I already use Google’s Docs feature, and find it very handy for lightweight spreadsheets in particular. But I’m blown away (at least the geek part of me is) by the new feature they’ve launched that lets you create forms to update a spreadsheet. Go to Daring Fireball for a sample.
Here’s an interesting post about the feasibility of a Land Value Tax in the UK. It’s a pretty obvious idea, though not one I’d happened upon before. This snippet gets to the heart of it, I think:
10. The cost of local services should be paid for by user charges, i.e. a Poll Tax.
Wrong. It is more important to look at the value of what the landowner gets (as reflected in land values) than the cost of local services. Having more policeman on the beat reduces crime, cuts a household’s home and car insurance bills and makes an area more attractive, thus boosting selling prices. Having lots of five-a-day advisors and environmental-awareness-officers costs just as much but adds no value whatsoever.
The argument is that any benefit you derive from local services will be reflected in the value of your land; if you get free massages from the local authority, and that’s something that people want, then the value of your land will rise (as will the land tax, thereby paying for those massages). The counter-argument is also in there; ‘five-a-day advisors’ (I assume the author is referring to healthy eating campaigns) may be the single best thing a local authority could do for its residents, but if it’s not seen to be a desirable benefit then there will be no corresponding increase in land values to help pay for it.
OK, now that the contract is signed I don’t think I can bring down the wrath of any deity with my boastful nature (c.f. the New England Patriots). In a couple of weeks I’ll be working for SpringSource, chief committers of the Spring Framework for Java (and .NET, I learned with some surprise).
The team seem really nice, as well as being wicked smart (end Boston accent). The work environment looks good, there’s a gym on site so I’ll be able to shower once I can cycle-commute again (16 miles each way, so may take a while to work up to it), and the job itself is about as cool as QA can get (take that for what it’s worth!). In the meantime I have some time to finish off the bathroom renovation, then move on to a kitchen renovation. Lucky me.
Here’s an image showing the distribution of the various (Christian) churches in the US by county. I hadn’t realized how dominant Baptists are in the South, but I guess the surprise for most people would be the dominance of the Catholic church. Many Minnesotans don’t realize that Lutherans aren’t the main religious group in the state (and while we’re at it, the single ethnic origin is German, not Norwegian).
Great link from Daring Fireball for the book ’19-0: The Historic Championship Season of New England’s Unbeatable Patriots’. I particularly like the user-added tag of ”dewey defeats truman” (go and vote for it now) and the apparently unhacked fact that users who looked at this also bought “Lost: Season 3”
I’ve tagged this as Sport, but perhaps I should add Hubris.
Update: 5 minutes after I post the page has already gone. But it was a legit Amazon page, honest!
