ctdonath

95 ms·

931.
by ctdonath 9y ago
From CarTalk years ago: "The difference between two headlights and one headlight is a lot less than the difference between one headlight and no headlights."
932.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Income earned for mundane food/clothing/shelter/healthcare costs SHOULD be deductible. That's basically what the poverty line is: the minimum income necessary for basic sustenance in national standard culture. If you&#x2
933.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Taxes are fundamentally different from other expenses. I'm not opting to purchase a service (or not, just saving the money) when paying taxes, I'm facing the implication of a gun to my head (the ultimate enforcement of government
934.
by ctdonath 9y ago
I don't see why state taxes wouldn't be federally deductible. Roughly: if I work 6 hours, I have to work an additional hour a day just to earn money to give to the state; you're suggesting I should work an additional 15 min
935.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Not long ago your social options were extremely limited. Today you can (roughly) be anywhere an 8000 square mile area within an hour, and talk to almost anybody on the planet within seconds. Without the Internet (personal cars being a thing
936.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Communism's been tried and gets stuck at military dictatorship Of course it does. It has to. You're compelling people to engage in behavior they don't want to. That "to each" unavoidably requires "from each&q
937.
by ctdonath 9y ago
There's a difference between someone voluntarily sending an artist money, vs the artist openly soliciting donations in a manner easily construed as advocating piracy.
938.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Similar has been done. "Pay what you want" restaurants featuring healthy options have all failed.
939.
by ctdonath 9y ago
My kids have been in 3 schools. Public (among the best in the area) has proved far worse than private. "Keep" too much, and the money walks.
940.
by ctdonath 9y ago
You were doing great until "free". It's not free. It's hard work, using resources of value. There is compulsion, whereby others must sacrifice (under threat) their own wealth & resources to facilitate what is false
941.
by ctdonath 9y ago
No way their distribution contracts would allow that.
942.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Rarely do I want to see a particular movie that's not included in a flat-fee or free service. Having saved enough from those cost-cutting measures, most of those few are available for $2-6 from Redbox, iTunes, or Amazon Video; as I&#x2
943.
by ctdonath 9y ago
In a word: Kindle. Amazon et al may anticipate VR becoming HUGE in the future, so they'd best start creating top-tier easy-access infrastructure & tools for supporting it. Each will want to be THE go-to for customers, just like e
944.
by ctdonath 9y ago
CompuServe. AOL. Kodak. Nortel. Etc. Practically everything on nabla9's list above had to make severe pivots to survive, and many are shadows of their former selves; for many that aren't, I see their demise coming (they've ju
945.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Over 4 decades I've watched many unbeatable high-tech juggernauts disappear practically overnight. These will be no different, including the relentless claims of "but it's different this time!" for each one.
946.
by ctdonath 9y ago
You don't. Tax man cares not how you bought it, only that tax is fully paid when sold.
947.
by ctdonath 9y ago
The DaVinci brand has been promoted for centuries .
948.
by ctdonath 9y ago
In retrospect, yes it's easy to break. Getting to that understanding, however, was greatly facilitated by the aforementioned key leak. I recall the great excitement when it happened, and the subsequent proposals of making that number &
949.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Never forget the great TSA Master Key fiasco. To facilitate airline baggage security while easing bag searches, the TSA approved locks which could be opened with a master key (well, one from a small set of keys). These keys, like the "
950.
by ctdonath 9y ago
I've seen numerous social media juggernauts cone and go over decades. Each was seen as world dominating and unstoppable. Each disappeared into unremembered oblivion seemingly overnight. Facebook is poised to do the same.
951.
by ctdonath 9y ago
But Facebook makes it so much easier to. Riding a friend's Ferrari is rare. Reading about the equivalent every day makes you feel like everyone has a Ferrari but you.
952.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Still & so waiting for a port of Quake to iPhone. Doom is in App Store, Quake should be.
953.
by ctdonath 9y ago
Way to miss the point by leaving out half of it. We're giving people reasons to stay in poverty: don't work, and their food/housing/healthcare will be provided for; start working, and all that gets yanked away and whatev
954.
by ctdonath 9y ago
I'm suggesting we stop subsidizing all but the abject & existential poor. Welfare entitlements have grown so profitable there's a huge disincentive to working. Do nothing, profit. Start working, entitlements are withdrawn an
955.
by ctdonath 9y ago
I buy a house, get a house and a mortgage. My wealth is net 0. One house owned. One house-value owed. Need to consider temporal dimension: a house is owned because I'm already converting my future income into a house. There's a
956.
by ctdonath 9y ago
If you want less of something, tax it. If you want more of something, subsidize it. Wealth has been increasingly taxed, poverty increasingly subsidized. For the bottom 50%, this matters.
957.
by ctdonath 9y ago
The problem with battery swaps was that you're exchanging a big heavy $20,000 box with minimal assurance of its integrity. I'd rather wait for my battery to charge in 20 minutes rather than swap one for another, never knowing if
958.
by ctdonath 9y ago
We just came off an 8-year period of significant unemployment. People are understandably skittish about anything that prevents citizens from getting jobs - especially when people are being imported precisely to fill available domestic jobs.
959.
by ctdonath 9y ago
There's a substantive difference between "simple" and "just happens". It's why my BT headphones sit in a drawer, while I gladly anticipate paying 16x as much for AirPods (and no, the money isn't freely ava
960.
by ctdonath 9y ago
I, like most people, use my smartphone a LOT. It's worth at least US$1/day, and I'll use it for probably 3 years ... making a top-end iPhone X amortize out to dirt cheap. At that low low price, why not get the best UI/

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