That sounds really tasty

in this case function as savings clubs in which each member makes regular payments and is lent the kitty in turn.

I think things like this are an awesome alternative to traditional banking. They just aren’t what I think of when I see the word “tontine.” But if this is the type of tontine we are talking about I’d at least be interested. I’m all for trying to find ways to escape the classic banking system.

How about a reverse tontine? Every time someone dies the survivors all have to pay a bit to the deceased’s next of kin. You could even spread payments out over time to establish a fund for such payments, and let more people join over time to stabilize the fund.

I just have no idea what we would call such a scheme… :)

I am more inclined to give up at 7am…

This is exactly the post I needed to see after a week of being gone. Thank you!

Cool! Never seen this before; must be a Texas thing I guess.

I’m curious which corner of america. I’ve lived my whole life here, and the only time I’ve heard untoasted bread referred to as toast was when you planned on toasting it before eating.

Oh you misunderstand - I don’t want to keep the goat, I want the goat as a neighbor. Wandering around, climbing cars, eating bicycles, alternatively delighting and terrifying the kids. You know, a goat being a free goat.

I’m also joking; I live in town and while it would be fun to watch my neighbors try to cope it would almost certainly end badly for the goat :(

And a very happy transgender Thursday to you!

What’s more, you can vaguely predict how much your Conversationero Conversations will cost based on how many numbers you have to “dial.” But be warned, there are tricky numbers that cost more than others, and bonus numbers that cost less - or even nothing! to have a Conversationero Conversation with. It’s a surprise every month with Conversationero!

I want a neighborhood free goat. It can frolic amongst the parked cars, and climb the barren bungalows!

It turns out you can just get rid of all the trans people, they put themselves on lists. They trusted Facebook, the dumb fucks.

I never trusted Facebook, and I’m not trivially easy to track back to real world identity from any of my socials. That said, I find myself wishing I had just started with DIY hrt. It would be trivial for anyone with access to prescription records to determine I was trans and toss me on a list.

Or they could just ask the public to report trans people in their community. I’m well enough known that someone would turn me in. So maybe it doesn’t matter in the end; we can’t hide, so it’s time to get ready to fight.

Maybe past time.

I wanted to check this out but can’t find it. I see a lot of themes (including a devtesla test theme) but no twovest theme…. Am I looking in the wrong place?

Edit: I’m responding to a year old post lol. Is this even a thing anymore?

ok those are 3 interesting bacteria whose names start with 'A' that I can think of rn

Ok now I’m curious: can you think of any beginning with the letter “q”?

And I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I love your microbe posts! They are part of what got me posting here :)

i don't mean to humblebrag but i have gotten at least two people to start flossing regularly

That’s ok; it didn’t come across as humble at all ;)

That said, does it make sense when I say this just strengthens my current inclination against deep kissing?

The transpiler is written in haskell, but is made more usefully available by being distribution in javascript through the use ghcjs.

Why is this the part I find most horrifying?

I just opened a new one today :)

A day late, but happy Transgender Thursday one and all!

Second

It all makes sense now! It’s not carbon, it’s all of us migraine sufferers have been causing climate change this whole time.

Maybe if we did not treat the entire subject as a taboo it would be easier to talk about.

Then we need to stop imprisoning (“hospitalizing”) everyone who comes forward admitting they are suicidal.

Suicide and suicidal ideation is a legitimate response to a lot of traumas, and criminalizing this response just stops people from even talking about it until it has gone into a full blown crisis. There should be voluntary help to anyone who needs it, but if someone really wants to die that is their choice. Taking away someone’s autonomy, taking away their fundamental right to decide what to do with their own body - that’s not helping. It’s an abomination - and most people instinctively avoid it.

People haven't really been using that wording to refer to the current decade since the 90s, so it feels kind of dated.

I think that’s just because there aren’t any universally agreed on shortcuts to refer to the 2000-2009 and the 2010-2019 decades. Not enough people use nought for the “noughties” to have caught on, and “the teens” leaves out 2010-2012. At some point I expect it to comeback, possibly ironically at first, but once it’s back I think it will stick around again. People love short cutesy labels.

With your nose? (Or maybe your toes!)

Oh agreed. And programming is not a prerequisite ability, rather it is a demonstrative ability for being able to wade through the instructions.

(Written with help from O.M.)

I'm wondering, where do you(/does her) start with this?

You start by evaluating your situation. Do you have taxable income beyond your w2s? Do you have enough deductions to make itemizing worthwhile? Do you have children and make some, but not a lot, of money? Are you easily intimidated by long instructions? If the answers are all no, then grab a copy of the year 2024 1040 and look it over - they are grouped into sections, and the most important ones to look over now are income, taxes and credits, and payments. If at least half of it makes sense and it doesn’t make your head spin just trying to read it, download the 1040 instructions pdf and read the line by line instructions. Most of it won’t apply to you, but you need to at least read each line’s instructions well enough to feel confident about that.

If you have questions use google (with the usual caveats about checking your source). And don’t be afraid to ask people for help. ☺️. Finally, if after all that you aren’t confident - don’t. Stick with your usual method of filing, but when you’re done, really look it over. See if that gives you any insight to your questions, and try again next year.

By the way, you can still do this even if you have a more complicated tax situation, and a lot of 1099 income isn’t much harder to file than w2 income. But it does get more complicated the further away from basic w2 you get. As for itemized deductions….

Is the result something you can feel confident that you won't be audited for?

Well, on a personal note yes. But my confidence comes from having helped a close friend who had let things get so out of hand she was actually getting her wages garnished by the IRS. Not only did I help her get them to stop with the wage garnishment, we got those wages refunded back to her - with interest at that (it took a while). I’m not an accountant or a tax professional but I enjoy rule lawyering and it turns out they have a similar skill set 😂

But putting personal confidence aside, it’s a complicated question, but mostly because people tend to misunderstand how IRS audits end up working for most people. First off, realize that in most cases the IRS already has all the information you are sending them - you are simply supposed to add any information that they do not have. If you don’t provide anything novel in your filing then all they are really doing is checking your math. And they consider most w2 filers to be “unsophisticated tax filers” - if the only errors in your tax filing amount to math errors or other obvious flubs, they just fix the error, notify you and send you a check/bill depending. 🤦‍♀️but also NBD.

On the other hand, if you fail to report income they know you have, or you claim unusual or questionable expenses/deductions, that is more likely to get you an actual audit. This is a serious oversimplification but it helps here if you think about audits in terms of burdens of proof. If your taxes are in dispute, the IRS holds the burden of proof for your income, but you hold the burden of proof for your expenses and deductions. Thanks to robust reporting requirements they generally know about above-board income with any businesses, and failure to file for that income can result in the “unfriendly” version of what I described above - basically, a letter with corrected taxes and a demand for payment with interest. Or it can trigger a full audit. It’s much the same with expenses, except you have to be able to justify every expense and deduction you took. So if in doubt, consult with someone, or don’t take the expense deduction.

That said, penalties and interest are based on the taxes you should have paid. If the IRS finds a $10 error in your taxes they will send you a bill but it’s just not going to be that big. If you are reporting all of the income you are aware of and not claiming a ton of bad deductions there just isn’t that much potential tax to underpay. 🤷‍♀️

Oh, and that close friend with the messed up taxes? A well known national tax prep firm did her taxes the years that caused the problems. But since they werent simple w2 taxes hers were excluded from their guarantee. 🤬

tl;dr: If you only have w2 and/or 1099 income with no expenses and you have basic math and logic skills you’re probably pretty safe doing your own taxes - you will probably just get it right and any mistakes you make are unlikely to be tragic.