Wednesday August 31, 2005

Thursday August 18, 2005

Excerpts from the new smashup "SQL for the 'Real World'"
Part of O'Reily's "Add some geek to your cool" series.

Lesson 1
Goal: Introducing the use of _ and '' into everyday language

Select clothes from stores where cool_friends like 'to shop'

Lesson 2
Goal: Introducing the use of = and capitalization

SELECT cheeseburger FROM menu WHERE fast_food_chain='Sonic' ORDER BY drive_thru_window

Lesson 3
Goal: Introducing the use of . () and >

UPDATE your.morals_with VALUES('bling','cool','hot') WHERE your.living='on_your_own' 
  AND your.age > 18 AND your.opinion_is LIKE 'totally'

Lesson 4
Goal: Putting it all together

SELECT guy AS boyfriend, SUM(bank_accounts) AS bling FROM club_scene WHERE body='hot' 
  AND peers_say='he''s cool' GROUP BY boyfriend HAVING bling > 100,000

Note to self: Watching Pauly Shore's Minding the Store is not advancing your skilz. (2005-08-18 07:08:25.0) Permalink Comments [0]

Friday August 12, 2005

Here are the main points of the Fair Tax:

The goal

• Simplifying tax collection
• The sytem is designed to provide the same amount of revenue to the government as the previous system
• It is not aimed at reducing government spending - only focusing on changing tax collection

• The IRS and tax returns are history == no more invasion of privacy
• Income taxes, social security taxes and medicare tax for individuals and businesses in eliminated
• Capital gains taxes, Estate taxes, Alternative Minium Tax - gone
• Special interests who lobby for tax breaks are out of work
• The huge burden of income tax preparation is gone from the economy
• Businesses no longer need to waste time considering tax consequences before entering new lines of business
• Tax law compliance costs are stripped out of the economy
• Every American citizen no longer faces breaking the law every April 15th.

• A 23% sales tax is added to every retail purchase of goods and services sold anywhere including the internet. (currently all products average a 22% embedded tax burden in their price - so the price of goods is projected to remain flat with today's current prices)
• Every month, every household is sent a check equaling the amount that would be spent on the tax for necessities for a poverty income lifestyle. (This is the hardest point to understand, but it is meant to elimniate the impact of the sales tax on the poor.)

• The economy will flourish as the US becomes a tax haven for capital investment
• Individuals keep 100% of their paycheck.
• Businesses return to the United States since they no longer have to pay taxes on their labor
• The tax is extremely progressive - you pay tax when you spend money - if you spend alot you pay alot.
• Taxation is not a penalty for hard work. You can earn and save and not pay any tax.
• No such thing as being paid under the table anymore - since income is not taxed

• Market for used goods (which are not taxed) will be insanely hot. (I will be buying stock in EBAY if the Fair tax passes)
• Looks like state income taxes will be left alone - which means the burden of paperwork and invasion of privacy is not elimintated for a majority of the states. (Gob bless Texas!, and Florida and Washington state, etc all Bob Brinker listeners are supposed to have the list of income-tax free states memorized)
• Looks like existing sales tax for state and local governments would remain in addition to the 23%.
• New homes would be taxed - but supposedly again there is already 22% embedded tax in home construction, so this is supposed to be neutral on the impact of a new home price....

• Black market sale of new goods
• People registering ficticious/bogus head of household information to get extra refund checks.

Wednesday August 10, 2005

However, considering that I have experienced 8 years of interesting and ever evolving marketing requirements, I wonder if this might not be the perfect opportunity to implement a rule engine. This would give the business the flexibility of developing more complex logic to derive roles from an assortment of entitlements. It would also put the power to change the rules in their hands. The idea behind rule engines is that the business logic can be coded by non-programmers in simple syntaxes - or even GUI abstractions - like drag and drop flow charts. These new rules can be added to the system on the fly like any other data. Essentially the rule engines allow the logic of a system to be changed just as easily as all systems allow the data to be changed.

Looking at rules engines and the Java Rule Engine API, JSR 94, led me to a neat interview with the inventor of Jess (Java Expert System Shell), Dr. Ernest J. Friedman-Hill. I was particularly entertained by this exchange regarding the perception of AI in the job marketplace (emphasis added):

JM: I'm concerned that AI/expert systems experience is still too esoteric for most employers of Java programmers to value as a skill. Am I wrong? How does a Jess developer market him/herself?
EJF: You're right to say that AI experience isn't going to impress many potential employers. But I just did a search at monster.com for business rules and found 1,200 job listings. Like anything else, it's all in the marketing. The cardinal rule of defining AI [is] if it works, it's not AI anymore - €”it's just programming. (2005-08-10 07:17:44.0) Permalink Comments [1]