But I predict it will be tough sledding and even if that's successful, getting three-quarters of the state legislatures to ratify the resulting modifications will be even harder.

Although, incumbents might like the idea as it would increase their job security.

A shareholder (i.e. part owner of the corporation) has chosen to "peaceably assemble" with other like minded individuals by buying stock. They have elected representatives (directors on the board of directors) to further the interests of the group.

Sometimes the group's interests include political issues. For example directors of Widget Corp may well want to promote a candidate running against the candidate running on a "Ban Widgets because they are 'addictive'" platform.

This is no different than people joining together to support candidates who are pro-choice or pro-"life". They pay dues and make donations to an organization (such as the Planned Parenthood Action Fund) which supports the individual's interests. The organization then decides who to support and makes donations or otherwise advance those those candidates' campaigns through a PAC. In some cases some of those individuals also make "in kind" contributions under the direct organized umbrella of the political entity (such as spending hours "door knocking" or "phone banking") that, combined with their cash donations to the candidate, exceed the $3,500 individual contribution limit.

Just because one assembled with others to further their financial interests doesn't suddenly mute them or take away their First Amendment rights. For example, some donate to the DSA because they think they or their family will benefit financially if the DSA candidates get elected and can push through certain legislation. Surely that their interest is, at least in part, financial does not mute them.

Suppose a developer account, say that associated with VeraCrypt, had been compromised and the compromiser knew or feared they were unable successfully pass verification.

The compromiser could be exploiting their access to modify the product in profitable but fairly benign ways (say making VeraCrypt part of a botnet that didn't do any damage to the host beyond consuming some resources). However, if they got a message saying "Your account will be suspended in 12 hours if you do not pass verification", the compromiser would know that their profit would/could drop or go away. In response, they might push out one last "mandatory auto install" update with a nuclear bomb (perhaps with a delayed trigger) to just do malicious damage to hosts out of spite.

Perhaps this Administration should ask Musk to bring in a team to revamp the systems involved to get these refunds "in the mail" quickly. The DOGE team must be done with the Social Security system rewrite by now so may be available for this task. Maybe Big Balls is free this weekend to take care of this...

And congrats on taking personal responsibility rather than blaming others and society for your bad decisions (and I'm betting that you, like most of us, have made some bad decisions from time to time - but try to learn from them rather than wallow in them).

The remaining "surplus" 20% roles retained will then be devoted to developing features and implementing fixes using AI where those features and fixes would previously not have been high enough priority to implement or fix.

When the price of implementing a feature drops, it becomes economically viable (and perhaps competitively essential) to do so -- but in this scenario, AI couldn't do _all_ the work to implement such features so that's why 40% rather than 20% of the developer roles would be retained.

The 40% of developer roles that remain will, in theory, be more efficient also because they won't be spending as much time babysitting the "lesser" developers in the 60% of the roles that were eliminated. As well, "N" in the Mythical Man Month is reduced leading to increased efficiency.

(No, I have no idea what the actual percentages would be overall, let alone in a particular environment - for example, requirements for Spotify are quite different than for Airbus/Boeing avionics software.)

Unfortunately for California about 40% of the total state income tax collected (which accounts for about 65% of the state general fund) is paid by the top 1% of income earners -- which includes those 0.001% who will be motivated to move by a wealth tax (or even merely the threat of one).

The <0.001% number appears to be based on population _before_ several billionaires moved out before Jan 1, 2026 - likely at least partially motivated by the small, but real, risk of the "billionaire's tax" qualifying for the ballot and passing (and that proposed tax is only "temporary" and is only a total of 5% over three years so isn't nearly as alarming to the wealthy as a "permanent" tax would be). If it looks like this measure will end up on the ballot and have a chance of passing, expect many more to leave. This will, even if it does not ultimately pass, erode the income tax base.

California has rebelled against wealth taxes in the past - most notably by the passage of Prop 13 almost 50 years ago (a property tax is a wealth tax). They are not popular except when the hit "the other guy" -- but "the other guy" is the one most able to avoid the tax.

Wealthy people are typically very flexible as to where they live. They often already own multiple homes and often spend a lot of time out of the state they "live" in. When they move, they are not packing and labeling their own boxes or are likely even present on "moving day". They also are more likely to set up HQ and shop near where they spend a lot of their time. Even if they have family in California, they can still get together with them for Thanksgiving dinner -- either by flying the family to them on their private and chartered jets or by themselves flying to California for the weekend on one of their jets. They can conduct most business very efficiently remotely and often do so now to a significant extent.

It only takes a few to leave to tank the California budget - likely causing the progressive income and wealth taxes to reach deeper and deeper into the upper middle classes as California desperately tries to balance their budget without cutting yet more programs.

Other states are loving this though and will cut tax deals to attract these very billionaires that California are encouraging to leave.

Mandami, AOC, and Sanders are the laughing stock of much of the electorate in the US. They are fairly popular in progressive population centers but not elsewhere. There have been activists promoting much the same ideas for my entire life (and I'm not young!) and they rarely if ever get national traction.

The "silent majority" in the US is just that - they don't make the news because they, in most cases, don't go out and protest and engage in battles with law enforcement. They have jobs, go to work, go home to their families, and vote - but they rarely are seen in the news any more than the fact the sun came up in the East and set in the West yesterday is "newsworthy" enough to be promoted in the media. "If it bleeds, it leads" is the criteria for being newsworthy.

Obviously the tax basis in the assets would also be stepped up by this action.

The US should also get rid of the step up in basis at death. The recipient of an illiquid asset such as a family business should have a period of time (perhaps five or ten years from the triggering death depending on the type of asset) to "pay up" the tax basis "to market" at the time of death. Gains in liquid assets (such as publicly traded stock) should be taxed at the market value at the time of death by the estate or trust and passed on to beneficiaries with that adjusted tax basis.

Decades ago I recall talking to a fireman expressing a question of what happened if there was a car blocking their access in an emergency and he made it clear that the bumper on the front of the truck and the truck's healthy diesel engine would usually take care of the problem very quickly.

Is this a violation of the California Vehicle Code? Generally it seems to disallow non-emergency vehicles from traveling with blinking lights except for turn signals (and brake lights responding to a braking action).

But at that point it's back to engineering to figure out what to do (leave the pipe where it is and adjust around it _or_ move the pipe - possibly cutting concrete and perhaps untensioning/retensioning post-tensioned cables at substantial delay/cost) or move the piece of equipment that the penetration is serving.

One nice thing about automation like this is that the "as built" plans are more likely to be accurate because the only way to get "the computer" and "the robot" to stop squawking is to change the plans they are operating off of.

If this can't handle dirt surfaces, future generations/models probably will if there's demand. Perhaps such models would use spray paint/stencils or driving pins into the ground for marking purposes (or something more practical - I'm a software guy and this sounds like a hardware problem!).

My experience is with small residential builds but I would hope on large projects the location of each "unmovable" pipe/conduit etc that will end up penetrating a slab is already carefully verified before the next step is taken (such as placing concrete). Hopefully this is done with a total station rather than guys with chalk lines and tape measures. But a solution like this could reduce manual checking mistakes (of course, it's less likely to result in an experienced subcontractor noticing that the plan must be wrong because there's no reason for a conduit for 1KV electrical cables to come up 2cm away from a toilet trap in a multi-stall public bathroom - GIGO).

Both sides are making a bet on future interest rates and alternative investment returns - with one (the borrower) paying extra for an "opt out early" option for which the lender assumes the risk.

It's a bit like the borrower is buying a long term put or call option from the lender which the borrower is free to exercise at any time or to let expire but the lender can't get out of (they, of course, can always sell the mortgage - but perhaps at a loss in some economic climates due to past and expected future interest rate declines and/or changes in default risk due, for example, to a recession or depression).

However a private entity, including Apple, is free to censor whatever they want on their platforms.

For example, I have the right to voraciously criticize or praise the current Administration or the prior Administration without government interference. However if you own a grocery store you are generally free to ban anyone wearing, or not wearing, a garment criticizing or praising either Administration (or any specific combination of praising or criticizing or referring to the current Administration or the prior Administration). Political views, unlike race or religion for example, are not a protected class under federal law even in a public accommodation such as a grocery store.

My primary reason for this was that unfortunately some resumes seem to include quite of bit of creative writing -- creativity which the applicant could bet only I, and my company, would see. If, however, the applicant had posted similar claims about past jobs on LI, it was public for all to see so somewhat likely to be less "creative" as most people find it embarrassing to get _caught_ claiming credit for work that someone else did or giving an overblown explanation of the import of their work. This is, of course, not 100% reliable as I've seen coworkers and past employees posting on LI claiming things they were "responsible for" or "implemented" when, in fact, they only had a tiny role (or, occasionally, even no discernible role) in.

Also, if I happened to notice a "connection" that I also knew, I could potentially ask them about the applicant (using due care to make sure that the applicant wouldn't be "outed" at their current job by my doing so).

It was quite a challenge writing the term paper (which was most of the grade) knowing it would be evaluated by this professor. My attempts were mediocre and in exchange I received a well deserved mediocre grade (some sort of "B") in the class (sort of a "Ain't that cute that uqual tried so hard and wrote so many pages of related but nonsensical BS but at least he came to class" grade).

It's safe to say that I will NEVER again read Ulysses!

Unfortunately this new one is in the same shopping center as Harbor Freight and it's close to where I live - this could get expensive... Mean to shop at one, end up shopping at both...

The lines on the "insider" opening day 5/28 were pretty long - I waited about an hour in line just to get into the store and the checkout line was over an hour long.

However, based on my purchases that day, I fear they will be unpleasant to shop at - even when busy, they were annoyingly upselling extended warranties. The sales associate on the floor tried to sell me on a plan for a laptop I bought and then, while there were hundreds of people waiting to checkout, the cashier spent time doing so AGAIN. Both were just following their mandated scripts and were at least nice about it all. They apparently also have some sort of rule that the customer buying something like a laptop also needs to "meet" with the sales associate's manager/supervisor - which was a completely useless awkward perfunctory handshake (and the customer survey asked if this meeting had happened so it appears to be an annoying institutional rule).

From a practical standpoint at least some voters know who their US Senators and US Representative are and a few of those will actually look up how they voted on a tax hike or cut and include that information into their decision making process on who to vote for every two to six years. Very few voters know who the unelected bureaucrats in administrative agencies are, those bureaucrats change without the direct consent of voters, and they never stand for election.

The linked article says "Liberal and conservative justices alike said they were concerned about the potentially devastating consequences of eliminating the fund that has benefited tens of millions of Americans". It's fine that the court is "concerned" about this, however it is not something the court should consider in the slightest in their decision this case - those are the effects of policy decisions which should be left to elected legislators in a properly functioning democracy. If the court finds in favor of the plaintiffs, Congress is free to go do their job and pass legislation that specifies the amount of the tax just as they do with Federal income tax (showing they have the _ability_ to do so).

If the 'alpha' model is universally detrimental to success in business, it would quickly die out.

However it has not and most modern (and premodern) successful companies (by metrics of growth, profit, income, revenue, PE etc) have been founded and grown by "alpha" leaders and staff.

There are of course exceptions but we would expect the "alpha" model to instead be the exception if it was a less successful way of running a business.

In practice, both can co-exist and as a company matures it may, over time, switch between models.

Some people like the driven competitive environment and seek it out and will tend to end up at enterprises that favor the "alpha" model. Others who dislike such environments will seek out enterprises that utilize alternative models. An individual will likely be more productive in the environment best suited for them and an individual will rarely switch from a strong preference for one of these environments to a strong preference for an alternative environment.

If there is substantial dissatisfaction on the part of workers with the "alpha" model and an alternative model would be more productive and successful, startups would blossom that use alternative models and hire away the cream of the crop of the "alpha" companies' employees.