire both in the real and imagined worlds) ?
p.s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_%28illusion%29
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