Comment taxer les riches ?

Published on Saturday 5 May 2012 in French. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

D’abord, définissons ce qu’est un riche : c’est quelqu’un pour qui employer un fiscaliste est rentable.

On voit souvent des plaintes sur les riches qui finalement payent moins d’impots (en proportion) que les classes moyennes.

Alors, comment taxer les riches ? C’est simple, simplifier et baisser les impôts. Il devient tout de suite beaucoup moins rentable d’aller ailleurs. Bonus, beaucoup moins d’argent est dépensé dans des procédures inutiles, et ce des deux côtés.

Évidemment, cela suppose que les taxes sur les hauts revenus sont là pour rapporter de l’argent à l’État, plutôt que pour des raisons politiciennes. Laule.

Obsession

Published on Friday 6 May 2011 in French. 0 Comments

Pourquoi quand je vois une télé qui affiche ANALOG, à chaque fois, je lis ANAL06 ?

Les Français sont-ils si stupides ?

Published on Friday 29 April 2011 in French. 0 Comments

Pourquoi un film comme The Hangover est-il traduit Very Bad Trip, alors que :
* The Hangover ne veut pas dire Le bad trip, mais La gueule de bois
* Difficile de faire plus hideux que Very Bad
* Tout simplement, pourquoi « traduire » de l’anglais vers l’anglais ?

L’heure de la terre

Published on Saturday 26 March 2011 in French. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Pour manifester mon soutien à cette initiative trop peu médiatisée, j’ai éteint à 20h30 les deux ampoules à LED qui m’éclairaient.

Puis j’ai mis en route un sèche-linge, deux plaques électriques, et un emerge -u1avDN world, le tout en musique grâce à un ampli à tubes. Comme il faisait un peu noir j’ai allumé les 8 ampoules halogènes qui étaient à ma disposition. Et comme il faisait un peu chaud avec tout ça, j’ai ouvert la porte de mon réfrigérateur.

Steve Jobs is Big Brother

Published on Thursday 21 October 2010 in English. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the members of the Party are convinced all the restrictions are for their own good, and all their thinking processes are convoluted, just like Apple fanboys accept the restrictions, wait and pay for each new feature passively, etc. Their perception of reality is distorted.

They look down on those who are not members of the Party (Apple fanboys tend to believe they are part of an elite), yet the proles are actually more free!

Apple’s communication is also quite similar to the Party, in the way that it is incoherent (“there is no iPhone 4 antenna issue, but we will provide a free fix for it”) yet completely accepted.

Production is always higher, just like every Apple announcement is a revolution, and every new product was a success. The latter reminds me of the historical blindness: fanboys erase Apple’s previous failures (technical and commercial) from their minds, and we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

Steve Jobs once said “Freedom from porn”, which will remind of “Freedom is slavery”.

Steve Jobs is viewed as an immortal genius by fanboys; Big Brother is the immortal leader of the Party. Without Steve Jobs, there is no Apple; there is no Party without Big Brother. There is a very strong cult of personality, and you know what it usually leads to.

Poker is pure luck

Published on Thursday 12 August 2010 in English. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Whenever I say that poker is pure luck, poker fans usually get quite mad1 about it, but can’t even start a proper explanation on how it isn’t. That’s the only stuff I found after quite some effort searching the web:

  1. You don’t understand poker
  2. “Skilled” players win over “unskilled” players or randomized players
  3. The same players come at the top of tournaments

I couldn’t find anyone explaining what the “skill” was exactly. Weird, uh?
My responses to these sorry-ass explanations:

  1. It is a very simple game after you remove all the vocabulary cruft and other useless talk. That’s why idiots like it: it’s simple yet they it makes them feel intelligent.
  2. These kind of studies are cited as scientific evidence that poker is not pure luck. Unsurprisingly, poker fans don’t understand much how science works. Some players are better at estimating odds, i.e. luck. A random player does not consider the odds. “Skilled” players are either stupid (they consider odds but they are not aware of it) or very intelligent but evil (they exploit the stupidity of others). A “perfect” human (or… a robot) could always have the exact odds at hand, and chose a safe strategy to win on the long run.
  3. That’s actually the most used argument. That’s just because all the others are idiots, who get influenced and don’t know it’s just a game of odds.

The sad fact is, anyone can write a bot to play online poker and win not much, but regularly. That’s why online poker sites try to block bots, by using closed-source clients and closed protocols, and monitoring how many tables someone is trying to play at once.

Even if you consider estimating odds is a skill, it’s just a fucking boring skill. I’d rather play FarmVille.

  1. and I really enjoy that [↩]