My wife and I are looking for lake front property up near Higgins Lake Michigan. There's not much lake front property now.  Not surprising given the law of supply and demand.  But the realtor told me something telling -- the reason there's not much land available is due to multi-generational inheritence.  That is, 150 years ago people bought land up there and simply hand it down from generation to generation.  Family land. How can that be bad?

At first glance, such generational property ownership might sound like a good thing.  And I think it is good -- to a point.  But on the other hand, as a society, how fair is this? When talking about limited resources, such as water front property, how "fair" is it that one family gets to live on the beech simply because their great great grandfather bought the property a century or more ago?

Or more often, ancestors who squatted on the land.  I am a strong believer in things being kept in the family. But I am also an opponent to concentrated unearned wealth.  Sometimes the contradiction becomes an issue.  At some point, a society has to make some tough decisions.  If we want an upwardly mobile system, then there has to be a mechanism in which generations can't simply inherit wealth and sit back and do nothing generation after generation. 

The lake front example is just that -- an example of such stagnation.  Without inheritence taxes, the natural resources of society really comes back to being a "whose ancestors got there first"?  I tend to think that our society should give everyone an equal shot. 

I don't think the government should be confiscating land from people.  However, I do think that inherited wealth should be treated as any other type of income.  Like most people, the money that puts food on the table comes from my labor.  The income from that labor is then taxed.

When someone inherits money from a friend or relative, it's still income. In fact, it's more than income, it's unearned income.  I don't see why it shouldn't be taxed at the same levels as regular income.  This has all kinds of benefits for society and if we're going to tax people's hard work, why not tax income that came from simply being born?  The benefits include ensuring that we don't stagnate society.

In an egalitarian society such as the United States, much of the American dream is premised on the concept of hard work leading to great reward. Anyone can make it.  But if the children of successful people can simply inherit immense wealth wholesale without having earned it that strikes me as not being good for society.  This is especially true when it is property -- land holdings -- that are being inherited.

That said, I am not in favor of massive taxation of inherited income.  I don't agree with the whole "that money has already been taxed" argument at all, however.  After all, money gets taxed as it passes hands all the time.  Why would inherited income be treated differently?  It's still income.  What I would like to see is a healthy balance between what is good for society as a whole and what is good for individual families in particular. 

I'm all for people at Higgins Lake being able to have cottages that pass on to their next generation. But that next generation should have to put something up too to get it so that there is at least the hope that other citizens may have a shot at buying that property to pass on to their children too.

Post Notes:
Some people are reading this article as "Oh greedy Brad just wants cheap land."  Sigh. I was using thiis example to illustrate a general point.  I have no problem with inheritence, I am simply saying that inheritence should be taxed as any other income at the same rates as other income.  So technically speaking, I'm in favor of LOWERING the inheritence tax but I still support there being an inheritence tax.

Remember TechTV's The Screen Savers?  They don't seem to be doing the show like they used to.  Now it's something else entirely.

So we've decided to start a show that we'll stream over the net called PowerUser TV.  It'll be quite similar to TechTV in nature.

What we're interested in finding out is what you would like to see on there?

Pat Buchanan seems to be shaking off any sort of doubt about his sympathies for the old Third Reich.

But Vodka Pundit has taken him back to the wood shed. Check out this article linked below..

Whenever there's a new version of Windows there's always the concern that Microsoft is going to do something that's going to break us. 

And with Longhorn being such a significant change to the Windows platform, we were doubly nervous.  But so far, so good. We've got WindowBlinds running fine under the latest available build of Longhorn (though the Start menu itself is a bit tricky because it's quite different). 

So what is the enterprise customer on a tight budget to do about getting their spy-ware ridden, security vulnerable desktops up to par?  Microsoft's answer: "Eiger".

Eiger is basically Windows XP with as much stripped out as possible to get it to run on very low end hardware.  So that state government office with 300 copies of Windows 98SE running on Pentium 600s with 128M of RAM will finally be able to be brought into the 21st century.

Mary Jo Foley has details on this latest project. Read the whole thing.

I read an article this month in Car & Driver that Finland has passed a law in which traffic fines are now based on your annual income.  So a person going 5 over may be fined $10 or $100,000 depending on whom they are. This bit the CEO of Nokia recently when he received a $12 MILLION fine for going 15 over.

Such a thing is, hopefully, unconstitutional in the United States.  In the US, we're supposed to be equal under the law.  Imagine the abuse a law like that could cause.  Cities looking to increase revenue simply park officers in the wealthier parts of town.  Wealthy people, effectively, would have less freedom than non-wealthy people since as a practical matter, most people speed from time to time but the wealthy would disproportionately have their speed limits enforced.

I understand the argument for such a law -- to the rich guy, a traffic fine is meaningless.  A $100 fine is more of an annoyance to the millionaire due to having been stopped than the actual cost (and the increase in insurance is a bigger deal anyway).  But all citizens are supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law.  The rich pay far more in taxes but still have to drive on the same roads. 

If speeding is really such a serious problem that people are flaunting the speed limits then lower the number of points someone can get before their license is taken away from them. Finland's laws, and others like it, seem like pretty transparent attempts for governments to justify squeezing more from its citizens.

Guilds are great except for when people argue with one another.

The most common argument I see in MMORPGs is fighting over item drops.  Rogue gets some scepter of power that they can't use and other people assume that they should have to hand it over to someone in their party that can even if the Rogue won the "roll".

It's a dicey thing - rare drops.  That rare drop might be worth 30 gold to the rogue.  Do they hand it over to some mage they're traveling with simply because he's there?

As the guild master, I seem to spend a good deal of my time dealing with disputes on these kinds of things.  I just want to play the damn game.  People need to take a few steps back and remember that it's supposed to be fun.  They should try to be honorable but they should also not be so sensitive to perceived wrongs done to them.

Imagine this scenario: Longhorn comes out and Windows Movie Maker, Remote Desktop, and Outlook Express were no longer part of the OS.  Instead, Microsoft included them in a seperate $70 package. And then imagine that Longhorn was essentially a Windows XP Service Pack 3 with a bundled Google Desktop Search like function, a Lite version the DesktopX Run-Time, and a few other niceties.  How do you think people would react? How do you think the media would react?  Probably not with glowing praise.

But that's exactly what has happened with Apple.  A few years ago, Apple was touting MacOS X as the way to make movies and DVDs and manage your photos and other such things. It included a pretty nice DVD making program and a pretty strong movie making program.  But as the latest version of MacOS X shows, Apple has no problem removing significant programs from its OS and charging for them seperately. Some might say that's the ultimate "bait and switch".  Whatever you want to call it, I think most would agree that if Microsoft had done the same thing, there'd probably be something just short of a riot.

That isn't to say MacOS X Tiger isn't a great operating system -- it is.  But while people are fawning praise upon Apple and their OS-making abilities, people also need to take a step back, put down the Steve Jobs brand Kool-Aid and take a serious look at what they're getting for their $129 upgrade.  Of course, any time anyone criticizes Apple or the Mac, even in the most mild form, the Mac zealots come out to vigorously defend it. This in turn makes reasoned discussion a lot more difficult. But one Mac/PC user, Paul Boyer, has written an article that gives his experiences with Tiger.

Paul Boyer, has created countless skins, themes, and of course his incredible packages of icons that have been freely downloaded by millions of people uses his computers as tools to do everything from graphics design to recording TV shows.  And he's just upgraded to MacOS Tiger.  He's not an OS advocate. He's not hard core. He's a more typical, casual consumer. And he's not happy.  While he can appreciate the improvements in Tiger, he also feels he's getting jerked around a bit by Apple. People criticize Microsoft as the evil empire and yet some of the actions Apple takes seem to be pretty bold.  Read the whole article with an open mind and let us know what you think.

What is the right car for the person who wants a luxury sedan but also a sports car? Why can't you have both?  Well it turns out, you can have both -- for a price.  For those looking for a Sedan, the options are a bit limited if you want both luxury and power.  In about a year, the options will be much better.

But for my needs, I looked at the BMW M5, the Cadillac STS-V, Mercedes S500, and the Jaguar S-Type R.  Some of these cars aren't generally available yet. 

The STS-V has 470 horse power and seems to combine the best of the CTS and STS.  My only complaint is that the seats are still pretty "grandpa-like" in style and feel. But the biggest problem is that the STS-V won't be out until this Fall and the regular STS was entirely too elderly feel for me. The new BMW M5 isn't out yet either. It looks like it'll be a truly remarkable car with its 507 horse power and excellent styling.  The Mercedes S500 just didn't strike me as being aesthetically striking nor did it have enough power. It was far more luxury sedan than sport cars for what I was looking for.

But a friend turned on to the Jaguar S-Type R.  And once I had a test drive in it, I knew I wanted it.  The seats tuck you in and I must say, I've never had as much fun driving a car as this one. It's a totally different experience from other cars I've driven in the past.

The I ended up going to Jaguar of Novi (Michigan). While there, I was able to find nearly the perfect Jaguar for my tastes. The only feature it was missing (which I hope to rectify) is adaptive cruise control.  Priced at around $62,000 (before I applied my friend's X-Plan to it) it had a good combination of a sporty look, great ride, and plenty of power with its 390HP (399 foot pounds of torque) with 0 to 60 in about 5.2 seconds.

But the dealership had some pleasant surprises for me.  They do custom upgrades right there, under warranty.  One upgrade they convinced me to get that I am very glad for was a 100HP upgrade that involves upgrading the exhaust system, super-charger pulley, and replacing the intake.  They also tweaked it so that the super charger is doing 16PSI instead of the base 10.  Bear in mind, all this is under warranty which made a big difference (and since I lease cars, in 3 years I'll be looking at something else no doubt).

The other upgrade they convinced me to get was the K40 1000 integrated radar detector with laser diffuser.  In essence, it keeps the car relatively invisible to laser based speed detection and provides very accurate, very rare false positive radar detection.  I don't normally speed (I have 0 points and have never been in a traffic accident) but with this car, it's incredibly easy to be 5 to 10 over when there aren't other cars to gauge.  Plus it's fun to occasionally push it a bit..

The Jaguar S-Type shared quite a bit with Ford's Lincoln until 2003 when the Jaguar went through a major overhaul. Though still sharing some architecture with it, the 2005 Jaguar is a whole new animal. With a new 6 speed transmission, and the computer active technology suspension help give it a very distinct character.  The interior includes the best GPS based navigation system I've played with so far -- though still pretty far from what I'd consider the ideal system. It also includes a 6 CD changer (which is based in the trunk) and a CD player in the front panel that lets me switch between the two CD players. 

Some of my favorite touches are barely mentioned in reviews I've read.  The lights are very powerful and adapt based on the amount of light. The windshield wipers detect how much it's raining and adjust accordingly.  When gas gets low the navigation system displays nearby gas stations. The internal environment controls work far better than the similar system on the Bonneville. I set a temperature and within a few minutes the car is that temperature.  Checks on a checklist don't do it justice because there are features and there are features done right and the Jaguar gets the features right.

With the horse power upgrade, which I plan to Dyno soon to get a more accurate gauge of the upgrade, the car really moves, particularly in the mid range. In terms of how is handles as a sports car, it definitely holds its own with traditional Corvettes and Mustangs and would not likely be embarrassed by even the new C6 Corvette.

The interior is more than adequate with very adjustable seats (and it bears repeating how they seem to hug you in which really completes the sport effect) and a surprising number of cup holders for a car of this type (not that I'm going to let my kids eat or drink in this car).

For the first time, I have a car that I look forward to driving in the morning.  If you're looking for a car that combines the comfort and sophistication of a luxury sedan with the power of a high end sports car, the Jaguar S-Type R delivers on both.

My new car only averages around 17 miles per gallon. A few people I know have given me a hard time about that.  Here I am, polluting the environment. Making the US more reliant on foreign oil. Using up valuable resources. And so on.  What seems to get lost in those discussions is that it's not your mileage that should matter, it's how many gallons of gas you consume.

I put around 6,000 to 8,000 miles on my car each year.  I don't drive very much.  Longer trips involve the whole family which are in the mini-van.  So even though I only get 17 miles per gallon, I'm only using 400 or so gallons of gas each year.  Or put another way, a typical person with their 30 mile per gallon economy car driving 20,000 miles per year is using nearly 700 gallons of gas each year.

Personally, I don't care that much about how much energy other people use.  I try to conserve power when it's convenient (and sometimes when it's not so convenient).  But I also try to conserve energy in effective ways.  Not everyone can live close to where they work. I can. But it also means I use less energy to get to work. 

So next time someone gives me a hard time on my car's fuel economy, I'll have to remember to ask them how many miles they drive each year.