Steve Jobs at NeXT

This is a really good video of Steve Jobs doing a "chalk talk" while he was at NeXT. The clarity and simplicity of the message is great. I'm continuing to try to improve with presentations and other communications to convey complicated information in a way that people can readily understand it. This is a good example.

Our Tax System Explained: Bar Stool Economics

A co-worker of mine forwarded this "essay" to me by David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D., Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia.

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 got' '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, ladies and gentlemen, 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.

I'm not sure that I totally agree with the conclusions but it's an interesting perspective and certainly one way of discussing this topic that made some intuitive sense to me.

Serving Others

My son AJ was asked to give a talk today in Primary (the group of 4 to 12 year olds at church). I ended up serving as his speechwriter but he did a great job today saying it for the other kids. He's what he had to say:

I was asked to talk about how I can serve Heavenly Father by serving others. Serving others means that we help them feel better when they are hurt. We can help them solve a problem or we can do something nice for them. Sometimes when people pray for help, their prayers are answered by something we do for them. In 1 Nephi 16:29, it says that “by small means the Lord can bring about great things”. And, in Mosiah 2:17, it says “when [you] are in the service of your fellow beings [you] are only in the service of your God”. It feels good to do nice things for other people and it makes our Heavenly Father happy too.

A little while ago, JH’s family was moving. I carried some of their boxes down the stairs to their moving truck. It was fun to spend time with mey dad and my brother and they said “thank you” for helping them move. Sometimes my Aunt BE needs to go to an appointment so my mom and I take care of my cousin SE. He’s still a baby. Sometimes SE cries but we are able to make him feel better. I share my toys with him. It feels nice to take care of other people.

Yesterday, me and my dad went to the Oakland temple. While we were there, one of the sister missionaries gave me this cool keychain. It can change colors. When you put it in the sun, it turns blue. She said that people can change too. Some people don’t know that Heavenly Father and Jesus love them. If you do something nice for them, maybe they’ll change and want to learn more about Jesus. Or maybe they’ll do something nice for someone else. That would be really cool.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

There are plenty of people who need each of our help. It is my sincere hope and prayer that we'll serve them.

AIG humor

Speaking to the Institute of International Finance, AIG Vice Chairman Jacob Frenkel said: "The left side of the balance sheet has nothing right and the right side of the balance sheet has nothing left. But they are equal to each other. So accounting-wise we are fine." At least there's a silver-lining in all this. =)

Noah's Ark Replica

I wrote about Noah's Ark more than two years ago (see prior post).  Just the other day, though, my mother-in-law pointed me to a story about a massive replica of Noah's Ark that was created in the Netherlands by devout Christian Johan Huibers.  Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors inside the ark.  Huibers' fully functional ark is two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-storey house.  But the original ark featured in the Bible was described as five times larger than Johan's Ark.  Huibers said his venture came after he dreamt of the Netherlands being flooded.  "In February 1992, I had a dream that Holland will become flooded. The next day, I found a book about Noah's Ark in the local bookshop, and since then, my dream has been to build the ark," he said.  Huibers said he hoped the project would renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands, where churchgoing has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.  "I would really like to inspire people to search for God and to begin to read the Bible," he said.

I hope that my family gets to see this Ark at some point in our lives.  I think it would be a neat experience.

Why men cheat

I read an interesting article today about why men cheat on their wives.  It contradicts a lot of the conventional wisdom on the topic (i.e., that cheating is all about sex with a prettier woman).  Marriage counselor M. Gary Neuman just published a book on this subject called "The Truth About Cheating".  In the book, Gary says that ninety-two percent of men said it wasn't primarily about the sex.  "The majority said it was an emotional disconnection, specifically a sense of feeling underappreciated. A lack of thoughtful gestures," Gary says. "Men are very emotional beings. They just don't look like that. Or they don't seem like that. Or they don't tell you that."  Gary also found that 88 percent of the men surveyed said the other women were no better looking or in no better shape than their own wives.   Here's one additional excerpt from the article:

Josh says he cheated on his wife, Jennifer, because he felt underappreciated at home and started feeling insecure. "That insecurity was really the catalyst," he says. "I didn't feel comfortable going to the one person in the world I should be going to, which is my wife." With daily worries like bills, children and chores, Gary says it's easy for couples to drift away from appreciating one another like they should. Gary says the other woman often makes the man feel better about himself. "[She] makes them feel different. Makes them feel appreciated, admired," he says. "Men look strong, look powerful and capable. But on the inside, they're insecure like everybody else. They're searching and looking for somebody to build them up to make them feel valued." ... Don't be afraid to praise your partner or tell him that you appreciate what he does, Gary says. "We get married because we want one person in the world to really think we're wonderful for doing all the things that we do. We all want the same thing," he says. "And the more we give it, the more we get it in return."

Anyway, very interesting stuff.

Sarah Palin interview

I'm really not into politics. I feel it's my responsibility to vote. The only way a democracy works is if people exercise their right to vote and take seriously. So I research the issues and the candidates prior to casting my ballet. I'll also occasionally wait coverage of the campaigns or read about it in various newspapers or periodicals. In this election, I've been mostly on the fence - not terribly excited about either set of candidates. Actually, after the RNC, I was slightly leanly towards the McCain camp - mostly because of Sarah Palin's speech. But over the last couple of days, I think I've swung into the Obama camp - which, more accurately, is away from the McCain/Palin camp. I've been concerned about McCain's negative ads but Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric really got me scared about that ticket. For those of you who haven't seen it, here it is:



There was actually a good parady of this interview on SNL. I saw the SNL skit first and assumed they had massively exaggerated things but then discovered it was actually pretty accurate (which is scary). Anyway, this interview really gives me pause about having Palin as Vice President.

Periodic Table of Videos

I just read an article in the September 15, 2008 issue of Chemical & Engineering News about a project at the University of Nottingham called the "Periodic Table of Videos" (official site, YouTube channel). The series of 130 videos was put together to introduce different elements and describe their properties and uses. Here is an introductory video:



One Nobel Laureate at Cornell described the video collection this way: "Poliakoff and his able codemonstrators make the periodic table come alive with the best understated British humor - they are real nerdy-sexy." Who doesn't love "nerdy-sexy". =)