I'm sure I could have found a cheaper price, but that is what TT showed me when I checked the cost to file the returns.
The question of whether it's worth it is not simple. Since I don't get paid for my time outside work, it's primarily a question of values and emotions. The emotion involved in supporting such a parasitic business overwhelms any issues of cost. The question of why the tax code is so complicated involves a different set of parasites.
IRS has the ability to do something similar, for those with relatively simple financial situations (not for real estate tycoons). However, Intuit has lobbied against allowing them to do so, as it would kill their parasitic business. A couple of articles: http://www.republicreport.org/2012/corruption-taxes-fivemins/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/turbotax-maker-funnels-millions-to-lobby-against-easier-tax-returns/
I downloaded the workbook at excel1040.com, as I have for several years. I used a free version of TurboTax to validate the results. Once I was satisfied that I had entered everything correctly, I printed the relevant forms and hand-transcribed them to the IRS official forms. I mailed the paper forms yesterday. I try to print neatly, so that the poor transcribers (practically minimum-wage) at IRS can read the forms. In order to buy a version of TurboTax that would handle my federal and state returns, they wanted $140. I can't stand the thought of paying for the 'privelege' of filing my tax returns.
Orbiter and the work of its community of add-on developers allows (but doesn't require) the user to learn at least the following aspects of "rocket science":
- What sort of path a rocket should take to get from a launchpad to a stable orbit
- What sort of maneuvers a spacecraft needs to use to change from one orbit to another, e.g. to rendezvous with another spacecraft
- How to plan a mission to the Moon, or another body in the solar system
- How to use the gravity of one planet to shape a trajectory to another, as Voyager did for its "Grand Tour"
- The kind of systems a spacecraft needs, and their realistic or plausible capabilities
- The sequence of stages to build something as complex as the ISS
- Various ways that spacecraft (winged or not) can interact with a planet's atmosphere to manage energy during re-entry or on a fly-by And all of this is free (as in beer), a precious gift from Dr. Martin Schweiger and the many other developers who have contributed uncounted hours of their time. See also the community's forum at orbiter-forum.com
In my book "The Making of 'I Saw Them Ride Away'" I mentioned the great help that Amazon, and their subsidiary CreateSpace, had been in enabling the publication of my Great-Grandfather's memoir. When I submitted the manuscript for format checking, it was rejected because it mentioned "amazon.com". I had to eliminate a very complimentary sentence, at their own insistence.
The point of the GlobalFlyer is a SOLO non-stop round-the-world flight. So it seems the right time to mention that the Voyager non-stop round-the-world flight was piloted by two people: Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager.
Will WiFi equipment be able to tell the difference between military radar, police department radar, and other forms of non-WiFi radiation in the relevant frequency ranges? Will WiFi stop working if I wardrive near a police car? Will it stop working if a police car drives by my house?
Does this "agreement" allow anyone who wants to suppress the use of WiFi to turn on a device that simulates 'military radar"?
A quick search on opensecrets.org shows that Anthony Laos has made numerous contributions to George Bush's political campaigns since 1994, and to other Republican campaign funds. Anyone who thinks Bush appointed him to BIFAD solely on the basis of agricultural expertise is simply naive.
Now why would he want to serve on such a board? To help consumers understand the issues? For the opportunity to push his company's products more widely into a market reluctant to embrace GM foods? For the opportunity to advise on the kinds of safeguards and constraints that should be imposed on companies developing such products?
Is it Bush-bashing or leftist psychobabble to raise such questions?
The Word Spy this week had a term for this phenomenon:
Ghost work "After a round of layoffs or firings, the work that used to be done by the former employees and that must now be handled by the remaining staff."
I, too, have a gut reaction against government involvement in my personal life. But I don't actually know how "identification", "authentication", "authorization", and "privacy" (to mention four security buzzwords) interact.
Can someone point me to some useful background material that will help me make judgements on issues such as a national ID card and privacy? -----
The X-Plane web site has a description of some of the problems of conventional (non-flapping) flight on Mars. They also have flight models to allow simulation of flight. (However, the propulsion is a little unrealistic; maybe "muscles" would work better.)
As a Scheme and Common Lisp programmer, I got excited when I heard that the Java Virtual Machine would have automatic memory allocation and garbage collection. I thought it would be possible to build Lispish languages to run on the JVM. The rate at which Kawa has been developed, to implement a near-Scheme on the JVM has been frustrating to me. I attribute this at least in part to the absence in the JVM of a construct equivalent to Scheme's continuations. Do you think it is feasible to establish a "basis set" of programming language concepts on which all programming languages could be built, so that the distinctions between C, Scheme, etc would be "merely" syntactic? If yes, please enumerate your candidate set.
Seriously now, what is Slashdot's liability with respect to future posts of material, either the same material that has been removed in this action, or other similar Scientology material?
In particular, is it feasible/wise for a certain fraction of Slashdot posters to gratuitously include some Obligatory Scientology Material (OSM) in every comment, in the hope/expectation that the Scientology folks who have to spend time looking for this stuff will be overwhelmed?
Re:Davies' other books are good, as well
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 1
Sailboats work by coordinating two forces: the pressure of wind on the sails, and the pressure of water on the hull. Adjusting angles allows you to sail somewaht upwind. Space sailing would work by coordinating two forces: the pressure of light on the sail, and the gravitational attraction of the sun/star. By adjusting the angle of the sail, you can sail out toward, say, Jupiter; then later, angle differently and sail back to Earth. Interstellar return flight would likely be problem:)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure I could have found a cheaper price, but that is what TT showed me when I checked the cost to file the returns.
The question of whether it's worth it is not simple. Since I don't get paid for my time outside work, it's primarily a question of values and emotions. The emotion involved in supporting such a parasitic business overwhelms any issues of cost. The question of why the tax code is so complicated involves a different set of parasites.
IRS has the ability to do something similar, for those with relatively simple financial situations (not for real estate tycoons). However, Intuit has lobbied against allowing them to do so, as it would kill their parasitic business. A couple of articles:
http://www.republicreport.org/2012/corruption-taxes-fivemins/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/turbotax-maker-funnels-millions-to-lobby-against-easier-tax-returns/
I downloaded the workbook at excel1040.com, as I have for several years. I used a free version of TurboTax to validate the results. Once I was satisfied that I had entered everything correctly, I printed the relevant forms and hand-transcribed them to the IRS official forms. I mailed the paper forms yesterday. I try to print neatly, so that the poor transcribers (practically minimum-wage) at IRS can read the forms. In order to buy a version of TurboTax that would handle my federal and state returns, they wanted $140. I can't stand the thought of paying for the 'privelege' of filing my tax returns.
Actually, IRS is in the process of migrating from commercial Unix and Windows platforms to (Red Hat) Linux, JBoss and other open source components.
Orbiter and the work of its community of add-on developers allows (but doesn't require) the user to learn at least the following aspects of "rocket science":
- What sort of path a rocket should take to get from a launchpad to a stable orbit
- What sort of maneuvers a spacecraft needs to use to change from one orbit to another, e.g. to rendezvous with another spacecraft
- How to plan a mission to the Moon, or another body in the solar system
- How to use the gravity of one planet to shape a trajectory to another, as Voyager did for its "Grand Tour"
- The kind of systems a spacecraft needs, and their realistic or plausible capabilities
- The sequence of stages to build something as complex as the ISS
- Various ways that spacecraft (winged or not) can interact with a planet's atmosphere to manage energy during re-entry or on a fly-by
And all of this is free (as in beer), a precious gift from Dr. Martin Schweiger and the many other developers who have contributed uncounted hours of their time. See also the community's forum at orbiter-forum.com
In my book "The Making of 'I Saw Them Ride Away'" I mentioned the great help that Amazon, and their subsidiary CreateSpace, had been in enabling the publication of my Great-Grandfather's memoir. When I submitted the manuscript for format checking, it was rejected because it mentioned "amazon.com". I had to eliminate a very complimentary sentence, at their own insistence.
I'm sure the policy makes sense to someone.
When toys are outlawed, only outlaws will have toys.
Well, among other things, they worry about someone driving a truck bomb up to the building that houses the computers. And I don't mean al qaeda.
I think we should ask MS to include a 'Prepare this computer for theft' feature, too.
The point of the GlobalFlyer is a SOLO non-stop round-the-world flight. So it seems the right time to mention that the Voyager non-stop round-the-world flight was piloted by two people: Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager.
No news is good news.
Will WiFi equipment be able to tell the difference between military radar, police department radar, and other forms of non-WiFi radiation in the relevant frequency ranges? Will WiFi stop working if I wardrive near a police car? Will it stop working if a police car drives by my house?
Does this "agreement" allow anyone who wants to suppress the use of WiFi to turn on a device that simulates 'military radar"?
Just wondering.
.
A quick search on opensecrets.org shows that Anthony Laos has made numerous contributions to George Bush's political campaigns since 1994, and to other Republican campaign funds. Anyone who thinks Bush appointed him to BIFAD solely on the basis of agricultural expertise is simply naive.
Now why would he want to serve on such a board? To help consumers understand the issues? For the opportunity to push his company's products more widely into a market reluctant to embrace GM foods? For the opportunity to advise on the kinds of safeguards and constraints that should be imposed on companies developing such products?
Is it Bush-bashing or leftist psychobabble to raise such questions?
The Word Spy this week had a term for this phenomenon:
Ghost work
"After a round of layoffs or firings, the work that used to be done by the former employees and that must now be handled by the remaining staff."
I, too, have a gut reaction against government involvement in my personal life. But I don't actually know how "identification", "authentication", "authorization", and "privacy" (to mention four security buzzwords) interact.
Can someone point me to some useful background material that will help me make judgements on issues such as a national ID card and privacy?
-----
The X-Plane web site has a description of some of the problems of conventional (non-flapping) flight on Mars. They also have flight models to allow simulation of flight. (However, the propulsion is a little unrealistic; maybe "muscles" would work better.)
Was your resident script-kiddie using IP-spoofing? Had you (have you) implemented egress filtering?
As a Scheme and Common Lisp programmer, I got excited when I heard that the Java Virtual Machine would have automatic memory allocation and garbage collection. I thought it would be possible to build Lispish languages to run on the JVM. The rate at which Kawa has been developed, to implement a near-Scheme on the JVM has been frustrating to me. I attribute this at least in part to the absence in the JVM of a construct equivalent to Scheme's continuations. Do you think it is feasible to establish a "basis set" of programming language concepts on which all programming languages could be built, so that the distinctions between C, Scheme, etc would be "merely" syntactic? If yes, please enumerate your candidate set.
In particular, is it feasible/wise for a certain fraction of Slashdot posters to gratuitously include some Obligatory Scientology Material (OSM) in every comment, in the hope/expectation that the Scientology folks who have to spend time looking for this stuff will be overwhelmed?
I think you meant "butterfly collecting".
Sailboats work by coordinating two forces: the pressure of wind on the sails, and the pressure of water on the hull. Adjusting angles allows you to sail somewaht upwind. Space sailing would work by coordinating two forces: the pressure of light on the sail, and the gravitational attraction of the sun/star. By adjusting the angle of the sail, you can sail out toward, say, Jupiter; then later, angle differently and sail back to Earth. Interstellar return flight would likely be problem :)