Citation and definition for 'staunch conservatives' please?
Example: Eight years in the USMC, fully support single-payer health care, further left of any elected politician at the national level except maybe Bernie and I'm probably a bit left of him. Political affiliation: Libertarian though you'd probably not recognize that fact and that's hardly entirely your own fault. I'd probable be better termed a Socialist Libertarian though I prefer Classic Libertarian. Having actually served in the military, I think you'd be surprised at the political makeup of those who serve.
Heh, I've read you tell that story, albeit with a few more details, in the past. You were, shall we say, quite irate. I find things to keep busy, you have to when you're retired. If you don't then I think it leads to a quicker death or senility. I'm pretty sure of it - I'd not be surprised if there were a study that suggested things worked out better for retired folks who still did things to keep active in a productive manner. Even if it was just a few dollars that he was making, that's something.
Me? I poke at investments. My first year and a half, I lost 48% of my investment money. It's okay and I didn't really mind - it was my way of learning. The following year, I actually did okay but I screwed up and was selling too quickly - so I was taxed at income tax rates instead of capital gains. I've kind of got it down now and I'm doing really well - it's insanely lucrative once you figure it out and I'm a mathematician so while I do crunch a lot of numbers, I also have no formal education in financial markets and have an odd investing strategy that seems to work surprisingly well.
The adage about money attracting money is definitely true - or appears to be. I have a real finance manager who does my real portfolio management and then I have my own accounts that I "play" with. It's surprising how lucrative it can be. I actually make more money than I can (reasonably) spend and more than I ever made when I actually worked for a living.
I also have a lot of hobbies and it's nice because I can actually afford those hobbies. My big four are computers, firearms, automobiles, and woodworking. Because I have both the time (and accumulated skills as well as quality equipment) I've actually been able to make cabinets and furniture for people, either for free or at a reasonable price. Often times, the wood is milled from logs harvested on my own property. I have lots of free time so I can even do things by hand where others would rather use a piece of power equipment. I have a giant, rather expensive, CNC router with every one of the available attachments that is still sitting in the crates it came in. I just enjoy the hands-on factor so I've yet to dig it out and play with it - but it also has the capacity to do 3D printing so I'm sure to dig it out at some point - even though I can't really think of anything I'd want to make.
At any rate, if you father's able to then maybe a hobby like woodworking will suit - carving doesn't take much space or a huge financial outlay to get started. A friend of mine does his own decoys and got good enough to where he's able to sell all he can make and constantly has orders for more. He was making serviceable decoys inside of six months - even his very first one (he still has it) mostly resembles a duck, from a distance, and with some poor lighting. I've bought a whole stack of 'em from him - I don't carve much/well. He sells them to other hunters, tourists, and does a pretty good bit of business with it but he's still able to be retired and only work when he wants to.
Contrary to popular opinion, anecdotes are data. That brush, it's large and when you paint with such a large brush you miss the finer details. That gives you the wrong picture, or a very biased one. It's not nearly as dire or unfortunate as you seem to think. Chances are really good that you have it much better than you imagine and, while it's not perfect and there's room for improvement in many things, you've got lots of chances to do things with your life that others can only dream of. Take advantage of that, or not... Nobody listens to me anyhow. Seriously, life's not so bad.
Yeah, someone mentioned a billion pound campus being built - and I'm not familiar with UK tax code but that's both an expense and an asset - if they write off the expense and then amortize depreciation on the asset then... Yeah, I could see that whacking a good percentage of their tax burden down to size. I'm had to gain some fluency, over the years, but my taxes are too complicated for me to do on my own and I actually have an accountant who manages my finances for me and takes care of my accounting. It's a necessity more than it is a luxury and something I picked up on while I still owned my business and have maintained ever since selling - though it's a different lady and in a new State. There are, with the US tax code, lots of ways to legally reduce your tax burden. In theory, I could pay no taxes at all with some work - some years I spend so little that I don't pay much at all (comparatively speaking).
Sadly, that might be true. I'm reasonably certain that I'm known to at least one or two government agents/agencies and that they don't really like me all that much. Funny enough, I've had my security clearance and served in the Marines. I'm pretty sure that my not fitting the mold really has to irk someone, somewhere. I mostly keep my nose clean and I try to be a *fairly* decent human.
I do not recollect the name of the book but I know the author's name because it was/is so unique. One of my programmers kept a copy in his office and I'd borrowed it, thumbed through it, and read parts of it. He swore by it and by the author. He was also the programmer who was very, very tough on me in my attempts to understand - I'd completely turned my code over to the team by that point but I still wanted to know what was going on under the hood and to be able to make small changes as needed without pushing the changes back to the repository.
Just as a hunch, I bet mdnuclear is an alt for the pro-solar poster who goes by mdsolar. Your post made me think of that for some reason. Probably all the mentions of the subsidies - I bet that's his alt. Maybe now he'll be pro nuke.
By the other person not driving like an idiot. Perhaps you misread something? I thought I made it fairly clear. The accidents could have easily been avoided - just not by you (or something to that effect). Try rereading what I wrote. If you're still confused then I'll help you out.
I am taking your statements at face value and as being truthful. I do, technically, own shares in Google and can look at their financial filings but I am taking you at your word. Now, I have a few dollars. My account was actually one of the "lead" accountants for my State's Revenue Department. That's why I hired her. She's really, really good. I have survived two audits. I do not personally but I do technically do quite a bit to reduce my tax burden - entirely lawful.
That, claiming that a mere 10% is net, or taxable income, is so obviously bogus that I am actually impressed. It's horrific, it's wrong, but it is technically possible to do that. You can amortize assets, you can build, you can defer certain types of income, and all sorts of things with the US tax code. I don't even begin to understand it. I actually reduce my tax burden by donations to charitable causes - I consider that taxation with representation and it's legal. I also mostly do long-term investments now so I'm taxed at capital gains rates as opposed to income tax rates. One year, I paid a tax rate of 8% and I got audited. I passed - it was all legal. I hadn't actually spent much that year but I'd donated more than I could write off so I got to reduce it that far. On average, my tax rate would be 23% (State and Federal - capital gains) and I usually specifically aim to pay 15% and don't bother writing down/off more than that.
But, Google's got to be doing some VERY fancy math to come up with 10% net. I have no idea what the UK's tax code is like but if it is like the US tax code they're straight up doing everything they can to reduce their tax burden. I suspect they did stuff like donate to school programs, property improvements, building, amortized servers, all that stuff. That's just sad but impressive at the same time. I almost feel bad owning Google shares when I read shit like this. That's a dangerous game they're playing - I went through two audits and came out fine but I can imagine they're really, really gonna want a peek at Google's accounting records. They've gotta have employees saving things like lunch receipts to get it that low.
Years ago, when I was opening a new office and picking the location, I actually had various municipalities approach me and offer me various subsidies, abatements for taxes that would be due, and things of that nature. My company was nowhere near the size of Google. At that time, I employed fewer than 150 people. So, I can only imagine what goes on behind closed doors. When we opened our third office, down in Georgia, I was getting calls from various folks as soon as they heard I was looking for large office rental space with a decent data connection. It's kind of crazy what they'll offer. One offer was something like discounted valuation rates and no property taxes for five years, shit like that happens. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when this "agreement" was made.
I am quite happily dating a young lady who's nearly 40 years my junior. She's damned cute, too. A few Slashdotters got to meet her at my NYE bash. I'm 58, however. It's perfectly legal but the looks the ladies give me, it's awesome. I don't really give two shits if they don't like it. If they saw the looks their husbands gave me, they'd be even more pissed.
I am going to guess that you're not well trained enough to consider specifically aiming for a non-lethal shot. I have done some competition shooting, spent eight years in the Marines, and have both my pizza boxes - thank you very much. If you don't mind my saying so, if it's a credible threat then aim for center mass and if the threat still persists then continue aiming for the center mass. Keep shooting until the threat is no longer a threat. Trust me on this - it may save your life.
However, you might wanna just hang out with nicer people. In the course of my duty, I have laid down suppressive fire. People died. I have no idea if I am to blame for that. It's harder to live with than you might expect. I believe that none of my rounds did anything more than allow others to get into position but I can never say for certain. It doesn't feel as good as you might think. It has been many, many years since and I still remember how fifteen minutes seemed to last for hours and I still remember the aftermath.
If you're going to carry and you are going to use your weapon, do not attempt to wing shot, leg shot, arm shot, head shot, or anything of that nature. They will be moving. You will probably miss. The center mass moves the least, is the largest, and is the more likely area where an effective, on target, shot will stop the threat the quickest. There may be other people down-range who are not to blame. Center mass - if at all. This advice may save your life. Take it or leave it, it's not my life that I'm worried about. However, I'd strongly suggest you get professional, qualified, instruction and spend a lot of time at the range. It needs to be muscle memory and you will be very unlikely to make a non-lethal shot on purpose in a crisis situation.
Center mass, continue putting rounds into the center mass until the threat is no longer a credible threat as would be judged by a reasonable person. That may mean that they are dead. That's okay - just so long as a reasonable person would have defended themselves with lethal force and you do not have a duty to retreat in your jurisdiction. I highly recommend consulting a professional and getting personal instruction as well as lots of range time with very specific drills to give you muscle memory.
My son was firing a rifle, on a stand, at that age. At the same time, I'm not an idiot and he didn't get unsupervised firearm use until he was well into his teens. He owns a few of his own firearms but he only uses them when he's back home and hunting so they're stored at my house. Even my daughter, she's older than he, was learning firearm safety at around that same period of time. I also don't do stupid shit like leave loaded firearms around the house. Both of my children have tagged out their own deer, dressed them, and processed the meat.
He, my son, got his very first firearm when he was 12. He still owns it. It's an over-under 410/.22LR. Amazingly enough, he hasn't shot anyone, nor has his sister and she has her CWP. Hell, she carries a pistol chambered in a larger round than I carry.
The firearms, themselves, are not the problem. The problem is many things but it is not the inanimate device that is the problem. It is a lack of education, lack of respect, lack of understanding, lack of discipline, lack of training, lack of mental health care, lack of good enforcement of the firearms laws that are already on the books, and probably a dozen other things that I failed to mention.
However, I can assure you that not one of my firearms has ever even threatened a person. They've murdered the hell out of some paper and maybe some tannerite. They have a vendetta against paper - they're racist too, they're always aiming for the black. But, so far, they've not once taken off and, of their own volition, done a damned thing. I kind of wish they'd clean and oil themselves but they're lazy bastards.
I do have an M1 but I also have two select fire weapons, both legally owned and properly stored and maintained. I can not buy, legally, the current M4 but there are some M16s out there that are legal - pre-ban. I own an M14 and an AK47 which is actually a Chinese M22. I also spent eight years enlisted in the Marines so, umm, thanks for your permission.
I spent eight years in the Marines. That's a prudent choice but, to be fair, the odds of you needing to face a Marine armed with a knife are pretty low. There's a really, really, good chance that I'm not the least bit interested in causing you the least bit of harm. If anything, I might go smack the "gangsta" around for you.
Here's a neat little hint for you. If someone is pointing a firearm at you - you're probably okay, they'd have already shot you if they wanted to. It's not the one who has calmly trained his weapon on you that you need to worry about. It's the one who's holding their weapon as if they're unfamiliar with it or are scared and shaking. Those are the fucks that scare me. I will disarm them, by force if required.
Seriously, you probably don't have to worry about a Marine and his KA-BAR. My father, a career Marine, actually passed his KA-BAR that he had carried in Korea down to me. Some day, I'll pass it on to my son. He can't have mine. He can have the one that has some real history behind it but he's in his 20s and I've still time to appreciate owning my dad's before it gets passed on.
There is, quite likely, no chance at all of a Marine harming you with his KA-BAR, assuming he has one. Believe it or not, we don't generally go around stabbing people. We're fairly civilized, in some sort of fashion. Assuming you're not actively trying to harm a Marine then you're probably pretty safe but some of us do like to play a little rough but we're really only playing. We'd certainly not use a weapon for that. That's what MCT is for.
I'd buy one as a curio. Why not? I can add it to the collection. The problem is, I am actually starting to run out of room. I've done good. I have not bought a new firearm since September of last year. That's pretty good, for me. I also think they mate 'cause I have a whole lot more than I remember buying. Then again, I've been buying them for 40 years. I've a rather nice collection - I've shown plenty of pics before. I'm sure I will again. Strangely enough, they've never once harmed anyone except for maybe giving someone a sore shoulder from not locking in properly. I even own some *very* nice firearms - not even those have gone on a murderous rampage except for a few that seem to have a vendetta against paper. They're quite specifically meant just for target shooting. I even have some match grade pistols.
You have a very warped perception of firearm owners. I, for example, could provide a firearm for every single person in this whole thread - every last one of them, with just my own personal collection. I'm not only not white, I'm very far left of any elected official, and I think my favorite Amendment is the 1st, followed by the 4th and 5th. In fact, most firearm owners that I know are of a fairly similar bent. Maybe you should stop being scared and actually talk to some firearm owners some time? The myth that firearm owners only care about the second is actually a really stupid myth - I'm not sure who's feeding you that propaganda but you should actually try learning some things on your own.
Err... You do it with fresh kitty litter and you can save it for the following winter or use it to get unstuck. Have him be careful with the bricks. If he hits something then those will still retain a great deal of inertia and can be dangerous. Another one is to get properly sized logs, so that they fairly evenly fill the bed and are fairly stable if there's an accident. Big, fat, hardwood logs - frozen and whatnot, they're a whole lot of weight and added traction but the kitty litter in double wrapped heavy duty trash bags or similar is pretty common up in Maine. The reason you keep them double wrapped is to keep the moisture out so that they don't freeze solid and become dangerous projectiles or become difficult to spread out when you need to use them to cover the ice and snow and use it to get traction.
I imagine the salt is just fine - so long as it's thick plastic and not going to get wet. If they harden and they end up heading into something with force the hard stuff becomes dangerous projectiles. That's why they use kitty litter here. It's also dirt cheap and works for all sorts of things like cleaning up spills of fluids and the likes.
Yeah, I mean I get it but, really, still, today, and GTK now? I'm serious, you could almost have a fully functioning OS based on the kernel, an init system (systemd would work but I wasn't going to mention that in my first post) and just emacs if you wanted to extend it out. I guess you'd still want Perl installed, probably Python, a compiler, but one could make a fairly robust but very small (yet functional) desktop OS out of this at this point - well, this and a few other things. If it were just a consumption desktop device you could get away with even fewer things - probably a small package manager to keep things up to date but I bet you could actually add that to emacs with a little bit of work - simply:apt-get or similar.
I don't know if it's insane or brilliant. I can't quite figure it out.:/
Nah, kitty litter sealed in plastic won't freeze solid so the weight as far back as possible is best. Chances are, unless you're hitting something, you won't be stopping quick - if you do, it's just kitty litter wrapped up in doubled up heavy duty trash bags or the likes. The whole reason they are there is lack of traction, that same lack of traction also stops you from stopping quickly. The key is to keep the moisture out of it so that it doesn't freeze so it won't kill you and, even better, if you get stuck you can open a bag and use the kitty litter to get traction.
Do they at least give you the common courtesy of a reach around? I literally carry $1,000,000 USD insurance on my license and I think the payment is less than $300/month for the first six months of the year and then some lower amount after that - so I just pay it all at once and it's even less expensive. (I've also taken *many* driving courses and have a great driving record.) At least I think that's about what it costs. I don't actually know the specific amount. But, yeah, any car I drive is insured in the US and it also applies when I drive to Canada or even south of the border into Mexico or further south.
They must really hate you guys over there. Your caravan story makes no sense at all to my American mind.:/ You'd think you'd pay a piddling amount more because, really, how often are you going to drive it?
It's so awesome that you mention that - two things spring to mind. I was not a programmer but I programmed because I had to. Make sense? I had to learn in order to do what I wanted to do - which was model traffic. I eventually got it working and eventually hired capable programmers and did things like cross train or even send them to school to learn about traffic engineering to some extent. So, I got it pretty rough from what was what I'm going to call "The Old Guard."
Manage your memory, wipe it clean and use each block for a specific purpose. Things like that were kind of drilled into me - right or wrong, they're what I picked up along the way but, fortunately, others were either maintaining my code base or converting it to C++ by then. Yes, it takes time but when you're running models on hardware (clustered servers) they were generally adamant that memory be used efficiently and, when cleared, it was zeroed. Why? Because that's the correct way of doing it - or so I'm told/recollect. That's what your analogy made me think of. Clean those boxes out of you're gonna have dirty cookies because shoe's were stored in them first.
Again, I stress that I am not a programmer but had to do so - I hated every minute of it, pretty much. With some help, I built the greatest traffic simulation game ever (it didn't have graphics for a few more years, really) but I might be biased.;-) I had great people that enabled me to be where I am today - which is retired and wintering in Florida.
The other thing is, I am literally just getting ready to dive in and start learning Python. I am very excited to learn. From what I've already played with, it looks so powerful for what appears to be a fairly high level language. I'm not sure how to describe it better than that.
Which leads me to this: Thanks. I seriously love being told new things. I even kind of like being wrong because it often meant that I was willing to hazard a guess (and I'm usually pretty clear that it's a guess or an anecdote) and it means that I'm learning something new. I value that, a great deal, and I love it when there are threads that are so full of information that I actually spend hours in them reading, rereading, searching, maybe even trying a snippet out, and seeing where things go and why they go where they go and what they're meant to do when they're put together properly.
I truly appreciate and value you giving me your most valuable asset - time. I appreciate it to the point where I hold it as something special and actually make it a point to go ahead and take little lessons and turn them into bigger lessons. I bookmark some, I straight up save some as whole pages, and I try to keep some properly referenced to call on later when I know that I've just seen a very important thing that I'll want to know later - because it will be essential to bake that in from the start instead of trying to bolt it on later.
So, again, thank you. I believe that I've read enough of your posts to be familiar with your skill level, at least, and I think you'd have made a hell of a hire if you'd been around when I needed you. Of course, we didn't have Python then - I don't think. Early to late 1990s. I was completely done hiring programmers by 2005 or so. I suspect you'd have been a hell of an asset.
Chartering is awesome and I've done it *many* times - I'd also do it for employees post 9/11 if there were more than a couple going off to an event. I once seriously priced chartering a flight to Egypt, from Maine, and that was actually "affordable" but "bloody stupid." It was something like $140,000 for up to 12 people and I had to pay for the whole time the plane was there in a hanger and put the pilot up and stuff like that. Technically, I could have paid that. I'm much more frugal and intelligent than that.
Also, this works very well for me. I'm on the Canadian border and I'm Micmac enough to be a tribal member. So, as a First Nations Person, I get Canadian citizenship by grace of birth. I didn't get all the paperwork together until later in life, I was about 35, but I've held Canadian citizenship and a Canadian passport ever since. That helps.
It turns out, I've flown lots of planes now. I've never landed one nor have I taken off with one. I've flown flight patterns, including using time and GPS to then make heading adjustments, make course adjustments for weather, and things of that nature. I, too, am a bit of an aircraft buff - your being similar does not surprise me in the least.
Seriously, you and the wife should come up to Maine to visit sometime in the summer. I have a whole spare house that was on the property when I bought the place. I've had it fixed up quite nice. It's comfortable, has all the creature comforts except television but OTA might work - I honestly don't know if it does or not. It's a bit like your more remote mountain areas only I'm much more remote than that. There's even a separate DSL line to that premise and the house is wired with CAT5 but wireless suits just fine as there's no interference around.
I've a radio closet for you to play in - and ham friends to help show you around. I've told you before, I have a "cold backup" that I keep maintained and they ensured that I bought very good equipment. It is not up but I do technically officially now own that 160' antenna thing. It's a scaffold tower, I believe. I've never seen it outside of where it's stored in the guy's barn but it was something his boss gave him as partial payment for doing some tower work. It was a tower for an old AM radio station as I understand and it's supposedly in fine condition - I trust the person, he's even willing to install it for me. Someday, I'll actually sit for the test and get my ham license.
Seriously, at least give it some thought. You'll have peace, privacy, entertainment if you want it, and a giant chunk of Maine to play in with a whole bunch of fun toys. I had Slashdotters over for New Year's Eve and I didn't eat any of them. I did ply them with booze, food, and explosives. I'm mostly harmless and you'd have the whole house to yourself if you wanted. It's a farmhouse from the 1840s but rehabbed and will last another 200 years - you'll be plenty safe and Maine's mostly harmless in the summer, anyhow. Give it some thought.
The firearm thing... I'm still thinking about that. In the case of an accident there should be charges, if warranted and it was not some fluke (flukes don't really happen often, but mechanical devices can fail so I think the charges would need to be proven and not automated) then I think Negligent Homicide would be an apt charge. I could even agree that the person who provided the firearms in California should be charged if a Grand Jury believes there is enough evidence to convict.
There's no real gun show loophole, you know that right? You're either a dealer or you're not. Dealers must follow certain rules. Define what a dealer is - every brokerage? A handed down heirloom to a grandson? I can get on board with that in principle but I can't get on board with the registry. I just can't understand it. If it's not meant for a means of confiscation what actual value does a registry provide?
It's a matter of privacy and if all other laws are being obeyed it is not their business to know. I, on the other hand, am on a registry because I own s
I am a bit of a cynic. The first thing that I thought of was that he probably had political aspirations beyond his current position, namely an elected position, and wanted to be on record as being adamantly against it. I really am that cynical, I guess... I still think the same thing.:(
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Citation and definition for 'staunch conservatives' please?
Example: Eight years in the USMC, fully support single-payer health care, further left of any elected politician at the national level except maybe Bernie and I'm probably a bit left of him. Political affiliation: Libertarian though you'd probably not recognize that fact and that's hardly entirely your own fault. I'd probable be better termed a Socialist Libertarian though I prefer Classic Libertarian. Having actually served in the military, I think you'd be surprised at the political makeup of those who serve.
Heh, I've read you tell that story, albeit with a few more details, in the past. You were, shall we say, quite irate. I find things to keep busy, you have to when you're retired. If you don't then I think it leads to a quicker death or senility. I'm pretty sure of it - I'd not be surprised if there were a study that suggested things worked out better for retired folks who still did things to keep active in a productive manner. Even if it was just a few dollars that he was making, that's something.
Me? I poke at investments. My first year and a half, I lost 48% of my investment money. It's okay and I didn't really mind - it was my way of learning. The following year, I actually did okay but I screwed up and was selling too quickly - so I was taxed at income tax rates instead of capital gains. I've kind of got it down now and I'm doing really well - it's insanely lucrative once you figure it out and I'm a mathematician so while I do crunch a lot of numbers, I also have no formal education in financial markets and have an odd investing strategy that seems to work surprisingly well.
The adage about money attracting money is definitely true - or appears to be. I have a real finance manager who does my real portfolio management and then I have my own accounts that I "play" with. It's surprising how lucrative it can be. I actually make more money than I can (reasonably) spend and more than I ever made when I actually worked for a living.
I also have a lot of hobbies and it's nice because I can actually afford those hobbies. My big four are computers, firearms, automobiles, and woodworking. Because I have both the time (and accumulated skills as well as quality equipment) I've actually been able to make cabinets and furniture for people, either for free or at a reasonable price. Often times, the wood is milled from logs harvested on my own property. I have lots of free time so I can even do things by hand where others would rather use a piece of power equipment. I have a giant, rather expensive, CNC router with every one of the available attachments that is still sitting in the crates it came in. I just enjoy the hands-on factor so I've yet to dig it out and play with it - but it also has the capacity to do 3D printing so I'm sure to dig it out at some point - even though I can't really think of anything I'd want to make.
At any rate, if you father's able to then maybe a hobby like woodworking will suit - carving doesn't take much space or a huge financial outlay to get started. A friend of mine does his own decoys and got good enough to where he's able to sell all he can make and constantly has orders for more. He was making serviceable decoys inside of six months - even his very first one (he still has it) mostly resembles a duck, from a distance, and with some poor lighting. I've bought a whole stack of 'em from him - I don't carve much/well. He sells them to other hunters, tourists, and does a pretty good bit of business with it but he's still able to be retired and only work when he wants to.
Contrary to popular opinion, anecdotes are data. That brush, it's large and when you paint with such a large brush you miss the finer details. That gives you the wrong picture, or a very biased one. It's not nearly as dire or unfortunate as you seem to think. Chances are really good that you have it much better than you imagine and, while it's not perfect and there's room for improvement in many things, you've got lots of chances to do things with your life that others can only dream of. Take advantage of that, or not... Nobody listens to me anyhow. Seriously, life's not so bad.
Yeah, someone mentioned a billion pound campus being built - and I'm not familiar with UK tax code but that's both an expense and an asset - if they write off the expense and then amortize depreciation on the asset then... Yeah, I could see that whacking a good percentage of their tax burden down to size. I'm had to gain some fluency, over the years, but my taxes are too complicated for me to do on my own and I actually have an accountant who manages my finances for me and takes care of my accounting. It's a necessity more than it is a luxury and something I picked up on while I still owned my business and have maintained ever since selling - though it's a different lady and in a new State. There are, with the US tax code, lots of ways to legally reduce your tax burden. In theory, I could pay no taxes at all with some work - some years I spend so little that I don't pay much at all (comparatively speaking).
Sadly, that might be true. I'm reasonably certain that I'm known to at least one or two government agents/agencies and that they don't really like me all that much. Funny enough, I've had my security clearance and served in the Marines. I'm pretty sure that my not fitting the mold really has to irk someone, somewhere. I mostly keep my nose clean and I try to be a *fairly* decent human.
I do not recollect the name of the book but I know the author's name because it was/is so unique. One of my programmers kept a copy in his office and I'd borrowed it, thumbed through it, and read parts of it. He swore by it and by the author. He was also the programmer who was very, very tough on me in my attempts to understand - I'd completely turned my code over to the team by that point but I still wanted to know what was going on under the hood and to be able to make small changes as needed without pushing the changes back to the repository.
Just as a hunch, I bet mdnuclear is an alt for the pro-solar poster who goes by mdsolar. Your post made me think of that for some reason. Probably all the mentions of the subsidies - I bet that's his alt. Maybe now he'll be pro nuke.
By the other person not driving like an idiot. Perhaps you misread something? I thought I made it fairly clear. The accidents could have easily been avoided - just not by you (or something to that effect). Try rereading what I wrote. If you're still confused then I'll help you out.
I am taking your statements at face value and as being truthful. I do, technically, own shares in Google and can look at their financial filings but I am taking you at your word. Now, I have a few dollars. My account was actually one of the "lead" accountants for my State's Revenue Department. That's why I hired her. She's really, really good. I have survived two audits. I do not personally but I do technically do quite a bit to reduce my tax burden - entirely lawful.
That, claiming that a mere 10% is net, or taxable income, is so obviously bogus that I am actually impressed. It's horrific, it's wrong, but it is technically possible to do that. You can amortize assets, you can build, you can defer certain types of income, and all sorts of things with the US tax code. I don't even begin to understand it. I actually reduce my tax burden by donations to charitable causes - I consider that taxation with representation and it's legal. I also mostly do long-term investments now so I'm taxed at capital gains rates as opposed to income tax rates. One year, I paid a tax rate of 8% and I got audited. I passed - it was all legal. I hadn't actually spent much that year but I'd donated more than I could write off so I got to reduce it that far. On average, my tax rate would be 23% (State and Federal - capital gains) and I usually specifically aim to pay 15% and don't bother writing down/off more than that.
But, Google's got to be doing some VERY fancy math to come up with 10% net. I have no idea what the UK's tax code is like but if it is like the US tax code they're straight up doing everything they can to reduce their tax burden. I suspect they did stuff like donate to school programs, property improvements, building, amortized servers, all that stuff. That's just sad but impressive at the same time. I almost feel bad owning Google shares when I read shit like this. That's a dangerous game they're playing - I went through two audits and came out fine but I can imagine they're really, really gonna want a peek at Google's accounting records. They've gotta have employees saving things like lunch receipts to get it that low.
Years ago, when I was opening a new office and picking the location, I actually had various municipalities approach me and offer me various subsidies, abatements for taxes that would be due, and things of that nature. My company was nowhere near the size of Google. At that time, I employed fewer than 150 people. So, I can only imagine what goes on behind closed doors. When we opened our third office, down in Georgia, I was getting calls from various folks as soon as they heard I was looking for large office rental space with a decent data connection. It's kind of crazy what they'll offer. One offer was something like discounted valuation rates and no property taxes for five years, shit like that happens. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when this "agreement" was made.
I am quite happily dating a young lady who's nearly 40 years my junior. She's damned cute, too. A few Slashdotters got to meet her at my NYE bash. I'm 58, however. It's perfectly legal but the looks the ladies give me, it's awesome. I don't really give two shits if they don't like it. If they saw the looks their husbands gave me, they'd be even more pissed.
I am going to guess that you're not well trained enough to consider specifically aiming for a non-lethal shot. I have done some competition shooting, spent eight years in the Marines, and have both my pizza boxes - thank you very much. If you don't mind my saying so, if it's a credible threat then aim for center mass and if the threat still persists then continue aiming for the center mass. Keep shooting until the threat is no longer a threat. Trust me on this - it may save your life.
However, you might wanna just hang out with nicer people. In the course of my duty, I have laid down suppressive fire. People died. I have no idea if I am to blame for that. It's harder to live with than you might expect. I believe that none of my rounds did anything more than allow others to get into position but I can never say for certain. It doesn't feel as good as you might think. It has been many, many years since and I still remember how fifteen minutes seemed to last for hours and I still remember the aftermath.
If you're going to carry and you are going to use your weapon, do not attempt to wing shot, leg shot, arm shot, head shot, or anything of that nature. They will be moving. You will probably miss. The center mass moves the least, is the largest, and is the more likely area where an effective, on target, shot will stop the threat the quickest. There may be other people down-range who are not to blame. Center mass - if at all. This advice may save your life. Take it or leave it, it's not my life that I'm worried about. However, I'd strongly suggest you get professional, qualified, instruction and spend a lot of time at the range. It needs to be muscle memory and you will be very unlikely to make a non-lethal shot on purpose in a crisis situation.
Center mass, continue putting rounds into the center mass until the threat is no longer a credible threat as would be judged by a reasonable person. That may mean that they are dead. That's okay - just so long as a reasonable person would have defended themselves with lethal force and you do not have a duty to retreat in your jurisdiction. I highly recommend consulting a professional and getting personal instruction as well as lots of range time with very specific drills to give you muscle memory.
Or, just ignore me.
My son was firing a rifle, on a stand, at that age. At the same time, I'm not an idiot and he didn't get unsupervised firearm use until he was well into his teens. He owns a few of his own firearms but he only uses them when he's back home and hunting so they're stored at my house. Even my daughter, she's older than he, was learning firearm safety at around that same period of time. I also don't do stupid shit like leave loaded firearms around the house. Both of my children have tagged out their own deer, dressed them, and processed the meat.
He, my son, got his very first firearm when he was 12. He still owns it. It's an over-under 410/.22LR. Amazingly enough, he hasn't shot anyone, nor has his sister and she has her CWP. Hell, she carries a pistol chambered in a larger round than I carry.
The firearms, themselves, are not the problem. The problem is many things but it is not the inanimate device that is the problem. It is a lack of education, lack of respect, lack of understanding, lack of discipline, lack of training, lack of mental health care, lack of good enforcement of the firearms laws that are already on the books, and probably a dozen other things that I failed to mention.
However, I can assure you that not one of my firearms has ever even threatened a person. They've murdered the hell out of some paper and maybe some tannerite. They have a vendetta against paper - they're racist too, they're always aiming for the black. But, so far, they've not once taken off and, of their own volition, done a damned thing. I kind of wish they'd clean and oil themselves but they're lazy bastards.
I do have an M1 but I also have two select fire weapons, both legally owned and properly stored and maintained. I can not buy, legally, the current M4 but there are some M16s out there that are legal - pre-ban. I own an M14 and an AK47 which is actually a Chinese M22. I also spent eight years enlisted in the Marines so, umm, thanks for your permission.
I spent eight years in the Marines. That's a prudent choice but, to be fair, the odds of you needing to face a Marine armed with a knife are pretty low. There's a really, really, good chance that I'm not the least bit interested in causing you the least bit of harm. If anything, I might go smack the "gangsta" around for you.
Here's a neat little hint for you. If someone is pointing a firearm at you - you're probably okay, they'd have already shot you if they wanted to. It's not the one who has calmly trained his weapon on you that you need to worry about. It's the one who's holding their weapon as if they're unfamiliar with it or are scared and shaking. Those are the fucks that scare me. I will disarm them, by force if required.
Seriously, you probably don't have to worry about a Marine and his KA-BAR. My father, a career Marine, actually passed his KA-BAR that he had carried in Korea down to me. Some day, I'll pass it on to my son. He can't have mine. He can have the one that has some real history behind it but he's in his 20s and I've still time to appreciate owning my dad's before it gets passed on.
There is, quite likely, no chance at all of a Marine harming you with his KA-BAR, assuming he has one. Believe it or not, we don't generally go around stabbing people. We're fairly civilized, in some sort of fashion. Assuming you're not actively trying to harm a Marine then you're probably pretty safe but some of us do like to play a little rough but we're really only playing. We'd certainly not use a weapon for that. That's what MCT is for.
I'd buy one as a curio. Why not? I can add it to the collection. The problem is, I am actually starting to run out of room. I've done good. I have not bought a new firearm since September of last year. That's pretty good, for me. I also think they mate 'cause I have a whole lot more than I remember buying. Then again, I've been buying them for 40 years. I've a rather nice collection - I've shown plenty of pics before. I'm sure I will again. Strangely enough, they've never once harmed anyone except for maybe giving someone a sore shoulder from not locking in properly. I even own some *very* nice firearms - not even those have gone on a murderous rampage except for a few that seem to have a vendetta against paper. They're quite specifically meant just for target shooting. I even have some match grade pistols.
You have a very warped perception of firearm owners. I, for example, could provide a firearm for every single person in this whole thread - every last one of them, with just my own personal collection. I'm not only not white, I'm very far left of any elected official, and I think my favorite Amendment is the 1st, followed by the 4th and 5th. In fact, most firearm owners that I know are of a fairly similar bent. Maybe you should stop being scared and actually talk to some firearm owners some time? The myth that firearm owners only care about the second is actually a really stupid myth - I'm not sure who's feeding you that propaganda but you should actually try learning some things on your own.
Err... You do it with fresh kitty litter and you can save it for the following winter or use it to get unstuck. Have him be careful with the bricks. If he hits something then those will still retain a great deal of inertia and can be dangerous. Another one is to get properly sized logs, so that they fairly evenly fill the bed and are fairly stable if there's an accident. Big, fat, hardwood logs - frozen and whatnot, they're a whole lot of weight and added traction but the kitty litter in double wrapped heavy duty trash bags or similar is pretty common up in Maine. The reason you keep them double wrapped is to keep the moisture out so that they don't freeze solid and become dangerous projectiles or become difficult to spread out when you need to use them to cover the ice and snow and use it to get traction.
I imagine the salt is just fine - so long as it's thick plastic and not going to get wet. If they harden and they end up heading into something with force the hard stuff becomes dangerous projectiles. That's why they use kitty litter here. It's also dirt cheap and works for all sorts of things like cleaning up spills of fluids and the likes.
Yeah, I mean I get it but, really, still, today, and GTK now? I'm serious, you could almost have a fully functioning OS based on the kernel, an init system (systemd would work but I wasn't going to mention that in my first post) and just emacs if you wanted to extend it out. I guess you'd still want Perl installed, probably Python, a compiler, but one could make a fairly robust but very small (yet functional) desktop OS out of this at this point - well, this and a few other things. If it were just a consumption desktop device you could get away with even fewer things - probably a small package manager to keep things up to date but I bet you could actually add that to emacs with a little bit of work - simply :apt-get or similar.
I don't know if it's insane or brilliant. I can't quite figure it out. :/
Nah, kitty litter sealed in plastic won't freeze solid so the weight as far back as possible is best. Chances are, unless you're hitting something, you won't be stopping quick - if you do, it's just kitty litter wrapped up in doubled up heavy duty trash bags or the likes. The whole reason they are there is lack of traction, that same lack of traction also stops you from stopping quickly. The key is to keep the moisture out of it so that it doesn't freeze so it won't kill you and, even better, if you get stuck you can open a bag and use the kitty litter to get traction.
I haven't decided if that's awesome or insane.
Do they at least give you the common courtesy of a reach around? I literally carry $1,000,000 USD insurance on my license and I think the payment is less than $300/month for the first six months of the year and then some lower amount after that - so I just pay it all at once and it's even less expensive. (I've also taken *many* driving courses and have a great driving record.) At least I think that's about what it costs. I don't actually know the specific amount. But, yeah, any car I drive is insured in the US and it also applies when I drive to Canada or even south of the border into Mexico or further south.
They must really hate you guys over there. Your caravan story makes no sense at all to my American mind. :/ You'd think you'd pay a piddling amount more because, really, how often are you going to drive it?
It's so awesome that you mention that - two things spring to mind. I was not a programmer but I programmed because I had to. Make sense? I had to learn in order to do what I wanted to do - which was model traffic. I eventually got it working and eventually hired capable programmers and did things like cross train or even send them to school to learn about traffic engineering to some extent. So, I got it pretty rough from what was what I'm going to call "The Old Guard."
Manage your memory, wipe it clean and use each block for a specific purpose. Things like that were kind of drilled into me - right or wrong, they're what I picked up along the way but, fortunately, others were either maintaining my code base or converting it to C++ by then. Yes, it takes time but when you're running models on hardware (clustered servers) they were generally adamant that memory be used efficiently and, when cleared, it was zeroed. Why? Because that's the correct way of doing it - or so I'm told/recollect. That's what your analogy made me think of. Clean those boxes out of you're gonna have dirty cookies because shoe's were stored in them first.
Again, I stress that I am not a programmer but had to do so - I hated every minute of it, pretty much. With some help, I built the greatest traffic simulation game ever (it didn't have graphics for a few more years, really) but I might be biased. ;-) I had great people that enabled me to be where I am today - which is retired and wintering in Florida.
The other thing is, I am literally just getting ready to dive in and start learning Python. I am very excited to learn. From what I've already played with, it looks so powerful for what appears to be a fairly high level language. I'm not sure how to describe it better than that.
Which leads me to this: Thanks. I seriously love being told new things. I even kind of like being wrong because it often meant that I was willing to hazard a guess (and I'm usually pretty clear that it's a guess or an anecdote) and it means that I'm learning something new. I value that, a great deal, and I love it when there are threads that are so full of information that I actually spend hours in them reading, rereading, searching, maybe even trying a snippet out, and seeing where things go and why they go where they go and what they're meant to do when they're put together properly.
I truly appreciate and value you giving me your most valuable asset - time. I appreciate it to the point where I hold it as something special and actually make it a point to go ahead and take little lessons and turn them into bigger lessons. I bookmark some, I straight up save some as whole pages, and I try to keep some properly referenced to call on later when I know that I've just seen a very important thing that I'll want to know later - because it will be essential to bake that in from the start instead of trying to bolt it on later.
So, again, thank you. I believe that I've read enough of your posts to be familiar with your skill level, at least, and I think you'd have made a hell of a hire if you'd been around when I needed you. Of course, we didn't have Python then - I don't think. Early to late 1990s. I was completely done hiring programmers by 2005 or so. I suspect you'd have been a hell of an asset.
Chartering is awesome and I've done it *many* times - I'd also do it for employees post 9/11 if there were more than a couple going off to an event. I once seriously priced chartering a flight to Egypt, from Maine, and that was actually "affordable" but "bloody stupid." It was something like $140,000 for up to 12 people and I had to pay for the whole time the plane was there in a hanger and put the pilot up and stuff like that. Technically, I could have paid that. I'm much more frugal and intelligent than that.
Also, this works very well for me. I'm on the Canadian border and I'm Micmac enough to be a tribal member. So, as a First Nations Person, I get Canadian citizenship by grace of birth. I didn't get all the paperwork together until later in life, I was about 35, but I've held Canadian citizenship and a Canadian passport ever since. That helps.
It turns out, I've flown lots of planes now. I've never landed one nor have I taken off with one. I've flown flight patterns, including using time and GPS to then make heading adjustments, make course adjustments for weather, and things of that nature. I, too, am a bit of an aircraft buff - your being similar does not surprise me in the least.
Seriously, you and the wife should come up to Maine to visit sometime in the summer. I have a whole spare house that was on the property when I bought the place. I've had it fixed up quite nice. It's comfortable, has all the creature comforts except television but OTA might work - I honestly don't know if it does or not. It's a bit like your more remote mountain areas only I'm much more remote than that. There's even a separate DSL line to that premise and the house is wired with CAT5 but wireless suits just fine as there's no interference around.
I've a radio closet for you to play in - and ham friends to help show you around. I've told you before, I have a "cold backup" that I keep maintained and they ensured that I bought very good equipment. It is not up but I do technically officially now own that 160' antenna thing. It's a scaffold tower, I believe. I've never seen it outside of where it's stored in the guy's barn but it was something his boss gave him as partial payment for doing some tower work. It was a tower for an old AM radio station as I understand and it's supposedly in fine condition - I trust the person, he's even willing to install it for me. Someday, I'll actually sit for the test and get my ham license.
Seriously, at least give it some thought. You'll have peace, privacy, entertainment if you want it, and a giant chunk of Maine to play in with a whole bunch of fun toys. I had Slashdotters over for New Year's Eve and I didn't eat any of them. I did ply them with booze, food, and explosives. I'm mostly harmless and you'd have the whole house to yourself if you wanted. It's a farmhouse from the 1840s but rehabbed and will last another 200 years - you'll be plenty safe and Maine's mostly harmless in the summer, anyhow. Give it some thought.
The firearm thing... I'm still thinking about that. In the case of an accident there should be charges, if warranted and it was not some fluke (flukes don't really happen often, but mechanical devices can fail so I think the charges would need to be proven and not automated) then I think Negligent Homicide would be an apt charge. I could even agree that the person who provided the firearms in California should be charged if a Grand Jury believes there is enough evidence to convict.
There's no real gun show loophole, you know that right? You're either a dealer or you're not. Dealers must follow certain rules. Define what a dealer is - every brokerage? A handed down heirloom to a grandson? I can get on board with that in principle but I can't get on board with the registry. I just can't understand it. If it's not meant for a means of confiscation what actual value does a registry provide?
It's a matter of privacy and if all other laws are being obeyed it is not their business to know. I, on the other hand, am on a registry because I own s
I am a bit of a cynic. The first thing that I thought of was that he probably had political aspirations beyond his current position, namely an elected position, and wanted to be on record as being adamantly against it. I really am that cynical, I guess... I still think the same thing. :(