Let’s say I was an American, single, earning $50,000 / year.
One scenario:
I pay about 20% in taxes: $10,013.
This is unsustainable. The USA must increase taxes AND cut spending.
But where do you cut?
Graphic via datavizchallenge.org.
… Of course that’s hypothetical. I earn far more than than $50,000. 🙂
Warren and Bill reminded me of my classic 2007 edit of the fun we had over New Year’s.
It’s only had 106 views.
Clearly I should have put the words Blunder and Blooper in the title.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
My gymnastics coach diving bloopers video has 55,000 views.
Is the Economist Economic Unit smoking the BC Bud, again this year?
The world’s top livable cities:
1. Vancouver, Canada
2. Melbourne, Australia
3. Vienna, Austria
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Calgary, Canada
6. Helsinki, Finland
7. Sydney, Australia
8. Perth, Australia
9. Adelaide, Australia
10. Auckland, New Zealand
Read more: Australia and Canada dominate ‘most liveable cities’ list | CNNGo.com
Most people in Christchurch, New Zealand would refuse to move to Auckland, I can tell you that.
They did get one thing right. The traffic in Dhaka , Bangladesh (second last on the list) is even worse than Vancouver.
Doctor, my eyes have seen the years / And the slow parade of fears …
… As people age, their ability to focus is lessened and many decide to use multiple-focus lenses, which can be bifocal or even trifocal, to cover all the situations in which they use their sight. Traditional multifocal lenses have two or three distinct horizontal viewing areas, each requiring a conscious effort of refocusing. Some modern multifocal lenses, such as progressive lenses (known as “no-line bifocals”), give a smooth transition between these different focal points …
It was time. Time to get either Bifocals or Progressives.
Yet I knew a dozen people who couldn’t get used to progressive lenses. … They’re sitting on the shelf.
Click PLAY or see how they work on YouTube.
Happily, I’m getting used to them quite rapidly.
The worst thing I can report is that I need to have a ‘head on a stick’ (vague sports cliché) … For each focal length I need adjust my head position exactly. When I get it wrong, the world is plenty blurry.
Imagine yourself on a ship in stormy seas, drunk. … That’s what progressive lenses are like when you don’t focus.
I do find myself fatigued end of day after concentrating so much positioning my head.
Also, lens cleaner is essential with these, once or twice a day.
Leave a comment if you’ve an opinion on them.
Clearly, Kate is not a nerd:
… I can’t cope with the relentless onslaught of technological “improvements” …
… Just for a start, I find that trying to get the hang of which electronic teller requires the bank- card swipe and which the bank-card chip shove, and which way the card should be positioned for either, and whether I want to use the “calculate tip” function in the electronic teller, and whether I should be calculating the tip on the machine before or after the HST has been added, is enough to drive me to drink. …
Never mind the mystery of the six remote controls now required to operate a solitary TV or stereo, or the random puzzling beeps emanating from other people’s numerous plugged-in gadgets. I know I can’t be alone in my wonder at the breathtaking “efficiency” of ordering a movie ticket online, printing it up, and then having to stand in line at the movie theatre anyway in order to redeem it for a ticket I can actually use. …
read more on Kate of Late
Kate’s right about the remotes. WHY do we still have multiple remote controls in most homes, many of which have only one master of the remotes.
But good enough for me.
My personal philosophy is Voluntary Simplicity.
This about sums up my success, so far.
Posted by Avi Abrams on Facebook. He edits the excellent Dark Roasted Blend photo blog out of Calgary.
I’m shocked to see what’s happening in the Middle East.
Do they know what they are getting themselves into?
For your reading pleasure, here are some of the major pieces of legislation that have been put forward by the Tea Party Republicans who are now in control of the legislature. This is not a joke. These are real bills, and they are currently taking priority in the Montana legislature.
1. Legalize hunting with hand-thrown spear (Senate Bill 112)
2. Create fully-armed militia in every town (House Bill 278)
3. Allow legislators to carry weapons in the Capitol (Senate Bill 279)
4. Create an 11 person panel with authority to nullify all federal laws (House Bill 382)
5 Allow guns in schools (House Bill 558)
6. Eliminate educational requirements for persons seeking job of State Superintendent of Schools (HB 154)
7. Lift nuclear ban for purpose of building a nuclear reactor in the Flathead Valley (House Bill 326)
8. Withdraw the United States of America from the United Nations (Senate Joint Resolution 2)
9. Eliminate all state incentives for developing wind power (House Bill 244)
10. Omit Barak Obama’s name from the 2012, ballot because his father was born outside of America (House Bill 205)(this guy was on CNN this week)
11. Compulsory marriage counseling for people seeking a divorce (House Bill 438)
12. Give sheriffs authority over the federal government in terror investigations (Senate Bill 114)
13. Legalize hunting with silencers (House Bill 174)
14. Lift the prohibition on carrying concealed weapons in bars, churches and banks (House Bill 384)
15. Eliminate law that requires landlords to install carbon monoxide detectors (House Bill 354)
16. Require the federal government to prove in court that the National Parks were lawfully aquired. (House Bill 506)
17. Officially designate the “Code of the West” as the “Code of Montana” (Senate Bill 216)
UPDATE: 18. Declare that global warming is good. (House Bill 549)
I was OK with the Tea Party defying conventional politics. They are an entertaining protest movement. … But this is moronic.
The Tea Party obviously cannot govern.
No doubt the President will again want my advice for 2012. His prospects for reelection are looking up.
related – my friend Tom Chandler on Montana Bill (SB 306) – intended to revive highly toxic cyanide leach mining in the state.
So far … none of my friends there have been reported injured.
Prime Minister John Key – after confirming 65 people have died – told ONE News last night: “We may well be witnessing New Zealand’s darkest day,” he said.
“It is just a scene of utter devastation,” he said. “We have to work as fast as we can to get people out of environments where they are trapped.”
Key flew to Christchurch yesterday afternoon and after a quick tour of the city described it as “utterly wrecked”, adding “this is an absolute tragedy for Christchurch”.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
eHow is an online how-to guide with more than 1 million articles and 170,000 videos offering step-by-step instructions on how to do things.
It’s much criticized as a “content mill” or “content farm“. Low quality crap written to get a high Google ranking, pushing Google ads deceptively.
Hows that working out for them?
My gymnastics site is the best on the web on the topic of “gymnastics coach” and “gymnastics coaching”.
eHow got the #1 rank for a Google search = “Gymnastics Coach”.
(I reset the Browser so there was nothing in the cache or history.)
The content on that eHow page is crap written by someone who doesn’t coach gymnastics.
Why doesn’t Google rank content farms lower?
… Maybe they like all that Google ad revenue.
Google has launched one counter attack. I doubt that’s going to work.
They lashed back at critics in a Jan. 21st post:
… January brought a spate of stories about Google’s search quality. Reading through some of these recent articles, you might ask whether our search quality has gotten worse. …
I’ll believe Google has fixed the problem when eHow is not on the first 100 pages of results.
_____
In a Bing search, eHow was #1, as well. (And Bing results are consistently worse for me on any specialized search term.)
The new Duck Duck Go browser filters out all eHow results. My site was #1 there.
related – TechCrunch – Search Still Sucks
Wikipedia has blacklisted all eHow articles.
… as for me, I’ve downloaded the free Chrome browser extension Personal Blocklist and BLOCKED all eHow sites from my personal search results. If enough people do that, that content farm will die.
The NY Times must have 6 of these posts scheduled each year – Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter
Matt, founder of WordPress, the most popular blogging platform:
… Underneath the data in the article there’s an interesting super-trend that the Times misses: people of all ages are becoming more and more comfortable publishing online. …
… at some point you’ll have more to say than fits in 140 characters, is too important to put in Facebook …
I use Twitter. Rarely. It’s so limited.
Facebook non-stop all day. Love it. … Though ‘Facebook Pages’ are crap.
Blogs are where I put serious ideas. With a permanent address. Something I might want to refer back to one day.
Different tools for different purposes. Over time people that post things online will find the right tools for what they want to say.
The intriguing one to me, actually, is Tumblr.
Like Facebook. But more powerful. More personal.
Here’s a Tumblr to which I’ve just subscribed – Camping Links
Rick McCharles 