> There is no USSR anymore.

Tell that to Putin.

> Also the UN is only so-so at best, since they can't seem to actually do anything.

The UN is a discussion forum. By design. Complaining they can't do anything is like complaining Slashdot can't do anything.

That was 12 years ago. A 12 year out of date critique of a web technology that has had ongoing language updates and two entire rewrites in that interval should be viewed with some suspicion. Also, are you really just citing the title of the article and none of the content?

I'm not even defending PHP here, just questioning lazy kneejerk, "but it sucked once, so now I hate it forever" thinking.

I'll disagree a little bit: we have heavy lift rockets bringing mass to orbit at a greater rate than any time in history and new larger and more efficient rockets on the cusp of being brought to use, with next generations planned for the future. Space launch technology -- the actual raw launching of mass to orbit, where it can be useful -- has advanced. And mass to orbit means more fuel -- if we really wanted to get something out there faster.

And that's where our statements arrive at the same conclusion: there's little need to do anything but super efficient deep space probes. While I can quibble with your implied assertion about newer technology not making a difference in ability, in a practical sense given our funding of deep space research, the big tech upgrade has been to data collection devices and communication. We'll have to have way cheaper lift capability before extra fuel to cut time off a project makes any kind of sense. But it is now at least plausible as an option.

(Also, this appears to be the only thread that isn't making Trek or Aliens jokes)

This would explain why I was asked to disable Find My Mac in Australia back in 2019 when I had a 2018 MBP screen repaired. The tech didn't explain why at the time, just said they couldn't accept it for repair with Find My Mac enabled.

Gotta catch 'em all!

Well, maybe not all, every trainer knows you can't catch humans. Why bother trying?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assert that actual expats know more about the process than the average US-only citizen.

But if you'd prefer, here's WaPo saying the same damned thing. Happy?

Yep, we 100% agree that's how to report realized gains or losses. Now name another capital asset (HUD forms and excise tax notwithstanding, obviously) that you're taxed on receipt rather than just on disposition.

I have no idea how that's even supposed to work, and I'm seriously trying to stay legal (a few grand a year isn't worth prison time). Neither Schedule D nor 8949 make a lick of sense unless you have a value for the "Proceeds" column - Which you don't have unless you've sold something. And sure, go ahead and put a huge unsubstantiated number on your schedule 1 line 8 and see how well that goes for you.

Pretty much the only way I've figured out to comply with that ridiculous requirement is to make a semi-fake wash "sale" of each new year's new mining payouts every December 31st - Which itself is a grey area but since it would always be a gain, never a loss, it's technically kosher; so at least if I get a CP2501 or similar I'll have paid "enough" taxes already and any penalties would be $0.

The IRS is, bluntly, trying to play both sides of the fence on this one. They're treating crypto as money on receipt, and as property on disposition. And have given us no reasonable way to reconcile that discrepancy.

That's not possible to do at the moment.

And it was fairly difficult even before the pandemic. It's like getting divorced from the judge overseeing the divorce itself, and goes down pretty much exactly the way you'd expect.

Taxes on what, exactly?

As the haters are so quick to point out, crypto isn't money. Until an exchange occurs between crypto and fiat (or something meaningfully measurable in fiat), Uncle Sam has absolutely no say in the matter.

Or to put that another way, taxing bitcoin is the single most legitimizing action the government could take as regards crypto. And if crypto is legit, fiat... Isn't.

And yes, for the record I fully realize we technically owe taxes even on bartered goods and services. Unless you're eBay, though, the way the IRS measures that simply doesn't work. If I buy a car with bitcoin, sure, FMV is easy. If I exchange two thinly-traded altcoins... It's a complete farce to say that either side should pay taxes, and even the IRS can't tell you how to measure the FMV of that transaction (go ahead, call their help line - I did in 2019, and the response was crickets).

You're missing the point, but so is the SEC.

My company recently switched from using totally unlogged Skype to fully logged Teams. Take a wild guess what percent of casual conversations between coworkers now occur via secure 3rd party channels that HR (or PHBs) can't intimidate IT into turning over. I'll give you a hint - I don't even know if my Teams client is still working since we got 21H2.

The problem here isn't a technical or legal problem, it's a human one. Until someone can guarantee me that my chat transcripts can't be touched without my knowledge and a court order... Sorry, but the likelihood of getting caught using my own personal phone to chat with coworkers doing the same is simply much, much lower than the likelihood of having HR use those exact transcripts to go fishing during the next "right-sizing".

And how was that the case when Xerox was paid for that tech? It's so strange to see such blatantly wrong tech history on a tech site. Jobs was very open about taking Xerox's tech, which they had no idea what to do with, and getting out as a product. He talks about it here: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DyraBG1s4gm8

Yeah, those guys are definitely ignorant on this topic. Thank you for setting them straight.

alt.sexy.mad.man.murdock

Everyone seems to conflate hyperloop and boring company. The hyperloop was a specific set of technologies that were supposed to do as you describe -- key points being partial vacuum, air bearings, linear electric motor, etc, resulting in some kind of medium-distance 700mph speeds. It's actually an interesting sci-fi engineering read, if you're into that sort of thing: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spacex.com%2Fsites%2Fspacex%2Ffiles%2Fhyperloop_alpha.pdf

However the boring company just digs tunnels. They are supposedely working on a hyperloop project as well though we haven't seen any results, to my knowledge. Which is where the confusion comes from. There's also the idea is that at some point their tunnels can be used for hyperloop tech... but we're nowhere near that. So yeah, right now it's just tunnels. Not super exciting. Some might say boring.

"that lawmakers say pose a national security risk"

I still can't get over how many people just accepted there's actually a security risk just because some anti-Chinese politicians kept repeating the line.

What I'm not surprised about is how someone will financially benefit from this, and from taxpayer cash, yay. Not surprised at all.

While we're at it, let's keep removing every Chinese-manufactured electronic equipment, device, chip and processor. Before you dispose of my popcorn maker please let me make a batch to watch the show in peace.