Right now, a company can say they sell gadget X for $999, which would not be possible if they had to work out item taxes.

The other possibility is that they now have to mark X up to take into account the most pessimistic possible tax rate and advertise the marked-up rate.

Right now, there's a huge number of elected people in the US who wield real local power through these taxes and other rules that they can make.

It's a headache but we live in the computer age and we can automate administrative things like tax calculation at checkout; we should be using systems to aid decentralization and democratization instead of the opposite.

There's a small industry that specializes in knowing what the sales tax for a particular transaction should be at the moment it goes through.

When “the larger consensus” is built on nothing but bullshit soft science coming out of the hard-left humanities departments and old Soviet propaganda that’s still echoing in people’s minds today, I’m just going to ignore it and form my own impression.

> “My God, it’s full of ‘cars’”

Classic

Citation needed, and not to a Facebook Quiz-tier “how happy are you on a scale of ten” questionnaire.

My experience is obviously anecdotal, but it is quite varied, and the exact opposite.

But yeah, our ancestors lived in constant danger of getting eaten by sabre tooth tigers, freezing in the snow, catching maalria, and, in general, watching terrible things happen to their tribe.

They had no therapy, no supplements, no self help section on the cave wall art.

They were forced into a continual outward focus with no time for navel-gazing.

They carried on through all exigencies, and succeeded mightily.

Wikipedia says "Originally BEAM was short for Bogdan's Erlang Abstract Machine, named after Bogumil "Bogdan" Hausman, who wrote the original version, but the name may also be referred to as Björn's Erlang Abstract Machine, after Björn Gustavsson, who wrote and maintains the current version."

Whether the B is for Bogdan or Bjorn, there's something really fun and Space Quest-y about it.

A little bit can be very good, a lot can strangle everyone but the biggest players

But there’s a lot of daylight between that and fining newspapers with extra taxes because the regime considers their opinions verboten.

Love this

Centrally planned information environments!

It's sure to work great.

- "I'm from the government and I'm here to tell you what's Good and True."

- "Do you have a loicense for that opinion?"

Red tape spilling into society kan be more damaging than oil spilling into the ocean.

I tried to do something similar on my iPhone, but couldn't get a reliable (or any) way to get an rsync script running.

I ended up with pen and paper though, which is best for me all things considered.

I'm not sure if my machine even has a hardness marking, but when I used liquid dishwasher soap, I simply filled up the compartment every time.

As to the cost, yes it's 3X, but if you're reading this and you have a Costco membership, it's still a rounding error.

Pods just make life simpler and cleaner (no messy powders and gunky liquids in the soap cabinet), which is why I even have a dishwasher in the first place.

But you can buy a large box of generic and very cheap no-bullshit pods at Costco, and simply put two or even three of them in a load.

If you're going the multi-pod route, you can put one in the dispenser and one or more right in with the dishes.

What happens if you fast-forward a whole lot, any easter eggs?

I found that surprising, but not as surprising as suddenly reading about Rust!

One needs mental toughness. However it's better to solve problems for good and then have a higher technology base for the next generation to build on.