My job means that I have to write detailed notes and designs just to keep all the moving parts in my head. “Detailed” is this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, so I think this image fits the bill.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Downward.” I’m entry number 121.

I know this picture isn’t going to win any prizes, but it’s literally true that it’s a view “From my window,” which is this weeks PhotoFriday theme. Instead it’s one of a series of shots I called “Asshole who park across my driveway” that I created last year when I was working from home a lot. Because we have our own space and don’t often have a car parked in it, people assume that they can just use the space in front. Really annoying those times where we do have a car to park…

• Why the world needs introverts – "Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are."
• Rubber Duck Problem Solving – Asking the question often gets you to the answer. I should know… nearly 20k reputation on Stack Overflow but less than a dozen questions asked!
• A TED speaker’s worst nightmare – This is brilliant.

• http://yfrog.com/nxqygvp – Thanks Xcode, very helpful. http://t.co/sYay95eo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLfghLQE3F4 – Re. the privatisation of the Police… Fry and Laurie got there first in the eighties… http://t.co/VmYwnb20
• http://m.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201 – @pdparticle Not necessarily. http://t.co/wnaNlFaj
• http://www.macworld.com/article/165587/2012/02/yahoo_facebook_in_intellectual_property_dispute.html#lsrc.rss_main – I guess this means that Yahoo! are officially on their way out. If you can't compete, sue over vague IP rights. http://t.co/jCcILiUS
• http://instagr.am/p/HtVldeyQoU/ – Donkeys of Greece calendar: March 2012 http://t.co/UQe7wGzO
• http://bit.ly/ycpIfz – Unite Leader calls for competency on ‘a day of actual action’ http://t.co/OdrDQDjL
• http://geekpanic.com/post/18376086580/the-2-0-paradox – Interesting post on "The 2.0-paradox." Thinking through this exact problem now. http://t.co/cqLqd2Ni
• http://pinboard.in/talks/biz.pdf – Interesting talk by the founder of @Pinboard. http://t.co/UwAHIHP6 [PDF]
• http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Scoopertino/~3/ntGLHzoJc6U/ – Apple takes the wraps off OS X Cowardly Lion http://t.co/9wM2DYVt
• http://j.mp/wW9h2u – “Apple’s share value hit an unprecedented $500bn… this morning, making the company worth more than Poland.” http://t.co/lkNP7zFY
• Cycling from the Czech Republic to Germany – I've updated all the images on my Prague to Meißen cycling trip blog. I'm better with Aperture than I used to be… It was a good trip; can't believe it was in 2008!
• Rant: I Love Photography – Well said. Plus some great pictures!

Today the Telegraph had an article claiming that “the top one per cent of British earners are now paying almost 30 per cent of all income tax.” It’s then painted as a bad, unexpected revelation. But I’m not sure that should be the case. In one of my mini-Ben Goldacre moments, I think it’s one of those areas where your intuition and the numbers don’t necessarily align.

This post isn’t about politics or fairness or even, really, taxes. Instead it’s about maths, because what the story fails to say is that you would absolutely expect a small number of high earners to foot most of the bill.

Let’s make some silly assumptions and see how the numbers work out:

• Everyone pays the same 20% tax rate. We’re ignoring the tax-free component so that should work out to be considerably less than the rich pay but more than almost everyone else
• We’ll say that 90% of people earn £20000. The national average is higher than that, but there are a lot of people who work part time and pay no income tax at all
• And we’ll say the last 10% earn £60000. I don’t know how realistic that is as an average, but it’s nearer high-rate tax band cut-over than it is the millions that some CEOs and bankers get and it’s still a long way from the 50p tax rate

How do the numbers work?

The people on the lower income each pay £4000 in tax and the more comfortable pay £12000. But there are nine of the average people for every one of the rich, making the total take £4000 * 9 + £12000 * 1, or £48000.

So the high earner pays £12000 of the complete tax take of £48000, which is 25%.

(If you increase the tax rate on our hypothetical higher earner to 30% he ends up paying a third of all income tax.)

As I say, I don’t want to get into the fairness of it all, but a little maths, some wild assumptions and no research shows that, actually, the rich probably should be paying a reasonable percentage of the total income tax bill.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Handsome.” My entry is, perhaps, a little cheesy but I’m going for it anyway. It’s a picture of my son, who is two months old today.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Tall.” I’m entry number 154.

What better way to celebrate the end of a hard day than a relaxing glass of beer? Well, that’s what I think anyway, and so it was the first thing that sprang to mind when I saw this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Day’s End.”

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Best of 2011.” I’m entry number 121.

I took a pretty literal interpretation of this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Best of 2011.” I guess I could have used something that signified highlights of the year on a global scale, say my exclusive and so far unreleased images of Osama bin Laden and Gaddafi, but, frankly, nothing better signifies 2011 to me than the birth of my son a few weeks ago.

The stocking, incidentally, is a family tradition. Junior is, to my knowledge, the first person to actually fit inside one.

I’ve not been quite so active blogging this year due to a number of factors. A case in point: it wasn’t until December that I wrote about my holiday in July and a friends wedding in August!

This meant that the most popular articles were actually written in previous years:

1. Sophia Smith
2. Eight Best Computer Books
3. Installing Oracle 10g on CentOS4
4. Minolta Dual Scan II
5. iPhone Dev: Saving State

While I appreciate people visiting, I am continually surprised by the appeal of some of these. Oracle 10g and CentOS 4 are, in software terms, ancient! And the Dual Scan II is more than a decade old — I bought it with my iBook G3 in 2001!

The most read articles that were written this year were:

1. iOS Developer Program: from individual to company
2. Do Apple take 40% in the EU?
3. Programming is Hard
4. Why you need a crash reporter

Kind of surprising that they were all about iOS development.

And here are a few blogs that I liked writing but, it turns out, people didn’t enjoy reading…

• Dear Companies House. A cathartic rant elicited a response from the target
• Programming is Hard
• Your most important customers
• The Trouble with eBooks
• A new CEO for Yahoo?

This was the first wedding that I’ve been to in a while where I have not been the photographer in some capacity. It was nice to avoid the pressure! The disadvantage of course is that I was not always — not often — in the right place for the best shot.

It still didn’t stop my trying.

Over the last few years I have been to an Anglican church wedding, a civil partnership, a couple of registry office weddings, a Jewish wedding but never a Catholic one.

As anyone who knows me will realise, I’m not a man of faith, but it’s always interesting to see the differences.

The memorable feature of this wedding (in terms of the wedding service rather than what it meant to me to see a good friend get married!) was its obsession with the creation of new offsprings. Little mention was made of their one year old daughter…

As you might imagine of an Irish wedding, the service was only the start. The reception went on for… well, longer that I stayed awake in any case. All I can say is that at midnight, only a couple of hours after a huge meal, they were bringing out burgers for a snack.

One last thing that I wanted to mention, though it’s not strictly about the wedding. I got back to the hotel in the early hours of the morning and didn’t rush up the next day. It got to nearly ten and I realised that I had missed the breakfast. I wasn’t too concerned, since Tipperary town was only a five minute drive away, and continued to lay in bed for a little longer.

Just before ten thirty, the phone rang. Would I like breakfast? She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I love service in Ireland…