I was taking a little break from studying for the boards (USMLE Step 1) this evening by catching up on the latest Apple news in Google Reader. AppleInsider had a link to a story about the tight security that Apple employs at developer’s conferences, including, as this story explains, needing to have an escort to use the restroom. Really the only thing that reporters at the WWDC were allowed to report on was things talked about or shown in the keynote presentation. The remainder of the conference is strictly for developers that have signed NDA’s. I think it more had to do with the location of the restroom being near some rooms where confidential information was being discussed. Anyway, on to the funny survey part that started this post.

When I opened the link to the Computerworld article above, I was given the option to do a quick survey on Windows Vista migration. I’ve never used Vista before, but maybe they want to know for what reason, or something. It was a chance to win $250 dollars and, supposedly, only 100 people(?!) were going to be offered this survey (plus whoever receives the option to do the survey but then chooses to enter via fax without participating). The first question asked me how many people were in my organization or enterprise. Hmmm. The only valid options for me were “I don’t know” and “less than 1000.” The other options were even larger. Do I really qualify for winning the $250? I clicked on the Computerworld Prize Drawing Official Rules and, sure enough, the drawing is open to any adult legal resident in the U.S. or Canada. So I chose “less than 1000″ and clicked next. And that was the end of the survey; I gave my name and email address (I used a “spam safe” email address) and clicked submit. Now I’m just waiting until June 16th when the winner is drawn; not that I’ll win because I never win these types of drawings.

The funny part (and this may because of some strange Canadian rule), is regarding the selection of the winner. From the official rules, “If the selected winner is a Canadian resident, he or she must correctly answer a time-limited mathematical skill-testing question in order to claim prize.” Wow! They sure make it difficult to win simple random drawings in Canada, eh?!. Ross, you’ll have to example it to me sometime.

I’ve started adding unobtrusive watermarks to some of my favorite photos and then limiting access to the originals. I don’t really know why I’m going to do this because it would be pretty easy to cut off the bottom of each photo to remove the watermark. But, it does, in my opinion, make the photos seem more “professional.” I’m using Smugmug (referral code secretly added…hey, you save $5!) to add the watermark to each photo I designate. What I did was create a transparent PNG and then tell Smugmug that I wanted that PNG to be a watermark. From there it’s very easy to add that watermark to new or existing images. (I think you have to have a Professional level account to do this from within Smugmug.)

Here are a few examples:

Wow!! If I don’t say so myself, those photos look incredible. They’d look great without the watermark, in all honesty. But don’t the watermarks just make you want to buy them? (They do? Contact me as soon as possible.)

I still love the taste of a true Coca Cola, especially on a hot summer day after a hard day of sailing. I hate the taste of diet sodas. However, now it is usually the calorie-free Coke Zero because I’m probably stuck inside studying. Anyway, the taste is “okay.” It is definitely not a true replica of the original (proven by a blinded test when Coke Zero first came out), like the taste infringement lawsuit commercials joking imply. It isn’t horrible like the diet varieties (or worse, a Pepsi). This is where Stevia comes in. I had first heard of this sweetener by reading the ingredients on my 100% Natural Whey protein, which is sweetened by stevia. Truvia is a “great tasting, zero-calorie sweetener made from rebiana, the best tasting part of the stevia leaf.” Coca Cola and Cargill have been working on this and, according to the website, will have it available sometime in 2008. On paper it looks great: zero calories and can be used in cooking applications. Its taste is supposed to be good too. Here’s hoping that it will taste just like the original Coke but have no calories! (I also think we should drop the high fructose corn syrup and go back to cane sugar…)

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Here is the introduction by Paul D. Ryan, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin and a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, to his legislative plan to secure the fiscal future of the United States:

merica faces a choice between two fiscal and economic futures.

In one, ever-rising levels of government spending overwhelm the Federal budget and the U.S. economy with crushing burdens of debt and higher taxes. It is a future in which America’s best century is the past century.

The second future is one in which the principles that created America’s freedom and prosperity are restored. It is the path set out in my plan, A Roadmap for America’s Future.

Currently, we are on a path of unsustainable Federal spending. The main problem is the looming crisis of entitlement spending. The well-intentioned social insurance strategies of the past century – particularly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – are headed toward financial collapse.

Not only will these programs grow themselves into extinction, they will immensely burden our economy and budget – piling massive amounts of debt on future generations, crippling our ability to compete in the international marketplace, and dramatically reducing Americans’ standards of living.

We can and must set a different course. But the time for talk has passed. We need a plan.

Based on the input of many, I developed A Roadmap for America’s Future to:

1. Ensure universal access to health insurance, fulfill the missions of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and make these programs permanently solvent.

2. Return Federal spending growth to sustainable levels and lift the debt burden looming over future generations.

3. Promote sustained economic and job growth and put the U.S. in a position to lead – not merely survive – in the international marketplace.

We are going to have to tackle these problems, or they’re going to tackle us. My plan addresses all these issues at once because piecemeal, incremental “fixes” cannot match the magnitude, the urgency, and the interrelated nature of these challenges.

It’s an ambitious proposal. Not everyone will agree with every aspect of it, and that’s fine. But if nothing else, it’s my sincere hope that it will spur Congress to move beyond simply rehashing the problem – to debating and implementing actual solutions for the American people.

It is a real plan, with real proposals, real numbers to back them, and real legislation to implement it.

The details, including an independent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, is available here: American Roadmap

Today I watched the live feed from NASA of the exciting successful landing of the Phoenix Mars Lander. Since the people at NASA, JPL, etc made it look easy, it’s even more impressive considering that only half of the attempts at landing robots/equipment on Mars have been successful. Hopefully this lander will provide the science that we need to continue our quest to put Man on Mars. My parent’s generation saw the Moon landing “live.” It will be very exciting when in 20-30 years we have a fully working Moon colony and are making the first steps on Mars. It will be expensive, but, considering all the technological advancement that NASA has given us in the past, I believe that the rewards in the future will be far greater. Plus, innovation will only continue to accelerate now that private enterprise is getting involved in space travel.

Latest photos from the Phoenix Mars Lander. They are only black and white now (5/25/2008) but will be in color once the Robotic Arm Camera is operating.

My brother just graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Congratulations, Ross! Below are some pictures. Click the link to see the entire gallery: Ross’ Graduation Photos. Click the photos below to see the largest size that your browser window allows.

On a less serious note from my recent posts, here are some funny Matrix parodies that I found during a study break:
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President George W. Bush may turn out to be the top economic forecaster in the country.

About a month ago he told reporters, “We’re not in a recession, we’re in a slowdown.” At a White House news conference a few weeks later, despite the fact that reporters pressed him to use the “R” word, Mr. Bush refused. And on Friday, after the most recent jobs report — which produced a much-smaller-than-expected decline in corporate payrolls, a huge 362,000 increase in the more entrepreneurial household survey (the best gain in five months), and a historically low 5 percent unemployment rate (4.95 percent, to be precise) — the president told reporters: “This economy is going to come on. I’m confident it will.”

We’re in the midst of the most widely predicted and heralded recession in history. Problem is, so far it’s a non-recession recession. Score one for President Bush. In an election year, it could be a big one.

First-quarter GDP growth came in at 0.6 percent. It wasn’t the widely predicted decline, and economists expect that number to be revised up. GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2007 was also up slightly, while the prior two quarters averaged over 4 percent growth.

Continue reading: Bush’s ‘R’ Is for ‘Right’

And, here’s a quote from Lawrence Kudlow’s blog,

Economic Resilience. When you think about it, look at what we had to deal with in the first quarter. You had the credit market seizeup; you had Bear go out; you had Lehman close to going out—not because it should have, but because the financial markets were driving it that way; you had extraordinary moves by the Fed; you had continued collapse in homebuilding, and we still grew at 0.6 percent. That says to me if the economy was going to collapse, it would have collapsed then. It’s going to get better from here. Slowly, gradually, saucer-shaped, but it’s going to get better from here.

-Jim Awad, chairman of WP Stewart Asset Management

A few months ago a few of us had a discussion regarding the taxes in the United States. We both feel that taxes (corporate and income) need to be reduced for a number of reasons, one of them to stimulate the economy. A friend of mine, who is a Libertarian, feels exactly how the author discussed in my last post feels: the rich don’t receive any more benefit from their government than the poor so why should the rich have to pay so much more in taxes?

I can understand that reasoning a little bit. However, if everyone is going to pay the same fixed dollar amount (not as a percent of income but as a fixed amount) what would be a “fair value?” $5,000, $10,000, $50,000, or more in annual taxes? What if you make just over $10,000 and have to pay everything to the government. And with any of these amounts, the very rich would go from paying way over $200,000 in taxes a year to substantially less. The argument that the government would not be able to function on this significantly lowered tax revenue causes the Libertarian to suggest that then the government is doing too much. The government should only be doing the things that it can do better than private enterprise, namely defense of its people. And further, more money in the hands of private persons means more investment which means more money to be loaned out and more jobs created. This means that the money eventually “trickles” down to the average person. So then the argument goes back to the person or family making slightly more than the fixed tax. Since a fixed tax is inherently non-progressive, what do you offer? Does everyone making less than $X not have to pay taxes? Unless you start rich, then how does anyone “move up” in life when a huge percent of income is given to the government? Rather than the tax cuts being unfavorable to the rich, a fixed dollar amount tax would be like paying with loose change to the rich but significantly prohibitive to the poor and middle class.