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Which Business Expenses Should I Blow My Whole Paycheck On?
My budget already has separate line items for each of Hookers and Blow.
But seriously folks... I really do want to hear your kind suggestions as to what my business should purchase.
I was even contemplating a USB Protocol Analyzer. Used LeCroy's go for $3k to $6k. I'm going to get a USB 3.0 sniffer. USB 3.1 is very similar to 3.0; I could still use the sniffer for USB 3.1 work just for debugging by temporarily entering different values in certain variables, then restoring the variables' original values after I've fixed a bug.
In the end I decided that it would serve my business better to buy a used car. This so I don't have to take a taxi to interview with potential clients who are located in places that public transit does not serve.
There's a substantial chance that I'll have to buy some plane tickets to attend the interviews that are in far-away lands.
Here's what's in my business budget to far:
- 4K monitor
- Bitmain Antminer L3++ LiteCoin Mining Rig (1,000 Watts, 504 MH/s)
- Bitmain APW++ PCIe power supply
- Shipping the above two via DHL from China ($$$)
- Quarter 1 2018 IRS Estimated Tax payment
- Used MacBook Pro
- Technical books
- Transit Passes - yes I can deduct the bus and light rail!
- What else do you suggest?
It has never worked for me to save money; it always finds a way to slip through my fingers. What works far better is to buy quality products that I can really use and are of lasting value such as my Mac mini.
I'm specifically seeking business equipment and software that would enable me either to earn more money, or to earn money faster. Were I to actually buy that USB sniffer I could complete on USB contracts easily twice as fast as I presently do.
I've still got more than four grand unallocated out of just my next paycheck - and I've already signed my next client! W00T!
I spend quite a lot of ducats on technical books. I don't want to be driven out from the pack because I - really do - know FORTRAN. The main reason my consultancy is focussed on embedded and drivers is that my being olde and greyye is regarded by potential clients as a good reason to hire me.
Among my reasons for so many years of homelessness and unemployment is that I spent six years trying to get a job writing mobile apps. I got lots of interviews but the very instant they saw my grey hair they started coming up with plausible-sounding reasons not to hire me.
I'm using a LibreOffice spreadsheet to work out a detailed budget. Bonita and I worked together to develop a 707411y K3w1 budget template. (I will eventually lift a finger to post an article about it somewhere around here.)
My spreadsheet enables me to budget both personal and business expenses on the same sheet. I use one sheet per calendar quarter.
A fifth sheet uses my previous year's IRS Form 1040, 1040 Schedule C Profit And Loss From Business Income and 1040 Schedule SE Self-Employment Tax to estimate my income tax and self-employment tax rates.
Each paycheck's budget predicts my Quarterly Estimated Tax by referencing the above two tax rates.
For 2017 I just took a wild guess. Having been unemployed for five solid years deprived me of a 2016 return to estimate my quarterlies with.
I was so accustomed to earning nothing more than a few dollars of singing on the street tips that it was difficult to wrap my brain around quite suddenly and completely out of nowhere these huge wire transfers hit my business checking account, thereby burning holes in my pockets, through my shoes, through my feet and through the Earth all the way to the People's Republic Of China.
I'll be far more careful this year, I Swear On A Stack Of Bibles.
Really I am: there's an entry in my personal budget for "Walking Around Money" that mostly goes for coffee at Peet's and Starbucks.
I place a very high priority on hanging out in trendy cafes: after being in my tax-subsidized apartment for a few months, I realized that just being in the presence of other people was quite effective in relieving the symptoms of my mental illness.
Here's why we sometimes post in the wrong stories
Soylent news has no support for smart phones. That often leads me to tap the wrong link because all the links default to very small
A one line fix could make quite a lot of difference:
Set the viewport
Smallville Actress Charged Over Cult Sex Trafficking
"NXIVM is a multi-level marketing organization that offers personal and professional development seminars. Based in Albany County, New York, NXIVM was founded in 1998 by Keith Raniere. News reports and former members have described NXIVM as a cult."
Allison Mack, Smallville actress, charged over Nxivm sex trafficking
NASA Kilopower News Conference on May 2
NASA to Discuss Demonstration of New Space Exploration Power System
Media are invited to attend a news conference at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland at 9:15 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 2, to discuss a recent experiment to demonstrate a new nuclear reactor power system designed for space.
News conference audio and presentation slides will stream live on NASA’s website.
Kilopower could provide safe, efficient and plentiful energy for future robotic and human space exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and destinations beyond. The experiment was conducted November 2017 through March 2018 at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS).
Previously: NASA's Kilopower Project Testing a Nuclear Stirling Engine
NASA Kilopower News Conference on Jan. 18
Initial Tests of NASA's Kilopower Nuclear System Successful
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc> copy c:\cygwin64\home\mike
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.bashrc
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.bash_aliases
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.bash_history
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.bash_profile
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.ICEauthority
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.inputrc
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.lesshst
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.mkshrc
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.octave_hist
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.profile
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.viminfo
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\.Xauthority
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\address.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Appointment.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\check
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Chips.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Code.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\dot-viminfo
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\hosts
Overwrite C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts? (Yes/No/All): no
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\index.html
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\index.html.1
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Marketing.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Messages.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\nohup.out
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Nuke.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\PlayNice.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Restroom_Code.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\SeaMar.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Songs_to_Get.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\Starlets.txt
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\tpID2pXxEB
c:\cygwin64\home\Thunderball\vlad.list
31 file(s) copied.
OAN Investigation Finds No Evidence Of Chemical Weapon Attac
http://www.oann.com/oan-investigation-finds-no-evidence-of-chemical-weapon-attack-in-syria/
Sorry, folks - this is 2018, and the news is a video. I invite one and all to view the video.
I mentioned in another discussion that I'm not convinced that there WAS a chemical attack in Douma, Syria. Despite the UN investigators not making it to Douma, OAN's Pearson Sharp got into the city.
Several caveats. He was brought into the city by government troops. The city has only been recently "liberated" from the "rebels", so there are soldiers everywhere. We can't know that the presence of the soldiers did, or did not, influence either the reporter, or the people he interviewed. I'm not giving Pearson a whole LOT of credence - for all I know, he's a Russian sympathizer. I'm just saying - you need to consider the situation, and weigh the likelihood that someone, somewhere, is lying.
That said, please visit OANN, and watch the video. It's not quite 11 minutes long.
I'll oversimplify the story, briefly:
There was no chemical attack. Government troops were assaulting the area, and driving the rebels deeper into their holes. Combat, all around, and no escape for the rebels. Some rebel or another came up with an idea of staging a fake chemical attack. The plan went forward, word was spread far and wide that there was poison gas in the streets. The government advance slowed, if not halting, for awhile.
During the confusion, the rebels made like trees, and leaved.
The "allied" attack on the government of Syria only helps to keep the rebel's subterfuge, and escape, covered up.
Opinion aside, someone in this story is playing everyone for a bunch of gullible chumps. One opinion says it's the government, and Russia who are playing us for chumps. Another opinion says that the US and it's allies are guilty.
And, there is no clear, credible evidence on either side.
One of the more convincing arguments that Syria isn't messing with chemicals - Since Syria is steadily gaining ground against the "rebels" with conventional weapons, why would they risk the world's ire just to lob a chem weapon or two? They don't NEED the chemical agents.
Illegal Buttocks Injections
With the aid of cutting-edge Millennium science, in the form of orbicular breast implants and illegal buttocks injections, America's sudden favorite rapper, Cardi B, has built her body for optimal viewing at medium-to-long-distance range. This engineering foresight helps explain why, before she began making music history (a randomly chosen milestone from her tennis bracelet of success: she is the first rapper to have her first three Billboard Hot 100 entries in the Top 10 simultaneously), she was not just a successful stripper but a wildly successful one. The hills and slopes of her body are so captivating that you might not even notice the delicate beauty of her countenance until it's staring at you head-on from across a dimly lit restaurant booth while you wait to discover what it is that Cardi loves.
[...] "I love political science," says Cardi, tucking into: Brussels sprouts with bacon, mashed potatoes with lobster, macaroni and cheese with optional truffle upgrade, shrimp cocktail with lemon and salt on the side, and a Coke with extra ice. We know the West Hollywood restaurant Cardi selected for dinner is good because, a member of her team explained earlier, Drake ate here last night. "I love government. I'm obsessed with presidents. I'm obsessed to know how the system works."
[...] Cardi B booked the cover of The Fader's summer-music issue without technically having any summer music recorded. "Bodak Yellow" is not mentioned anywhere in the story; it was recorded after the press was lined up, ostensibly to give the cover a reason to exist.
You'd never know it. "Bodak Yellow" doesn't sound perfunctory; it is masterful. Her staccato flow is a minefield strewn with terrifyingly forceful plosive consonants, but her vowels are languid to the point of taunting. It's not that she doesn't fuck with you; it's that she doesn't fuuuuuck with youuuuu. The verses are quick as GIFs. The song lacks a traditional melodic hook but doesn't miss it. Each tight section is self-contained, with its own rhythm, and the excitement of jumping from one to the next propels the listener forward. This also has the curious effect of giving the song no natural finishing points. If you start spitting the lyrics to "Bodak Yellow" in your car, you've essentially signed up to rap the entire song to its conclusion, because stopping it early is like ending the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air song when a bunch of guys start making trouble in his neighborhood.
[...] "Here's the thing," begins Cardi. "I never really wanted to talk about that, because I always wanted a music deal. I always want to keep my endorsements. When I was 16 years old, I used to hang out with a lot of"—agonizing, cliff-diver pause—"Bloods. I used to pop off with my homies. And they'd say, 'Yo, you really get it poppin'. You should come home. You should turn Blood.' And I did. Yes, I did. And something that—it's not like, oh, you leave. You don't leave. Stripping," which Cardi began at 19, "changed my life. When I was a stripper, I didn't give a fuck about gangs, because I was so focused on making money.
"One thing I could say," she continues, "you could ask any gang member: Being in a gang don't make you not one dollar. And I know for a fact every gang member, he asking himself, 'Why did I turn this?' Sometimes it's almost like a fraternity, a sorority. Sometimes it's like that. And sometimes I see people that's in the same gang kill each other. So sometimes there is no loyalty. Sometimes you gotta do certain things to get higher, to get higher and higher. You're doing all of that and you not making money off of it. That's why I don't talk about it much. Because I wouldn't want a young person, a young girl, to think it's okay to join it. You could talk to somebody that is considered Big Homie and they will tell you: 'Don't join a gang.' The person that I'm under, she would tell you, 'Don't join a gang.' It's not about violence. It's just like—it doesn't make your money. It doesn't make your money. I rep it, because I been repping it for such a long time."
Cardi B’s ‘GQ’ Profile Slammed For “Objectification” And “Fetishization”
My Acer Aspire E 15's Fileystem Is Buggy
I'm working on The Global Computer Employer Index. It's not very global yet but it's making steady progress.
If I upload the HTML file for Beaverton Oregon the W3C validator complains of an invalid </> tag - no opening tag.
If I look at that local copy with Cygwin's vim or with Notepad++ that end tag isn't there. It hasn't been there since I removed it with Notepad++.
If I look at it with Cygwin's less command or do a View Page Source in Chrome for Winderz that invalid end tag is there.
It took me about twenty minutes to clue into that there is some really bad caching problem going on.
I've seen this kind of thing with OS X' HFS+ too.
I scanned my drive for errors. None were found.
Just now I rebooted. Is it going to work for me this time?
Fortunately I have been religious about backups since my third hard drive failure. It would be mostly OK if I have to reformat and reinstall.
Creepy Christian Chick-fil-A
Chick-fil-A’s Creepy Infiltration of New York City
'Creepy' Chick-fil-A slammed by 'New Yorker' writer from Brooklyn
Chick-fil-A is known for being closed on Sundays and its involvement in the culture wars - against gay marriage (briefly). It is apparently close to becoming the third largest fast food franchise in the U.S., leads the industry in average sales per location, and requires a very small initial investment ($10,000) to open a franchise.
Why Can't aristarchus Submit This Story?
Do I have to do everything around here?
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FDA Launches Criminal Investigation Into Unauthorized Herpes Vaccine Research
By Marisa Taylor, Kaiser Health News
The Food and Drug Administration has launched a criminal investigation into research by a Southern Illinois University professor who injected people with his unauthorized herpes vaccine, Kaiser Health News has learned. SIU professor William Halford, who died in June, injected participants with his experimental herpes vaccine in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2016 and in Illinois hotel rooms in 2013 without safety oversight that is routinely performed by the FDA or an institutional review board.
According to four people with knowledge about the inquiry, the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations is looking into whether anyone from SIU or Halford’s former company, Rational Vaccines, violated FDA regulations by helping Halford conduct unauthorized research. The probe is also looking at anyone else outside the company or university who might have been complicit, according to the sources who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The FDA rarely prosecutes research violations, usually choosing to administratively sanction or ban researchers or companies from future clinical trials, legal experts said. Even so, the agency is empowered to pursue as a crime the unauthorized development of vaccines and drugs—and sometimes goes after such cases to send a message.
[...] Rational Vaccines was co-founded with Hollywood filmmaker Agustín Fernández III, and the company received millions of dollars in private investment from investors after the Caribbean trial, including from billionaire Peter Thiel. Thiel, who for months has refused to respond to questions from KHN, contributed to President Donald Trump’s campaign and is a high-profile critic of the FDA. Thiel is part of a larger libertarian movement to roll back FDA regulations to speed up medical innovation.
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Full article licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Three people have sued Rational Vaccines over the experimental injections.
Also at STLtoday.com.
Previously: University Could Lose Millions From “Unethical” Research Backed by Peter Thiel
