Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington State and Wyoming are participating.
It’s a shame more aren’t participating but I can see the reasoning behind staged access and iterative improvement. The real pity is that data they’ve already got won’t be preloaded in this stage. It would have been the nail in the coffin for Intuit and other companies’ predatory practices on lower income folks, at least as they exist currently.
Just New York and California alone. If the expected turnout is in the millions, one can only hope IBM isn’t behind the cloud infrastructure - word to Obama care.
After the ACA had such a bad start, the obama admin actually opened up "innovation" departments to invite technical experts to modernize goverment infastructure. Those teams have likely done a lot over the decade or so to prevent haphazard rollouts.
EDIT: looks like they work under the title of the “US digital corps” banner and are looking for people.
My understanding is that this program only applies to federal taxes, so I’m not sure that the particular state’s income tax laws will have much bearing on selection for participation or which stage of rollout they’re added with.
I don’t speak this language and have no idea of this culture, but as always we must be careful as any literal translation from one language into another often conveys a different meaning, even when the words are the same.
Today, haka is used as a sign of respect and is performed on important occasions, such as sporting events, weddings, funerals, and powhiri (a traditional welcome).
I highly recommend you watch Netflix’s Downfall: The Case Against Boeing. The hostile takeover by McDonnell-Douglas trashed that company. I try to avoid flying in anything post-takeover that carries a Boeing name.
My administrative law professor, eons ago, worked as a supreme court clerk. Very smart person, very kind, and very neutral on anything political so no one could call him a hack when he shared his professional opinion. He halted class one day when the Max situation came up. He spent 3 hours devoted to his experiences with the FAA Regulatory apparatus, Airbus, and Boeing. He remarked about the redesign of the aircraft, engine placement, stalls, and how generational aircraft are inspected and approved. He went on to explain how Boeing had been, for years (since the hostile take over) been trying to push the boundaries of what was, and was not, an acceptable submission to the FAA for a speedy review as an updated generational aircraft, and was getting away with it. The documentary pretty much lays this out but profit margin, competition with Airbus, and hubris = QA/QC shortcuts as well as cost-savings shortcuts in design.
After all the reports came out, which that documentary I linked does an excellent job of detailing, I look back on that class and thank my lucky stars for the time I spent learning from that man. The 737 Max should have been an entirely new aircraft, with more rigorous scrutiny by regulators. But since it was just an “upgrade” it get away with major structural, software, and hydraulics changes without so much as a glance.
I try not to fly on anything from the post-takeover Boeing, and try to get on an Airbus whenever possible. An extra couple of bucks or a few extra layovers is worth it compared to being an example of why Boeing sucks.
Out of everything out there, aircraft are NOT something to skimp and take shortcuts on. These fucks don’t care if we die on their aircraft if it means making shareholders a bit more money. God, I can’t wait for this system to fall apart.
I don’t work for Airbus, but they could crush Boeing by taking a profit hit and offering at-cost, financed replacements over the long term for anyone with a MAX. I imagine going that route could be cheaper than grounding all your aircraft or loosing one with all aboard.
I highly recommend you watch Netflix’s Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.
As a free alternative/companion, I would also suggest the PBS documentary Boeing’s Fatal Flaw, which features the CEO subtly throwing the pilots under the bus for one of the MCAS crashes.
I worked as a DOD contractor for several years. The downfall of Boeing is a case study in toxic leadership. Boeing was once known as the juggernaut in the industry, capable of engineering amazing feats that only someone as large as them could pull off. Over the past decade, that reputation has become inverted. They are of the butt of many jokes. Their merger with Douglas brought out the worst in Douglas and drove out the best in Boeing. I worked for a competing firm, but in many situations we have to cooperate with competing firms in order to deliver on contracts. When I say that interactions with Boeing have left me bewildered, I am speaking conservatively. Management has become overrun with penny pinchers and career MBAs. Engineers are no longer leading the company, and it shows. The quality of components coming out of Boeing these days is frankly terrifying. I book flights with Delta and unfortunately, they have opted to contract for several Boeing MAX airliners. I will cancel my flight if my itinerary shows that I will be flying on such an aircraft. The odds of an incident are incredibly slim, but having worked in aerospace, I will not take the risk. Vote with your wallet and do the same.
I mentioned on another discussion board that I may have to start factoring in the plane manufacturer as I choose flights. Which is insane in this day and age. Unfortunately, Southwest is the carrier with the most flights and direct routes at my home airport, and Southwest only flies Boeing 737s. Plus, SWA is trying to replace their older 737s with 737 MAX models.
I’ve started flying Delta some last year, but like you said, Delta has both Boeing and Airbus in their fleet. But even if I did only choose Airbus flights with Delta, it’s not like they (and all other carriers) don’t sometimes change planes at the last minute, as needs dictate. Rarely, if ever, would I have the luxury to be like “Nope, nevermind, I’m not getting on that plane,” if that were to happen.
I know air travel is super, super, super safe compared to all other forms of transportation. You’re right that the odds of an incident are incredibly slim, given there are several tens of thousands of commercial passenger flights across the world each day that move millions of people. But boy does it feel like Boeing is aiming to change that, just so they can get some more pennies and dollars here and there. Shameful.
Lorde performs one of her songs also in Maori (the song’s OV is in English, the song is called ‘Solar Power’). You may also be in interested in Olivia Foa’i, a singer who also performs in Gagana Tokelau, the indigenous language of Tokelau, a collection of atolls between Australia and Hawaii, and in this story.
I used FreeTaxUSA last year and after I entered all the info and had everything finished they said “cool we’ll file federally for free but if you want us to file your state tax then it’s gonna cost you like $30” and I gave in
The article is only talking about federal as well. The IRS doesn’t do anything with state taxes, so that’ll probably still cost money unless your state makes their own free solution.
So, it’s worth clarifying the nature of the this kind of “law” passed in Beijing. Which this article fails to do and comes across to me partially as fear mongering because of it.
Generally speaking when Beijing passes a law like this, they are not passing a law as we know it, it is a set of guide lines for the leaders of local provinces to implement their own policies and laws based on what they think will accomplish the goals set out from Beijing. Then Beijing observes what they come up with and if they like the outcomes of one, they implement it country wide.
For instance when everyone was hyper ventilating about “ ALL OF CHINA IS LITERALLY 1984 BECAUSE OF THE NEW SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM” in reality, Beijing had just essentially just asked the provinces to create their own systems that fallowed a vague guideline. And the provinces did, some provinces set up systems that would give people fines for saying mean things, some just set up an American style credit score system. In the end Beijing didn’t really find that any of them lived up to what they were asking for and all of the programs were quietly spun down.
Regarding the ‘1984 social credit system’ there are a lot of good resources which tell a story far diffrrent from yours. One recent example is tbe documentary ‘Total Trust’ by Chinese film maker Zhang Jialing. The film’s introduction says:
Total Trust is an eye-opening and deeply disturbing story of surveillance technology, abuse of power and (self-)censorship that confronts us with what can happen when our privacy is ignored. Through the haunting stories of people in China who have been monitored, intimidated and even tortured, the film tells of the dangers of technology in the hands of unbridled power.
Watch the film. There are many reviews about it (and other sources about surveillance in China). It’s really easy to find on the web.
I think this law has similar intentions.
Addition: <a href="">@megopie</a> it would be great if you could post a source of what you say. Thanks in advance.
That’s not about the social credit system though, that’s about the general censorship and surveillance apparatus. Which although robust and invasive is quite fragmented, there is no central database. local branches of law enforcement or internal intelligence or a million other parts of china’s own alphabet soup, manage, collect and use surveillance data, some terrifyingly effectively, some pathetically. Some not at all.
China is a big country with a lot of tasks being delegated to lower authorities, (and delegated from them to even lower authorities). Anytime I see someone talk as if the Chinese government is a monolithic entity it makes me want to pull my hair out. 90% of the time when someone talks about some new law in Beijing being created, they’re misrepresenting the reality, which is generally that the central government has directed provincial and local governments to pass their own laws and implement their own policies to address what ever Beijing has talked about.
For references about social credit in particular here you go:
Paying for the honor of either giving the government more money, or convincing them that they took too much and to give it back. But don’t worry, they’ll double check your work sometimes to make sure you gave them enough (fuck you if you gave them too much though). Oh, thinking “if they know how much I owed them anyway, why do I have to do this shit in the first place?” Fuck you, that’s why.
Oh, thinking “if they know how much I owed them anyway, why do I have to do this shit in the first place?”
They do that in pretty much all other developed countries. Never had to worry about filing taxes when I lived overseas. Just double check their work and forget about it until next year.
Unfortunately, airliners are left with little choice. Nobody wants to be beholden to a single air frame manufacturer. Even the more conservative airlines have been purchasing Boeing, simply so they are not beholden to a single manufacturer (AeroBus). Everyone in the industry is aware of where we stand, but the United States has let their defense industrial base to merge from dozens of companies to less than a dozen. It’s a real problem.
A spokeswoman for Intuit, Tania Mercado, criticized the direct file project as a “half-baked solution” and a waste of taxpayer money. “The direct file scheme is a solution in search of a problem,”
That’s rich coming from a company that created a problem so they can sell their solution.
Either way, there are better software than Intuit, like FreeTaxUSA.
I liked that quote. Intuit being the biggest waste of money claiming direct filing is a waste of money. Like you said, FreeTaxUSA is at least reasonable.
Hard to argue that having a dozen companies developing IT software and systems to file taxes is more efficient them the organization that specifies the filing requirements do it once. The current system is more like a welfare program for the tax companies.
Here in Australia, you can literally file your tax now for free in a few clicks using the government website. If you wait a few weeks, everything for most people is prefilled except deductions
Pretty much the same in the UK. Most people don’t have to file their tax at all (it’s automatically deducted from wages for most people), but for those that do, you can do it for free on the government’s website, which is largely a matter of saying how much you earned, and any relevant deductions. The government then calculates what tax you have to pay. If your tax affairs are more complicated than that, you’re earning enough that you’re in the “having an accountant is mandatory” territory anyway.
Yeah, it’s not flawless, but it’s straightforward to use, which really is the thing you need for this kind of service, since it’s intended to be used by normal people rather than experts. The one and only thing that our glorious Conservative overlords have done well in the last 13 years is modernising a lot of official administrative processes like this so they can be done digitally and without a load of needless complexity.
The top brass at Boeing probably won’t be getting a lot of leisure time until then
Why do you say this? What gives you the idea that they will face some form of workload pressure because of this?
The only people not getting leisure time will be the persons responsible fixing this. The consequences for the top brass will be Golden Parachuting to the next job, losing stock or face devaluation of said stock.
If you honestly think top brass is actually fixing this or face some form of heavy workload then you’d be wrong.
PS: This is not a manifesto on the inequalities of the current system 😊
It’s based on 40+ years of working where I have never seen top brass taking any form of responsibility or workload. They ‘connect’, ‘network’ and god knows what. All fair play if hired for that but please, do not confuse top management and actual work on products or being involved in fixing products. Also, never seen them ‘empower’ or ‘facilitate’ so others can work more efficiently or something like that.
Part of the reason the top brass get paid so much is that they’re on the chopping block if something goes wrong like this. It’s so the company can fire ask someone to step down and point to them and say, “See, we did something. Now everyone forgot our gross negligence.”
I used to believe this, then the 2008 banking crisis came along, banks were looking at going bankrupt, the government had to step in, and the CEOs got 7- and 8-figure bonuses.
Right, and just to make sure, where do I apply to get on the chopping block with the golden parachute? I want to be chopped parachuted so hard, I’ll cheat and swindle all you want (wait… hope that saying this publicly didn’t disqualify me?).
Why do you say this? What gives you the idea that they will face some form of workload pressure because of this?
Oh, I’d be very surprised if any actual personal responsibility found its way to them. But they’re gonna have to look super busy and worried for the press for a while, find somebody else to pin the blame on, call friends in government to ‘expedite’ any investigations and reassure their shareholders. That’s gonna cost them a lot of time they could have spent on nicer things such as working on their handicap, doing coke in the coutry club’s bathroom or firing a couple of hundred workers.
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