Tales of the Golem; or, the Modern Epimetheus

Weird Dream

Last night I dreamt that I was sleeping in the bed in a slightly different position than the one I was actually sleeping in.

posted by Richard Mason @ Thursday, April 27, 2006 0 comments

Going Parabolic

I have the subjective impression that people have taken to describing something which suddenly and rapidly increases as "going parabolic." They didn't use to say this as much as they now do. In the past they liked to speak of things "increasing exponentially" to describe rapid growth, whether or not the growth was literally exponential.

Of course a computer scientist would consider an exponential rate of growth to be faster than a parabolic rate of growth.

Cf. also the slightly related term "going ballistic."

posted by Richard Mason @ Tuesday, April 25, 2006 3 comments

Quote of the Day

"Flattery is a great form of humor." -- Taylor Hicks

posted by Richard Mason @ Wednesday, April 19, 2006 0 comments

The Ease of Doing Taxes

Gary Becker complains that we spend too much time and money complying with the complex tax code.

I would separate the complexity of tax calculation into three kinds:

1) Complexity of a purely mathematical kind: the number of figures which have to be considered and all the additions, subtractions, multiplications, and divisions which have to be performed on them. In the modern world, this kind of complexity should no longer be of any significance since it can all be done by computer.

2) Recordkeeping: the burden of monitoring economic activity and recording transactions in a form that tax software can work with. Since almost everything can now be paid for electronically, it is also within our power to make this very easy if we choose.

3) Legal judgment: the need to know which provisions of the tax code can be or should be applied, and how transactions can be or should be characterized (e.g., whether an expense is deductible or not). This will be harder to computerize than the first two elements. Nevertheless I foresee that future taxpayers will be able to do this quite easily with the aid of sophisticated software.

There are some short-term obstacles. Some people still do not have computers, or credit cards. People may prefer recordkeeping to be difficult: for example, online businesses and their customers have an incentive to plead difficulty in calculating state use tax, and thereby avoid paying it, although recording and collecting the tax would in fact be very easy. But in the big picture, it seems to me that escalating complexity of the tax code will not be able to keep up with Moore's Law, and paying one's taxes is going to get easier and easier.

I predict, for example, that tax preparation will not be a growing profession in coming years, although like secretaries and travel agents, tax professionals will not become wholly extinct.

posted by Richard Mason @ Tuesday, April 18, 2006 3 comments

Bucky Covington

Bucky's departure from American Idol tonight is a good demonstration of the fact that the AI voting is based on the integral of your performance over time, not on your most recent nightly performance.

Bucky's performance of "Fat-Bottomed Girls" this week was the best song he's ever done, and among the better performance of this week. If he had performed that well every week, he wouldn't be in the bottom three.

At least he went out on a high note.

posted by Richard Mason @ Wednesday, April 12, 2006 0 comments

Unidentified Celebrity Sighting

A minor celebrity sat behind me in Johnnie's Pizza yesterday. It's annoying me that I don't know what his name is. He is balding, a long face, big nose, not what you would call an attractive man; he plays mobsters and heavies, I think. I think he would play the older brother in a Mafia family.

posted by Richard Mason @ Tuesday, April 11, 2006 3 comments

Two Liter Bottle

It's curious that carbonated soft drinks in two-liter bottles are so well-accepted in American life, while milk, orange juice, gasoline, etc., are still sold in quarts and gallons. I wonder why that is.

Apparently Pepsi-Cola was the first to introduce the two-liter bottle. It may be relevant that Pepsi portrayed itself as "the Choice of a New Generation," rather than associating itself with familiar tradition. But Coca-Cola responded with its own two-liter bottles rather than with, say, a half-gallon bottle.

posted by Richard Mason @ Wednesday, April 05, 2006 3 comments