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Is 50% your ETR if you only look at INCOME taxes (federal and state)? If so, you're probably an extreme outlier.

Or are you including payroll "taxes" (social security, medicare), sales taxes etc also?

IIUC, if you add up health insurance premiums (employer share + employee share) + all income taxes + all payroll taxes of US and compare it to the same quantity of other DEVELOPED countries, the tax burden on the US is not unreasonably high.

Keeping a developed country developed is hard/expensive. :)


> Why does it still cost money to file taxes anyway?

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax...


That article brings up ReadyReturns in CA, which it appears has since been rolled into CalFile. Just moved to CA last year: anyone have experience with CalFile vs a paid tax preparation to share?


I take this blog post as confirmation that:

1) ANY one message can be intercepted even if the sender exhibits ideal levels of alertness [Whatsapp server drops message to recipient; sends a rekey request with a fake key; message is intercepted since fake key was generated by server. Sender will see a warning if they turned on that setting (default is to show no warning), but it's too late].

2) Only Whatsapp has this vuln, not Signal app.

3) Depending on sloppiness of sender, more extensive interception is possible. [E.g., server not supplying delivery reports + sender doesn't have warning for key changes + sender sloppy about noticing lack of double check mark => full transcript can be generated]


Best summary I've seen. There are two significant facts here that surprised me: 1. The double checkmark has security implications. How would a typical user know that? 2. Even if you are completely vigilant, follow best practices, etc, Whatsapp messages can be intercepted. They claim this is a "wontfix" UX choice. I'm skeptical why the non-default feature cannot even provide the protection that almost everyone assumed it would.


> How would a typical user know that?

I think that's basically the main problem: there is no way to get a typical user to understand security implications of anything without having that user give up before reaching that point...


Of course, of course, this is unlikely to be an NSA backdoor. But maybe .... </CK_LOUIS>

i dabbled in this api way back in the past so i may be wrong about its capabilities.

skype used to be EXCELLENT at working in most networks, including "locked down" corporate ones. Network admins used to find it notoriously difficult to "ban" on networks.

so relying on skype to exfiltrate info may serve two purposes:

1) use another program's capabilities instead of reinventing the wheel.

2) hide the fact that some random program is doing network access.

skype could be one of a range of data exfiltration mechanisms with different levels of obfuscation.


Looks fine to me. Ikea's site looks similar (to my eyes at least), btw. And nothing like the 90's whitehouse site.

There's a lot of niche sites that get the job done without following all the latest "trends". More power to them.

Function over form FTW.


This function works surprisingly well in practice.

IIUC, it's a hash function defined over 3D space with tunable gradient between points.

The cool thing about the the marble vase example is that marble texture continues on the inside. So if you look on the inside of the vase the texture will still be there. automatically [http://cims.nyu.edu/~perlin/doc/vase.html]

Here's an example I made [lots of copy pasta btw :)] when learning this to get a wood texture [a simple application of Perlin noise, btw :)]. If you cut through the wood, the texture will still be there.

http://shaderfrog.com/app/view/828 [the dividing factors in line 236 tune the gradient]


Is that what they use in Metal Gear Rising to simulate the texture in the inside of objects?


Sorry, I don't know.


Is it possible that mining activity could accidentally change the orbits of one of these asteroids enough to send it crashing into earth eventually (in a few decades)?


Technically yes. But really, no.

Technically a pigeon in New York could deuce one out mid-flight, and it could catch an updraft and wind up landing on my car in Seattle. Will it ever happen? Those odds are probably better than a rogue asteroid set loose from mining hitting the earth.


bottle.py + Postgres + Nginx on Ubuntu on a VPS is my go-to boring stack.

I recommend just using SQLite for the MVP. Launch then iterate.


What could possibly go wrong with securitizing interest streams? :)


There's nothing wrong with securitizing interest streams in general. There was only a problem with bundles of residential mortgages because the issuers and underwriters committed fraud. Fraud is extremely rare in municipal bonds.


This line bothered me more than it should :)

    typedef std::string String;
when

    using std::string;
would have done just as well.

Yes, I noticed the capitalization change. But why do you want to change the name of a fundamental type?


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