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Wednesday, January 15, 2003

Class Warfare I really love the way the Republicans love to give money to the rich and big companies, and when they're called on it holler about "class warfare." It's OK to wage class warfare, just don't talk about it. Slate has been following the "tax the rich" meme, with a nice update here: The "tax the poor" meme continues to lie low, refusing to come out and fight like a man. For those just tuning in: The Nov. 20 Wall Street Journal carried an editorial arguing that poor people should pay more taxes. (The idea appears to have originated with Rep. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, though even he didn't stoop to calling people who earn $12,000 a year "lucky duckies," as the Journal did, because their income is taxed at only 4 percent.) How about that. So dividends are going to be tax free, but the payroll taxes,which far more of us pay, are going up. Just read the piece and weep.   11:00:55 PM  Permalink  comment []

The Voynich Manuscript. The most mysterious manuscript in the world. The Voynich Manuscript is 235 page manuscript written in a cipher that has yet to be decoded. The manuscript includes many images. Almost all pages of the manuscript are available online. There have also been several books (1,2)written claiming to solve the manuscript. You can also follow the modern day progress of deciphering the Voynich manuscript. [MetaFilter] Really interesting. Looks like a person could go crazy trying to figure out what's in this thing. There's an interesting site in all this, World Mysteries, that looks like fun, though it's on the edge of sense. 2:51:44 PM  Permalink  comment []

Hidden ad-skipping feature found in TiVo. A specific pattern of keystrokes on a remote control for TiVo digital video recorders enables subscribers to activate a feature making it easier to skip through ads. [CNET News.com] This isn't news. You hit a key combination on your Tivo remote, and the feature is activated. I did it months ago. But you do lose a nice feature of the remote, the ability to skip by larger increments when watching recorded shows. I found that the 30-second skip was not really that big an improvement over regular fast forwarding through commercials, and reset my remote. 2:21:00 PM  Permalink  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.