This is the part that struck me: "According to the local government’s property records, the building was worth $1.6 million for tax purposes. The tax liability on the property was $46,000 a year."
Do I read this right that the owner of that building would be owing 2.875% tax per year on the market value of the building?
Because that would be in line with what I hear about US property tax and seems insane to me. At that rate you're not owning anything, you're renting. At that rate that's not the land of the free, that's a lifetime of indentured servitude.
That seems nice. I'm not sure why some guy says on a different comment "People think TX is some libertarian utopia because it has no personal income tax on a W2 salaried person, but do the full cost of living comparison with property taxes and other taxes, vs what you would calculate as a total in states that do have income taxes (such as OR).".
For reference, I pay about 0.1% property tax (live in Romania), while income tax is about 43%. For $100 I make, I get to take home $57, forget all the "you're only paying part of tax, employer pays another. No, I pay everything because without me there's no income, I can't believe some people still fall for "Out of $100 I take home $1 but I live in a tax paradise because I only pay 1% tax although company pays 98%. But that's the company, not me".
So while the level of income tax is definitely nothing I'm happy about, at least once I draw a net salary, it stays on me. At least I don't have to rent my own apartment from the state after I already paid an arm and a leg to the bank for it in real estate mortgage. Same goes for land and I mean arable land, of which I own some 10 hectares (well shared with my 2 brothers). Not only I'm not losing money on it, I actually get subventions for cultivating it (again, outsourced, I'm not working it myself but lending it to someone who does it, while the terrain retains / increases in value - never in the history of humanity has arable land in a viable area decreased in value over time).
"A 10-hectare (about 24.7 acres) piece of land in Texas typically costs between $40,000 and $430,000, depending heavily on the location and region." says Google AI. Well, where I live it's around $100k. At least I wouldn't sell it for less, not that I would sell it. If I sell it, I have money for a day then inflation and bad investment makes it disappear. Not to mention that it's a highly asymmetric market: I can sell the land in no time but even if I have money, A LOT OF MONEY, people won't sell. Maybe for 3x-5x the market value, some might be tempted. Which suddenly raises my non-liquidation value of the land to about how much it values in Texas.
Pure Georgism probably wouldn't work, but it might work if limited to commercial going concerns, excluding nonprofits and main residences (and a landlord is a business). Of course, then every business would try to weasel out of being classified as one.
Main problem was using a corporate card. I don't even know what that is, the concept just doesn't exist here.
Second problem was using a credit card. I know what that is but definitely don't have one, nor has anyone I know around me. Debit card only. You have money, you pay. Don't have money, tough luck. Learn to save.
>> "About a year ago I became fascinated by AI-assisted programming. Despite having no formal CS background, with LLMs I managed to build a fairly large TypeScript/JavaScript system [...] At first it felt almost magical: [...]
It's comical how these people claim first person: "I built". Look: having a LLM shit you some code is in no way different than paying some third world country dude on Upwork 5 bucks to build you "a Facebook clone" or whatever preposterous claim of grand software. In fact at this point it's cheaper to pay that third world country team than a LLM.
And yet before the advent of LLMs noone ordering a job on Upwork was delusional enough to claim "I built it". Although it's the same magical process, like the magic ring in fairy stories. You put the ring on your finger, rotate it and make a wish and the ring makes it appear. Well, for 5 bucks or something.
But nowadays every half witted retard with 50 bucks to spend goes to a LLM and has some "Facebook clone" spitted out and claims "I BUILT THIS!". You haven't built shit, and you know nothing!
Fortunately, reality strikes sooner or later but boy am I tired of Lord of The rings claims.
On ZX-Spectrum? There was no "MIC" input on ZX-Spectrum, not that I know of. I was in high school at the time with only a rough understanding of the hardware but it was kinda obvious to me that whatever I plugged into the casette input port was only read as "0" or "1" by the IN <port> (forgot which) instruction. So not really possible to record voice at the time (didn't even know of PCM anyway), but I tried to decode Morse transmissions from radio. Never got anywhere with the software but my ear got good enough at some point that I could decode them myself by hearing :)
With proper volume control, even one bit could probably sound voice-like enough to a person in the 1980s.
It may be feasible to retrieve a pcm for a very short clip by playing the same recording at different levels which then could be converted on the same machine to a sequence of opcodes playing a more realistic voice.
There was Z80 code to record from the MIC socket in one of the small books (Melbourne House maybe?) that came out in the early 1980s. I remember borrowing it from the library and it worked! Heavily quantized of course by the snapping to 2 or 0.
Also some games had sound samples, Activision’s Ghostbusters had a couple.
Nope. I did the same thing myself with my Spectrum. I guess I was 14. I didn't have a microphone so I tried it with my dad's stereo headphones. I got the idea to try it after looking at the Z80 machine code of cassette saving and loading routines. Maybe it was also after ETX came out, first game I remember with speech samples. (Terrible game). I forget the details now but it's all about the timing between turning the mic/speaker on or off.
I gotta try this on real hardware, reading the original article it seems it's barely audible without an amplifier, unlike on an emulator.
Will post an update after I get back to my parent's home, where I have these beauties that launched me into computer science: https://imgur.com/a/GKrA0vX
So quit pair programming. I never did, never will do that, nor worked at a place that remotely encouraged that. Each to their own, that's how it should be.
I wish this was always possible, but sometimes you do it when stuff is ambigous or the task is almost undefined and you just can't reach far enough for someone to fix it, so going over it and talking is simpler
I had many Xiaomi phones roughly from 2014 to 2024 and all were chock full of software bugs, going worse in more recent phones up to the point I couldn't take it anymore and bought a Samsung.
I will never go back to Chinese crapware. The hardware is useless without stable software and what they have is a sad impression of such. Couldn't care less if Xiaomi puts a trillion zillion gigs of RAM and CPUs and cameras and shit, wouldn't pay one dollar for their flagship phone, not to mention asking comparative prices to top Samsung, lol. Never again Chinese!
I may have been lucky then with my Redmi Note 5 Pro (and a similar one for my daughters), possibly because the first thing I did with these phones was root them, remove all bloatware, remove all Xiaomi-specific apps including the 'Mi account'-related things, remove the Googly bits, add F-Droid and install free software. Never had problems with the things for 8 years, I'm currently running one of them with LineageOS 23.2 (Android 16), the other lost its screen so it is playing Linux server. Good hardware, possibly questionable firmware but that can be mitigated. I was forced to move to a new device with NFC (a Motorola G75) by the same app - Swedish BankID (and this time also Dutch DigiD) - which forced me to move from the Motorola Defy+ to the Redmi Note 5 Pro all those years ago. In another 8 years time they'll probably force me to move yet again for reasons as of yet unknown. Since I also used the Defy+ for about 8 years this seems to be the current practical lifetime of an Android device, at least for me. Those now 16 year old Defy+ devices still work but Android 4.4 has gone out of fashion quite a while ago. They are still usable for other purposes though, as trailer camera, sensor device, music player and more.
I was afraid of this but switched from Samsung to an Oppo Find X9 Ultra anyway as the new Samsung S26 Ultra feels stuck in the past. I was pleasantly surprised with ColorOS. The only thing Samsung has going for it is OneUI. OneUI is better, but not by a lot.
>> There’s a generational split in those numbers; among the under-35 crowd, it’s 60 percent. The older demographic still prefers coffee, and 66 percent of Americans drink that every day, too.
But, but! Isn't coffee consumption supposed to provide health benefits too? Like "reduced risks of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver conditions, and overall mortality".
Seems odd to lump coffee into the same bucket with energy drinks.
>> the firefighters demonstrate how paramedics leave their shoes positioned at entrances in precise spots
What the **?! That seems like one step too far, guy is heaving a heart attack inside and medical personnel first instinct is to take their shoes off first.
Seriously, while Japanese might be a bit too far, it wouldn't hurt for more of the world to adopt the habit of taking the shoes off when entering someone's home. I myself am getting "the look" when I even dare to politely ask some plumber to put a pair of disposable shoe covers that I myself provide, before dragging shit all over my floors.
I’m in the US and over the years it seems like everyone I know has a no shoes in the house policy. With people showing up to do work, I’d say at least 80% also either take off their shoes or put on covers (that they provide). I don’t even ask, they just do it. One guy that came out recently even brought his own doormat that he placed outside.
Do I read this right that the owner of that building would be owing 2.875% tax per year on the market value of the building?
Because that would be in line with what I hear about US property tax and seems insane to me. At that rate you're not owning anything, you're renting. At that rate that's not the land of the free, that's a lifetime of indentured servitude.
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