Unreported income and deferred taxes are at the heart of much of the complexity and headache surrounding tax filing.

A lot of this is easily fixable too. For example, brokerages, banks, and real estate closers are in a good position to pay taxes owed to the IRS on your behalf when you realize a capital gain, dividend, or interest payment. In most cases they should already have the information needed to calculate the tax correctly. The moment you collect the income it the best time to pay the tax because you have the money on hand. Deferring reporting the income and paying the tax gets people into trouble too easily.

Trying to guess how much money you might make during the upcoming year and paying taxes on that using quarterly payments or through your paycheck withholding is a very inaccurate way to collect taxes.

Finally, why does the IRS not have a way to simply pay a tax on, say, a capital gain a-la-carte? Why structure it so that you can only pay quarterly?

I recall a chess variant called Archon that existed way back in the 1980s.

It was essentially a chess game, except that in order to capture a piece, you had to fight it out, video game style.
More powerful pieces had more health and stronger attacks, but it was not impossible for a lowly Pawn-like piece to defeat a powerful Queen-like piece.
The board itself would go through light/dark cycles, giving the appropriate sides bonuses in fights.
For example, when the board is on the dark cycle, the dark pieces were all pretty powerful and could win most fights.

An alternative to using video game reflexes is to row dice to determine captures.
Queens would have the greatest dice weighting, and should win the vast majority of fights with a pawn, but a very lucky roll could cause a pawn to win.

Did you get their names? What I would do is call your bank using a number you know is theirs, such as the toll free number from their website. Then ask if these people work there. The bank should also have a record of all phone calls they placed to you. I would ask them if they placed any such calls on such-and-such date.

Log into your bank account daily, to check for activity. Make sure you use 2-factor authentication if your bank supports it. Many banks allow you to set up alerts to monitor activity in various ways.

With all of the data out there, it should be pretty simple for a scammer to figure out what your phone number is, and what banks you might use. They can pull together much of that information from the various email providers that have been hacked in recent years. I'm sure it's been collated into various dark-web databases by now. They are probably just going through some database of stolen data, calling people at random.

When was the last time you have changed passwords on your email accounts, bank accounts, etc.? Do you have any social media accounts where information such as your preferred bank could be gleaned from?

If I've learned anything about corporations, especially big ones, it's that they tend to be penny wise and pound foolish. Tangible costs on paper often get more attention than intangible costs that can be easily quantified. For instance, the tangible paper savings from not paying for offices or cubes out way the intangible costs of lost productivity. I see this not just with office layouts, but with things such as giving employees the cheapest laptops that are barely able to run basic office applications.

I see this changing, however. At my company, the main trend is towards flex cubicles and flex offices. You work from home some days, and reserve a cube or small office on those days you need to come into the office. These windowed offices aren't much bigger than cubes, but the do at least have doors that close and are somewhat sound proof.

The more I see these type of headlines, the more discouraged I become in believing that the internet in general is capable of lasting long term in its current form.

Some things are simply undefendable long term. A wall-less city on an open plain is one, and any system connected to the internet is another. There are too many unknown points to defend against. There are too many people that have to be counted on to never make a single mistake.

I'm beginning to think that the idea of a network where anything can connect to anything else from opposite sides of the world needs to be rethought. It's just too exposed.

Perhaps we need to trend back towards physically closed networks. Is it really necessary for most organizations to have their internal networks exposed to the entire world? Shouldn't it be possible for most organizations to shut themselves out except in the most restrictive, controlled manner?

It's amazing how engrained into society Facebook and Google have become.

For example, I presently feel pressured to open up a Facebook account because my landlord prefers to use Facebook to communicate with renters. While my landlord will use regular email or even post a paper on your door if legally required to do so, by not belonging to Facebook I am out of the loop on many things.

As another example, a recent article in the NY Times discussed age discrimination in the new job market. The article mentioned how easy it is for employers to use Facebook to discriminate against potential job applicants. However, my take-away was "When and how did Facebook shoehorn itself into the job search market?" Are we now required to have a Facebook account if we want to find a new job?

Facebook and Google have become the gatekeepers of our societies social communication and organization. They own everything, can see everything, and will sell anything that passes through their gate.

To use my landlord example, I wonder if my landlord is aware that Facebook will have knowledge of and may sell information about such things as when my lease is up for renewal, what incentives they may offer to get me to renew, and what issues I may be having such as a leaky roof.

I do realize that these companies have various privacy settings you can use, but that does not change the fact that this information is still in their universe, and belongs to them. You can do nothing more than trust and hope that they will honor the privacy settings you set.

It almost feels as if you don't truly, completely exist in todays world if you don't have a Facebook/Google account.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I remember the days when new PC's used to come laden with so much junk-ware that you had to format the hard drive just to make it usable. The same thing has happened to Android phones, except that most people can't wipe the slate clean and set up the phone cleanly.

If this becomes as bad as email spam has become, then it will make the US phone system completely useless. People will simply stop answering their phone unless it is a number they know. However, sometimes you do have to take a call from a number you don't recognize, such as for a delivery or a call from a doctor or small business. When people stop taking those calls, then how will these companies reach their customers?

That suggestion is a near impossibility in many large corporations, unless you are talking about moving it to MS Access.

Most large corporations keep their databases, and all access to them, under tight lock and key. In many cases, you are not allowed to even install a copy of their in-house database, or a free database. You are only allowed to use what comes installed on your work machine, which usually is just MS Office. Installing anything you find on the internet is a great way to get fired.

Naturally, people will use the tools given to them, and not those tools denied to them, and since everyone has MS Excel, big corporations become overrun with Excel spreadsheets everywhere. They are used for all sort of things, it is incredible.

I have a lot of respect for it, especially its ability to easily manually manipulate chunks of data. I still do not understand pivot tables though. The fact that it is so ubiquitous in companies says something to its versatility and usefulness.

Maybe Giuliani is right when he says "Truth isn't truth".

When anything and everything, such as photos, videos, audio, facts, etc., become as muddied and confused as a psychotic break, then does "Truth" still matter? When "Truth" becomes unknowable, then it becomes useless. You can only react to what you perceive. Like for a person having a psychotic break, that often means reacting in a chaotic or harmful way.

I can't imagine what this will do to society. Perhaps society will react to things in ways more fitting to ancient times, when people had no idea how nature really worked, and chalked events up to the gods, fate, or the supernatural.

It really depends on the type of programming/systems work that needs to be done. Full stack development is different from back end development, which is different from database development, which is different from business logic development, and so on. Each of these require a different set of knowledge and skills.

Overall, you need the ability to think logically and to be able to understand how the entire system works together.
For some tasks, such as analyzing/implementing business logic, an understanding of the business itself, the ability to manage people, expectations, and timelines, and good communication/documentation skills are paramount. If you're working within a system that is designed to hide away much of the technical cruft, allowing an employee to focus on business logic without the need for so much technical knowledge, then I suggest that a non-stem major, such as an English or Business Management major, can achieve the best results. A CS major might feel out of place, and become frustrated at not being able develop some of the more technical skillsets.

For other tasks, such as those that build up the system that ultimately supports the business, you will need specialized database knowledge, set knowledge, scaling knowledge, systems design knowledge, and so on. For those, a CS, Math, or Systems Architect major can achieve the best results.

One trend I see in corporate CS is the fact that some companies are becoming frustrated with proliferating technical skillset requirements, and are trying to disengage themselves from the tangled technical web many systems become, even going so far as to develop their proprietary own in-house programming languages that require very few industry-standard technical skills to use.

I have been through some extremely difficult cancellation procedures.

Difficult cancellation processes is why I refuse to sign up for most monthly billed services. I once received a complimentary XM Radio service for a few months, as part of an auto dealership service promotion. I liked the service, and wanted to extend it, but once I realized that I would have to be billed month-to-month via credit card, and would have to cancel via phone call, I decided it was not worth it.

It was easier when you had to pay for things by check through the postal service. For example, if you decided to stop taking a magazine, all you had to do was ignore the resubscription mail, and the magazines would stop coming. If you wanted to start it up again, all you had to do was send in a check with one of those "We want you back!" mailings they inevitably sent you.
The consumer had much more control.

I hope this leads to the consumer having more control again.

At work I have to use IE, Chrome and Edge.
Some of our internal sites are designed for Chrome, and require Chrome to function. Others require IE to function. With Win10, we also have Edge.
If only our SharePoint sites would work with Edge, then I would ditch IE all together.

You need to do at least three things.
First, you need to provide them with direction. They need assurance that they need to know specific skills and that the time spent learning won't be wasted.
Second, they need the time to learn. Perhaps set aside a week or so for classes or self learning. Something structured would give better results.
Third, they need the materials, be it machines, books, or classes. For vendor specific skills vendor provided class may be the best choice.

It seems strange that the company has brought in new technologies without IT ever getting involved. Are there some territorial issues at play? Sometimes when new technology is brought in there is resistance to IT getting involved and interfering.

As long as your wireless provider still lets it connect to their network, I would just keep it. If it still does what you need it to do, then why spend $700 on a new phone and a new more expensive wireless plan?
I still have mine, a Nokia Lumia. I got it in 2013 and use it every day. I use it to check email, check the news/stocks, check the weather apps, make phone calls, and for web browsing. It can even be used to listen to FM radio broadcasts with a set of headphones.

The browser crashes all the time now, but it did not before. Todays websites load up so much advertising cruft that the phone runs out of memory. Those sites just don't get used now.

I realize that I am missing out on all of those essential apps, but I don't need them. The fact that my companies email admins don't support the phone is actually a bonus.

If you want to remain in the Windows universe, you can get the HP Elite or Alcatel Idol. You should be able to try out the HP at a Microsoft store. Staples also sells HP phones now.

The HP Elite seems like a very good phone, but it's been out for a year now.