• 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.
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.

- Abraham Lincoln

Objective is to measure exactly 4 gallons of water in a 5 gallon bucket.

Supplies: You have a 3 gallon and a 5 gallon bucket, one holds exactly 3 gallons and the other exactly 5 gallons. You have an infinite supply of water (lets just say more than you’ll ever need to solve this). The buckets have no markings on them.

You objective is to measure exactly 4 gallons of water and have it contained in the 5 gallon bucket. (I think you know why it won’y be in the 3 gallon bucket).

Comment back if you know the answer (well, one of them anyway)

You are left to solve the problem of which switch goes to which light. But there is only one caveat. You may only enter the room one time and one time only to see which light is on. You may not leave the door open, you have no help, and you have to special equipment to assist you. You may only follow these steps:

1. Manipulate the switches
2. Enter the room
3. Solve which switch goes with with light.

Comment back if you think you have solved it

There are no confirmed cases of swine flu in the city and initial results from the first students tested are said to be coming back negative. Still a Center for Disease Control spokesman said, “We are very, very concerned. We have what appears to be a novel virus, and it has spread from human to human. It’s all hands on deck at the moment.”

The World Health Organization has just reported that these outbreaks of swine flu in Mexico and the United States have the potential to cause a worldwide pandemic.

These events reminded me of the near release of Ebola and Marhburg viruses in a suburban area of Virginia described in the book “The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story“.

It was shortly after reading that (nearly 7 years ago) when I began to subscribe to the ProMed-mail infectious disease notification system.

The International Society for Infectious Diseases having members from over 155 countries operate a program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases; ProMed-mail is an electronic outbreak reporting system that monitors infectious diseases globally.

ProMed-mail describes itself as:

The global electronic reporting system for outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases & toxins, open to all sources. ProMED-mail, the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

They have set up their Twitter account back in February but have not yet started using it for notifications.

Perhaps they need to raise some more money in order to bootstrap using Twitter as notification mechanism for those who subscribe (which I already do!). Its a worthy organization and service, please consider donating.

After trying several manual techniques for keeping my passwords I finally settled on a password vault I had used where I worked to store server passwords. It’s a great little package called KeePass Password Safe. Now all of my passwords look something like this:

tbluPKtftrsBpK5VU0QSvkCc
or this
*z*@’#e2!P4m.6/dBS\1gHwv

Rather than me rambling on about this I’ll snip the description of the product from their site and paste it right here:

KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).

Excellent tool, I highly recommend using it. I have dozens of user accounts and don’t know the passwords to any of them!

Will the decline of newspapers continue? Many of us, including Malcolm believe that this is true. Certainly the revenue model around them has deteriorated. As will the model around television and radio. In fact I believe that all businesses that were built around controlling the distribution of information face the same decline and disruption in their business model. I currently work for Cox Communications, a division of Cox Enterprises who also happen to own Cox Media, which include Cox Newspapers, which is one of the nation’s ten largest newspaper-publishing enterprises, includes 17 daily and 28 non-daily newspapers.

Take a look at this list of features and services the newspaper industry have let slip through their fingers because of their misguided insistence of controlling the distribution rather than concentrating on the content.

Why do I feel like my car is stalled in the railroad crossing?

Just found this cheery bit of news on the WSJ, where they have this nice map calling out the decline of newspapers across the country:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said in March 2009 it will cut its full-time news staff by about 90 people, or nearly 30%. It is the third and largest round of job cuts for the AJC news staff, which numbered about 500 in 2006. The first came in 2007 with buyouts for retirement-eligible staff members, followed by a broader buyout in mid-2008