doing our part for Art

I learned in economics class that a progressive tax had a greater-than-1 exponent on the cost of the thing taxed (like US income taxes), and that a flat tax has a constant percentage (like most sales taxes, past the 12 cent threshold), and a regressive tax had a less-then-1 exponent (like Social Security taxes.)

Lots of people now call a tax "regressive" if it taxes everyone at the same rate (like a sales tax, for instance) because rich people can theoretically afford it easier than poor people. That's a transition from mathematics to morality.

There used to be a different definition of "species", too. It used to be scientific, now it's moral. So we have lots more species than we used to have.

Tax policy influences behavior. There are bad ways to collect X dollars and better ways to collect X dollars. Lots of our current ways kill jobs and encourage a huge balance of payments deficit.

John

Exactly! And the customer was trying to get the contractor to pay the tolls for all the non-existent cars... ;-)

Charlie

PS: the inductive loops I insisted also be installed didn't see anything... ;-)

Art Fern? ;-)

They are too stupid to close toll roads in heavy fog?

Ubetcha! This is in the middle of a freeway, and it only closes for maintanance...

Charlie

money.

Ok, that's a good definition.

Relativity. Relative to the income tax it's regressive (so is a mugging).

Sure. Salmon are classified into "species" based on where they spawn, not their DNA.

That doesn't alter the fact that the government spends far too much money now. Raising the gas tax *would* be just like giving a junkie that much more smack.

I've seen fog so thick that you couldn't see the end of the hood on your vehicle, yet idiots were rolling by at high speed. Even worse is when it's mixed with heavy smoke from controlled burns.

Nice! Please be sure to post again when he's finished with the "plywood art" photos and has completed the movie. I'd love to see it. :-)

Ed

It's going to be a "viral marketing" thing for SunChips, on the web somewhere.

John

They were doing a remodel on the house next door for a TV show. The producer asked me if he could set up a time lapse camera in the corner of my yard for a few weeks. I told him "OK'.

Later on, I went out and took a look at his setup. A professional grade weatherproof digital TV camera on a fancy tripod with an external power pack. And he chained it to my old wood fence. A fence that I could disassemble with my bare hands!

Well, I used to drive 'Rim of the World Drive' down from Crestline to San Berdoo at night, in dense fog, at not much less than normal speed. You just 'know' where the turns are...

Except, of course, when there are rocks in the fog... ;-)

Charlie

I wonder what happens if the sun creates a hot spot inside the lens and melts plastic. It can happen if you leave camera like that for a whole day.

I was thinking of I-75 between Cincinnati & Dayton Ohio. That was the area with the highest Interstate traffic when I lived near there. Lots of wrecks in heavy fog. Even worse, if the air was drifting in the wrong direction you could smell the Purina pet food plant. It was worse than a dead body. :(

In my walk from our Cambridge apartment to MIT, I passed a rendering plant _and_ a chocolate factory. Some days the blended stench was so bad I had to run thru that area to avoid the ultimate up-chuck ;-) ...Jim Thompson

In my misspent youth, there was a time when I used to drive from Vancouver to Seattle late at night about once a week. One night at about 1 AM, I was driving way too fast on I-5 in moderate amounts of fog, just after a rain, when I caught a glint of something shiny where nothing should have been. Something in my brain stem cranked the wheel hard to the left, sending me towards the median more or less sideways at about 65 mph. As I slid across the shoulder, I passed within 8 or 10 feet of two black horses trotting down the middle of the Interstate.

Took me a few minutes to catch my breath after that one.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

We have a couple of places here, like stretches of I5, where dense fog can drift over the freeway. So there will be, say, 100 drivers at speed, faced with the decision...

Keep going and rear-end a pileup

Stop, get rear-ended, start a pileup

Pull over to the shoulder and hope nobody else thought of that before you, or thinks of that after you.

John

Well, I had been working up in Crestline for a few months when one night, in the fog, I came around a corner and suddenly BANG! I ran over some rocks (never did see them!) I slow down, wiggle wheel left and right, look at temp guage, everything seems to be normal, so continue on home.

In the morning, I go out to car, and there is a big puddle of oil under the car. Looks kinda light, though, for motor oil. I had cracked my transmission case!

It took them three weeks to finally get a part in (it was on a Ford Fiesta.) I think they had to ship it from Germany... ;-)

Charlie

You couldn't run from that Purina stench. It took 15 minutes to drive threough it, on the Interstate. Of course, Cincinnati was called Porkopolis because of all the pigs that were slaughtered & processed there. BTW, 'alwaysdim' is from Cincinnati.

My sister lives in Cincinnati. I don't recall it smelling. But I do remember having to drive thru this on the NJ Pike...