I tried

Originally uploaded by BradAurisch

I had no chance of keeping these three dry whilst talking on the phone. Ela Bella dunked herself twice, how tempting to squat in the waves? Only two weeks and we’ll be having daily beach trips! Hopefully the weather will be a tad nicer than today :)

You may recognise this, I’ve lifted it from an email I received this week.

The Tax System - Explained With Beer

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

* The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
* The fifth would pay $1.
* The sixth would pay $3.
* The seventh would pay $7.
* The eighth would pay $12.
* The ninth would pay $18.
* The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.’

‘Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.’

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
* The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
* The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
* The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
* The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
* The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
* The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, ‘but he got $10!’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only Saved a dollar, too.

It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

We take you through 50 defining moments of the internet.

We take you through 50 defining moments of the internet.

Well, things aren’t looking too great economy-wise. We might just be headed for a depression, which means you’ll need to start changing your lifestyle. While you may start out by changing your lifestyle in subtle ways, you need to be mentally prepared for the fact that more, well, drastic measures may be necessary in the not-too-distant future. Luckily, I’ve hand-picked 10 gadgets that may be necessary in our frightening, Lehman-Brothersless future.

10. The first thing you’re gonna want to do is start saving money. This Tomy RPG Piggy Bank makes saving money fun by featuring a simple game on the front that utilizes the money you insert into it. Make saving a game, you’ll be more apt to do it! [Link]

9. A good way to save money is to stop using so much electricity. This energy saving remote lets you cut the power to all of your home theater electronics that suck up juice even when they’re off. This should save you precious dollars every month. [Link]

8. Not everyone will be as responsible as you, and they may get desperate and try to steal your precious financial documents. Keep them locked up in this really intense hard drive/safe combo. It’s fireproof and waterproof, so you can be sure nothing will happen to your data. [Link]

7. It’s not just your digital property that you need to protect, its your physical property as well. This lock uses your fingerprint to allow access, so only you and your family will be able to get into your house when the looting and rioting begin. [Link]

6. OK, so they’ve cut the power to your home and you’ve barricaded yourself inside. You obviously can’t go to the grocery store for food as all of the stores have been overtaken by roving bands of weapons-wielding former stock brokers, so you should ensure you’ve got plenty of non-perishable food to last you through the financial crisis. [Link]

5. So they set your house on fire, forcing you to flee into the woods. What you’ll need is a tent that’s quick to set up and quick to pack up when you hear the sounds of the bloodthirsty brokers crashing through the underbrush. This self-pitching tent sets itself up in the air as you throw it, allowing you to set up camp quickly and easily. [Link]

4. You’ll want to be able to know the weather and charge your phone while you’re on the run, and this is the device to do it for you. Assuming the national weather services haven’t been overrun and destroyed, you’ll be able to check on the forecast while charging your gadgets with this. [Link]

3. You need to escape the city, where all the former bankers are based, and since cars are susceptible to bombs and rocket launchers, you’ll need something a bit more tough. The Rhino can withstand just about anything that’s thrown at it and keep you and whatever is left of your family safe inside. [Link]

2. OK, so you needed to get out of the Rhino and dole out some punishment man-to-man. This recoilless auto shotgun can fire off 300 rounds per minute, making quick work of anyone with a blue shirt with white cuffs flecked with human blood around. Just make sure to pick up plenty of extra ammo while you’re at it. [Link]

1. So you didn’t make it. That’s disappointing! You can at least leave a lasting memorial to yourself with your last near-worthless American dollars by purchasing this digital tombstone with your dying breath. It can display videos on its LCD monitor of you in happier times, buying gasoline for less than $150 a gallon and owning a house that actually has some value. Maybe in heaven things will be like that again. For your sake, I hope so. [Link] [Top image via Pink Tentacle]

Google, who in aggregate, effectively knows everything, unsurprisingly has a solution for our energy problems. The plan, called Clean Energy 2030 will cost $4.4 trillion over its 22-year span, if we start on it right now. Google says it’ll give us back a net of $1 trillion, like half of which will be savings on Google’s massive power bill notes the former Fake Steve.

None of the key points are radical, except for asking for a $4.4 trillion investment—90 percent of new cars electric by 2030, 45mpg average fuel efficiency, efficient electricity use to cut demand 33 percent, replacing all coal with renewable electricity. I was hoping for something more innovative and exciting, like Google Power, which would be in beta for 22 years. Cause if Google can’t save the world, who can? [Google via Alley Insider]

Responding to criticism for its secrecy over its data centers, Google has lifted the veil a little on how much energy its information hotbeds use. The world’s largest search engine insisted that Google-designed data centers used nearly five times less energy than conventional facilities, and launched a website to inform environmentally-bent customers on their 5-step approach to efficiency.

The move is important since data centers are becoming an ever-increasing drain on the energy grid, accounting for about 1.5 percent of all electricity consumed in the U.S. in 2006 (expected to rise to 2.5 percent in three years). While the efficiency levels Google touted are admirable, data center trackers cautioned that the test results hadn’t been verified by a third party. [NYTimes]

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Networking

While a good chunk of this month’s Professional Developers Conference will be focused on Windows 7, it looks like Microsoft has another little surprise up its sleeve, with CEO Steve Ballmer himself dropping word that the company also plans to introduce its new, tentatively-titled “Windows Cloud” OS at the conference. Of course, Ballmer isn’t about to get very specific about the OS just yet, though he does seem to be dampening expectations a bit by saying, “just like Windows Server looked a lot like Windows but with new properties, new characteristics and new features, so will Windows Cloud look a lot like Windows Server.” He also apparently confirmed that geo-replication and other features “designed for the cloud” would be built into the OS, and he confirmed the existence of Midori, but said it was still in the incubation phase, adding that, “the guy in the office next door to somebody working on Midori is not supposed to know about Midori.” We assume that also means that Windows Cloud is not Midori, but we’ll know for sure once PDC gets underway on October 27th.

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Corporate telephony giant Avaya today said it would launch a tool in Australia in November to integrate business telephony
systems with Apple iPhone handsets.