Giant picture print framed

This picture ink jet printed on fabric is 6.5 ft tall by 4 ft wide.  We finally found a wooden frame to stretch it over at Blick's, an art store in Philadelphia.  The subject appears to be St. Mary Magdalene with a chalice, perhaps the Holy Grail, but searches on that generate similar but not exactly the same picture.  I would love to know the artist.  

Baseball fan with HOMERUN license plate

Santa

Santa?  Are you OK?  Do you need some help?  Santa?

Crazy colored bromeliad flower

The bromeliad flower with vibrant colors was blooming at the U.S. Botanic Gardens.

Trilobites at the National Museum of Natural History in DC

Trilobite fossils marching off to infinity.  

Actually these are fossils of individuals at different stages of development.

Passion Flowers at the National Botanical Gardens in DC

These flowers have crazy colors and very delicate spidery petals, but they are real.

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Where are the jobs? Small businesses or large?

Howard points to a chart that shows that while small business (1 to 4 employees) may be the largest number of businesses, they only make up 5% of the jobs and payroll in the economy.  I felt the chart presented...

...didn't allow for the clear comparison that would make the point hit home, so I made a new one with the data from the U.S. Census Bureau  (Table 2a. at this link).

Now with the bars lined up and the totals adding up 100%, you can compare business size to its fraction in each of the bars, and you can see how that fraction of the total changes using different weighting measures.  The lines provide a guide to link up the comparisons of fractions across the various weightings - fraction by business, fraction by jobs, fraction by payroll.

Its clear that while there may be a lot of small businesses, they don't have the larger fraction of employees or payroll.  You might look at the chart this way, if you are employed, or if I pluck a random person from employed person from the economy, it is most likely that they are employed at a firm with 500 or more people.  If you own a business it is most likely that your business has 1 to 4 people.  Which question matters more to you?

I also went to far and created a chart with the details on business sizes up to 10,000 people.  This chart is busier, but it at least answers the questions of those who think the 500 and up bucket was too large on the last chart.  While businesses with 10,000 or more employees represent only 9% of business, they represent almost 30% of jobs and more than 30% of salaries.

As to whether small business or large business are the engines of job creation, we need more information on growth rates of employment and information on movement of the businesses between the bins.  Still I agree that it is incorrect to say that small business have the majority of jobs, that's just plain wrong.

My new band and its debut album

Reddit has a make your own band and first album with artwork generator much like the one that I have done before.

It's been so long since I did that one, that I thought I would get the old band together under a new title and write some more music.

Our new band name is MICROCASSETTE, and our debut album is "the situation should be changed".  Here is the album art.

MR. ME license plate in Delaware

The tough question is - Is this person a They Might Be Giants fan, or a non-credentialed Medical Examiner?

"He ended up really, really, really sad"

Begonias at Winterthur

These beautiful begonias were in full bloom at Winterthur.

All from that little planting in the ground.

Free software to run your pennsylvania election - Power to the people!

Power to the people is a popular theme in elections, but how do you get it there when the election process and rules can be complicated and difficult.

David Lynn's answer was to create and freely distribute the Pennsylvania Political Campaign Management Database to make it easier for people to run for office in Pennsylvania.  He hopes his completely free software (he doesn't even ask for your name) will encourage younger people to enter the political process as candidates.

Software and the willing efforts of programmers like David Lynn can be a way to hack the political system and make it easier for regular people to negotiate the often labyrinthine election statutes and get elected.  More power to him.

Three discussions of marginal tax rates, only some get it right.

Firstly a link commenting on a egregious common mistake that the media makes often makes about tax rates.  The following statement from USA Today is clearly wrong:

"That raise actually might not be as good as it looks. The extra money is nice, but it could very well bump you into the next tax bracket, possibly leaving you with less money than you had before the raise."

This commenter shows that within our tax system you always make more money when you get a raise, you just might have a higher marginal tax rate on the extra salary, but you never make less net income.  USA Today fixed it.

An even more complete discussion of marginal tax rates can be found here. 

All that being said when you add in the rest of the tax code with earned income tax credits, welfare and deductions the net income vs. starting income can be very different at low incomes.  This author seems to think that it provides a disincentive to work, whereas I see it as society's way of providing an income above the poverty line for families until they begin making more than that.  The lowest net income seems to hover around $35 to $40 thousand a year. 

Autographed hot dog buns at Tony Packo's Cafe in Toldeo

Tony Packo's Cafe in Toledo is world famous for it's "Hungarian hot dogs", which are really just hot dogs with a delicious sauce on them.  They also have a tradition of having famous people autograph hot dog buns.  The buns used to be real, but now are air-brushed plastic replicas, though the autographs are authentic.  On our way back from Michigan we stumbled onto one store off of I280 in Toledo and I took some pictures.  Here is the first autographed roll:

That first roll is autographed by Rock Astley, you just got rick-"roll"ed!

Tony Packo's Cafe has a long time association with the television show M*A*S*H*, because it has been mentioned on the show several times.  Thus the first two buns are from Alan Alda (Hawkeye) and Gary Burgoff (Radar) from the show.

The rest of the buns represent a glance through the selections - there were hundreds - and my apparant love for 80's music and television shows.

Above are musicians from the 80's

Above are actors and comedians from the 80's.

One astronaut.

This is probably the only place in the world where Barbara Bush's and Michael Dukakis's buns are right next to each other,.

Savannah animals at the Pittsburgh Zoo

Closeup of a rhino using my new telephoto lens for the iPhone.

Two giraffes.

Elephant in the distance.

Aquatic life at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium

Touchable rays at the zoo.  They feel like slimy foam rubber.

Fish or rock, you make the call.

Not the penguins from Madagascar.

PNC Park in Pittsburgh

We are next door to the park, but no games in Pittsburgh this week.  Probably couldn't have gotten the great deal on this room if there were.

Lighthouse at Port Sanilac on Lake Huron

We visited Port Sanilac today and got to see the lighthouse and Marina.  The first picture is with the iPhone unaided.

I also got to try out my new telephoto lens for the iPhone and you can really see the zoom.  I think it is a good first attempt from the water side of the lighthouse.

The last picture I took unaided from right in front if the lighthouse.  This one is closed to the public so no inside views.

Biggest flooding yet on Shellpot Creek last night

What is this fish doing out in the middle of the street?

You can see from the debris line how far the water went up the lawn.  We ended up with water in the garage.

Here is a pile of sticks left by the creek high up the bank.

Some fence posts and other big branches swept in from further up the creek.

Not exactly the Tunguska incident, but see how all of the hostas are bent the same direction by the flooding.  It's impossible to kill a hosta.

This big tree branch hung up on the waterfall of the creek.  The forecast is for more of this.  I am no longer excited for it.

Oriole at the Orioles game.

Trees down from yesterday's storm

This big branch broke from a tree in front of Chestnut Run Plaza.

You can just see here crews cleaning up a huge tree that was snapped in two by the storm. Look for the jagged trunk in the middle of the picture. This is at Barley Mill Road and Rt 141.

Day Lilies on Shellpot Creek

Employment-Population Ratio - a scarier way to look at unemployment

The Bureau of labor Statistics compiles a stat called the Employment-Population Ratio that is the number of people working of the available workforce, defined as people 16 and over. I am sure some of those folks are not working because they wouldn't otherwise, but in the current climate many have no choice. As has been reported repeatedly, the 9.2% unemployment underestimates the number of people unemployed because after a long enough time people just leave the workforce and are not counted in the number. The chart below shows the current ratio is 58.2%, that's the lowest Employment-Population ratio since 1984.

A longer time series shows the history since 1948.

It's been lower in the past, but that is a generation ago. I personally would like Congress and the President to start working on jobs now.

(Unstable Isotope at Delaware Liberal got me thinking about this)

Fireworks at Greenville Country Club on July 1st

Finally uploaded a movie of the fireworks we attended on July 1st. I certainly haven't gotten the hang of taking pictures of fireworks with my iPhone 4, but the video turned out well.



Enjoy!

Dining room table is much longer than we thought.

Our 42" round dining apparently extends all the way to 92"!  We have two 10" leaves and so had only opened it that far.  We thought that's as far as it could open.

Lynn was investigating longer tables because we were thinking of purchasing one to fit ten for Christmas Eve dinner.  She saw a similar table design where the pedestal separated to let the table extend farther yet still remain stable.  That got us experimenting with our own.

Turns out that with a little careful coaxing and a rubber mallet the table extends pretty far.  It is the farthest we have extended it in the ten years we've owned it and given the lack of leaves as far as it's been extended for decades before that.

Lynn is investigating the correct wood to roughly match the leaves we have, which already don't match the table and are probably not original to the table.  We are thinking white oak.  

This discovery has let us stave off purchasing a new table for a while.  It's like we already have a new table.