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Every time my dad had a business idea, he started cutting corners to make more money until it fell apart.

He started hauling cars in an enclosed trailer. When he bought the trailer he noticed the price difference between the two was the weight the axle was rated for, but the axle also came with a warranty, so he got the cheaper one. After a string of issues on the road, and multiple new axles, he still thought he made the right decision. The company finally told him they were upgrading him to the axle he obviously needed, but he had to sign a waiver that there was no more warranty work.

He flipped a house once, but realized he didn’t have the patience for tile work, so he found some astroturf for really cheap and decided that was a great way to finish the kitchen floor. After months of not selling, he asked a realtor what they thought the problem was. They said I would start with the AstroTurf in the kitchen.

He actually ran several successful businesses over the years, there was just always a string of bullshit to keep up with so he could save $5. He’s a huge part of why I embraced buy once, cry once, and I always try to take the time to do things right the first time. Penny wise dollar foolish is no way to go through life.

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Uhhhhhh, two words:  Toasted Marshmallow Rinds.

Whoever can figure out how to fire smoke marshmallows, remove the toasted skin, and package it so it stays fresh and crunchy, will challenge musk for worlds richest man.

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Late 30's. But you'd think he was twice that, based on all the "FW: FW: FW: This carburetor makes any car get 90 MPG but the government assassinated the inventor" or "FW: FW: FW: FW: 10 things you can do to legally not pay taxes" nonsense he's always telling me about.

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Late 30's. But you'd think he was twice that, based on all the "FW: FW: FW: This carburetor makes any car get 90 MPG but the government assassinated the inventor" or "FW: FW: FW: FW: 10 things you can do to legally not pay taxes" nonsense he's always telling me about.

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Well he is right. A steel credit card would be really cool.

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That was me.  I wanted to start a chain of nudie bars and name them “The Freak Show”.

Midgets, dwarfs, amputees, the obese, anorexics, grandmas,  pregnant chicks, naked clowns, hairy chicks for ‘70’s night … “A Fetish for Everyone” was my slogan.

Barely legal night where the tonight’s dancer was 18 years old for less than 48 hours.  Mexican and Asian nights complete with Mexican and Chinese food buffets.  

I’m talking chicks dressed up in saddle shoes and plaid skirts wearing pig tails.

For birthday parties I’ll handcuff your buddy naked to the floor.  You pour chocolate on him.  When I ring the bell five or six midgets come rushing out, nibbling and licking the chocolate off him as he screams in ecstasy.

It would have been glorious!

ETA I’m still looking for investors thirty years later.  Who’s in?

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Old high school friend of mine is quite technologically illiterate and always has the craziest ideas. He bounces a lot of ideas off me because I have lots of software design experience, 3D printers, some electronics design knowledge, etc. But most of his ideas just aren't even possible and he lacks the basic computing/electronics knowledge to understand why.

Today, he called me about making a copy of his credit card. He wants to get rid of his plastic one, and have a sheet steel one because "that would be really cool". He claims he found metal credit card blanks for sale online, and just needs me to program the chip and RFID to match his current card. Here I am as an IT professional trying to explain that "No, you can't just break into the mini-HSM on your card and copy the private key to another device. Any HSM that isn't Chinese counterfeit junk is certified to have non-exportable private keys, and I'm 100% certain that includes chipped credit cards."

Of course, there is no way for me to dumb down the topics of public key cryptography, RSA, code signing operations, and hardware security modules. One of my job roles is administrator of the company's HSM and code signing keys, so I know a thing or two about it even if I don't know the details on how credit cards do it. Meanwhile, my friend failed 9th grade Microsoft Office class, never got beyond Algebra I, and gets ripped off by multiple scams each year. Best I could say is "That's impossible for us to do. Might be possible for the NSA, might be possible (but probably illegal as hell) if you worked at the bank that issued the card and were willing to break all the rules. But not us." Worst part is I don't think he believes me, and he says he found some company online that will do exactly what he wants if you mail them the card and pay $200. I told him I would be shocked if that wasn't a scam, but he didn't believe me on that.

This same guy also wanted to DIY a waste oil furnace for his house, out of a rusty old burn barrel and some dryer vents. He had some basic back-of-napkin designs drawn up and was all ready to start without me. But he didn't understand my concerns about CO poisoning. Or the fact that I don't know the first thing about HVAC and I'm certain there are all kinds of permits/certifications required in order for his home owner's insurance to not drop him in a heartbeat when they find out about this. Or my fire concerns because his house looks like something from the TV show Hoarders, completely full of 3-foot high piles of junk that have 12" footpaths cutting through and he thinks it's a good idea to put a damned burn barrel in the middle of all that. I wasn't able to talk him out of this idea, but at least it ended up on his huge list of projects he never got around to (yet).

He's one of my best friends, but I cringe anytime he calls me up and says "Hey, I have an idea and I need your help" because I know it's going to be something that will either kill you, burn your house down, require the full resources of NASA or the NSA, blatantly violate the laws of thermodynamics, and/or accidentally land you in prison if you survive.

Surely I can't be alone in this. You have any stories about friends with crazy harebrained schemes who call you up because they know it's at least adjacent to your area of expertise? But then they don't believe you when you give an answer they don't like and can't understand?

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Yeah, that "duplicate your credit card info onto any other credit card" has been a thing for quite a while now.

I think the statute of limitations is up, so I'll give an example, in 1994 I had a "frequent fridays" card that actually scanned as a fleet corporate Chevron gas card. That was almost 30 years ago, I'm pretty sure the technology is still around.

Nowadays it's mostly people trying to make their EBT card look like a Black AmEx though, probably.

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I have a pretty good plan to race goats. I would pick up an old dog or horse racing facility cheaply and refurbish it. There would be a petting zoo for the kids while the parents are betting and watching the races. Sell hot dogs for five bucks a pop. Excitement and fun for the entire family.

Goats are fast!

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I have a friend that’s the biggest dumbass I’ve ever known. Complete lack of situational awareness.

We’re headed to a bar one night and just happen to be listening to Jack Straw on the way in. I wind up mingling for a little while, so he starts talking to a girl. They seem to be hitting it off.

I walk up to the bar to order a drink while he’s talking to her, and he’s been drinking. He puts his arm around me and starts singing ‘we can share the women, we can share the wine’. The girl gets this horrified look on her face like she thinks he’s telling me he’s setting up the devils threesome and she storms off. He never did understand why he couldn’t get laid that night.

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Got a new one to add to the list. I've designed something that might be patentable. No details, but it's a novel mechanism for an existing type of product that accomplishes the same thing in a much more reliable manner, and I've never seen anything out there that works like mine.

I haven't done all my research yet, but I seem to recall my employee handbook agreement thingy says that any patents I file for while employed there automatically belong to my employer, even it it was done on my own time and has nothing to do with my employer's industry. This idea has absolutely nothing to do with my employer's industry, but it is for something that would almost exclusively be used by right-wing consumers. If I were to ask too openly about it, our left-wing corporate lawyers and HR karens would start screeching at the top of their lungs. So I have to tread carefully even in doing research.

Worst case, first few of these items are for personal use and would be gifted to a few friends, and if I never do anything commercial with it, that's fine by me.

Anyway, I tell my buddy about it, and he immediately says I should patent it. I say that I might not be able to patent it because of my employee contract, but I'm not sure how that works yet. He says, "Well let's just patent it in my name and I'll give you all the money, that way your employer doesn't take it."

Me, "That's called fraud."

Him, "It's not fraud, it's just you finding a way to not follow that line in your contract and get more money for yourself."

Me, "That is basically the textbook definition of 'fraud'."

Him, "Well they're wrong to put that restriction on you, so just ignore it."

Me, "And I'd be wrong to deceptively avoid that restriction that I already signed my name to, especially if it involves them not getting a patent they are contractually obligated to."

Him, "So just don't tell them. It's not fraud, you're just finding a way to not pay them."

Me,

Quoted:
Got a new one to add to the list. I've designed something that might be patentable. No details, but it's a novel mechanism for an existing type of product that accomplishes the same thing in a much more reliable manner, and I've never seen anything out there that works like mine.

I haven't done all my research yet, but I seem to recall my employee handbook agreement thingy says that any patents I file for while employed there automatically belong to my employer, even it it was done on my own time and has nothing to do with my employer's industry. This idea has absolutely nothing to do with my employer's industry, but it is for something that would almost exclusively be used by right-wing consumers. If I were to ask too openly about it, our left-wing corporate lawyers and HR karens would start screeching at the top of their lungs. So I have to tread carefully even in doing research.

Worst case, first few of these items are for personal use and would be gifted to a few friends, and if I never do anything commercial with it, that's fine by me.

Anyway, I tell my buddy about it, and he immediately says I should patent it. I say that I might not be able to patent it because of my employee contract, but I'm not sure how that works yet. He says, "Well let's just patent it in my name and I'll give you all the money, that way your employer doesn't take it."

Me, "That's called fraud."

Him, "It's not fraud, it's just you finding a way to not follow that line in your contract and get more money for yourself."

Me, "That is basically the textbook definition of 'fraud'."

Him, "Well they're wrong to put that restriction on you, so just ignore it."

Me, "And I'd be wrong to deceptively avoid that restriction that I already signed my name to, especially if it involves them not getting a patent they are contractually obligated to."

Him, "So just don't tell them. It's not fraud, you're just finding a way to not pay them."

Me,

Quoted:


Nowadays it's mostly people trying to make their EBT card look like a Black AmEx though, probably.

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I always thought a combination BBQ joint and crematory would make the most efficient use of physical plant and fuel.

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Yes, he lives in my head, we have good talks, he doesn't talk when anyone else is around, and for some reason my video camera mics cannot hear his voice. He is a very good friend.

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Old high school friend of mine is quite technologically illiterate and always has the craziest ideas. He bounces a lot of ideas off me because I have lots of software design experience, 3D printers, some electronics design knowledge, etc. But most of his ideas just aren't even possible and he lacks the basic computing/electronics knowledge to understand why.

Today, he called me about making a copy of his credit card. He wants to get rid of his plastic one, and have a sheet steel one because "that would be really cool". He claims he found metal credit card blanks for sale online, and just needs me to program the chip and RFID to match his current card. Here I am as an IT professional trying to explain that "No, you can't just break into the mini-HSM on your card and copy the private key to another device. Any HSM that isn't Chinese counterfeit junk is certified to have non-exportable private keys, and I'm 100% certain that includes chipped credit cards."

Of course, there is no way for me to dumb down the topics of public key cryptography, RSA, code signing operations, and hardware security modules. One of my job roles is administrator of the company's HSM and code signing keys, so I know a thing or two about it even if I don't know the details on how credit cards do it. Meanwhile, my friend failed 9th grade Microsoft Office class, never got beyond Algebra I, and gets ripped off by multiple scams each year. Best I could say is "That's impossible for us to do. Might be possible for the NSA, might be possible (but probably illegal as hell) if you worked at the bank that issued the card and were willing to break all the rules. But not us." Worst part is I don't think he believes me, and he says he found some company online that will do exactly what he wants if you mail them the card and pay $200. I told him I would be shocked if that wasn't a scam, but he didn't believe me on that.

This same guy also wanted to DIY a waste oil furnace for his house, out of a rusty old burn barrel and some dryer vents. He had some basic back-of-napkin designs drawn up and was all ready to start without me. But he didn't understand my concerns about CO poisoning. Or the fact that I don't know the first thing about HVAC and I'm certain there are all kinds of permits/certifications required in order for his home owner's insurance to not drop him in a heartbeat when they find out about this. Or my fire concerns because his house looks like something from the TV show Hoarders, completely full of 3-foot high piles of junk that have 12" footpaths cutting through and he thinks it's a good idea to put a damned burn barrel in the middle of all that. I wasn't able to talk him out of this idea, but at least it ended up on his huge list of projects he never got around to (yet).

He's one of my best friends, but I cringe anytime he calls me up and says "Hey, I have an idea and I need your help" because I know it's going to be something that will either kill you, burn your house down, require the full resources of NASA or the NSA, blatantly violate the laws of thermodynamics, and/or accidentally land you in prison if you survive.

Surely I can't be alone in this. You have any stories about friends with crazy harebrained schemes who call you up because they know it's at least adjacent to your area of expertise? But then they don't believe you when you give an answer they don't like and can't understand?