That probably cuts both ways. When you are a major city in a part of the country that has very mild weather year round, and you get a reputation for helping the homeless then you will likely attract more homeless. If other major cities, even in crappier climates did a better job, then SF would probably get less homeless immigration. SF also has very high property values and is surrounded by other areas with outrageous property values, so it wouldn't surprise me if they actually generated a significant amount of homeless people.

Yes and no... My wife uses her smart phone for grocery shopping because she has an app that keeps a list of the stuff she commonly buys. Throughout the week as she thinks of something she needs she adds it to the list if it wasn't on there already or simply selects it from the list of previous items. Before she goes to the store she might review the list for the next trip, and look at the list of previous items to see if anything sticks out as something she needs again and add it. Then when she's at the store she has the list and just marks the items off as she goes.

That implementation is better than just writing on a scrap of paper because it's something she is updating constantly. You could do that with the paper but then you need to keep track of one more physical item through out the week. Additionally since it keeps a historical record she can see what she bought previously, which helps to determine if it's time to buy more, and reduces the data entry requirements as it can just be added to the current list instead of typing it in again.

It's a clever app and I should probably use it myself. But I honestly hate carrying a cell phone so I just scribble down whatever she tells me to get before I leave.

In some cases though (x==2) is completely different than ( x==2 ) it's one of the things that frequently trips me up when writing shell scripts.

I think what Intuit actually blocked was the IRS providing a software solution similiar to all the other commercially available stuff. This would have effectively killed 90% of those commercial products business.

The US government could very well setup a system like much of the rest of the 1st world uses. That is the government tells you what it thinks your taxes for the year should be, and since those taxes are already being withheld they have the money. You then get to tell them if you think the amount is correct or not, some systems don't even require your input and you only contact them if it's wrong. In the event that they owe you money you provide the documentation via forms and receipts or whatever showing that they owe you money. The USA could very simply do this for a very large chunk of the population. Your W2 and 1099's are all sent to the Fed anyways, they have all they need to calculate the form for most people. Currently whether or not your taxes are simple or complex you have to file all the paperwork, and hope they don't disagree. They should just figure it out and the taxpayer only interacts with the Fed in the event they think the Fed has it wrong.

Maybe if in retirement you survive on cardboard boxes from the dumpster, and forsake modern luxuries like automobiles, electricity, and running water. Although I suppose you could possibly double that nest egg or more by selling the home and moving to one of those areas where homes are valued at $20k or under, presuming of course that you aren't already in that boat.

Personally I'm saving and plan to have enough to retire and maintain my current standard of living. I do hope to raise my children in such a way that they wouldn't mind sharing a multigenerational home with me. I've already let my parents and inlaws know they are welcome in my home if they should want or need that.

I used H&R Block for years because I was plainly speaking lazy. Then a few years ago the wife said she wanted to try doing it ourselves to save a bit of money. I had heard about TaxAct here on ./ I think and so we tried it and have been using it ever since. We have to use some deluxe version because we itemize, state taxes, and whatever the investment income form is. I think our fee is under $40 for the whole thing, and the software is easy enough to use with plenty of feedback for stuff that doesn't add up.

I believe that the problems in the public education system are both due to the system it's self and the students that are in it.

Where I live now the school system is atrocious. Every year or so there is some big scandal that just befuddles me. The administrators and politicians manage to keep the thing broken most of the time. Then on top of that the poverty in the area means that a much larger chunk of the students than you might see elsewhere have no real hope of attending college. When they don't see college as a realistic possibility they start wondering why they are even bothering with HS. Parents who are working 2 to 3 jobs don't have the time and energy to help their children when they start to get off track and instead don't realize there is anything wrong until the kid is facing time in Juvy Hall.

Making 2 years of Community College free, or significantly cheaper simply as a result of getting good grades, could very well improve public education in K-12. Because then those kids that drop out now or just bide their time in the system might actually put in the effort knowing that they'll be able to go to college. It might be argued that with the current competitive academic scholarships this is already accomplished, but there is a big difference when you are just an average kid and know there is no way you'll out compete that really smart kid that aces every class.

When I was considering college that is pretty much what I did. I started a community college 2 year course track that was a direct tranistion to a 4 year course at the big state school. I never bothered finishing as my career was already moving and life got in the way but I definitely would have had small bills for school if I followed through.

My wife did much the same though she went all the way through getting her Masters. She eneded up with a relatively small amount of debt. She made payments a bit over the minimum and ten years later it's about paid off without ever having been a heavy load.

I haven't read up on it yet but they were probably pretty fast. Police response times are often pretty bad even in 1st world countries. Even if you get a fast response it isn't necessarily going to be enough to stop the attack or apprehend the attackers. In this incident two police officers arrived and were killed by the attackers as they left.

I don't see why you can't do more refined access than just granting everything to every program. Especially with the massive amounts of storage space and memory tha computers have today. Sandbox every application allowing it to only have full control over it's own little sandbox. If a program needs to look at stuff in other file structures then give it read access, not full control, to those directories. You want it to be able to write to files in those other directories, fine, it reads in a file it isn't allowed to overwrite or change, and then saves it's own copy that it can molest in whatever way it wants.

Virtual Box is still a form of defense because you've hopefully got snapshots of the system state and in the event that the malware does execute, you can just restore your snapshot. That is so long as you are using a virtual machine and it is the VM that ends up infected with the malware.

I very sadly sold my car about seven years ago that had a mechanical distributor. And it was only about six years before that when I lost my car with points. With any luck though I'll manage to get my Fathers car that has a Hydromatic Transmission and an in line 8 cyclinder engine.

It's not really a "new" problem. Engineers have been making stupid decisions like this for decades. I remember a GM car, I think it was a Berreta, in the 80's or 90's that required partially unmounting the engine and tilting it forward to access the spark plugs otherwise they were flush against the firewall. And around that same time Toyota Corrola's required dropping the front axle or somesuch to replace the starter.

Generally in the US it means a car that is produced for sale to the public, usually in quantities numbering in the thousands or higher but sometimes less. Concept cars, test vehicles, race cars and stuff like that is what I would exclude. Although I believe one of the requirements for Stock Car Racing is that the vehicle in theory has to be based on a car they actually sell, or something like that.

I would wager that 90% of cars on the road aren't even capable of going 150 mph under their own power. Even if you had a super car capable of reaching a high enough speed to beat the speed trap camera you'd need to be traveling that speed or faster when you actually pass a trap. Honestly the idea of going that fast anywhere but at the track should make most anyone shit their pants. At 170 mph you would very likely be closing on other vehicles at 100mph, which is probably five to ten times what anyone glancing in their mirror would be expecting.

Did we see the same episode. I believe they showed that you couldn't beat them by driving insanely fast. I seem to remember them doing the math to show that even the fastest production cars at absolute top speed wouldn't beat the camera.