Bam, face plant, truth!

The takeaway from all of the Women in STEM brouhaha is this. We are told that a woman will become completely discouraged if there is any negativity at all.

If I were femal I would be pissed at the "Women are not capable of handling problems" undercurrent. And many of the successful women I know indeed are.

The government never follows the law when it involves protecting people's civil liberties. Why the fuck should it follow the law when it audits itself or its contractors? Are contractors unable to pass secrets to foreign governments?

>We need regulation....

This is hilarious. Every day slashdotters either complain that it's *obvious* we need less regulation. And in a separate thread, it's *obvious* we need more regulation.

The VR people figure out away to stimulate the inner ear the same way as they show the imagery. Puking will be a integral part of the VR experience.

Try looking down and reading a book on a long car trip.

No I asked you how, you said democracy, so I used my democratic process and now we've gone a complete circle.

So let me go back to how.

See vigilanteism is so much easier, faster and will give an outcome compared to all the alternatives.

Never attribute to malice what could be attributed to incompetence.

I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, but honestly I don't think the people have the brains for it.

I'd estimate the paperwork (including searching to ensure you are not ignoring legal obligations as a US citizen, occasional accountant/lawyer visits, etc.) to be on order of 20 hours a year. Less many years, some years you could spend 100 hours trying to make certain you are not breaking US law when you buy a house, are self-employed, etc.

Over 80 years, that's 1,600 hours. If you value your leisure time at $50/hours, than consider it to be about $80K worth of hassle to be a U.S. citizen. Add in $20K in lawyer/accountant fees over the years, and you could be looking at a total lifetime cost of about $100K.

Is it worth it? Well, if you're child chooses to work there, then it's easily worth it. But otherwise, probably not.

So, what you really want to decide (and only you can do so), is "Is the life-time option of working in the US worth $100K?"

I think the problem is that Microsoft has a reputation - and it was well earned - for being a device you bought into a whole batch of problems when you went with them.

The problem is that people remember their work microsoft computers, how they needed an army of IT people to keep them running. Phones aren't their work computer, but people remember.

So today, Microsoft starts out having to get past their rep.

So while it probably isn't fair - it is understandable.

Personally, I don't see that any of these things as compelling practical advantages, given that the kids already have dual Swedish and Belgian (and therefore EU) citizenship. If they were Moldovan and South Sudanese, that'd be a different story. Or if they were citizens of a country from which getting a visa to enter the US might be difficult in the future.

But most importantly I think this is one of those decisions that you just don't make primarily on a cost-benefit basis. It's not like deciding to join Costco or subscribe to Hulu. Citizenship entails responsibilities. If you want your kids to shoulder those responsibilities and feel allegiance to the US then it makes sense to get them that citizenship come hell or high water. But given that they already have two perfectly good citizenships from two advanced western democracies with generally positive international relations worldwide, I don't see much practical advantage in adding a third.

Still, I wouldn't presume to give advice, other than this. The poster needs to examine, very carefully, that feeling he has that maybe his kids should be Americans. The way he expresses it, "sentimental reasons", makes those feelings seem pretty trivial, in which case it hardly matters if they don't become Americans. After all, most other Belgians seem to get along perfectly well without being Americans too. But if this is at all something he suspects he might seriously regret not doing, or if it nags him in ways he can't quite put his finger on, he needs to get to the bottom of that in a way random people on the Internet can't help him with.

The required refresh rate is too fast to re-render. The only way to do this is with hardware pixel reprojection, and competent ways of handling the problems that come with it (disocclusion and view-dependent effects -- specular reflections and refractions).

We prototyped those years ago: retinal projection (laser raster scan across the retina). It's just that it's not very practical. But with ultra high resolution displays, the microlens array approach to light fields is becoming practical (you'd have a decent system with even 8x8 pixel patches behind each microlens, so a 16K panel is sufficient for a first generation lightfield display).

Eh, Steve wasn't so much an innovator as a man with implacable tastes who really knew how to get his way. THAT is really what led Apple down the path to where it is today. Steve would have never ever accepted something as buggy as OS X right now without screaming at people and ripping their heads off. Tim Cook just seems to think that software quality really isn't that important.

Some quick links I found covering the issue.

Americans Living Abroad Becoming Trapped by Citizenship Based Tax Rules
Mayor Of London Boris Johnson Announces He'll Renounce U.S. Citizenship
When American Expats Donâ(TM)t Want Their Kids to Have U.S. Citizenship
Meet the 'accidental American' with a big tax bill
PwC suggests a check to see if you're an 'accidental American'
âAccidentalâ(TM) Americans Still Owe Income Tax

Exactly. My being sanctimonious would make you hypocritically self-righteous.

Exactly this. I'm a US citizen who worked for a few years in Canada. Don't listen to OP - the tax issues are monumentally major.

Most countries tax based on residency. You earned money in your country of citizenship, you pay taxes there. You earned money in another country, you work out the taxes over there. Your native country doesn't get involved. This is why Canadians working in the U.S. for part of the year have to be able to document the number of days they stayed there. If they're in the U.S. for more than 183 days, they're considered a U.S. resident and don't owe Canadian taxes.

The U.S. taxes based on residency and citizenship. You earn money anywhere in the world, the IRS expects you to pay U.S. taxes on it if you're a citizen. If your kids become U.S. citizens, ignore the U.S. tax filing obligations for 20 years because they're living in Sweden or wherever, then when they're in their 30s and married and have kids they decide to visit the U.S., the moment they try to step foot into the U.S. the IRS will nail them for back taxes on everything they earned for the last 20 years. (Ok, there's probably a statute of limitations, but you get the idea.)

A lot of Americans living abroad work their butt off trying to renounce their U.S. citizenship just so they don't have to deal with this tax hassle. Do not subject your kids to it unless they intend to live in the U.S. (Some U.S. states do the same thing. California is notorious for it. If you were living in California prior to taking a job in the U.K., California still considers you a "resident" since you didn't move to another U.S. state, and expects you to pay California taxes on everything you earned in the U.K. Even California kids who go to college out of state and don't formally establish their residency in that state have gotten nailed for it when they work a part-time job while at school.)

The U.S. has tax treaties with most developed nations, where taxes paid in those countries on earned income (i.e. wages) can be applied as credit to taxes the IRS says you owe. Since most countries have a higher tax rate than the U.S. Federal taxes (U.S. Federal + State ends up being about the same), this usually means you won't owe the IRS any taxes on earned income. But they still expect you to file a tax return every year. And if you've got unearned income (e.g. interest on a savings account, stocks), you're probably gonna end up double-taxed on that (in both your country of residence, and by the U.S.).

Unless your kids are going to live in the U.S., don't do it.