Wired's Halloween

Wired asked its readers to submit their best halloween geeky costumes. they can be seen here:
Wired's top ten geeky costumes



This guy got number one spot and he deserves it, check out his website of how he created the costume:
chrislee.tv - cyclone costume

What are you guys doing for Hallows?

New MacBook Pro - First Impressions

I just bought the new MacBook Pro. It is the standard out of the box 5.35 GHz model.



For clarity I was previously using a 12" PowerBook G4, so this is quite the upgrade and my impressions will therefore be somewhat biased to the positive. here we go.



First off, as with all Apple products the packaging was simple and clean. Co-workers even commented on how nice the packaging was. Apple knows all about first impressions and they didn't fail to impressive this time.

The first thing you notice about the body is that it is beautiful. The black framed screen and the clean aluminum case is all that I could have expected. The new manufacturing process really improves the visual impressiveness of the computer. for example, where my PowerBook had 18 visible screws as well as a number of lines where the pieces, battery etc connected together, the new MacBook Pro has a total of 4 visible screws and no lines on top with only a perimeter around the base and across the center of the underside. Again, very clean.

Next thing I noticed was the screen and then the touch-pad. lets start with the screen;
The screen is far brighter and more detailed than my PowerBook. even when compared to a friends older model MacBook Pro the new screen is miles ahead. every detail is smooth and perfect and the older MacBook Pros don't hold a candle to the brightness. On the downside however is the glossy screen. words cannot describe how glossy this ting is. granted it is made of glass, but wow! at least if i want to check my teeth i can just put the computer to sleep and i have a mirror! The glossyness really does get in the way sometimes, especially in brighter environments. I wear a white shirt a lot of the time and all i see in the screen is my shadows and my tie glaring back at me. And don't try to save battery power by dimming the screen because the dimmer it gets the clearer the reflections get.

The track-pad;
in word - awesome. I really love what they have done with it. a bigger track pad really allows more flexibility and ease of use. And it's not too big that it gets in the way of wrist placement. The pad is a whole lot smoother to touch, and glides perfectly. You will notice that there is no longer a button, rather the entire pad is a button. the hinge is at the top so really you still have to press where you would have before, which is a good thing. The track-pad also allows for multi-touch gestures - up to four fingers at a time. I thought this was great and it is useful, but i would have liked to see more flexibility in setting what the strokes actually do, but the user is locked in to expose with four finger swipes and "previous/next" with the three finger swipe. which sounds cool but is really just gimmicke to me.

*I was impressed by a small detail - i usually rest my thumb on the button, so having the button as part of the pad means i always have a finger on the pad and this could cause a problem when it comes to multi-touch, because when i move the mouse - either causing the screen to scroll or invoking the the "pinch" effect and causing the window to zoom or shrink. - BUT, I still haven't figured out the specifics of it, but this doesn't happen. Pad works seamlessly and i never get an undesired effect with the pad or multi-touch.
One thing i have noticed thought is that for some reason the click doesn't always work, about one in thirty clicks just doesn't click. This may just be because I'm not used to the button, but if it is caused because i have a finger(s) on the track pad at the same time, then there's a problem. This will be figured out as I get more use out of it.

That's all she wrote for now, I will write more once i get more use out of this beauty and have had a chance to play with her a little bit. All in all I am very impressed with the improvements, I think the biggest downfall for some people is the glossy screen.

Ciao for now,

Dino

Bar Stool Economics

Bar Stool Economics

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, 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.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.