Politics

US Military Budget

I was arguing about military spending with some friends and wanted to verify numbers. My basic point was that US military spending almost matches what the rest of the world spends. We are at 43% of worldwide expenditures. The US and NATO account for 2/3 of the world’s military spending. China spends 1/8 what the US does and 1/12 what the US+NATO spend.
Iran’s annual budget is less then the US spends in 3 weeks in just Iraq and Afghanistan. China’s military budget would only finance 6 months of Iraq and Afghanistan.
This graph is the comparison between the US 2008 budget and the rest of the world from Center for Arms Control:
Global_Spending_Graph.jpeg
From Laicie Olson at the Center for Arms Control is this graph showing US military spending over the past 10 years. These are expressed in constant 2010 dollars. The budget has increased since 2001 to 2011 by 67%. US GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has increased 18% in that time period $13.2T vs $11.3T from forcasts.or
FY2001-2011 Defense BA Graph.jpeg

Technology

The Seashore image editor

I tried Seashore to do some very simple image. It was perfect for my simple usage and looks to be able to handle more:

Seashore is a free, open-source image editor for built entirely in Cocoa. It features advanced tools like multiple layers and alpha channel editing, alongside basic tools like gradients, textures, text (with subpixel rendering) and brushes

Politics

Unemployment won’t recover for 157 months (2021)

If we look at employment prior to the Great Recession compared to now there is a difference of 11.3 million jobs (from Bookings institute). Now how long is it going to take to return to that level? If you take the best job growth of the 2000’s it’ll be 157 months or 11years. That’s not until 2021!

If you take the best rate from the 1990’s it’s down to about 8 years! Here’s the chart with how many months it’ll take based on the rate with a couple note worthy rates highlighted.

Grab 0011

Technology

iPhone4 and FaceTime

I’d been surprised about Apple emphasizing FaceTime in advertising. I don’t think it’s very compelling — I don’t know enough people with an iPhone4, I rarely have a Wi-Fi connection when I want to talk to them, and I don’t find video chats very compelling anyway. After all, how often do you video iChat or Skype?
Anyway, TechCrunch had an interesting perspective about it when they compared it to a scene from Mad Men (official site. They are getting people to make an emotional connection with the iPhone rather then the analytical one of feature X vs. feature Y.