UnderpantsWeevil

joined 1 year ago
[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

There are a number of open models.

The complaint is not with the consumer grade home rolled models.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

And IT departments having a choice but forcing windows on users deserve to be burned at the stake.

Not a small thing to rip all the wires out of the walls. Moving to an entirely new office-wide OS is a heavy lift.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago

I’m just saying that cars can be fun and acting like they aren’t won’t get us anywhere.

Planes can be fun, too. Yachts can be fun. A spaceship to the Moon can be fun. But demanding the government give you a bunch of money to fund your Blue Origin vanity project goes a bit beyond "having fun".

people in this community act like cars are the bane of all evil

40k motor vehicle fatalities a year can take the blush off the rose.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I mean, the statement “those young women, or many of them” is already pretty objectifying.

It's describing them. Objectifying would be closer to "Those hot pieces of ass" or something equivalent. Reducing the individual to component parts.

But I also question what he can mean.

People posting their pictures on blast and then getting angry because you looked at them can seem a bit hypocritical. It's the low-key version of celebrities complaining about being famous.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Microsoft is one of the platforms raking in heaps of money from dumb companies trying to jump on the AI bandwagon.

True. But one of their biggest customers is OpenAI. A big part of Microsoft's investment in OpenAI comes in the form of free access to its data centers (which cost money to run, thus costing Microsoft in the short term). By taking advantage of OpenAI's non-profit status, Microsoft was able to write off a bunch of those losses early on as tax deductions.

But they're still losses.

Other firms using Microsoft to jump on the AI bandwagon might help make up the difference. But that's like saying "I'm only doing some of my own heroin, so I still come out ahead". Given the current rate of return on AI investments, the only truly correct investment value is $0.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

You aren’t accounting for the opportunity cost of the taxes paid in the initial investment year.

If you're maxing out your contributions, it won't matter, except in so far as what you can earn on taxed income outside of the IRA account. That's going to be marginal relative to the contribution. And the compound returns inside the IRA make it meaningless.

What this means is Roth is the preferable savings method if you are in a lower marginal tax rate than you expect to be in retirement.

Unless you're going straight into a white shoe law firm or extraordinary paying tech job after you graduate, that's pretty much everyone. But even folks going into Fortune 500 companies typically start in the $60-80k/year range and climb up from there.

If the marginal tax rate was the same when you invest and retire then the difference between Roth and traditional would be nil.

The amount of money you have in the fund is going to be much larger.

Say I invest $5000/year up front and get a 10% return for 40 years. I'm looking at putting in $200,000 over that time and taking out $2.2M.

Assuming the tax rate is 25% for each of those years, I paid $50k in taxes to invest that initial $200k. But I get the $2.2M back tax-free.

If I put the $200k in tax-deferred, I have to pay $550k to get my balance out again.

Now, we can argue that I could put the $400/year in deferred taxes into a taxable savings account. And maybe we get clever by shielding that investment from taxation annually because we just shove it all in Microsoft or Berkshire B and let it ride. That nets me another $177k over 40 years, assuming the same rate of return (for which I'm still on the hook at 15% long term gains rate - so really only $150k).

The ROTH is $350k better. That's the whole reason the fund exists. It's another accounting gimmick to give wealthy people a stealth tax cut. Only suckers put their money in Trad IRAs.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

I think it really comes down to your view on future tax rates.

Unless you're banking on a 0% tax, the ROTH is hard to beat. Compound that by the Traditional IRA being taxed at the normal rate rather than the capital gains rate, and there's very little reason to use it unless you're really bullish on tax cuts in the long term.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago

They're seeing a flood of new investment, but they're also absorbing huge losses from within their AI divisions.

The profits they're reaping are in other sectors.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

They're racking in a ton of investment case on AI. I'm sure there's also a slew of government contracts that keep this beast afloat.

But in terms of real value added to the economy? This seems like its just another Wall Street bubble waiting to pop.

 

Eight Russian military planes and four navy vessels, including two submarines, have come close to Alaska in the past week as Russia and China conducted joint military drills. None of the planes breached U.S. airspace and a Pentagon spokesperson said Tuesday there was no cause for alarm.

“It’s not the first time that we’ve seen the Russians and the Chinese flying, you know, in the vicinity, and that’s something that we obviously closely monitor, and it’s also something that we’re prepared to respond to,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a news conference.

As part of a "force projection operation,” the Army on Sept. 12 sent the soldiers to Shemya Island, some 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, where the U.S. Air Force maintains an air station that dates to World War II. The soldiers brought two High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, with them.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the U.S. military also deployed a guided missile destroyer and a Coast Guard vessel to the western region of Alaska as Russia and China began the “Ocean-24” military exercises in the Pacific and Arctic oceans Sept. 10.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said it detected and tracked Russian military planes operating off Alaska over a four-day span. There were two planes each on Sept. 11, Sept. 13, Sept. 14 and Sept. 15.

The planes operated in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, a zone beyond U.S. sovereign airspace, but within which the U.S. expects aircraft to identify themselves, NORAD said.

 

That video was a viral hit, spread by X accounts with as a many as a half-million followers, despite first appearing on a newly minted San Francisco news outlet that soon vanished. Posts featuring the video racked up 7 million views on X alone, and were also on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.

Another video manufactured an assault on an attendee of a rally for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, garnering millions of views, Microsoft said. One depicted a fake New York billboard with vulgar messages saying Harris wanted to change children’s gender. It drew hundreds of thousands of views on X.

In all, Microsoft called out three Russian government-backed groups in addition to those described in federal charges last week against employees at propaganda network RT.

One group was “adept at grabbing headlines with its outlandish fake videos and scandalous claims,” Microsoft said, while another “will likely only escalate its targeting of the Harris-Walz campaign in the lead-up to Election Day.”

 

Police opened fire on a subway platform in Brooklyn during a confrontation with an alleged fare-beater, striking the man cops said was armed with a knife, two straphangers caught in the fray, and one of the firing officers, NYPD officials said Sunday.

One of those two passengers hit by the cops' bullets, a 49-year-old man, was hospitalized in critical condition after he was hit struck in the head, according to the NYPD.

The two officers who opened fire were assigned to patrol the Sutter Avenue subway stop in the 73rd precinct when they spotted a man skip the station turnstile and walk through an open gate toward the train platform, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey explained at an evening press conference from Brookdale Hospital.

 
 
 
 

The Palestine Authority's envoy, Riyad Mansour, sat at a table marked 'State of Palestine' between UN member states Sri Lanka and Sudan.

The Palestinian Permanent Mission to the UN shared a clip on social media of the Ambassador of Egypt and the President of the General Assembly confirming the new seating arrangement for the State of Palestine delegation.

...

Israel was not happy with the move, claiming the move was influenced by political favouritism and that membership privileges should be reserved for member states only.

"Any decision and or action that improves the status of the Palestinians…is currently a reward… for terrorism in general and the Hamas terrorists in particular," said Jonathan Miller, deputy Israel ambassador to the United Nations.

 

Multiple city, county and school buildings around Springfield were closed Thursday after a bomb threat “to multiple facilities throughout Springfield,” according to a city statement released Thursday morning. Springfield City Hall was evacuated around 8:30 a.m.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said everyone who was in the City Hall building was moved out and is safe. Rue would not comment on the precise language of the threat but said it came from someone claiming to be from Springfield, and mentioned frustration with the city related to Haitian immigration issues.

All Clark County buildings were also closed to the public, “out of an abundance of caution,” which includes all commission departments, the Department of Job and Family Services, the Common Pleas Court, the Board of Elections and the A.B. Graham Building, according to a statement released at 11:45 a.m. The county said it would update the public with more closures “as they become available.”

Drivers license bureaus in Clark County were also closed Thursday morning in relation to the threats, according to Clark County Clerk of Courts Melissa Tuttle.

Springfield City Schools evacuated students from Fulton Elementary on Thursday morning. Parents said they were told to pick up their children, and a police officer outside Fulton told concerned parents that their children had been moved to Springfield High School. Springfield City Schools issued a brief statement at 10:40 a.m.

“Based on information received from the State Fire Marshal, Fulton students were evacuated from their building to Springfield High School this morning,” school officials said. “Students and staff are safe; however, the district is in the process of a controlled release to safely dismiss students to their parents.”

 

The Caribbean island state became the first in the region to win its independence in 1804 after a revolt by enslaved people. But in a move that many Haitians blame for two centuries of turmoil, France later imposed harsh reparations for lost income and that debt was only fully repaid in 1947.

The group of about 20 non-governmental organisations currently in Geneva for a UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) are seeking a new independent commission to oversee the restitution of the debt, which they refer to as a ransom.

...

The amount paid to France is disputed by historians although the New York Times estimated Haiti’s loss at $21bn. The proposal’s backers say the amount is much higher.

“It’s $21bn plus 200 years of interest that France has enjoyed, so we’re talking more like $150bn, $200bn or more,” said Jemima Pierre, professor of global race at the University of British Columbia.

Clesca said she hoped the recommendation and others would be part of the UN forum’s conclusions due on Friday. Last year, the PFPAD suggested that a tribunal should be formed to address reparations for slavery.

 
 

On Sept. 1, Texas is slated to open its new business courts, a brand-new legal system backed by Big Oil — and several of the court’s main judges have in the past represented fossil fuel companies as lawyers, The Lever has found.

The judges were hand-picked over the last two months by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a major recipient of oil industry cash — and many can be quickly replaced if they hand down decisions he opposes, a judicial design that he championed.

The courts consist of 11 regional business courts and a new statewide court of appeals to hear appellate litigation, which are expected to have immediate impacts on environmental cases in the state. As Public Health Watch, an independent investigative news organization, reported last month, a suite of cases involving state environmental authorities will now be transferred from a generally liberal appeals court to the state’s new Fifteenth Court of Appeals, created to oversee the business courts.

There, these cases will be decided by a panel of conservative judges historically friendly to industry — particularly oil and gas interests, a powerful force in Texas.

 
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