Gates on Income Inequality.

Read this article in Fortune regarding Bill Gates view on income inequality.

True, Piketty's approach is not perhaps fine tuned enough. Some people are using their wealth to good purpose, better than government could ever re-purpose. The parble of the three servants can be seen as a long surviving anecdote regarding that. But found approach by Gates largely futile too. There needs to be at least some qualification.

What kind of business investment is "good"? An arms manufacturer or a pure commodity harvester (oil, tar sand, mining) are far less socially redeeming than something which actually directly helps or enriches people. Both jobs and output must be considered. Global direct education or communications seem to have both redeeming qualities in jobs and output... think microfinance. It is not a given that an entrepreneur is doing socially good work.

Charity is the same in reverse. A charity that promotes some sort of idealistic crusade (that squashes one group in favor of another, or promotes an idea or group without useful social output) is also not redeeming to the world at large. Again the goal has to be examined.

That consumption is bad is not always clear, even conspicuous consumption ala Veblen. Consumption for consumptions sake, of things that neither have nor produce lasting value (effectively destruction), is bad. But one could say the great projects of the New Deal or the Great Pyramids were an excellent way to consume resources - in a way that was socially "uplifting" and made a lasting mark. A car or a yacht are not (generally) lasting marks, nor is the average McMansion. BUT the mansions at Newport transcend. The great railroad empires transcend. Museums endowed (consumed) by benefactors transcend. {And it is disingenuous to call such a charity BTW}.

That the rich consume into channels of lasting value that build infrastructure and businesses is a good thing. A tax on pure capital misses the point. A progressive tax on magnitude of consumption misses the mark too. It is more about an independent social view of what is, and is not, worthwhile for society writ large. The question is how to get the capital out to something with lasting or ongoing value. Sorry not to have a good answer.

Direct voluntary giving to the poor has a better chance of working than any of the above. Shame on all of us if we know how (or have the means to know how) to give back well - yet never do.

Chromecast Yanks Input Feature.

Playing with Google Chromecast over holiday season. Looking at all the apps to cast. The Chromecast has a nifty feature of grabbing the HDMI input on our Toshiba TV. That HDMI-CEC feature alone is useful. Read on.

Our Toshiba like many TVs has about ten inputs. It has has a standard input selector (pressing "input" switches to next input source). But the loop of ten types of inputs (and their respective timeouts for signal detection) make it almost impossible to loop through to the desired input. And though it has an option to select input by number, that numeric option apparently works only through the Toshiba remote and not universal remotes.

Enter Chromecast: Hook it to the first HDMI input (usually grouped together) immediately before the most interesting input or group of inputs. In the in-laws-TV case just before the main composite input of interest (cable box or other).  In Toshiba case HDMI-1 just before cable box on HDMI-2. Basically hook it up to the input in the loop as close as possible and before the desired/main TV input source (apart from Chromecast itself of course *grin*).

One simply gets the right input for Chromecast by invoking a cast application (like YouTube or other). To get back to other main most-used inputs one can simply push the input button once or twice (not six or seven times).

Actually wish the DVD players and TV set top box had this HDMI-CEC "yank" feature built in (linked to menu or play - NOT volume or channel change - for obvious contention reasons). Then there would be no more pressing input at all. When target device was accessed via remote, it would simply grab an HDMI port.

Brings up idea of an HDMI selector box with four inputs and one HDMI output and built in HDMI-CEC control feature. Button on top for "emergency" manual select. "Yank" by ability to sense HDMI control.

Chromecast itself is well worth it alone just as HDMI "yank" input.