I paid approximately 4% total tax all in. That's so embarrassingly low, but I actually eased off on some deductions to inflate the figure to that level; I could have easily paid literally nothing, despite having higher than median income.
Not legally, you didn't. I hope you get taken to the fucking cleaners by HMRC. At which point you'll no doubt blame your accountant and claim you didn't know what you were doing. People like you should be picked up by a routine analysis of your accounts by HMRC and red-flagged for tax evasion.
Here's a clue, you ignorant twat: whether you are self-employed or an employee is not a matter for negotiation between you and the person paying you.
How would this be different from the lawless days of the wild west or a failed state such as Somalia?
Libertarians generally handwave place slike Somalia away as not really representing a True Free Market.
However, the idea of the wild west and gun law will probably get their juices flowing. Scratch a libertarian and you find a fasicst underneath.
People must not be coerced by threat of gov't violence to give up their own property.
It's only your own property because society lets you keep it. If the majority of the people decided to vote for a communist government, most of your property would be nationalised (certainly any productive assets). It doesn't matter whether you think that's immoral or not, it's the case.
I don't think many people would consider me rich. I own three domestic corporations (a Delaware C-corp, a California S-corp, and a Nevada S-corp), and an overseas Cayman Islands corporation.
In other words, you're rich.
You don't need to have a billion dollars in the bank to be rich.
I can report income through whichever jurisdiction and type of corp offers the best deductions for that particular type of income. I can move income between corps by selling "services" or paying license fees. I avoid paying personal taxes by living off non-taxable loans, rather than taxable income, from the corporations.
In other words, you're able to exploit tax loopholes designed for the rich.
However non-rich you might like to think you are, you have options that a normal working person simply doesn't have. You can't pay your wages from McDonalds into an offshore account and live off a non taxable loan on it.
This is normal in that generally, in the US tax code, you can defer paying taxes by paying employees more
No, if you pay employees more, you don't defer tax, you reduce your taxable profit for the year and therefore pay less tax, same as if you pay more for stationery or whatever.
The concept of regenerative braking is not something the reporter made up himself, I've heard it before. He is probably not an expert on electric vehicles, or even in automotive engineering, and he took at face value something he was told by the manufacturer. He was trying to follow Tesla's instructions.
You may say he is simply lying, but that is a very serious accusation to make with no evidence.
And saying "anyone should have known that the concept of regenerative braking is the equivalent of perpetual motion" is bollocks. No one claims that there is some magical creation of power from nothing. It just (more or less efficiently) moves unneeded energy from one place to another. There is plenty of discussion and information about it on the web, and it's not all Time Cube guys thinking they've found the solution to eternal free power.
What always amuses me on slashdot is that people will moan abut the pedantry of correcting grammar, spelling or sense, but as soon as it comes to misquoting Star Wars or transliterating the name of a Japanese tentacle porn heroine incorrectly, eveyone's up in arms about how stupid, ignorant and lazy the poster is.
Saying "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes" is simply a mistake, presumably made by someone who doesn't read much, but has heard it spoken.
If for some unknown reason everyone used "for all intensive purposes" and ignored the fact that the word "intensive" has a separate meaning here, then, yes, eventually we would all have to use that. But as it makes no sense, it is hard to see why usage should go that way, especially as everyone would have to stop using "intensive" in its correct context.
I stay because using GNU/Linux means the largest selection of open source software available in the universe.
That is only a feature for the tiny percentage of the population who care about open source software (even ignoring the fact that you can run most OSS on Windows anyway as someone says below).
I'm not saying that's right, as I am entirely in favour of FOSS, but it is the reality. People here really need to remember that the vast majority of computer users don't really know or care care whether they're running Microsoft Windows or Microsoft XBox 360 as long as it does what they want.
Engine braking means letting the engine slow down, and thus the vehicle slowing down with it. You only need to change gears as well to stop the engine from stalling.
Aggressively shifting down to a lower gear too early just wears out your gearbox, and if done too harshly can lock your wheels and cause a crash.
That's the least of your worries, I'd have thought. Power steering is great for making low speed turning easier, it really doesn't matter that much once you've reached cruising speed, unless you are exceptionally weak.
If you're an American visiting France and if you want to blend in, "poulet" is the word you should use when talking to a cop in France.
If you're an American visiting France, you're not going to blend in. It is physically impossible for a foreigner to speak French without attracting hoots of derision from the locals. I don't care how good at French you were in school, unless you are bilingual and were brought up by at least one actual French parent speaking French along with English, you're not going to cut it.
This is assuming you were prepared to physically disguise yourself to start with, of course. It is generally possible to spot an American tourist from a fair distance before they even open their mouth (I say this as someone from the UK, the same thing applies to us).
Hit the kill switch, engine stops. You still have all electrical power and control so just roll to the side of the road.
If you do that without disengaging the clutch/shifting to neutral, the results at 125 mph could be disastrous. And there was obviously something wrong with the electronic control systems that prevented him from shifting to neutral, or presumably the police would have told him to do so in their phone calls.
But, seriously, if you're at 60 and the car won't stop and keeps accelerating? Scrap the side of the motorway. Better to crash at 60, even into the back of another car, than into a busy junction at 120.
Motorways don't have busy junctions. That's the whole point of them. The police wouldn't have been so keen to let this guy keep driving at 125mph on a normal road with roundabouts, crossroads, traffic lights or whatever. But on a 3 lane motorway, the police can fairly easily keep the outside lane free.
To be honest, if he had two seizures but managed not to panic and crash a car travelling at 125mph with no control over the brakes, I'd say he was an excellent driver.
I don't think there's much danger of most European police forces involved in a "hot pursuit" crossing the border into the UK.
It would be amusing watching both them and the criminals queuing up for a place on the Le Shuttle, sitting bored in their cars, then unloading at the other end and continuing the chase.
In which way am I losing the vehicle control when coasting? It's not like my left foot and right hand get suddenly incapacitated so that I can't shift into gear if needed..
In a potential accident situation the time taken to change gear before you have the car under proper control could make all the difference. And if you're coasting and need to swerve suddenly, you will not be in proper control of the vehicle. It's not always just a question of slamming on the brakes in a straight line.
Now, accidents are relatively rare, so you may think the potential fuel saving (if any) or convenience is worth it. But the whole point about being prepared for an accident is that you're much less likely to have one.
This is something that riding a motorcycle teaches you more than driving a car. If you go out riding in jeans and a t-shirt with no helmet one day, it's unlikely that will be the day you hit a patch of invisible diesel on a bend and come off. But it might be.
In many years of driving I have never once needed to accelerate to avoid an accident - except when overtaking, when of course I am certainly not going to be in neutral. Can you give an example of how this could occur - passing a red light and realising you need to get clear of the intersection asap perhaps? Not my style. I confess I did used to coast downhill years ago (college days) but do not do this today as (as others have said) modern cars shut off all fuel on the overrun.
If you're not in the right gear to be in a position to accelerate, you are not properly in control of your vehicle, simple as that.
Which you would only ever use when you were stopped. The more useful thing motorcycles have is a mechanical tilt kill switch, so that if you come off, the engine cuts out. I had a low speed off a few years ago, and I'm glad my bike wasn't spinning around with the engine still in gear and powering the back wheel.
Slashdot Mirror
It's good to see you approve of elaborate tax avoidance schemes, as they really represent positive economic activity. Oh, wait, no they don't.
I paid approximately 4% total tax all in. That's so embarrassingly low, but I actually eased off on some deductions to inflate the figure to that level; I could have easily paid literally nothing, despite having higher than median income.
Not legally, you didn't. I hope you get taken to the fucking cleaners by HMRC. At which point you'll no doubt blame your accountant and claim you didn't know what you were doing. People like you should be picked up by a routine analysis of your accounts by HMRC and red-flagged for tax evasion.
Here's a clue, you ignorant twat: whether you are self-employed or an employee is not a matter for negotiation between you and the person paying you.
How would this be different from the lawless days of the wild west or a failed state such as Somalia?
Libertarians generally handwave place slike Somalia away as not really representing a True Free Market. However, the idea of the wild west and gun law will probably get their juices flowing. Scratch a libertarian and you find a fasicst underneath.
People must not be coerced by threat of gov't violence to give up their own property.
It's only your own property because society lets you keep it. If the majority of the people decided to vote for a communist government, most of your property would be nationalised (certainly any productive assets). It doesn't matter whether you think that's immoral or not, it's the case.
I don't think many people would consider me rich. I own three domestic corporations (a Delaware C-corp, a California S-corp, and a Nevada S-corp), and an overseas Cayman Islands corporation.
In other words, you're rich.
You don't need to have a billion dollars in the bank to be rich.
I can report income through whichever jurisdiction and type of corp offers the best deductions for that particular type of income. I can move income between corps by selling "services" or paying license fees. I avoid paying personal taxes by living off non-taxable loans, rather than taxable income, from the corporations.
In other words, you're able to exploit tax loopholes designed for the rich.
However non-rich you might like to think you are, you have options that a normal working person simply doesn't have. You can't pay your wages from McDonalds into an offshore account and live off a non taxable loan on it.
This is normal in that generally, in the US tax code, you can defer paying taxes by paying employees more
No, if you pay employees more, you don't defer tax, you reduce your taxable profit for the year and therefore pay less tax, same as if you pay more for stationery or whatever.
You may say he is simply lying, but that is a very serious accusation to make with no evidence.
And saying "anyone should have known that the concept of regenerative braking is the equivalent of perpetual motion" is bollocks. No one claims that there is some magical creation of power from nothing. It just (more or less efficiently) moves unneeded energy from one place to another. There is plenty of discussion and information about it on the web, and it's not all Time Cube guys thinking they've found the solution to eternal free power.
What always amuses me on slashdot is that people will moan abut the pedantry of correcting grammar, spelling or sense, but as soon as it comes to misquoting Star Wars or transliterating the name of a Japanese tentacle porn heroine incorrectly, eveyone's up in arms about how stupid, ignorant and lazy the poster is.
If for some unknown reason everyone used "for all intensive purposes" and ignored the fact that the word "intensive" has a separate meaning here, then, yes, eventually we would all have to use that. But as it makes no sense, it is hard to see why usage should go that way, especially as everyone would have to stop using "intensive" in its correct context.
For some of us an Operating System is a tool, not a Holy Object. Heresy, I know.
I stay because using GNU/Linux means the largest selection of open source software available in the universe.
That is only a feature for the tiny percentage of the population who care about open source software (even ignoring the fact that you can run most OSS on Windows anyway as someone says below).
I'm not saying that's right, as I am entirely in favour of FOSS, but it is the reality. People here really need to remember that the vast majority of computer users don't really know or care care whether they're running Microsoft Windows or Microsoft XBox 360 as long as it does what they want.
2013 is the Year of Linux Gaming.
No, it's "2013 is the Year of Linux Gaming on the desktop.
Change gears down. It's called engine braking.
This is a common misconception.
Engine braking means letting the engine slow down, and thus the vehicle slowing down with it. You only need to change gears as well to stop the engine from stalling.
Aggressively shifting down to a lower gear too early just wears out your gearbox, and if done too harshly can lock your wheels and cause a crash.
No loss of power steering
That's the least of your worries, I'd have thought. Power steering is great for making low speed turning easier, it really doesn't matter that much once you've reached cruising speed, unless you are exceptionally weak.
If you're an American visiting France and if you want to blend in, "poulet" is the word you should use when talking to a cop in France.
If you're an American visiting France, you're not going to blend in. It is physically impossible for a foreigner to speak French without attracting hoots of derision from the locals. I don't care how good at French you were in school, unless you are bilingual and were brought up by at least one actual French parent speaking French along with English, you're not going to cut it.
This is assuming you were prepared to physically disguise yourself to start with, of course. It is generally possible to spot an American tourist from a fair distance before they even open their mouth (I say this as someone from the UK, the same thing applies to us).
2. It's not the Guardian's fault if slashdot duplicate a story.
3. It's not exactly unusual for a Frenchman to be driving a Renault, it's about the same as an American driving a Ford.
Hit the kill switch, engine stops. You still have all electrical power and control so just roll to the side of the road.
If you do that without disengaging the clutch/shifting to neutral, the results at 125 mph could be disastrous. And there was obviously something wrong with the electronic control systems that prevented him from shifting to neutral, or presumably the police would have told him to do so in their phone calls.
If he was only driving a Tesla Model S he would have ran out of fuel in no time.
Damn you fossil fuel vehicles!
Yeah, all he'd have needed to do was turn the heating on and pow! it's a brick.
But, seriously, if you're at 60 and the car won't stop and keeps accelerating? Scrap the side of the motorway. Better to crash at 60, even into the back of another car, than into a busy junction at 120.
Motorways don't have busy junctions. That's the whole point of them. The police wouldn't have been so keen to let this guy keep driving at 125mph on a normal road with roundabouts, crossroads, traffic lights or whatever. But on a 3 lane motorway, the police can fairly easily keep the outside lane free.
To be honest, if he had two seizures but managed not to panic and crash a car travelling at 125mph with no control over the brakes, I'd say he was an excellent driver.
I don't think there's much danger of most European police forces involved in a "hot pursuit" crossing the border into the UK.
It would be amusing watching both them and the criminals queuing up for a place on the Le Shuttle, sitting bored in their cars, then unloading at the other end and continuing the chase.
Sometimes you donâ(TM)t need to read the article....
I suppose you consider The Daily Fail the acme of British Journalism?
In which way am I losing the vehicle control when coasting? It's not like my left foot and right hand get suddenly incapacitated so that I can't shift into gear if needed..
In a potential accident situation the time taken to change gear before you have the car under proper control could make all the difference. And if you're coasting and need to swerve suddenly, you will not be in proper control of the vehicle. It's not always just a question of slamming on the brakes in a straight line.
Now, accidents are relatively rare, so you may think the potential fuel saving (if any) or convenience is worth it. But the whole point about being prepared for an accident is that you're much less likely to have one.
This is something that riding a motorcycle teaches you more than driving a car. If you go out riding in jeans and a t-shirt with no helmet one day, it's unlikely that will be the day you hit a patch of invisible diesel on a bend and come off. But it might be.
In many years of driving I have never once needed to accelerate to avoid an accident - except when overtaking, when of course I am certainly not going to be in neutral. Can you give an example of how this could occur - passing a red light and realising you need to get clear of the intersection asap perhaps? Not my style. I confess I did used to coast downhill years ago (college days) but do not do this today as (as others have said) modern cars shut off all fuel on the overrun.
If you're not in the right gear to be in a position to accelerate, you are not properly in control of your vehicle, simple as that.
Motorcycles have a mechanical kill switch
Which you would only ever use when you were stopped. The more useful thing motorcycles have is a mechanical tilt kill switch, so that if you come off, the engine cuts out. I had a low speed off a few years ago, and I'm glad my bike wasn't spinning around with the engine still in gear and powering the back wheel.