This is a place where I can post stuff that is off-topic to my election law blog at ballots.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
. Tell lawmakers to keep Kentucky sweet by signing the bakers’ petition!
Small Business Bill Could Mean Big Opportunity
Before serving even a single customer, every D.C. small business must pay up. From the initial application fee for a basic business license to industry-specific licensing, D.C.’s entrepreneurs are forced to give the government thousands of dollars just to start their businesses. But this could all change. The Micro-Business Startup Fee Relief Amendment Act of 2017, if passed, would reduce the total cost of startup fees for new businesses with taxable incomes of $100,000 or less to 25 percent of the total cost of the current basic business license fee. For D.C. entrepreneurs, this could mean hundreds of dollars going back into their businesses and communities instead of into the city’s coffers. IJ has been working closely with Councilmember Robert White’s office, local business owners and community organizations to build support for this important bill. Live in D.C.? Help D.C. entrepreneurs and tell Councilmember and Chairman Phil Mendelson to please bring the Micro-Business Startup Fee Relief Amendment Act to a hearing! You can call his office at (202) 724-8032.
Allegation: Evansville, Ind. and Kentucky state police deliberately coerced false confessions out of teenagers whose uncle's body was found in the Ohio River—near bridge where he'd threatened to commit suicide several times. Later, officers file false reports that corroborate the confessions. (Charges against the niece are dropped. The nephew is acquitted on all counts.) Seventh Circuit: No qualified immunity for the officers.
Dist. Ct. did not err in denying certain defendants-police officers’ motion for summary judgment, even though said defendants argued that they were entitled to qualified immunity with respect to plaintiffs’ claims that they were subjected to false arrest on murder charge, and that certain defendants conspired to violate their constitutional rights by failing to intervene to prevent unconstitutional conduct. Record showed that all three plaintiffs either had murder charge dismissed or were found not guilty in trial on murder charge, after defendants had obtained alleged confessions from plaintiffs to said murders. With respect to false arrest claim, Dist. Ct. could properly find that there were material factual disputes bearing on question as to existence of arguable probable cause, where: (1) jury could conclude that murder victim had actually committed suicide; (2) alleged confessions of two plaintiffs were unreliable based on facts fed to them by defendants; and (3) physical evidence undermined one plaintiff’s confession. Moreover, defendants could not seek review of Dist. Ct.’s order in instant interlocutory appeal by asking Ct. of Appeals to reweigh evidence to come to different conclusion with respect to existence of probable cause. With respect to plaintiffs’ failure to intervene claim, Dist. Ct. could properly find existence of agreement among defendants, where: (1) said defendants allegedly extracted and used unreliable confessions; and (2) reasonable officer would have known that impermissible pressure had been used to obtain said confessions. Fact that certain defendants were not present at time of plaintiffs’ arrests did not require different result.
After stealing $5 and a bottle of cologne, 63-year-old San Francisco man is arrested. Bail is set at $350,000, which he cannot possibly pay. California Court of Appeals: Unless the government can show that he's dangerous, they can't keep him locked up merely for being too poor to afford bail.
This is interesting. I'm watching a TED talk and the speaker mentions my old college dormmate, Peggy Phelan, as one of the authors who inspired her. Time to go to amazon and see what Phelan's been writing.
Peggy Phelan, professor of performance studies at New York University. She illuminates the intertwined workings of feminist politics and literary criticism, psychoanalysis, race and queer theory with clarity and a refreshing absence of doctrinaire pronouncements. Yeah, that's the right Peggy.
The late Gawker had the louis story back in 2012. http://gawker.com/5894527/which-beloved-comedian-likes-to-force-female-comics-to-watch-him-jerk-off. They werent able to name names at the time.
This Saturday, January 20th, Women’s March on Washington - Indiana will host Reclaiming Our State: Power to the Polls. The event will begin at noon at American Legion Mall, with speakers from organizations such as Indy 10 Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood, and Spencer Pride.
Afterward, attendees with march through downtown Indianapolis to the Indiana State House to hear from additional speakers, including local Dreamers; Heather Wildrick-Holman, president of the Indiana chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW); and State Representative Robin Shackleford, Vice Chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus. The remarks will conclude with our keynote, Dr. Demetrees Hutchins, PhD. Hutchins is one ...See More update: it was over by the time i got there.
Tesla YouTuber Wins Next-Generation Roadster From Referral Program https://teslamotorsclub.com/blog/2017/10/31/tesla-youtuber-wins-next-generation-roadster-from-referral-program/
I don't know much about that economic model, so maybe or maybe not you end up with fresh water as a byproduct. Solar powered pumps then send it inland to farms, greenhouses, fish ponds, and faucets. Excess if any can go to wetlands which percolate into the aquifer. Meanwhile, keep building solar, for domestic then export use.
Meanwhile, this guy https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space intens to go to the moon, Shackelton Crater, and mine water to run a space based water station. Currently a gallon of water at the space staion is in the rder of $10,000. Spaceex is bringing that closer to $1000. But if this guy's plan works, water from the moon would be cheaper, and could be used as fuel. The first ted talk I saw was Stamets, 6 ways fungi can change the world.
It's cold and I'm bingewatching Tesla videos. This guy just picked up his model 3. His roadster is on order. teslanomics.co. updated with jack sullins video. They named their 3 "Tez".
Mycroft says it's the first open-source voice assistant. This means other companies could buy and brand Mycroft as their own voice assistant, under a new name.
For example, other retailers could have their own smart speaker using Mycroft's AI platform to compete with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Mycroft says it runs anywhere, including on desktop computers, inside a car or on wearables and other internet-connected devices.
examples of how this could be tweaked include the staples "that was easy" button, the redit alien, or this plush clifford the big red dog i have here next to me.
DJIA 25,575. If it keep rising at this rate, this will be the quickest gain of 1000 on the dow in history, surpassing last month's. Now 2770+. 25800. So that's 800 since 8 days ago.
Jay Moore to Kevin Pollack: Orange is the new black (referring to Trump.)
Ultrapowerful lasers have been increasing in power by 1000 times every ten years for the past forty years. Assume that continues for 20 years. It's Moore's Law type changes, but do lasers matter? If it brings commercial fusion, and can propel cargo around the solar system, then yes, maybe.
When I was younger, Bill Gates was the personification of evil. Now he's plugging xkcd's Randall Munroe's book.
update: found that old picture of me with randall. i do not yet have a picture with Bill.
cnbc: (If you go to the airport without proper ID, you may still be allowed to fly if the TSA can confirm your identity using a public database. If your identity cannot be verified, you will not be allowed through security.) But starting Oct. 1, 2020, every air traveler will need a Real ID-compliant license, or another acceptable form of ID, for domestic air travel. unless they don't.
Just six years ago, more than 40% of Britain’s electricity was generated by burning coal. Today, that figure is just 7%. Yet if the story of 2016 was the dramatic demise of coal and its replacement by natural gas, then 2017 was most definitely about the growth of wind power.
Wind provided 15% of electricity in Britain last year up from 10% in 2016. This increase, a result of both more wind farms coming online and a windier year, helped further reduce coal use and also put a stop to the rise in natural gas generation.
Overall demand for electricity also continued its 12-year downward trend. More of the electricity “embedded” in the products and servicesused in the UK is now imported rather than produced at home, and energy efficiency measures mean the country can do more with less. This meant Britain in 2017 used about as much electricity as it did way back in 1987 – despite the considerable population growth.
The U.S. Navy has a fleetwide deficiency that renders two essential naval operations impossible. Because Americans ships are vulnerable to antiship missiles, Navy doctrine bars them from sailing within 100 miles of a hostile shore. This prevents the Navy from a visible show of force and from mounting an amphibious assault against a well- the rest of the article is behind a wsj paywall. TOKYO—As Japan embraces autonomous-driving technologies with more cars able to brake for themselves or warn drivers of impending collisions, traffic deaths have fallen to record lows.
“I believe we will reach a point around 2029,” Kurzweil added, “when medical technologies will add one additional year every year to your life expectancy.”
The standard deduction for single taxpayers and married couples filing separately is $6,350 in 2017, up from $6,300 in 2016; The personal exemption amount for 2017 is $4,050, the same as 2016. so, same. 6350+4050=10,400 untaxed net income, if by untaxed i exclude fica. Yes, the standard deduction has roughly doubled for all filers, but the valuable personal exemption has been eliminated. For example, a single filer would have been entitled to a $6,500 standard deduction and a $4,150 personal exemption in 2018, for a total of $10,650 in income exclusions. Under the new tax plan, they would just get a $12,000 standard deduction. Is it better? Yes. But it's not really "doubled." So only $1350 more next year is safe from the 10% tax of the first bracket, a modest bump to cover cost of living, but not a revolution. So to avoid income tax, I have to keep my net taxable income under $12K. That should be doable. Avoiding fica is more difficult; it requires zero earned income. I think most of my income this year, if any, will be capital gains from selling real estate, so i should be able to reinvest those within the window. I can do a little contract work that is mostly just balanced out by expenses, about 5K each. I can receive up to 10K in gift income without being taxed on it. I have about 5K in investment income a year. I can temp a bit andd make up to 7K in wages. So I could bring in about $22K a year without being taxed, plus whatever capital gains, which are defered if reinvested, maybe. Or is that limited to my personal residence? Anyway, given that I live in flyover country with a low cost of living, I can live comfortably on up to 22K a year, especially if I'm doing some real estate deals on top of that. I currently support one dependant, but I don't claim him on my taxes. I prefer not to pay income tax, and try to plan my income accordingly, making just a little under the taxable limits, but in those few years when I make too much I pay it. Over the years, a lot of my efforts have gone into how to live better with less, instead of trying to make more. Part of that has been doing stuff free online instead of spending money to do a similar thing in realspace.
Production for the new Roadster isn’t scheduled to start until 2020. You can reserve one now for $50,000 towards the $200,000 base price. Tesla says the base model will do 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, making it the first production vehicle to crack two-seconds. If you are planning to pre-order your roaster, and you don't yet have a promotional discount code, let's talk. Last year's promotion is nearly over, and this years hasn't been announced yet, so details are fuzzy, but I can custom-tailor something for you. Or, you can reserve a model 3 for $1000 now. That's about my price range. I wonder if I can get a referral code with just a model 3 reservation. https://teslamotorsclub.com/blog/2018/01/06/teslas-roadster-prototype-seen-broken-down-in-malibu/
NYT on "me too". This is a thoughtful piece i tend to agree with.
It is distinctly a Times piece; you could not run this in USA Today.
It uses terms like ethos and eros which ar not comprehendded by the USAToday style sheet, and the ideas are nuanced and tricky.
It is an early salvo of the backlash of support that I think we'll eventually see for Louis CK.
25090. The blue-chip index, which heavily weights industrial giants such as Boeing Co. and Caterpillar Inc., was recently up 171 points, or 0.7%, at 25094. If the Dow industrials close above 25000, the jump from 24000 would have taken 23 trading days, ahead of the 24-day spans that took the index to 11000 in 1999 and 21000 in March. I think we are seeing pre-singularity effects here. The "the future is near" crowd likes to point out how some trends are accelerating. Here, the prediction was that the future would hold increasing wealth, expanding at moore's law type exponential rates. This year's DJIA curve, to say nothing of the NASDAC, shows this. One of the hallmarks of the new economy is how rapidly previous records are broken. Change happens fast, and drives more change. Joseph Schumpeter. I have been effectively snowed in this past week by one of the coldest weeks on record, possilby a byproduct of global warming. The future brings upsides and downsides.
The fertility rate in Saudia Arabia has gone from 7.8 in 1980 to 2.7 in 2015. The fertility rate in Iran has gone from 6.4 in 1980 to 1.7 in 2015. The fertility rate in the US was 1.84 in 1980 and was still at 1.84 in 2015.
This Tesla Somerset jacket at $120 is more than I usually spend for a jacket, but pretty cheap for a Tesla. It is named for a small town in Pennsyvania founded by my ancestors Captain Peter Ankenyand his wife Rosina Bonnet. Bonnet's father was Jean Bonnet, whose tavern, 1762, in Bedford PA is still serving ale. Its main claim to fame is the Whiskey Rebellion began and ended there. Washington didn't just sleep there, he showed up with 14,000 troops and hanged a ringleader. this was "the first and only time a sitting American president led troops in the field.
