Bagel Tuesday - Fresh ideas. Toasted opinions.

This story about a new Las Vegas hotel got a lot of mileage last week on Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere. In case you missed it, guests lounging at the pool at the Vdara hotel

reportedly are getting burned by concentrated sun rays strong enough to melt plastic drink cups and plastic newspaper bags.

Obviously, the big story here is cost-cutting. Had the Vdara Hotel spent more money on a reflective film for sun-facing windows, the "death-ray" wouldn't exist. But an underlying issue is putting a priority on form, rather than function. The building's placement in the path of the sun, and the concave facade, combined to produce the death-ray effect. So even though the design is aesthetically pleasing, the hotel has an ugly usability problem: a swimming pool area that is more of a danger than a luxury.

It's a funny story. But there's also a valuable lesson here. We've learned, particularly on digital projects, that a great design is wasted if the application doesn't work. As Barack Obama might say, that's just putting lipstick on a pig. But the point is that design decisions have real-world consequences, whether you're talking about a digital space, brick-and-mortar or, in this case, glass and steel.

During his lifetime, George Steinbrenner left the actual hitting of home runs to his players. But by passing away in 2010, he hit a financial grand slam. As Investment News reports:

Mr. Steinbrenner's family looks set to inherit his estate practically tax-free, thanks to the expiration of the federal estate tax in 2010 and the light tax regime of the Boss's home state, Florida....

If Mr. Steinbrenner had passed away in 2009, when the [estate] tax rate was 45%, he might have left his heirs a tax bill of some $500 million. Next year, the estate tax is slated to return, with a whopping 55% rate.

This crazy situation stems from a budget gimmick in the early 2000s. The Bush Administration wanted to completely eliminate the estate tax, but the long-term budget impact was too large. So it compromised with a temporary repeal that reinstated the tax in the final year of the ten-year budget evaluation period, reducing the projected shortfall to acceptable levels. Basically, it was betting that future Congresses wouldn't have the guts to allow the tax to be restored. But ever since, Republicans and Democrats haven't been able to come together and agree on a fix, so the current absurdity persists.

Whatever you think of Steinbrenner -- and opinions may differ -- he certainly displayed as much business savvy in his death as in his life.