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Archives for September 2003
Build Your Own Segway
When I was a kid I used to marvel at Popular Mechanics articles with detailed schematics explaining how to build your very own hovercraft for less than a hundred dollars.
Maybe that’s why I’m so impressed by the idea of someone actually building their own Segway-style scooter from scratch. It looks like half the quality for half the cost.
Setting the Record Straight
I don’t understand why every libertarian on the Net is jumping all over Wesley Clark’s assertion that this country was “founded on a principle of progressive taxation.” His claim is, in point of fact, pretty reasonable.
According to Scott Moody at the Tax Foundation:
“From 1791 to 1802, the United States government was supported by internal taxes on distilled spirits, carriages, refined sugar, tobacco and snuff, property sold at auction, corporate bonds, and slaves. The high cost of the War of 1812 brought about the nation’s first sales taxes on gold, silverware, jewelry, and watches.”
In 1811, Thomas Jefferson wrote of the tax burden in America in a letter to General Thaddeus Kosciusko:
“We are all the more reconciled to the tax on importation, because it falls exclusively on the rich…In fact, the poor man in this country who uses nothing but what is made within his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays not a farthing of tax to the general government…the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone…”
Furthermore, Jefferson was also a sharp critic of extreme inequality of property. In a 1785 letter to James Madison, he wrote:
“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”
Thomas Paine also argued for progressive taxation (as well as a welfare state) in The Rights of Man:
“Admitting that any annual sum, say, for instance, one thousand pounds, is necessary or sufficient for the support of a family, consequently the second thousand is of the nature of a luxury, the third still more so, and by proceeding on, we shall at last arrive at a sum that may not improperly be called a prohibitable luxury. It would be impolitic to set bounds to property acquired by industry, and therefore it is right to place the prohibition beyond the probable acquisition to which industry can extend; but there ought to be a limit to property or the accumulation of it by bequest. It should pass in some other line. The richest in every nation have poor relations, and those often very near in consanguinity.”
Paine even includes a tax bracket table!
This country was most certainly not founded on the principle of a progressive federal income tax. It is, however, not unreasonable to claim it was founded on the principle of progressive taxation. We shouldn’t let our overwhelming respect for the founders cloud our ability to see the truth.
Just because this country was “founded on” a given principle doesn’t mean the principle is valid.
703-519-6456
When Tucker Carlson was prompted for his personal phone number on today’s Crossfire, he decided to give out the Washington bureau phone number for Fox News.
The folks at Fox News graciously decided to return the favor, and posted a story on their site profiling Tucker’s actual phone number.
The news item has since been taken down.
Love Story of the Century
This week’s episode of This American Life featured a wonderful piece by Sarah Vowell on the romance between Johnny Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash. You can (and should) listen to the program here in RealAudio. Vowell’s segment is the last ten minutes of the show.
How Much Is 2.9 Lbs.?
A new Dell catalog came in the mail today and I noticed the laptop ads now feature an absolutely brilliant method of communicating the relative weights of the different models.
A small thumbnail image of a one gallon milk container (which I’ve pulled out in detail below) is displayed next to each model’s weight in pounds. The container is shown filled with water to a level that approximates the actual weight of the laptop.
Not only does this method communicate the weight on a more intuitive level, it also makes it easy for potential buyers to tangibly experience the weight differences in their own kitchens.
Somehow this weblog has become Google’s [number one result][1] for the phrase “Jai Guru Deva.” It’s official. Weblogs have killed PageRank. [1]: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Jai+Guru+Deva&btnG=Google+Search
Carhartt, an American manufacturer of rugged workclothes, takes a radically different approach to marketing their products in Europe. While their simple [US website][1] stresses the industrial uses and the durability of the product, the [flash-infested European site][2] appeals to the skater-punk design ethos.
What other companies have to appeal to different demographics in different countries for the same product?
[1]: http://www.carhartt.com/
[2]: http://www.carhartt-europe.com/
Here’s a [bash shell script][1] I wrote to backup my MySQL databases. It pipes the mysqldump output to gzip and saves an backup of each database to a specified local directory. Each backup file also has the date appended to the beginning of the filename.
The script then archives all the day’s backup files using tar and FTPs them to a second server for offsite backup.
Just edit the configuration variables and set cron to run the script at your desired times.
[1]: /wp-content/uploads/downloads/mysql-backup.txt
Does He Leave Little Batteries Around the House?
In accordance with Marie Gryphon’s assertion that “every market liberal should be allowed one heterodoxy,” I would like to publicly voice my support for a 900% excise tax on robotic dogs.
The people who buy these things are probably a pretty price-insensitive crowd. If they can afford to spend $1599 on a robotic dog, they obviously have money to burn. I’m sure they would be able to swing $15,990 just as easily.
Capitalism is supposed to separate idiots from their wealth quickly and efficiently. I’m just suggesting we help the process along a little, that’s all.
His Name Is…
This new Linux TV ad from IBM is probably the best computer industry commercial since Ridley Scott’s Orwellian 1984 spot for Apple.
I was particularly amused by the inclusion of the latin phrase “res publica non dominetur.”
Form With Less Function
I’m all for “innovative” industrial design, provided said “innovation” actually results in some real advantage over more conventional design.
Virginia Postrel linked to an I.D. Magazine review of a “cool” new tissue dispenser composed entirely of a stainless steel ring. The ring rests atop a stack of tissues. As tissues are lifted, the tissue on top is partially raised.
This design offers no functional benefit over more conventional alternatives. In fact, there are at least four functional drawbacks to the design that come immediately to mind:
- Even the designer concedes that the ring results in “diminished portability.”
- The bottom tissue is always contaminated through contact with the surface upon which it rests. As a result, hygiene dictates that the design always wastes a tissue.
- If you do lift the final tissue through the ring you risk scratching the surface below with the stainless steel ring.
- What will direct contact with popular lotion-infused tissues do to the finish of a fine piece of furniture?
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote that “Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.”
The tissue holder is a clear case of taking away a bit too much.
The Journal Does Them By Hand
The Wall Street Journal has four full-time and two part-time artists who create the distinctive “hedcut” style portraits that appear in the paper. They are carefully drawn by hand–and the quality definitely shows. The National Portrait Gallery has even held an exhibition of these stippled drawings.
If you look to the right you’ll see a my half-assed attempt to achieve the same effect using a very interesting Photoshop filter from Andromeda software.
