An easy way to save trees

So i have been buying a lot of stuff for my new house recently and one thing keeps pushing me to my limits. It seems that the most important part of making a big purchase such as furniture or appliances isn't what you would think it is. It's not doing research to pick the right product. It's not analyzing your budget to ensure you have the cash flow flexibility to make the purchase. And it is defiantly not shopping around to find the best deal. It is the little insignificant piece of paper that the cashier gives you at the point of sale.

It seems though Moore has left this one really big loose end behind in the dust. If you go into Best buy and purchase a laptop and are not Amish, two things happen. Best buy's retail enterprise network creates a database entry that logs every single detail about the sale including the name of the clerk who facilitated the sale. Simultaneously Visa (I only say visa because most banks use visa for debt cards) makes a similar entry into their database with info about where, when, and how much the purchase was. Then a stupid thing happens. The cash register prints out a receipt. Now that two servers have records that the sale happened, what is the point of printing out this document other than letting you out of the store without the accusation of theft? Well the answer should be nothing but unfortunately this little piece of low quality paper is the key to returning the item.

It's not enough that there is redundant records of the original sale on two independently owned and operated servers but in our infinite knowledge of computers and networking we still rely on a small strip of paper to link them and thus making purchases reversible. I'm sure this situation will eventually phase out (if it isn't already) but it pains me to know that i still have to keep track of these otherwise worthless pieces of trash.

I can only dream right now of a world where purchase information remains where it belongs, on servers, retail terminal displays, and ideally on cell phone. Yes because in civilized society (AKA some areas of japan believe it or not) the visa card has become obsolete. The point of sale can occur completely between the retail terminal and the customer's cell phone. In this world the cell phone will also be privy to the redundant servers' records of the sale.

The above world isn't actually a dream. It isn't even a wish of mine. It is my actual expectation of Visa and the retail world which is consistently missed. In my opinion retailers should not be able to advertise that they accept visa and others, but instead it should be assumed that every retailer accepts these and those that don't be legally required to advertise the fact that they don't, equally as much as they advertise there products or services in general. In reality it this should not even apply to the card form of visa but the cell phone equivalent that we already lack.

I titled this entry as an easy way to save trees with the obvious idea that we need to stop printing receipts but we could save even more trees if we stop printing money all together. Cash is nothing but a complication when making a purchase. Currency does not have to have a physical form in fact commerce in hindered by the physical form as visa and master card have demonstrated in commercials. Another good example is paying a toll on a bridge or turnpike...

The most inefficient part of driving a car is accelerating from a dead stop. The kind of action paying a toll with cash requires. Just imagine the amount of money spent every year just by the unnecessary gas that is burned to accelerate all the cars out of the cash lanes at tolls. Or the carbon foot print that result from this antiquated archaic form of commerce generates.

The sad part of all of this is the technology to facilitate all of these apparent pipe dreams has been around for decades. We just can't seem to pull our heads out of the sands and stop cutting down trees to bridge these stupid little gaps between servers.

Baseline

Hello,

So far for the past several years since blogs have been developed i have resisted the urge to get involved in one. Today i came to a realization that has pushed me past my previous prejudices to begin "Everything is Numbers". I'll get to today's occurrence but first let me explain the name.

I, like several left minded individuals, am over analytical about every facet of life. Yet, I feel like part of my brain is constantly running an objective function for which the objective is changing with context. Language is nothing but a set of conversion factors used to make our interpersonal "units" equal. I can take any physical problem and (in my head) immediately begin defining boundary conditions for a computational partial differential equation solver to solve. As i let my mind drift into technical obscurity when problem solving, i try to simultaneously run an objective function to judge how accurate the solution should be based on feed forward estimations and feed back solution quality control.

To the right minded readers the above existence may seem like hell. In fact for me it is quite the opposite. I thrive on complex problems that require high powered computational solvers. That is why my blog is called everything is numbers. Because when "I" break things down to the core, that's all there is.

Now to explain why i have crossed into the blog world. For the last 6 months my workplace has been non-stop Chaos. Starting in March with massive company wide downsizing and "reorganization". When the smoke cleared i was still employed but with twice the work load in a company that now didn't know which way was up because of how wide spread the layoffs were. I found this revitalizing. Old stigmas could be broken, common practices could be questioned, in a way after 6 months my company is heading in a much better direction because of it.

Soon after, but way before we knew what we were doing, a huge fire broke out in one area of the facility. It damaged millions of dollars in equipment. The end result of the fire was we had to dramatically change the way we operated just to stay afloat. The ensuing chaos was amazing. I was on the forefront of this operational transition and loving every second of it. My areas were the one of the most effected by this new mode of operation and my name was attached to all the hot topics in front of management. I remember telling a co-worker a week before the layoffs that this place won't be the same for at least 6 months. Not only was i right but i didn't have the slightest clue how right i was.

Today 9.1.2009 is about 6 months since that conversation and it has finally hit me that things are back to "Normal". Oh but how i detest normal now. Being in the spotlight for so long has made me detest the day to day casual work. What made this apparent is that i actually had time (and the need) to go over my work list with my manager. Everything on the list now bores me to tears.

So i decided to begin writing here. Not only do i believe that servers are the most secure place to store stuff but maybe someone will read this and find it interesting. I plan to use this blog to keep track of how my struggle with technical chaos and the desperate need for it, but also to vocalize my opinions on how slow our "life automation" technology is developing.

I find it personally offensive that i have to enter my address hundreds of times into the different websites that keep that on record.

I think it's shameful of America that the Japanese can buy sodas from vending machines with cell phones while a majority of ours don't even take credit cards. Or even over the fact that cash still exists.

The executives at AT&T who drafted the exclusivity deal with Apple over the Iphone should be regarded as treasoners and executed.

The URL of this site is "Solve-it-once" for a reason. With all the worlds problems facing us and a declining average intelligence, it is important that those who can utilize their minds to solve them be freed to do so and stop wasting time re-inventing the wheel.