Tom's Random stuff

Economics: Shackling the Invisible Hand

Tom — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:27:00 GMT

Economics: Shackling the Invisible Hand

Why raising taxes on anybody always hurts the poor
Economics by a computer geek.

Disclaimer: I have no Economics background except for an exceedingly easy Microeconomics class in college.

Premises:

1. People don’t let you take their money without a fight.

2. If you take money away from a person, that person will try to get it back any way they can.

Scenario: Taxing the “rich”

Let’s start with the premise that most people have today. To be “fair” is to take a greater percentage of money from the “wealthy” and redistribute it to the “poor”. I put these terms in quotes, because they are thrown around very liberally without regards to their true definitions.

Action:

Increasing taxes on the “rich”

Reaction of the Working [1] and Non-Working[2] “rich”:

Increasing taxes on any group results in a reduction in income (i.e. taking money away). Thus, according to the Premises, the "rich" will attempt to get their money back.

The only way to retain your wealth/standard of living with less money is to spend less money. This will come in the form of cheaper, foreign made products, or just abstaining from purchasing luxuries. The net result is less money going into the economy, sustaining businesses. See the next section for the results of that.

Reaction of the Working “rich”:

There is a twofold effect on this class of people. First, all the “rich” that can’t regain their money any other way will be buying less goods and services, which results in less income. Second, this group of people is also hit by a reduction in personal income due to the tax increase. These two factors combined results in choices for this group, some of which are:

1. Raise the prices of their products (bad for the”poor”)

2. Fire some employees and make the remainder work harder to produce the same product (bad for the “poor”)

3. Fire all the employees and outsource to a cheaper, foreign source. (really bad for the “poor”)

Result:

The “rich” get some of their money back by either:

· keeping it by not spending (the non-working “rich”), or

· raising the price on products we want to buy, or

· firing some workers (the “poor”), or

· firing all the workers (more of the “poor”), or

· some combination of all these

None of these outcomes helps the poor. Since the “rich” are “in power”, they dictate the pricing of goods and services (within the tolerances of the market) and who retains and loses his job. So, raising their taxes does NOT help the “poor”.

[1] Company owners, high wage earners, etc.

[2] Trust Fund kids, retirees, etc.

Every time I hear him speak, Ron Paul teaches me something

Tom — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:57:00 GMT

Ever since I started really contemplating the state of our country with the Military-Industrial Complex and how it controls our government through lobbying and no-compete contracts and political contributions, it has made me angry. I always thought that we need to make laws to change this. We need to somehow restrict the ability for lobbyists to control politicians.

I was wrong.

Ron Paul had a "Town Hall Meeting" in New Hampsure, that he was forced to do by Fox ("Fair and Balanced", yeah right!) because they excluded him from the debates. In this meeting, he mentioned that restricting lobbyists could potentially violate people's Constitutional rights. He said the real solution, instead of restricting lobbyists, is to restrict the politicians. The way to do that is to limit the power the government has. If we have a small, Constitutional government, the lobbyists wouldn't have any motivation to give money to politicians.

The answer was so simple, I never thought of it. This country needs more men like Ron Paul in politics.

George McGovern speaks about Bush-Cheney

Tom — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:40:00 GMT

This is a well-written cry for help for our country. This man has the wisdom of age and the experience of having run for President in the past. He ran against Nixon and he is pining for the days that his old adversary was President...

Read the article here

Another reason I'm being convinced that Universal Health Care is a good idea...

Tom — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:58:00 GMT

I have decided that Universal health care is a good idea. Not for the typical bleeding heart "we must cradle everyone in our arms and allow them to suckle on the taxpayers teats"-kind of approach, but ... we're already paying for it anyway. Just look at all these a-holes in the "Emergency" room that just have a cold or a splinter... never mind the illegals, homeless, etc.. Rather than having hospitals close because their Emergency Room is going bankrupt, we might as well drink the Kool-Aid and get it over with. Give everyone a basic level of health care (NOT illegals).

Now, I have another reason: atheism. I am an atheist (why aren't you?). This article explains how the rise in universal health care in other first-world countries is just the security blanket that people need so that they stop praying to the Easter Bunny to help them win the Superbowl. That, and how atheists and agnostics are increasing in numbers at a crazy rate while theist are not. Yay!

My surfing habits and that irritating 'double-click a word to pop-up a definition' (NY Times!)

Tom — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:16:00 GMT

I am a web-surfing multi-tasker. For example, I currently have 7 tabs in this Firefox window and 5 more tabs in 2 other firefox windows going simultaneously. When I mean "going", I mean they are usually queued up for me too read.

So, I will go to a site like digg.com and I will Ctrl-Click the links I want to read and they all load in background tabs. I will then subsequently do this with any links in the pages I read. I will also look up topics or definitions of words with a double-click (highlight the word), right-click, "s" (Search Google For 'word'). This, again loads another tab.

Anyway, so I frequently hop from one tab to another and Alt-Tab between Firefox windows, since I categorize a full "session" represented by a single window. For example, I will have one that is my "email" window. I will have tabs for McKearney.com email, Gmail, Myspace (kind of email-ish), etc.

All this said, I obviously bounce around. So, when I leave one page to look at another, I often need a place-holder to show where I was. So, I double-click a word to highlight it. This way, when I come back, my place is held. In comes the New York Times (among others).

So, the New York Times recently made it off of my shit list because they decided to stop requiring registration just to read the news. Well, they very quickly made it back on the list because they added this "helpful" feature for people. If you double-click any text on the entire page, they take the highlighted text and search for a definition for you and pop up a lovely window with it, without asking you if you want it. Nice.

I first toyed with the idea of using Greasemonkey to add an additional "Are you sure you want to look this up?" question, but I quickly realized that I would never answer that question with a "yes". So, I looked at the source HTML for the web page. It begins with this:


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 
<html>

<head>

<script src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/js/common.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/js/article/articleShare.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/js/Tacoda_AMS_DDC_Header.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/js/fileit.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/js/common/screen/DropDown.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/js/common/screen/modifyNavigationDisplay.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/js/common/screen/altClickToSearch.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/js/util/tooltip.js"></script>

I bolded the line that caught my eye... this one is the culprit, so I decided to use Adblock Plus (which is usually used to block images) to block that URL. So, I fired up the Adblock Plus configuration and added "http://*.nytimes.com/js/common/screen/altClickToSearch.js" to the list. I reloaded the page and... voila! No more obnoxious "oh, you meant to look up the meaning of 'the'.." logic.

This doesn't get the NY Times off of my shit list, since they did it in the first place, but it at least makes it tolerable if I want to view something on their site.

One note: This only works for the NY Times, obviously. So, I will probably have to figure this out again with another site. It may require Greasemonkey. Either way, I don't care. I'm the one in control of my web browsing, not you!

Like Peter Tosh sang...

Tom — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:08:00 GMT

"Legalize It!"

Here is a well thought out and sensible article that tells us why the 'War on Drugs' is a complete waste of our tax paying money.

Why continue to empower drug lords and kill people over something that people want? It's just silly. Like US alcohol prohibition in the past, this will eventually be legalized. Let's just do it now and get it over with.

Warning... VERY Politically Incorrect

Tom — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:19:00 GMT

This is one of the infinite reasons that I hate religious people (obviously a bit of an over-exaggeration):

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hr110-847

WHY THE FUCK DO WE NEED TO RECOGNIZE ANY FUCKING RELIGIONS AT ALL!!!!!!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHh

1) Don't our legistlators have more important things to do than to encroach on my religious freedom?   Here, let me name a few:
    - American currency is in the shitter
    - Iraq
    - Afghanistan
    - Border Security.
    - preventing Britney Spears from polluting the gene pool anymore

2) How much money is it costing the taxpayers so that these assholes can diddle themselves while talking about how much better their fairy tales are than everyone else's? ("Jesus could beat up Muhammed".. "Oh yeah, Vishnu could kick all their asses!".. Let's just have an imaginary Royal Rumble with Jesus, Muhammed, Buddha, Jehovah, God, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Zues, Odin, Santa, and The Tooth Fairy and Mothra while we're at it... settle it all right now)

3) Poverty
4) Crime
5) Electoral Abuse
6) Corporations Controlling the country

God, I am so angry right now, I could kill a cute baby seal with my bare hands and eat its liver.

PLEASE PEOPLE. Go Vote For Ron Paul!!! Put Some Sanity back in the government!!

Phidgets project update

Tom — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:27:00 GMT

The implementation of my Closet Venting Project was so easy in all the languages I tried. I had to make it slightly more challenging. So, I took the .NET Assemblies (DLLs) and used Reflector to disassemble them in to C# code. Once I had the ".cs" files, I recompiled it on the Linux box, using the latest version of Mono.

Since all the C function names and parameters were the same in Windows and Linux, I just added one configuration entry to tell it to use "libphidgets21.so" when the DllImport calls refer to "Phidgets21.dll". This forwarded all the wrapped C functions in that DLL to the Linux "so" (shared library). Then, I took my original C# code and compiled that on the Linux box with Mono too. It worked! :)

Here's the configuration line:

<dllmap dll="phidget21.dll" target="libphidget21.so" />

I had a couple new requirements for myself. I needed it to run as a "service" so that I could restart it and replace it with new versions at will. After a few tries, I realized that I could just use the /etc/inittab. The entry looks like:

FC:2345:respawn:/opt/mono-1.2.5.1/bin/mono /home/tom/FanController/FanController.exe

This sets the ID to "FC" and runs it at runlevels 2,3,4,5. What it also does is automatically respawn the process if it exits. So, I needed a way to make it exit itself. So, I added a very simple .NET Remoting interface into the app to kill it. So, if you call FanController with a "/X", it connects to the currently running version of itself and calls a function. This function sets the ManualResetEvent that the app normally waits on before it exits.

So, an upgrade consists of:

compile a new version
run "mono FanController.exe /X"

That's it! I, for one, think that's pretty cool :)

Closet Venting Project

Tom — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:22:00 GMT

I had a problem with a closet full of computers getting too hot to the point that fans and power supplies were dying. So, I decided to do something about it. I used Phidgets for the sensors. I wrote the software in C#, then PowerShell, and then , finally, in C in Linux (was easier for my deployment).

There are photos here

When the temperature hits 80 degrees Fahrenheit, it applies 5V to the digital output, which triggers the Xantech controlled outlet. This, in turn vents the room until the temperature goes below 80 degrees, at which time the 5V signal is dropped.

It was actually pretty easy to do. The total cost was kinda high... maybe $250 if you don't count buying the Dremel tool. The good part is that the Phidgets 8/8/8 Interface Kit supports 16 inputs (8 analog, 8 digital). So, I can buy new stuff and add on to this much cheaper.

Hopefully I'll have more to post about soon.

UPDATE: I posted some new info here

Helpless

Tom — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 14:55:00 GMT

http://www.alternet.org/rights/55993

This stuff makes me ashamed of my country. That we could ever let this happen is astonishing. That it still continues is repulsive. An innocent guy getting tortured for 5 years by the US. We used to demonize other countries for doing these kinds of things. I have a feeling the taxpayers will be paying for this in lawsuit settlements once people figure out how to do it in a court.

I never thought I would say this, but: I think that John Kerry (*shudder*) would have made a better President. Well, at least I don't think he would have done this.

Non-geeks finally caught up....

Tom — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:33:00 GMT

This is a well written article from the BBC, which talks about how Sci-Fi and Fantasy have made such a huge impact lately in both TV and Movies. The main reason is that Sci-Fi and Fantasy are excellent ways to comment on current affairs in a way that is appealing to people.

Go read it!

For those of you who played lots of Atari....

Tom — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:29:00 GMT

This is awesome!

Go down the side... there are two more :)

At least we're not the only ones ruining our educational system...

Tom — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:31:00 GMT

Here in the US, we have people trying to teach Religion (Creationism/Intelligent Design) in our Biology classes.

Well, In the UK, we have people putting politics and soft, wishy-washy topics in their Physics classes...

WTF folks? Physics is one of the coolest, nerdiest sciences there is. Why the hell are they talking about Bio-fuels and renewable energy? WTF does that have to do with Physics?? Even if you ignore the politics part of it, what are you measuring or observing when you talk about bio-fuels versus any other kind of fuel? How much energy does it produce? What's the rate of energy production? Physics is all about numbers. It sounds to me like a bunch of granola-crunching Al Gore-worshipping luddites took over the Physics curriculum.

Way to go, idiots!

I fixed an appliance!

Tom — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:50:00 GMT

OK... we have a U-line WC15 wine cooler (under counter model). It stopped cooling. So, we did the natural thing... bought a replacement (different product, same function).

Then, after a little prodding from my father during his visit, I decided to check it out.
The symptoms were simple: The light worked... the rest of it never turned on.

So, my dad said that it's one of 2 things, either the relay switch that turns on the compressor is bad... or the temperature control is.

After using my multimeter and using a wire to jumper over the both of these, I determined that the temperature control was the culprit. I found a cool site called RepairClinic.com that made it really easy to find a new part. For about $65 I got a new one. I installed it yesterday and everything's working fine now. Pretty cool.

Luckily, I have a friend who is interested in buying the replacement I bought. Since we gave it a two week test run, he knows it works well :)

Lesson learned: I know enough about electricity and things to test my electrical things when they go on the fritz...

Update

Tom — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:48:00 GMT

This is long overdue... I haven't updated in a long time...

I had a huge problem with spam posts (over 4000 of them), so I had to change the site to only allow registered users to post.

I hope this isn't a big problem to the whole... oh... 2 of you that have posted here in the past...

Anyway... I'm going to try to post a little more now...

Tom

Tom's Random stuff

Economics: Shackling the Invisible Hand

Premises:

Scenario: Taxing the “rich”

Every time I hear him speak, Ron Paul teaches me something

George McGovern speaks about Bush-Cheney

Another reason I'm being convinced that Universal Health Care is a good idea...

My surfing habits and that irritating 'double-click a word to pop-up a definition' (NY Times!)

Like Peter Tosh sang...

Warning... VERY Politically Incorrect

Phidgets project update

Closet Venting Project

Helpless

Non-geeks finally caught up....

For those of you who played lots of Atari....

At least we're not the only ones ruining our educational system...

*I* fixed an appliance!

Update

I fixed an appliance!