This is a similar reason why I would never live in NYC (and think twice about Boston). Housing just costs too damned much. And worse, if housing costs a lot all the other living expenses cost more. Groceries charge more because they pay higher rent, ditto for any other basic needs..

I'm sad to say I have to agree with Curunir... Apple has this nasty habit of breaking adapters for reasons I can't understand and then failing to provide a way to intermingle the old and new ones without buying a new computer. The new magsafe adaptors come to mind.

Ahhh but it's not just because it's shiny. Apple is so easy my mom actually bought an iPhone on her own and managed to get all kinds of apps. She wouldn't have been able to do that with Android and don't get me started on what happened when she brought home a PC laptop. (She's been a mac user for probably 7 years but the salesman somehow convinced her to go with a PC, based on price, he sold her a shitty little netbook with the new windows. After 7 years of no computer questions I had to resume my role as her tech support).

They're that easy because they spend a lot of time researching how to be easy to use.

It doesn't matter if a system is technically superior if it is inaccessible to users or hard to understand.

Don't believe me? Well ten years ago on slashdot I heard similar statements about how people should start using Sparcstations or whatever technology was better than the status quo. Despite the better design of the Sparc processors, Intel won. Despite the benefits of Linux / FOSS, most people still use Windows.

Sad people are so misguided, I know, but it's an unfortunate truth about humanity.

How exactly would this work? You'd be able to airplay GPS to the screen in front of you for a turn by turn play?

While it would be great if all cars used some sort of standard system, for now I'm happy they're using any kind of standard.

In a few years time, either Android phones will start having an iPhone compatibility mode, or a standard will emerge.

(Frankly I don't know which will happen since both have happened in the past)

I live in Europe and you might find our way of managing population density a bit, well, shall we say unamerican?

In Amsterdam, the local municipality decides how much rent you're allowed to charge in flats. It goes by a points system. Say a shower will be one point, while a bathtub will be 5. Add up all the points and you determine whether you are in a luxury (free market) apartment or social housing.

If you're luxury housing, you can charge whatever the market will bear, up to a point based on the luxury apartment formula.

If you're social housing, only social housing tenants may live in the apartment. Social housing rents are subsidized and they are VERY low. Like say $400 for an apartment in city center. The social housing buildings are owned by non-profits whose sole purpose is to provide social housing.

Now you might think this is similar to the US, but here's where it gets a little different than the US (and a bit unamerican).

Social housing income thresholds are very high, something like the equivalent of $100k a year in the US. Yup, that's right, social housing is designed not just for the poor but the middle class. You might miss having a bathtub, but you won't mind when you live in the city center and don't have to pay ridiculous rent. Of course, to get in social housing you'll need to apply and wait a few years for a vacancy to open up. You can apply once you're 18, I suggest doing as the dutch do, applying once you go off to University. Then, by the time you look for a job, you'll already have a slot. Or you might find an emergency. For instance, if you were just divorced and living in your ex's house maybe you have a reason for priority.

Of course maybe you don't want to pick the city you live in when you're in college, or you made a bad choice. You still have options. "Luxury" apartment rents are capped based on a certain formula. You can get a much higher rent from a luxury apartment, but you'll never be able to charge above a certain rate. So even though you might pay a lot of rent, you won't pay as much as in America. (My 2 bedroom "luxury apartment" rent in Amsterdam, walking distance to city center, is less than the rent on my 1 bedroom apartment was when I lived in Boston -- and I could only afford to live in a suburb, Malden, almost at the end of the orange line).

And, if you were smart and applied when you were 18, you may be able to rent out your "social housing" apartment, and rent a new apartment in your new city with the money. It's technically illegal, but as any economist will tell you, when you apply artificial constraints to supply or price a booming black market is sure to follow.

And "Living Fraud" is a big crime here and there's actually police who check to see if you're following the laws.

Additionally, because of the artificial constraints on rent you can forget about property values reflecting what you could get without these controls. After all, who will pay $1 million for an apartment when you can rent an apartment for $400 a month?

Still want to import European housing policies to the good old USA? The good news is you won't need to hire new police officers you can just maybe reassign DEA agents when you get a more sensible drug policy.

Then why is there an article about this happening 2 weeks ago?

Actually for debts to tax authorities due process can be suspended if the government can show they believe providing you with notice of their collections efforts will cause you to hide the money, spend the money, or otherwise dispose of the funds.

I found this out the hard way. The state of MA, due to an error, believed I never filed a tax return and owed them money. When I found out, I told them I was going to dispute it, and a few days after I filed an abatement my accounts were frozen, and I had a tax lien in my name.

Technically, this is illegal (they're supposed to let me dispute the charges and there is supposed to actually be a judgement as to whether or not my case had merit). However, when I tried to get legal help, I found out the reason they could do this because they simply told a judge they had to have the lien so I didn't run away with my money. (Which is funny because I'm unemployed and just on this side of broke -- the judge should have laughed them out of town).

When I fought it, the lien and the frozen accounts were reversed promptly, but not without a big pain in the ass.

I'm afraid from what I understand, this is typical. Even if the IRS is wrong, the cards are stacked in their favor if they believe you're right (or incorrectly believe you to be an international man of mystery tax dodger). And until you convince them otherwise, they can make your life VERY miserable.

You need to get real legal advice and stop asking slashdot for help on your problems.

Well that's quite interesting....

Dear Neckbeard:

Let me introduce you to social skills. Do keep your hands and feet inside for the length of the ride, and keep all questions for the end, mmm-kay?

Oh, and as someone who has started several businesses, I should tell you I do know what I'm talking about at least in regards to the IRS (though in all situations you should consult your own accountant / tax advisor / lawyers and not some guy on slashdot)

The poster, microcars, mentions that the IRS does not let you have a business that doesn't make money just for tax deductions. This prevents me from taking the ridiculous amount of money I spend on, say, photography and trying to create a non-profitable business just to make money. That's because in the past people have said, "Wow, look at all the money I sink into x, if I make it a business I can save money because i'll get tax deductions even if I don't

Non-profitable meaning that the business doesn't actually make any money because it's not profitable. You have 10 years from which you start a business to recoup startup costs once a business becomes profitable. So if, for instance, you keep good records, and you spent five years building a business in your garage, you can go back and get a tax write off for the last five years. Take 12 years to start up a business and, IIRC, the first two years are a "hobby" and the last 10 can be used for write offs. You can, in some instances, take the write off in the year the loss is recorded (but it gets complicated and this is the point you should be contacting your financial advisors), but in NO CASE can you take the write off if your screwing around with computers in your garage is just for fun.

This is to avoid people who have hobbies from trying to scam the tax system. And you can be sure if your business a) does not show a profit b) does not show significant business activity c) involves something like video games, windsurfing, drag racing, scuba, golf, or any other thing people pour gobs of money into for fun, and d) has just one employee, YOU, the IRS will red flag it and take a closer look.

A not-for-profit corporation that is a charity is something completely different.

Follow me so far?

Well your response was downright funny. Made me laugh out loud, although I'm sad to say at this point it was not clever wit.

Because, really, the reason I can't turn a hobby into a business for write offs is money. If I were Bill Gates, I could buy a famous photostudio. They could continue making money for me, and I could suddenly buy and write off thousand dollar cameras. Running the business might be fun for me, even though my career and my money come from somewhere else. Follow?

So knowing all this, and because we're joking, the NATURAL response for me would be to joke in response.

As we were joking, you could have kept up the joke. You know, to be FRIENDLY, like?

Micro: The IRS calls anything that's not profitable a hobby.
Pissy: Like Bill Gates' charity?
Me: Heheh. Guess rich people have different version of hobbies then us.
Pissy: Yeah if I were that rich I'd totally buy up a series of brothels and casinos in vegas and be the one in the QA dept.

See now I might respond, and we'd get a conversation going. That's how it works with normal people.

Instead, you keep blathering on like an idiot, and it's really funny because Micro was indeed correct. Instead you're so focused on being RIGHT (what exactly do you think you're going to be right about anyways?) you insist on pissing me off and keeping this going.

Maybe next time reconsider your response. It also might make the discussions on slashdot more lively. It seems these days every child or grandchild thread is a jackass, which kills conversation, and frankly my enjoyment of said site.

END PSA.

Believe it or not in a conversation people do not repeat the same point over and over again. The granchild of a post can legitimately not be talking exactly about what the grandparent was talking about

Depends in what sense you use the word.

When you have billions of dollars your versions of "hobby" may be very different from what a normal person would do

Because it's not like a pathogen has ever learned to hop from one species of host to another leaving utter devastation in its wake.

Swing Flu
Bird Flu
Goat Flu
(funny I meant the last one as a joke but searching for the family guy video, it appears goat flu is real)

Anyone know someone who'll make book on what the next animal flu will be? My money is on a karma induced pangolin flu wiping out poachers...

The REALLY funny thing is humans have already altered the environment so drastically you'd think it would be gospel to think we are responsible for our own environment.

Europe, for instance, used to be covered in old growth forest, with lots of animals, etc. We cut it all down, went to the new world and repeated. Just look at old paintings of America (like the hudson school) from the 1700s to see how it's changed.

And we've done some pretty gnarly things. The romans, to discourage people from fighting them, used to completely destroy cities that resisted. That included salting the earth so nothing could grow and the city could never be rebuilt, and putting everyone inside to the sword. FAIK, you can find examples of places of ancient "scorched earth" still uninhabitable to this day

The worst part is I know the gameplay is probably going to be so similar to old versions of the Civ franchise that I might as well just dust them off, but because it's shiny and new I'll pay any price and waste many hours of my life on it. Only game that ever beat Civ in terms of replayability for me was nethack.