When you decide that you need a mortgage, the obvious next step is to start shopping around to compare the offers available to you. Cutting just a tenth of a percent off the amount of interest you pay over the course of a loan makes a huge difference when you talking about a mortgage.
Since a mortgage is a long-term debt that will take you many years to repay, it makes sense to invest a little time in learning how to secure the most favorable interest rates before you take a loan. The tips presented here can help.
With all other factors being equal, short-term mortgages cost less than long-term ones. A 15-year mortgage, for instance, will have an interest rate about 0.75 percent lower than a 30-year loan. Although your payments will be larger with a short term, you'll have the full debt paid off faster.
Going for a shorter mortgage is also a good idea if you don't want to risk changes in your interest rate or you're comfortable refinancing to take advantage of rate drops in the future. Short-term mortgages generally expose you to less uncertainty all around.
Hybrid ARMs are new credit products that may help you make the most of low interest rates. Hybrid loans have low introductory rates for a fixed period (generally one to five years) at the start of the term. The rate will jump up afterward. Lenders like Hybrid loans because they limit the amount of risk they have to take on to offer attractive interest rates.
Of course, these loans carry the danger of exposing you to high rates that you can't handle later on in the term of the loan. These loans are most useful if you plan to resell your home during the introductory low-interest period or are confident in your ability to refinance in the future.
Borrowers that come to lenders with great credit histories are, obviously, the ones who get the most favorable interest rates. Limit your borrowing to what is absolutely necessary, make prompt payments (above the minimums if possible), and maintain a healthy debt-to-income ratio.
Although there are mortgages available for borrowers all over the credit spectrum, loans are going to cost more for people who have average or bad credit. You might even want to delay buying a home in order to bolster your credit score before you take out a mortgage. This sort of patience can improve your long-term financial position considerably.
Home loans that don't call for down payments are becoming very rare. It's a good idea to stow away as much money as possible prior to a home purchase so that you can get started with some equity right off the bat. There are many different benefits to making a large down payment.
If you can pay 20 percent of the total cost of your home at signing, you won't have to pay for private mortgage insurance (PMI). You'll also receive equity in your new home, increasing your security greatly. Larger down payments also encourage lenders to offer lower interest rates. Even if you can't change your rate, you will reduce the size of the principle by putting more money down.
Different lenders cater to different sorts of borrowers. Some lenders offer unique financial products to qualified borrowers that their competitors simply can't match. Shop for your mortgage with the same patience and attention to detail that you put into shopping for your home.
Don't just inquire with your local banks and credit unions. Look further afield to check out other lenders as well. Use resources like online comparison services and independent brokers to get a better idea of all the options that are available to you.


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Home » Blog » The EARN IT Act Is Here. Surprise, It's Still Bad News.
The EARN IT Act Is Here. Surprise, It's Still Bad News.
By Riana Pfefferkorn on March 5, 2020 at 8:17 pm
Well, the dreaded day has come: the EARN IT Act was formally introduced today in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I wrote at length in January about the bill, which aims to kneecap encryption under the guise of protecting children online, while capitalizing on the techlash and the current unpopularity of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. As introduced, the bill is up to nine co-sponsors total, from the original two (Sens. Graham and Blumenthal).
This version of the bill is different from the version that I blogged about in January, and also from the intermediate version that Eric Goldman blogged about last month. I've attached a PDF to this blog post of the version as introduced. (Scroll down, it's there at the bottom!) Here's the Senate Judiciary Committee's press release (which, maddeningly, does not link to bill text, at least as of the time I wrote this). Here's coverage from the New York Times, whose reporting last fall is credited for helping inspire the bill. Here's a Wired story that quotes me.
I have some observations on how the bill as introduced has changed from the version I blogged about in January. You'll want to read that blog post before this one, as this post assumes the reader's familiarity with the initial January version of the bill. And, as in that blog post, I can't hope to touch on even half of what's going on in this bill. It's still a sprawling mess that would take a roomful of lawyers and policy wonks, with many different kinds of expertise, to issue-spot everything that's weird or problematic with it.
First, a round-up of responses from civil society:
ACLU & Americans for Prosperity
Open Technology Institute
TechFreedom
Disruptive Competition Project (DisCo)
NetChoice
Now, here goes:
This version of the bill is twice the length of the previous version. Most of that is due to a new Section 7 at the end of the bill, which will replace the outmoded and disfavored term "child pornography" everywhere it occurs in federal law and replace it with "child sexual abuse material," to have the same legal meaning. (The bill spells out all of those instances in federal law, hence the length.)
While I am on board with getting rid of the term "child pornography," it bears remembering that the "best practices" the bill contemplates go beyond images. CSAM is only a subset of the problem at hand. The bill now calls for best practices for fighting "the online sexual exploitation of children, including the enticement, grooming, sex trafficking, and sexual abuse of children and the proliferation of online child sexual abuse material."
(That's a long list, so throughout this blog post, I'm going to refer to all of those things as "CSAM" for the sake of convenience.)
It's an improvement that the bill is now being a bit more specific; the original bill referred to "online child exploitation conduct," without saying what that meant, though it seemed to differentiate between "child exploitation" and "child sexual abuse."
CSAM, enticement, grooming, sex trafficking, and sexual abuse are all different problems with different mitigation strategies that providers could deploy. Because these categories don't just involve images, any best practices risk overbreadth and could result in the censorship of legal speech (like FOSTA has -- which, by the way, already covers sex trafficking; it's unclear how this bill interacts with it).
Even my saying "just images" oversimplifies the problem facing both the Commission (in drafting best practices) and providers (in implementing them). Think child sexual abuse imagery is a bright-line, clear-cut thing, both for First Amendment purposes and for detection/reporting purposes? Nope. It's not.
The Commission is up to 19 members from the original 15.
Still includes the AG and the heads of DHS and the FTC.
It now has 2 members with "current experience in matters related to constitutional law, consumer protection, or privacy." This is an increase from 0 in the original version. So we've got that going for us, which is nice. But that "or" means the Commission could end up with 2 consumer-protection people who are experts in, I don't know, car seat safety, who know nothing about privacy or the Constitution. What's to stop that from happening?
The Commission still has 2 members who are experts in computer science, but the exact wording has become more specific: previously, it called for current experience in "computer science or software engineering"; now, it's "computer science or software engineering related to matters of cryptography, data security, or artificial intelligence in a non-governmental capacity."
This is the only place in the bill where cryptography comes up. By requiring a cryptography expert, this version of the bill basically confirms what we all knew to be true from the start: The "best practices" are going to target encryption. And again, that "or" in "cryptography, data security, or AI" means that the Commission could end up including zero cryptography experts.
The original bill called for 2 members to have "experience in providing victims services for victims of child exploitation"; the bill as introduced allots 4 members who shall either have that experience (in a non-governmental capacity") or "be survivors of online child sexual exploitation." This is fascinating. I am strongly against so much about the EARN IT Act, but expressly reserving seats at the table for survivors (well, modulo that "or" again) is remarkable.
That said, all of the foregoing is basically window dressing: The best practices require only 14 of the 19 members' approval. That means the Commission can completely ignore the 4 experts in privacy, constitutional law, and computer science, or the 4 survivors and child-abuse experts, and the best practices will still go onward into the hands of the Attorney General.
The bill no longer gives unilateral power to the AG to write the "best practices" himself. Instead, after the Commission submits the recommended best practices to him, the AG, "upon agreement with" the heads of DHS and the FTC, shall either approve or deny them.
If approved, the best practices are published on the DOJ website and the Federal Register and submitted to Congress. If denied, the AG has to write up why he denied them. Then, the Commission gets a do-over: it "may resubmit recommended best practices."
In other words: even though he no longer gets to rewrite the best practices at will, the AG still has thumbs-up/thumbs-down power over them (so long as the FTC and DHS heads agree). He -- along with the heads of FTC and DHS -- is also on the Commission. Why would the remaining members of the Commission ever bother writing any best practices that won't please AG Barr? He still basically gets to dictate what the best practices say, because if they write some he doesn't like, he can just deny them and make them resubmit revised versions that are more to his liking. And since AG Barr despises encryption (and because, as said, the 14-of-19 requirement means all the members who are experts in privacy, cryptography, and data security can be totally ignored), of course the best practices will go after encryption.
The bill has been rewritten in what appears to be an attempt to avoid the serious procedural defects present in the original leaked version.
The original version unconstitutionally delegated ultimate power to the Attorney General to decide what the "best practices" would be (and allowed him to rewrite whatever the unelected Commission recommended), sidestepping the usual regulatory rulemaking procedures or congressional review. It wasn't a law, it wasn't an agency rulemaking, it was a set of "best practices" that just happened to also have the force of law because not following them would open providers up to liability and oh also maybe land one of their executives in prison.
Now, the bill contains a process for the recommended best practices, after approval by the Attorney General, to be put into a "covered bill" in Congress (which must contain all of the best practices, not only some of them) and fast-tracked to a vote in each house of Congress.
Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, do not do all the usual things that would otherwise pose inconvenient democratic speed-bumps to the swift passage of a bad bill. A lot of the bill is devoted to spelling out exactly how the best practices will get to sidestep the usual Schoolhouse Rock stuff. The determination to get around normal congressional procedure is itself a huge red flag.
I'm not a legislative analyst, and the language is confusing to me, but I think the upshot of all this is that the "best practices" would get passed into an actual law enacted by Congress.
This has echoes of the CLOUD Act, which gives Congress the opportunity to disapprove of an executive agreement under the Act that the U.S. enters into with another country. But as with CLOUD, I expect that this process is just a rubber-stamp by Congress, particularly given the fast-tracking provisions that do away with the usual legislative processes. That is: the "best practices" are still pretty much up to the AG to determine.
Despite the attempt to fix it, the bill still seems to have nondelegation-doctrine and Administrative Procedure Act problems, as TechFreedom explains here.
If these "best practices" are now going to be codified into federal legislation, that might (might) address the bizarre nondelegation/administrative procedure issues with the original -- but it opens up a host of other problems.
The rewrite leaves the bill even more vulnerable to challenges on First and Fourth Amendment grounds.
Codifying "best practices" for online content means congressionally-required rules governing speech on the Internet. That just opens up a whole can of First Amendment worms, as Project DisCo describes.
The bill contains the following "rule of construction": "Nothing in this Act or the amendments made by this Act shall be construed to require a provider of an interactive computer service to search, screen, or scan for instances of online child sexual exploitation." That rule of construction is clearly aimed at trying to fix EARN IT's "state actor" problem under the Fourth Amendment, but it might not be enough. TechFreedom did a great write-up of the Fourth Amendment issue so I don't have to.
And if those "best practices" are indeed codified into federal law, then, as I've said before, the best practices would conflict directly with CALEA to the extent that they involve encryption or law enforcement access to communications. But the bill still doesn't even acknowledge that CALEA has any bearing on this bill.
There are two particular newly-added provisions that I believe the AG will use to go after encryption:
Section 4(a)(1) charges the Commission with developing a set of "recommended best practices" that providers "may choose to engage in" in order to fight CSAM. Those best practices shall include "alternatives that take into consideration" a variety of factors. One of the newly-added factors is "whether a type of product, business model, product design, or other factors related to the provision of an interactive computer service could make a product or service susceptible to the use and facilitation of online child exploitation."
Because the AG continually lambastes end-to-end encrypted messaging for cloaking pedophiles' exchanges of CSAM and grooming of child victims, this is code for "encryption is not a viable alternative best practice." This will be used to discourage any "product design" that includes encryption that isn't backdoored for law enforcement.
This factor is also utterly nonsensical, because -- leaving aside the vagueness of what "facilitate" means -- it applies to every single online service ever that lets a user (1) communicate with another person or (2) transmit or store any kind of file. In case you've forgotten, that is the entire point of the Internet. All email services! All cloud storage! All chat services! Wikipedia! Github! JIRA tickets! If you take out the word "online," it's everything. The telephone! The U.S. mail, FedEx, and UPS! Safety deposit boxes at the bank! Hotel rooms -- heck, private homes -- that have walls, and doors that close and lock! The past one hundred years of Boy Scout camps, for god's sake!
Fundamentally, privacy and the ability to communicate with each other are "susceptible" to being "used" for, or "facilitating," child exploitation. Undermining our online privacy and hampering our ability to communicate with each other are goals the DOJ would love to achieve with this bill.
Section 4(a)(4), later in that same section, sets out the "relevant considerations" that the Commission "shall consider" in developing best practices. The as-introduced version adds a troubling new one: "the impact [of implementing the best practice] on the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute child sexual exploitation and rescue victims."
Because law enforcement alleges that encryption hampers their investigative abilities, this, too, is just code for "the Commission shall decide that end-to-end encryption is a worst practice."
This is definitely an anti-encryption bill. The bill is 65 pages long, and yet it speaks even more volumes in what it doesn't contain. If this is not a bill that is intended, as Berin Szoka put it over at Techdirt, as "a backdoor to a backdoor" to encryption, it could just say so. But it doesn't. And that's telling.
Compare this bill to the CLOUD Act. The "AG refers the best practices to Congress for them to rubberstamp" structure feels a little like the CLOUD Act's aforementioned process for executive agreements between the U.S. and other countries. By contrast, however, the CLOUD Act expressly states that such agreements must be encryption-neutral: "the terms of the agreement shall not create any obligation that providers be capable of decrypting data or limitation that prevents providers from decrypting data."
The drafters of EARN IT were equally capable of inserting similar language here: just replace "the terms of the agreement" with "the best practices". But they never did so, even after this bill has gone through at least three iterations.
The omission is even more glaring in light of the bill's aforementioned "rule of construction": "Nothing in this Act or the amendments made by this Act shall be construed to require a provider of an interactive computer service to search, screen, or scan for instances of online child sexual exploitation."
If the drafters of this bill could write a rule of construction about this not being a monitoring and filtering mandate (because that's a Fourth Amendment no-no), they could certainly have written a rule of construction clarifying that the bill is also not an encryption-backdoor mandate. (And also that it doesn't impair any rights under CALEA, too.) But they didn't.
The bill makes providers immune from liability for "compliance with a search warrant, court order, or other legal process." This is in tension with the Stored Communications Act, which (with some relevant exceptions) allows providers to be sued civilly for improperly disclosing users' communications. If a provider illegally discloses a user's information in response to an illegal subpoena (or a fake court order that was Photoshopped to look real; this is not mere speculation), why should they be immune? This provision could have an innocent explanation -- for example, to ensure that providers do not face liability for merely dropping a CD in the mail to the DOJ that contains CSAM -- but as written, it's overbroad.
No change to the original version's language that lowered the mens rea for civil liability by providers for having CSAM on their service from actual knowledge to recklessness. CDT explained why that lowered standard is problematic.
The as-introduced version of the EARN IT Act, weighing in at 65 pages, doesn't fix the fundamental problem with the bill: It's a big, unnecessary mess. As I wrote in January, if Congress thinks providers aren't doing enough to fight CSAM, why not just amend the federal law that tells providers what they have to do about CSAM? This arcane, twisted, confusing, tortu[r]ous bill structure could be avoided in favor of a much simpler bill that just straightforwardly amends that statute to tell providers that they have to start doing x, y, and z additional things on top of their existing reporting and preservation duties.
That's not to say that x, y, and z are totally fine and unproblematic. The bill calls for the best practices to address a list of matters that include, for example, "employing age rating and age gating systems to reduce child sexual exploitation." That, as Project DisCo's blog post on EARN IT notes, runs afoul of the First Amendment when mandated by law, as the Supreme Court already ruled over a decade ago. This weird "oh, it's not a legal mandate, it's just best practices that a Commission comes up with and tailors to please the AG who then sends them to Congress to rubberstamp so it looks an awful lot like a real law but we're still going to pretend it's totally voluntary" charade does not fix that. Can we please avoid relitigating the same damn First Amendment violations that were already struck down by the Supreme Court over ten, fifteen, even twenty years ago?
Meanwhile: 11 Voluntary Principles
Meanwhile, on the same day the bill finally came out, the DOJ held a press conference about another new anti-CSAM initiative. As CNET and the NYT report, Attorney General Barr, appearing together with representatives from America's Five Eyes partners, announced a set of 11 voluntary principles for providers to adopt to fight CSAM. Six companies -- Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Snap, and Roblox -- have signed on, and Attorney General Barr said during the press conference that other companies have indicated an interest in joining as well.
These principles are, naturally, pretty vague; I don't see anything especially objectionable in them. Overall they seem to be about the kinds of things that the industry signatories, such as Google, are probably already doing in some form to combat CSAM anyway (though whether they're doing enough is, of course, the crux of the dispute that got us to this point). The principles don't overtly mention encryption at all. No surprise there. Any version that said anything about "limits" or "balance" or a "middle ground" on encryption would not have gained any tech company signatories. Something vague, anodyne, and non-binding is really the only possible outcome when governments and businesses work together to draft something everyone can agree to, especially about a hotly contentious topic.
But that didn't stop the Five Eyes speakers at the press conference, such as AG Barr, from using their airtime at the podium to talk mostly about encryption (and, in Barr's case, Section 230). As the UK representative said, "Encryption remains the elephant in the room." Their attitude today was in keeping with the Five Eyes' joint statement from September 2018 that made their stance on encryption very clear. Nothing's changed since then; as today's presser made plain, the Five Eyes have confined themselves to the echo chamber I warned about, continually working to undermine strong encryption while ignoring any countervailing approaches from other governments. So while the principles may sound mostly harmless, the Five Eyes' underlying motives are anything but.
These voluntary principles are the "speak softly" part of the DOJ's encryption agenda, and the EARN IT Act bill is the "big stick." The two-pronged approach, deployed simultaneously today, will further pinch tech companies, which have been under pressure for years from law enforcement agencies worldwide to backdoor the encryption in their devices and services.
I am sure there are sound strategic reasons for the six signatories to have signed on to the voluntary principles. It's good optics; it depicts the companies as trying in good faith to work constructively with law enforcement. And it doesn't actually require them to do anything.
But that's exactly the problem. If those six companies think that agreeing to these voluntary principles will help relieve the pressure and stave off the EARN IT Act bill from going anywhere, I'm not so sure. Congress and the public are fed up with industry self-regulation as a solution to various ills. True, self-regulation may be the only option when it comes to certain measures for fighting CSAM, because companies can voluntarily take measures (such as removing online speech that is abusive but not illegal, or warrantlessly scanning every file in everybody's email or cloud storage account) that would violate the First and Fourth Amendments if they were mandated by law. That's a big problem for the as-introduced version of EARN IT Act, and the drafters of the bill know it.
But self-regulation is weak sauce in 2020. Self-regulation got us Cambridge Analytica, and the current online environment of ad-driven surveillance capitalism more generally. Heck, Section 230 is, in a sense, a pass for providers to engage in self-regulation, and now people hate Section 230 for that. Even if providers are in fact diligently working on the problem of abuse internally, Congress and the public don't have great visibility into those internal efforts. What they see, from the outside, is providers endorsing yet another set of non-binding, vague principles, which will be talked up in a press conference and maybe a blog post… and then rarely heard of again.
That lack of transparency is understandable inasmuch as providers don't want to hand bad actors on their services a roadmap to evading the providers' anti-abuse measures. But I fear that signing on to these 11 principles won't dissuade Congressmembers from voting for the EARN IT Act and approving "best practices" that ban strong encryption and, like FOSTA before it, impose overbroad speech regulations on the Internet. If they want to fend off a bad law telling them to do more on CSAM, tech companies need to show Congress how much they're already doing. As said, what got us here is public perception that platforms are sitting on their hands when it comes to CSAM. If that's not the case, Congress needs to hear it (behind closed doors as necessary), and soon.
Even that might be too little, too late -- many Congressmembers, while they surely do sincerely care about the wellbeing of children, likely want to be seen to be doing something about CSAM (rather than to be deferring to the big bad tech companies), even if that something is a terrible bill like the EARN IT Act.
And while it's certainly a necessary, urgent, and desirable goal to combat the scourge of online child exploitation, there are still limits on what tech companies should do. Stepping up to fight CSAM should not mean wholesale converting their services into even more powerful surveillance tools for law enforcement than they already are. Tech companies should take care that they don't let accusations of inaction against child abuse, coupled with the specter of legislation, push them into falling all over themselves to strip away their users' privacy and security and hand increased snooping capabilities to governments that, frankly, can't be trusted with them, as the Snowden revelations showed.
That's not a popular thing to say, because rhetorically, "we should do everything at all possible to fight the sexual abuse of children" sounds a lot better than "well, yes, protect children, up to a point." The rhetorical power of this particular kind of harm is exactly what makes everything about the government's current focus on CSAM so dangerous. Child sex abuse is a radioactive topic, and invoking it has the unfortunate tendency of shutting down nuanced discussion. It is practically taboo to suggest there should be any limits on what we should do to fight it. But that taboo doesn't help anyone but power-hungry governments -- as our own government is well aware.
Undermining everyone's privacy and security, strengthening governments' already-excessive surveillance powers, nibbling away ever more at civil liberties and human rights -- if it's in the name of protecting children from sexual abuse, then the DOJ and its Five Eyes partners expect we'll not only accept it, but demand it from the online service providers we use. (The UK representative at today's press conference commented that "putting our children at risk for what I believe are marginal privacy gains" -- i.e., from encryption -- "is something I really struggle to believe any of us want.") As Cato's Julian Sanchez said on Twitter, it's a "gross, cynical" ploy by law enforcement to get tech companies to roll over on their users' rights.
Hearteningly, there are reports that some Congressmembers, both Democrats and Republicans, are pushing back against EARN IT. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), an evergreen champion of Americans' civil liberties, issued a statement against it and promised to offer legislation soon that would provide additional funding and resources for fighting CSAM. That's a more sensible proposal, and it may scratch Congressmembers' "I need to be seen to be doing something" itch. But they need to know that if they stand up for Americans' privacy, security, and speech rights online, they have their constituents' support. If you want to make sure that the EARN IT Act bill goes nowhere, contact your Congressmember and tell them you oppose it.
EARN IT Act - AS INTRODUCED (3-5) - OLL20148.pdf

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom through the Ages
Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue
Michael Keen
Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod
An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages
5.25 x 8 in.
Praise 21
Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts—and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic—from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes.
While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday's tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England's window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great's tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today's carbon taxes aim to slow global warming.
Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation—and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.
Michael Keen, former deputy director of fiscal affairs at the International Monetary Fund, is Ushioda Fellow at Tokyo College, University of Tokyo. Joel Slemrod is the David Bradford Distinguished University Professor and the Paul W. McCracken Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. They have both received the National Tax Association's Holland Medal for their lifetime contributions, and both are former presidents of the International Institute of Public Finance.
"It is hard to imagine a more timely—and entertaining—history."—Barry Eichengreen, Foreign Affairs
"An erudite yet good-humored history of taxation. . . . Reading about taxes, it turns out, is a lot more fun than paying them. That's a low bar, but Rebellions, Rascals and Revenue clears it with ease. Check with your accountant: The book may be tax-deductible."—Daniel Akst, Wall Street Journal
"Offers a historical precedent for almost any tax debate or controversy imaginable. . . . Keen and Slemrod have amassed the most remarkable collection of evidence to bolster and illuminate their case. . . . An invaluable primer to some of the underlying tensions behind contemporary political debate."—Chris Giles, Financial Times
"Societies throughout the ages have wrestled with the question of how to tax, who to tax, and how to make people pay. The stories that emerge are remarkable. In this highly enjoyable tour de force, Keen and Slemrod show how the travails of our ancestors can help us understand the problems we face today—and pass on a few eternal lessons. Prepare to read, learn, and enjoy!"—Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank
"The main effect of this enjoyable gallop through state levies of the past is to expose the continuing oddities of how governments raise revenue today. . . . The tales of historic folly and wisdom breathe life into dry principles of tax theory."—Liam Proud, Reuters
"Amusing historical anecdotes. . . . Shed[s] light on how the modern-day tax system works—as well as its potential pitfalls."—Reed Tucker, New York Post
"A fascinating and often funny book. . . . The real skill of Keen and Slemrod is to explain not just the history of tax but (painlessly) the economic forces that shape and are shaped by it."—Frances Cairncross, Literary Review
"Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod's book is wonderful and should be read by any student of tax. It is both entertaining and instructive. . . . Keen and Slemrod's marvelous book is not an attempt to directly effectuate tax policy or to rewrite tax history. Instead, it is a very wise excursion by two highly experienced public finance economists into the past to better understand the present by comparing it to what was different, and to improve the future by learning from both past wisdom and past follies. Herodotus and Thucydides would have been delighted to read it."—Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Tax Notes International
"Tax history resembles the warehouse in the final scene of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark—an enormous, poorly lit jumble of unlabeled boxes, one of which may be hiding the answer to all the world's tax problems. This new book by two leading tax analysts turns up the lights, organizes many of the boxes in an enlightening way, and presents the results with a style and flair that make the subject not only understandable but—and this may come as a surprise to many—actually fun to read. The authors may not have found the answer, but even the most experienced reader can learn something from this lively and informative book."—Richard Bird, Finance & Development
"It takes more than the entertainment of countless historical tax tales to produce a book on tax that actually pleases the reader. What makes this both so intriguing and worthwhile is how it draws out common threads of tax principles and practice that have underlain tax systems for thousands of years. . . . There is no way to do justice to this book in a few paragraphs."—Vox EU
"A new book on the history of taxes adds levity to, and piques interest in, a topic often with the allure of a root canal."—Joel Schlesinger, Winnipeg Free Press
"An entertaining, compelling, and well-researched book."—Simon Heffer, New Criterion
"A spry survey of taxes over the course of history. . . . It won't ward off the April tax blues, but it does a fine job of explaining the hows and whys of taxation."—Kirkus Reviews
"There will likely be a tax-related anecdote (or two) that speaks to you directly in Keen and Slemrod's wonderfully comprehensive walk through the annals of taxation. . . . An immensely enjoyable and comprehensive look at the 'history' of taxation."—Frank G. Colella, New York Law Journal
"Keen and Slemrod's book took me on a romp through 4,000 years tax history. It's a perfect gift for your CPA, or anyone seeking untoppable zingers for the next faculty club meeting."—George Spencer, Notre Dame Magazine
"Unusual and stimulating. . . .a major accomplishment (with a stunning cover) that supplements standard textbooks on tax design and tax policy and provides a lively survey and exhaustive historical analysis of these frequently dry topics."—Richard Allen, Market Screener
"Who says the study of taxation can't be fun? Most of you, I would expect. But Michael Keen, deputy director of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF, and Joel Slemrod, the Paul W. McCracken Collegiate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business, are out to prove you wrong. Their delightful (you read that right) new book ... is a sprawling compendium of (mostly weird) anecdotes that neatly illustrate the principles of the economics of tax policy."—Peter Passell, Milken Institute Review
"At first glance, a book on the history of taxation seems like something only an accountant could love. But as it turns out, Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is an enjoyable rompt, a fascinating mix of stories and insights."—The Australian
"A delightful book."—Michael Taylor, San Antonio Express News
"Whoever said taxes were boring? They are not only the price of civilization, as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously remarked; Keen and Slemrod show that they are also the source of many fantastic stories. This book is in equal measure entertaining and instructive."—Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard University
"The history of societies—from ancient to modern—is revealed by their tax systems. In this highly entertaining and informative account, Keen and Slemrod tell the fascinating stories behind the taxes that did and did not work."—Mervyn King, former Governor of the Bank of England
Competition and Stability in Banking
Xavier Vives
Digital Cash
Finn Brunton
Pricing Lives
W. Kip Viscusi
Unelected Power
Paul Tucker
Globalizing Capital


Herbert S. May, Jr., 95, of 51 Plymouth Ave., died Feb. 19th. Memorial Service Saturday February 27th at 10:30 a.m. in the First Congregational Church of Leicester, 2 Washburn Square, Leicester. MORRISON-MORIN FUNERAL HOME, 1131 Main St.,Leicester is directing arrangements for the family.


What is the longest English word(s) that can be produced from the letters contained in each of the following?
** For example, the longest word that can be produced from the letters contained in "NUHRIAKMTE" is "RUMINATE". For some of the above phrases, there may exist more than one word having the maximum number of letters.
*** Proper nouns, acronyms, abbreviations, hyphens, spaces are not allowed. Number of occurrences of a letter in the word is limited to the number of occurrences in the phrase.


text:
Opionato Mission
Democratizing fertility understanding for everyone.
We believe that knowledge is power. Through the right information at the right time the right informed fertility decisions are made and the right informed fertility actions are taken.
We work under the premise that every path to pregnancy is to be short, smooth, and as desired.
Maja Zecevic, PhD, MPH
Maja created Opionato with herself in mind: that someone she wished she had during her fertility journey. Read Maja's Fertility Journey here.
Maja worked for more than a decade as a cancer scientist. Subsequently she was the sole North American Editor in New York City for one of the world's most prestigious evidence-based medical journals-The Lancet. Once in California, she became a health advisor to leading Silicon Valley based academic institutions, philanthropic organizations, and private health entities.
She obtained her PhD degree in molecular cancer biology from the University of Virginia and her Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She was a Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Cancer Institute in Washington, DC and at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
Maja currently serves as a reviewer for the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Fertility & Sterility published by The American Society of Reproductive Medicine.
Maja truly believes that informed fertility early-on decision making is a human right and should be accessible and affordable to everyone at anytime.
Sara Anderson
Sara is a data-driven marketing leader for 15 years. Sara's approach to marketing has always been 60% technical and 40% creative with a great understanding of using technology to develop strong, meaningful engagement with customers.
Her work experience includes Cleo Health, Redbooth, AeroFS, and Skybox.
Outside of the office, Sara enjoys backpacking and visiting national parks.
Sony Atmadjaja
Sony is a digital designer and art director. She has been creating & designing interactive experiences for brands for more than 10 years. Sony's design expertise involve UI/UX, Product, Visual, Marketing, Branding & Logo, Marketing Strategy, and Social Engagement.
Her work experience includes Doximity, Postmates, and Pivotal Labs.
Alongside design, she likes to spend time taking photos, rock climbing, traveling, and hosting exceptional dinner parties.
David is a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur with more than 25 years of technology leadership experience across a diverse range of startups and technology companies.
He has been involved with Spinner.com ($320M million AOL acquisition), ExactTarget (IPO, $2.5B Salesforce acquisition), and Virta Health ($45M raised, reversing diabetes).
David enjoys machine learning, scaling, and being part of socially impactful endeavors. He believes fertility outcome can be improved with the help from technology aiding the right fertility information no matter the geographical location.
Oriane Chausiaux, PhD
Oriane has 15 years of experience in the fertility space.
She founded the first digital health fertility company: DuoFertility. Oriane also has a PhD degree from the University of Cambridge that relates to the molecular mechanisms of male infertility.
Although Oriane was told that she would not be able to conceive naturally, she managed to conceive naturally and become a mom to two girls and one boy. She believes strongly in the value of evidence-based advice to individuals and couples as early as possible.
From San Francisco With Love
[email protected]opionato.com
© 2019 Opionato, Inc. All rights reserved.


The visionary and planning body for the pastoral and spiritual concerns of the parish. The council is a consultative body to the pastor. The ministry and main purpose is pastoral planning.
Gifts to Share: Willingness to pray and reflect with others; willingness and ability to respectfully communicate; ability to give time, energy, and future thinking.
Commitment: One evening meeting bi-monthly plus additional time between meetings for various projects.
Advise the pastor regarding all aspects of parish finances which include the yearly operating budget and debt reduction. Oversee building and grounds, Catholic Services Appeal, endowment and foundations and any Capital Campaigns.
Gifts to Share: Skills in communication, problem solving, patience, open-mindedness and forwardthinking, accounting financial skills helpful.
Commitment: One evening meeting a month.
Copyright © 2014, St. Philip Neri and St. Anne Catholic Parishes. All rights reserved.
Please select from the list of available email newsletter options. You can choose as many or as few as you would like to receive.


On September 22, Josh will speak to Dr. Trevor Boffone's Intro to LGBT Studies course at the University of Houston. He will discuss local electoral politics (particularly in regard to LGBT issues), the importance of voting, and his experience writing for OutSmart Magazine, an LGBT publication.
The Redemption Series at Landing Theatre Co.


text:
Surfing Spots of the Cape Peninsula
View Map Cape Town Accommodation Things to do in Cape Town
One of the most notable things about surfing in and around Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula, is that you will almost always find some sort of a wave to surf.
There are so many different spots on all sides of the coast, that no matter what the wind direction, it will be blowing off-shore somewhere.
Yeah right, that is theory, realisticaly, there are days when you will be forced to surf a cross-shore mush.
It is important to note, that the surf spots mentioned below are all surfed by locals. When paddling out, show them the necessary respect that comes with the territory. Going for a surf full of agro will only make it un-enjoyable for everyone in the water.
Shark attacks are not really a factor in the Peninsula. There have been a couple of oversize Johnny Boys reported in the areas of Muizenberg and Cemetries, but until now, we are waiting for that elusive attack.
The best surfing spots are grouped together as north of Cape Town (West Coast (North) Area), south of Cape Town (on the western seaboard)) and spots in the Muizenberg Area.
Cape Town Accommodation options are numerous; with a large variety of different types spread throughout the Peninsula.
See also Cape Town Things to Do for various other activities.
0.0701 2.79MB 0.27 | 0.18 | 0.17


text:
<?php

Class Sync extends Base {

	private $_exceptions = [];

	private $_source = null;

	private $_destination = null;

	public function __construct($source, $destination, $exceptions = array()) {

		$this->_source = $source;
		$this->_destination = $destination;
		$this->_exceptions = $exceptions;

	}

	private function isReadable($folder) {

		return is_readable($folder);

	}

	public function execute($post_execute = null) {

		# Verify folders

		if (!$this->isReadable($this->_source)) {

			$this->log(sprintf('Source not readable: ' . $this->_source));
			return false;

		}

		if (!$this->isReadable($this->_destination)) {

			$this->log(sprintf('Destination not readable: ' . $this->_destination));
			return false;

		}

		# Prepare exclusions

		$exclude_param = '';

		foreach ($this->_exceptions as $item) {

			$exclude_param .= sprintf('--exclude %s ', $item);

		}

		# Run command

		$execute_cmd = sprintf('rsync -avz %s %s %s', $exclude_param, $this->_source, $this->_destination);
		$this->log('Attempting: ' . $execute_cmd);

		exec($execute_cmd, $output);

		# Post execute

		if (is_callable($post_execute)) {

			$this->log('Running post execute command');
			call_user_func($post_execute);

		}

		$this->log('Finished');

	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
[SDG Target 14.4] By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and destructive fishing practices... more
[SDG Target 14.6] By 2020, prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, and eliminate subsidies that contribute to IUU fishing... more
Fisheries and aquaculture contribute US$100 billion per year and about 260 million jobs to the global economy (UNDP, 2012). Women comprise 47 percent of the total workforce dependent on commercial capture fisheries for their livelihoods, including the post-harvest sector (World Bank, 2012).
Global wild fish catch has been flat at around 80-85 million metric tonnes per year since the late 1980's; the additional global demand since then has largely been made up by the rapid growth in aquaculture which now supplies about half of annual global consumption of fish protein.
About 30% of global fish stocks are considered overexploited, 60% fully exploited, and only 10% underexploited (FAO, 2010). 20% of fish stocks are subject to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, valued at $23 billion per year. Destructive fisheries subsidies that support unsustainable practices, total about $16 billion per year. World Bank/FAO estimate that the economic loss due to overfishing is now $83 billion per year (World Bank, 2017).
2nd UNDP Ocean Innovation Challenge Call for Proposals: Sustainable Fisheries
Fish represent one of the most important sources of food protein to humanity, supplying 17 percent of total animal protein consumed globally.
Overfishing is a social injustice - Amb. Peter Thomson
27 Nov 2020 - To end overfishing, we need to over eliminate harmful fisheries subsidies, SDG 14's Target 6.
Ghanaians devastated by illegal fishing try hand at citizen sleuthing
12 Nov 2020 - Crucial fish stocks could disappear within five years without urgent action, so desperate fishers are using a new smartphone app to log alleged crimes.
International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022)
The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2022 the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022). FAO is the lead agency for celebrating the year in collaboration with other relevant organizations and bodies of the United Nations system.
01/01/2022 - 08:45 to 31/12/2022 - 08:45
GEF International Waters Portfolio Bulletin - December 2021 Edition
The December 2021 Edition of the GEF IW Portfolio News features the following ocean-related stories from around the globe:
GEF International Waters Portfolio Bulletin - November 2021 Edition
The November 2021 Edition of the GEF IW Portfolio News features the following ocean-related stories from around the globe:
WTO takes important steps towards global trade rules for sustainable fishing
On 15 July, the World Trade Organization (WTO) held a ministerial meeting on fisheries subsidies, which confirmed the commitment to set the course for a successful outcome on negotiations before the WTO's Ministerial Conference starting in November 2021.
WTO members edged closer today (15 July) to an agreement which would set new rules for the global fisheries industry and limit government subsidies contributing to unsustainable fishing and the depletion of global fish stocks.
UNDP SIDS Bulletin Issue 42 | July 2021
In this issue, read the following feature stories, as well as other related documents and reports, events and opportunities, on the ocean:
More intense climate-related disasters threaten to sink Tuvalu in 30-50 years, how can inclusive consultation help build the resilience of its marginalized groups?
Economia Azul: Guinea-Bissau seeks to unlock the potential of Blue economy for a sustainable green growth
What is 'nature positive' and why is it the key to our future?
G7 leaders recently announced that "our world must not only become net zero, but also nature positive, for the benefit of both people and the planet."
Nature positive is a disruptive idea and it is a new business model based on regeneration, resilience and recirculation – not destruction and pollution.
Leading the push for a sustainable ocean economy
Policymakers and experts call on UNCTAD to play a leading role in research, finance and technical assistance to conserve and sustainably use the ocean, seas and marine resources.
Four signs the seafood industry is getting wiser about the ocean
Much of the ocean is fished by multinational corporations and their subsidiaries and suppliers. Questions remain over their sense of stewardship
A team of scientists, industry experts and civil society representatives analysed the sustainable seafood movement of the past 50 years
They identified four dimensions in which efforts by actors within the seafood industry have aligned with theoretical concepts of stewardship
Highlights and images of main proceedings for 1 June 2021
The President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Volkan Bozkır, convened this one-day High-level Event on the Ocean, four years after the 2017 UN Ocean Conference, to drum up momentum by enabling a review of progress and actions required in the lead up to the Second UN Ocean Conference to conven in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2022.
A 10-step plan to save our seas
Here are some article's highlitghts:
2050 is predicted to be a bleak milestone for the oceans - but it's not too late to avert disaster.
Here are 10 actions the world can take to strengthen and preserve our oceans for generations to come.
Webinar Series: Towards Model Provisions for Trade in Times of Crisis and Pandemic in Regional and other Trade Agreements
Provisions for fish and fish products in trade agreements in times of crisis and pandemic: Recommendations for negotiation and c


text:
The safest and most punctual airlines in the 20's are…
News Travel
Image: The Independent, OzRoam
By Alasdair Belling
Shout Alasdair Belling a coffee
It's impossible not to feel an irrational sense of terror whenever we see news on an aviation disaster.
It's enough to make us double-check the history of the airline that we've chosen to fly with, and a google search on most airlines almost certainly results in anecdotes of similar tragedies which do nothing to ail our anxiety – even if flight travel is undisputedly the safest mode of transportation available today.
Still, if the thought of flying Ubers in the future gives you sweaty palms, the good folk at Bloomberg.com have named the safest airlines to fly with, as well as the ones that are the most reliable when it comes to punctuality.
The following list should set your mind at ease when it comes to flying
The good news for Australian readers is that our national carrier QANTAS topped the list for the safest airline in the world, with Air New Zealand coming in at second. Don't expect any trans-Tasman air disasters any time soon (touch wood).
Factors considered included engine monitoring across air fleets, precision when approaching hazards such as mountains and heavy cloud, and overall history of mid-flight emergencies.
The rest top 20 for the '20s in terms of safety are as follows;
EVA Air (Taiwan)
Etihad (UAE)
Emirates (UAE)
Cathay Pacific Airways (Hong Kong)
Virgin Atlantic Airlines (UK)
TAP Portugal,
SAS (Scandanavia)
Finnair (Finland)
Lufthansa (Germany)
Aer Lingus (Ireland)
KLM (Netherlands)
When it comes to punctuality and reliability, you don't have to worry too much about a dreaded cancellation text from Garuda Airlines, and Indonesian based carrier. Copa Airlines (Panama) and Skymark Airlines (Japan) rounded out the podium for most punctual, with the closest carrier to Aussie shores coming in at number 8 with Jetstar Asia.
You can check out the full list of most reliable, as well as top-performing airports in the world here.
In terms of least safe airlines in the world – it's relevant to note that many of those mentioned are sufferers of things like terrorism and extreme weather – not exactly events that the carriers can factor for. However, if you're curious enough, you can get an update of airlines to potentially avoid here.
Check out these nailbiting landings
Hank Azaria confirms he will no longer be voicing Apu on 'The Simpsons'
Disney is removing 'Fox' from 20th Century Fox as part of new acquisition


text:
Q: Using Prolog to solve The Jindosh Riddle from Dishonored 2 I am playing the game Dishonored 2
There is a puzzle in the game, see the picture below (no spoilers).
Riddle
Naturally I wanted to solve this using Prolog.
I have looked around and other people have made Prolog programs to solve the riddle, but I would like to know why my solution does not work. In particular, it gives a Warning: Goal (directive) failed, and returns true with no other output.
The code:
% dishonered 2 jindosh riddle

exists(A,(A,_,_,_,_)).
exists(A,(_,A,_,_,_)).
exists(A,(_,_,A,_,_)).
exists(A,(_,_,_,A,_)).
exists(A,(_,_,_,_,A)).

rightOf(A, B, (B,A,_,_,_)).
rightOf(A, B, (_,B,A,_,_)).
rightOf(A, B, (_,_,B,A,_)).
rightOf(A, B, (_,_,_,B,A)).

middlePerson(A,(_,_,A,_,_)).

firstPerson(A, (A,_,_,_,_)).
second(A,(_,A,_,_,_)).
third(A,(_,_,A,_,_)).
fourth(A,(_,_,_,A,_)).
lastPerson(A,(_,_,_,_,A)).

nextTo(A,B,H) :- rightOf(A,B,H).
nextTo(A,B,H) :- rightOf(B,A,H).

:-  exists(person(winslow,green,_,_,_), People),
    firstPerson(person(contee,_,_,_,_), People),
    nextTo(person(contee,_,_,_,_),person(_,white,_,_,_,_), People),
    rightOf(person(_,blue,_,_,_,_),person(_,purple,_,_,_,_), People),
    exists(person(_,purple,absinthe,_,_), People),
    exists(person(_,red,_,dabokva,_), People),
    nextTo(person(_,_,_,_,_,snufftin),person(_,_,_,_,dabokva,_), People),
    exists(person(finch,_,_,_,ring), People),
    exists(person(_,_,_,karnaca,bird), People),
    nextTo(person(_,_,_,_,diamond),person(_,_,_,dunwall,_), People),
    nextTo(person(_,_,_,dunwall,_),person(_,_,wine,_,_), People),
    exists(person(marcolla,_,whiskey,_,_), People),
    exists(person(_,_,rum,fraeport,_), People),
    middlePerson(person(_,_,beer,_,_), People),
    exists(person(natsiou,_,_,baleton,_), People),
    exists(person(_,_,_,_,warmedal), People),
    firstPerson(person(Aperson,Acolour,Adrink,Aloc,Aheir), People),
    second(person(Bperson,Bcolour,Bdrink,Bloc,Bheir), People),
    third(person(Cperson,Ccolour,Cdrink,Cloc,Cheir), People),
    fourth(person(Dperson,Dcolour,Ddrink,Dloc,Dheir), People),
    lastPerson(person(Eperson,Ecolour,Edrink,Eloc,Eheir), People),
    format('The first person is the ~w person~n', (Aperson,Acolour,Adrink,Aloc,Aheir)),
    format('The second person is the ~w person~n', (Bperson,Bcolour,Bdrink,Bloc,Bheir)),
    format('The third person is the ~w person~n', (Cperson,Ccolour,Cdrink,Cloc,Cheir)),
    format('The fourth person is the ~w person~n', (Dperson,Dcolour,Ddrink,Dloc,Dheir)),
    format('The last person is the ~w person~n', (Eperson,Ecolour,Edrink,Eloc,Eheir)).

The command and output:
?- [dishonored].
Warning: c:/users/<USERNAME>/documents/prolog/dishonored.pl:25:
Warning:    Goal (directive) failed: user:(exists(person(winslow,green,_7036,_7058,_7080),_7102),firstPerson(person(contee,_7198,_7220,_7242,_7264),_7102),nextTo(person(contee,_7392,_7414,_7436,_7458),person(_7480,white,_7502,_7524,_7546,_7568),_7102),rightOf(person(_7702,blue,_7724,_7746,_7768,_7790),person(_7812,purple,_7834,_7856,_7878,_7900),_7102),exists(person(_7992,purple,absinthe,_8014,_8036),_7102),exists(person(_8128,red,_8150,dabokva,_8172),_7102),nextTo(person(_8306,_8328,_8350,_8372,_8394,snufftin),person(_8416,_8438,_8460,_8482,dabokva,_8504),_7102),exists(person(finch,_8596,_8618,_8640,ring),_7102),exists(person(_8732,_8754,_8776,karnaca,bird),_7102),nextTo(person(_8898,_8920,_8942,_8964,diamond),person(_8986,_9008,_9030,dunwall,_9052),_7102),nextTo(person(_9174,_9196,_9218,dunwall,_9240),person(_9262,_9284,wine,_9306,_9328),_7102),exists(person(marcolla,_9420,whiskey,_9442,_9464),_7102),exists(person(_9556,_9578,rum,fraeport,_9600),_7102),middlePerson(person(_9698,_9720,beer,_9742,_9764),_7102),exists(person(natsiou,_9856,_9878,baleton,_9900),_7102),exists(person(_9998,_10020,_10042,_10064,warmedal),_7102),firstPerson(person(_10168,_10190,_10212,_10234,_10256),_7102),second(person(_10360,_10382,_10404,_10426,_10448),_7102),third(person(_10552,_10574,_10596,_10618,_10640),_7102),fourth(person(_10744,_10766,_10788,_10810,_10832),_7102),lastPerson(person(_10936,_10958,_10980,_11002,_11024),_7102),format('The first person is the ~w person~n',(_10168,_10190,_10212,_10234,_10256)),format('The second person is the ~w person~n',(_10360,_10382,_10404,_10426,_10448)),format('The third person is the ~w person~n',(_10552,_10574,_10596,_10618,_10640)),format('The fourth person is the ~w person~n',(_10744,_10766,_10788,_10810,_10832)),format('The last person is the ~w person~n',(_10936,_10958,_10980,_11002,_11024)))
**true.**

I am running SWIPL.
My format for the 5-tuple is (name, colour, drink, location, heirloom).
I have looked for what Goal (directive) failed means, finding this, but my error does not occur during importing the file. There is also another SO post but the solution does not apply to me.
I have seen SO user false give answers to some zebra-puzzle related SO questions, but I do not understand them.
I asked ChatGPT, but it spouted nonsense. (It did fix a few typos though!)
I have solved a zebra puzzle using Prolog before, using very similar structure, so am particularly confused as to why this doesn't work. If it as simple as I mistranslated the rules I will be sad.

A: You can localize the error without understanding your program. Your problem is that (in a pure monotonic program such as yours when removing the formats) a query fails unexpectedly. If we can remove one goal of your failing query and the resulting query still fails, then (at least) one problem must be in the remaining query. In this manner we generalize the program and narrow down the wall of text to something more readable. In your case a maximal generalization is:

:- op(950, fy, *).

*_G_0.

query :-
   * exists(person(winslow,green,_,_,_), People),
   * firstPerson(person(contee,_,_,_,_), People),
   * nextTo(person(contee,_,_,_,_),person(_,white,_,_,_,_), People),
   rightOf(person(_,blue,_,_,_,_),person(_,purple,_,_,_,_), People),
   * exists(person(_,purple,absinthe,_,_), People),
   * exists(person(_,red,_,dabokva,_), People),
   * nextTo(person(_,_,_,_,_,snufftin),person(_,_,_,_,dabokva,_), People),
   * exists(person(finch,_,_,_,ring), People),
   * exists(person(_,_,_,karnaca,bird), People),
   * nextTo(person(_,_,_,_,diamond),person(_,_,_,dunwall,_), People),
   * nextTo(person(_,_,_,dunwall,_),person(_,_,wine,_,_), People),
   * exists(person(marcolla,_,whiskey,_,_), People),
   * exists(person(_,_,rum,fraeport,_), People),
   * middlePerson(person(_,_,beer,_,_), People),
   * exists(person(natsiou,_,_,baleton,_), People),
   * exists(person(_,_,_,_,warmedal), People),
   * firstPerson(person(Aperson,Acolour,Adrink,Aloc,Aheir), People),
   second(person(Bperson,Bcolour,Bdrink,Bloc,Bheir), People),
   * third(person(Cperson,Ccolour,Cdrink,Cloc,Cheir), People),
   fourth(person(Dperson,Dcolour,Ddrink,Dloc,Dheir), People),
   * lastPerson(person(Eperson,Ecolour,Edrink,Eloc,Eheir), People).

Now this still looks a bit intimidating, so by removing the generalized goals we get:

query2 :-
   rightOf(person(_,_/*blue*/,_,_,_,_),person(_,_/*purple*/,_,_,_,_), People),
   second(person(Bperson,Bcolour,Bdrink,Bloc,Bheir), People),
   fourth(person(Dperson,Dcolour,Ddrink,Dloc,Dheir), People).

Because this fragment already fails, there must be some error in it. Note that also blue and purple have been generalized away. So no concrete names are responsible for this failure.
This was just one such generalization. There are more. But it seems to be enough to understand the problem.

A: First problem: 6 elements rather than 5, in:
nextTo(person(_,_,_,_,_,snufftin),person(_,_,_,_,dabokva,_), People),

Also 6 in:
nextTo(person(contee,_,_,_,_),person(_,white,_,_,_,_), People)

Also 6 in:
rightOf(person(_,blue,_,_,_,_),person(_,purple,_,_,_,_), People),

Fixing those 3 issues, it produces 1 solution.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


More than 50 years ago graphic designers realized that having shared underlying rules when creating a bunch of related objects, a design system, was a smart idea.
But in today's world there's tension between a very broad general purpose design system and an in-house design system for a given company that's very specific and tailored to them – like our Full Stack Design System, for example.
In his 2017 keynote, "The User Experience of Design Systems", designer, artist and educator Rune Madsen dissects not just the oft-celebrated rewards of systems, but also the inherent risks that broad ones bring to the table. Specifically, are we over-templatizing products today in a way that benefits the builder but not the user?
I hosted Rune on the podcast to walk through how systems thinking got to this point, the ways our design tools must evolve as a result and much more. If you enjoy the conversation, check out more episodes of our podcast. You can subscribe to it on iTunes or grab the RSS feed in your player of choice.
When people say "design systems", they're often referring to material UI web components. Rune's definition is much broader – any systematic structure that eases the burden of work on the designer and heightens the quality of the product.
While the upsides of general purpose design systems are well documented, Rune sees two downsides: They tend to benefit the designer more than the user and they can lead to monoculture.
Rune believes having designers and programmers unite around a single tool is beneficial for everyone. That doesn't mean all designers need to learn how to code. Rather, it means our tools must evolve.
There's a risk in making aesthetic Sketch or Photoshop files the source of truth when it comes to product design. One interesting way of combating that is Airbnb's recent React work, which reverses the typical Sketch to code process.
Among Rune's criticism of Material Design is that it's presented as a "system for everyone" but blends its concepts and patterns with the personal style and brand of Google.
Emmet Connolly: Rune, great to have you here. Your career has touched on a lot of interesting topics. Can you give us the short version?
Rune Madsen: My resume is a mixed bag but I think about myself primarily as a designer and I primarily use programming languages to do design. I also do writing and teaching as a part of my practice.
If you specifically talk about professional experience, I worked at The New York Times in Interactive News. I was also a Creative Director for the digital design team at O'Reilly Media and then I moved full-time to teaching as a professor at NYU, now in Shanghai. Recently, I've been writing this book, "Programming Design Systems", which focuses on rules and systems in design and how we can replace the current tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, and the manual tools, with programming languages and systems.
Emmet: In a keynote you gave last year, The User Experience of Design Systems, you explored a thesis around the evolution of design systems. Can you walk us through that?
Rune: The problem I have today is, when I say "design system", people immediately think about web components or digital products. They see these landscapes of buttons and dropdowns. This talk was a way for me to find and look at the negative consequences or the negative effects [of using design systems] – primarily focused on Google's Material Design but more broadly on how these systems tend to impact users in negative ways and how we can look at other fields, such as architecture and sociology, to draw conclusions on why design systems sometimes tend to be bad for users.
Emmet: Watching the talk, I got the impression that your definition of a design system is possibly broader and more holistic than what a lot of people working on web or mobile products today might use. Is that fair?
Rune: Yeah, I do have a much broader definition. Rules and systems have always been a part of the creative fields, whether you focus on art or design. I just finished a chapter in my book called "A Short History of Geometric Composition", which traces these systematic principles back to things like the illuminated manuscripts written in monasteries. They used these very specific grid systems to guide the handwriting of the text so those helper lines became a system for structuring the creative process. You can follow that all the way up into the 60s and the golden age of advertising and the graphic standards manuals, like the New York City subway.
My definition is any systematic structure that eases the burden of work on the designer and heightens the quality of the product. When people say "design systems" today, they immediately think about these material UI web components. In my teaching, I tend to take a step back and look at the broader piece of history and trace back the trends we're seeing today with what happened before the computer.
Emmet: Given that these systems have been around for centuries in some form or another, why the hype? For people in web product design, design systems for many weren't even a phrase that they had heard until two or three years ago. Now, it's inescapable.
Rune: That's a great question. Take a craftsman, like a printer in the 1940s and 50s. It was such a manual process in the production of aesthetic product. You make something, you print it and you have a poster that looks exactly like the one that you drew. In that process, there are rules and systems that were used like grid systems. On the letterpress, you had to arrange blocks in a certain way. Even back then, with such a minimal amount of technology, we had these systems that guided us.
We are forced to implement our designs in code.
Today, we have this explosion of digital products, which are all systems and we're forced to think systematically about implementing our designs. We are forced to implement our designs in code and naturally our workflows will move towards thinking about how to optimize that. That's why I think over the last three or four years, design systems have become such a trend.
Emmet: On the face of it, there's a lot of great team or business advantages. You talked about the printer being able to do something repeatable. There's potentially this great productivity upside to teams who are building using a design system. There's a consistency upside as well, but in a sense, maybe the danger is that your design becomes conformed by those and they become limitations. Is that fair?
Rune: The great thing about thinking in design systems is that you ensure consistency across platforms or across products. You free up resources so designers can focus on the things that matter and not redo the same button over and over. But in my talk, I referenced a book, "Seeing Like a State" by James C. Scott, who looks at these organizational principles through history. He says there's two main problems with this: First of all, these systems tend to benefit the designer and not the users, so you end up with this really locked down system that completely ignores domain-specific solutions.
An example is any brand redesign. Someone comes in and says, "We want to do a design system and look at all these crappy solutions that are on mobile and on web. We're just going to design it this way," completely ignoring why those decisions were made. Then the design system becomes this prison that doesn't help either the mobile teams or the web teams to do a better job.
Scott's second point is that these systems also lead to a monoculture and we can see that on the web today, where I personally think, and many others have argued, that many, many products look the same. That's a part of a standardization of user interaction patterns, which is beneficial but it's also boiling down the idea of digital design or design systems into this idea of choosing the color of your rectangular button. That's highly problematic and actually why this talk came about. We talk a lot about the benefits of organizing around a common system and a common visual language, which is great but this prison that the design system becomes can be highly problematic and we're seeing the effects on the web and in products today.
Emmet: There's some kind of McLuhanism about our tools shaping the work that we do that lies at the heart of this. If you think about the design system as a tool quite broadly, maybe this has been a thing that has been going on for a long time. Look at MacPaint, which was one of the first graphical paint tools on the Mac. Photoshop today and even Sketch doesn't look that different to it. There's some track that we're on where a lot of the tools are suggesting that we design in the same way or produce output that works in the same way and these systems are just an extension of that.
Rune: I completely agree. Sketch and Photoshop are tools that are basically unchanged since the birth of the computer and even before. The crop tool, the marquee tool, all of that is based on manual processes that came before the computer.
The problem with our tools today is that we are bound to this waterfall process where designers work in one tool with one certain type of files and then that has be thrown over the wall to development, who has to work in another ecosystem. Just having worked in a team where all designers were coders, there's truly a different experience to be had if you unify or unite around one tool that both designers and programmers work in.
The problem with our tools today is that we are bound to this waterfall process.
I'm not saying that every designer should code. I actually don't believe in that at all. That's an argument for our tools to change. My background was actually in Flash development when I started programming and it gets a bad rap today but Flash was one platform where you had both design assets and code in the same place. It's really hard to point to places where you can do that today.
Emmet: Actually, I'm an OG Flash guy myself. As a tool, it's really interesting that there were drawing tools in there. There was also this concept of components and objects baked into the tool, which very much doesn't exist in the mockup tools we have today.
Unfortunately for us, the output of Flash, the thing that actually got consumed by users wasn't a great user experience, but it was an interesting tool that we're slowly walking back towards today with things like InVision Studio.
Rune: One concern I have about all these new tools for designers that allow you to prototype interactive experience is that they're not production ready. If you did something in Flash, you could put it directly somewhere and the user could interact with it. It is layers we put on top of the manual design process to get as close to a coded product as possible. That is time that should be spent on the production end of things. We end up replicating all these interactive things and then they need to be redone by programmers. There is no reason for that to happen.
One of the things that I'm excited about is the work that Jon Gold has been doing in Airbnb to reverse this process of going from Sketch to code. They are going from code to Sketch and that frames the conversation in a really interesting way because you, as the design team, unite around components. They get implemented in code, you export your sticker sheet in Sketch and then designers work and can use Sketch however they want with these components. If they figure out, "Oh, this needs to change" or "I don't have the ability to do this component," they need to have a conversation about which components needs to change.
Airbnb's React Sketch.app starts with code and then renders to Sketch.
That structures the design process in a really nice way. What people tend to do now is they work in Sketch and then it goes to code and then you have two sources of truth. The Sketch files get out of sync with the code and it's really problematic.
We should stop trying to make aesthetic Sketch or Photoshop files the source of truth when it comes to product design. You can't prototype a real product in that. You don't know what it feels like. You can't swipe. You can't do animation. You can't do motion. You can't do interactivity. You can't do dynamic data. That's why I was really interested in seeing this flipping up of the process, where you actually unite around the code as the single source of truth but you work really drastically to allow designers freedom in the design process. There's much more room for developments there.
Emmet: Rather than just a better Photoshop with maybe some timelines added and a design system library baked in, I wonder can we build something that you would say merges the function of the front end engineer and the designer in some way? We talked about whether designers should code and I guess the answer is, it depends. But should coders design? There's a similar lack of flexibility in any kind of engineers IDE, where they're not really equipped to come from the other side of the development process and participate in the design process and iteration that way.
Rune: Completely. I might be a bad person to ask because I don't really see the difference between designing and programming and because that has been my tool my entire life and that's the way I design.
I taught a class called Reinventing Production Tools at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU last semester with a fellow professor, Patrick Hebron, and one thing that we really encourage students to do is to not think about replacing Photoshop, but thinking about much more domain specific tools. For example, what is the best direct prototyping to production environment for user interfaces on the web made in React?
I don't really see the difference between designing and programming.
That's a much easier thing to make new advances in because you get out of this giant sphere of every designer using the design tool for everything. I would love to see development in IDEs change but the way to do that is to focus much more specifically on which domain are you changing. If it's web, you should build something that is specifically made for web. If it's mobile, it should be for mobile and so on.
Emmet: It sounds like designing something that is production ready or almost production ready is a key part of that. Is that right?
Rune: Yes, or at least something where there is not a drastic reset of the product or where you don't have to start from scratch twice.
Emmet: Can you give us any other examples that you think are successful?
Rune: Processing is a great example of something that lowers the barrier drastically for designers to enter the domain of programming. You can very easily get going without needing to install weird dependencies or a development environment. It's also a very domain specific tool. It's something that most people do for screen-based digital art and data visualization. In that sense, it's a really good example.
Emmet: The Bret Victor example, which is Learnable Programming, is an interesting one and as is his recent work on Dynamicland, which you've probably seen. What are your thoughts on that? Does that fit into your definition of a design system?
Rune: Broadly speaking, yes. Dynamicland looks amazing. I haven't spent too much time on the documentation other than seeing a lot of people being very, very excited about it, so I can't speak specifically to it.
In general, Bret Victor's work I think is really interesting because although there haven't really been concrete examples of that in the wild, the idea of "let's find other ways to visualize programmatic logic other than text input" is really interesting. It opens up the door for systems and programming being something that is adopted broadly in organizations and by a much larger user base than just engineers.
Emmet: Lets take this back down to where we're at today and talk about Material Design, which is still so broadly influential. What are your thoughts or suggestions on what direction you'd like to see it going or advice you have for the team behind Material Design as they evolve?
Rune: That's a good question. First of all, an enormous amount of effort was put into Material Design and it really pushed the standards for what a design system is, so I'm really appreciative of that.
The problem is that, first of all, Material Design is a design system for Google and Google has a big mission to make everything look like Google. Thus, they are promoting Material Design as a design system for everyone.
I spent a lot of time going through the rules and understanding the principles of the system and one big problem I have with Material Design is that it mixes these really great interaction patterns with the very personal style of Google. In the section for typography and text, there is a really great example, which is basic UX design knowledge – have proper contrast between your body text and the background. No one would argue against that but right underneath that is something that says, "Don't use color text for your body text," which for Google is not a part of their brand.
Material Design's guidance on type color, as shown in Rune's "The User Experience of Design Systems" keynote.
Are we now defining design as something where you can't use colors for your typography? There's millions of colors that work against white or black backgrounds. There's plenty of examples where that is really problematic.
Emmet: That almost points exactly to the limiting factor of some design systems, where there are many subjective design decisions that you could take and if the system becomes too restrictive, it almost takes those choices away from you.
Rune: Right. My other problem with design systems in the wild, having worked with a lot of companies to make them, is there is this tendency to think, "Oh, we're just going to make these components and it's going to work for everything." You write this really neat, small design system and everything looks great and then you start using it and realize, "In this case, I need my components to look like this and in this other case, I need them to look like that," so you start expanding the rules.
It's something you see in graphic design education a lot. You start to think about form and color, which is great, but then you have all of these rules that end up being much more complex than actually serving the purpose of easing the burden of work. You end up with this huge, thick bible of Material Design rules, where some of them are competing against each other and some of them are not really clear.
It just speaks to the difficulty of actually having a design system in the wild and after years of use that it still actually eases the burden of use and it still heightens the quality of the product. That's really hard.
Emmet: I'm going to interject with a super late disclosure. Before Intercom, I worked at Google and Android and contributed a bit to Material Design. Having said all of that, a lot of your points are very well made. There does seem to be this tension between a very broad, general purpose system, almost one system to rule them all, and something like an in-house design system for a given company that's very specific and very tailored to them.
It almost reminds me of the point you made earlier, which is this differentiation between general purpose tools and specialist tools and the more general purpose that you get, the less sense it makes to just be restrictive and make specific rules that you expect everyone to adhere to because they're subjective. The dangerous outcome for the end users there is this design monoculture you described.
Emmet: Before we wrap up, I want to ask you about your book, "Programming Design Systems". You're releasing one chapter at a time. What are you hoping to achieve with the book and why did you decide to tackle it in such an open manner?
Rune: I worked for three and a half years for a publisher, O'Reilly Media. Publishers are great, but with that comes this idea that you're going to go away for a year, go in a dark room and write by yourself and come out with a book, and then that's it. You release it, and it's done. Seeing other authors go through that process, I very early-on decided that I was going to open source the book. It's a Creative Commons ShareAlike license, so instructors and professors can just go online, grab whatever they want and use the material in their classes.
It's at programmingdesignsystems.com. There is a newsletter, which will get the links to the chapters first and I have this readership that every time I write a new chapter, they'll give me feedback and edits that I will incorporate and then share with the broader world. It's both a way for me not to go insane when writing and a way for me to make the writing of the book a marketing effort in itself. Instead of having one book that gets promoted, I promote every chapter. I'm really happy to be doing it this way and I'm really much closer in contact with my readership than I would have been if I just do it the old-fashioned way of going into a room and coming out with a book.
Emmet: It's an interesting way to read and possibly a more digestible way to read, having time to reflect on each part before jumping into the next one. Rune, where else can listeners find you online?
Rune: I'm mostly active on Twitter, @runemadsen, and then my not-updated website has much more of my artwork. I do a lot of generative design and generative print work that is on the site but Twitter is the best place to go.
Emmet: Rune, thanks very much. This has been fascinating for me. I really appreciate your coming on to the show.


Grow your tree, prune it, and watch over it as it matures into adulthood. The tree will become what you train it to be - you are the mastermind behind it's path in life.
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Court orders Kerala Congress (M) not to elect chairman at commemorative function
Thiruvananthapuram, First Published May 16, 2019, 8:25 AM IST
Jose K Mani faction of Kerala Congress (M) sought a favourable verdict from the court against the move of interim chairman PJ Joseph to elect party office bearers at the KM Mani Commemoration Ceremony.
Thiruvananthapuram: The Thiruvananthapuram fourth additional court ordered that the party chairman should not be chosen at the memorial programme. The court was considering a petition by the Kollam district secretary of KC (M).
A court has directed that election of Kerala Congress chairman should not be made in the commemorative function of the late Kerala Congress leader K M Mani.
The court's instruction has come at a time when the argument over chairman candidate is prevailing. The Mani group has attempted to elect Mani's son and party vice-president Jose K Mani to the post of chairman.
Also read: PJ Joseph to be Kerala Congress (M) temporary chairman
Meanwhile, PJ Joseph on May 13, was made the temporary chairman of the Kerala Congress (Mani). The decision was announced by the party general secretary Joy Abraham, who has the organisational charges.
Joseph will hold the temporary charge until a new chairman is chosen. During the announcement of the temporary chairman, Abraham said that, as per party rules, in the absence of the chairman, according to the Rule 29 of party constituency, all powers and functions of the chairman will fall on the working chairman. So Joseph was selected as the temporary chairman.
It was assumed by the party that vice-chairman Jose K Mani would be the new chairman. Those supporting the working chairman Joseph are not ready to accept Jose as the chairman. Of the 14 district presidents of the party, 10 are from the KM Mani group.
The faction led by Jose, which has a clear majority in the party's committees, is firm on the founder leader's son becoming the next chairman. The move, however, is opposed by Joseph, who also looks to firm up his control over the party by becoming the next Parliamentary party leader while making CF Thomas the chairman.
Last Updated May 16, 2019, 8:25 AM IST
Jose K Mani
Kerala Congress (M)
KM Mani
PJ Joseph


I'm shamelessly asking for a demo ride in an RV12.
Long time stalker of this site (even pay dues!) and very interested in the RV12.
I live in Baltimore and was wondering if someone within appropriate flying distance could take me up. I have good availability in the last 2 weeks of March.
I have a PP license and rent out of Martin State.
Still not sure if I want to buy or build. I'm now leaning more towards buying, because I'm tired of renting.
I can give you one if you want to come to Cecil County? Probably do you good to get out of Balmer anyway.
It's going to be for sale soon and it's a good one.
No, don't mind the drive at all. Next Wed or Friday would work for me. The week after is wide open, as well.
That's fine. I sent you a pm with my contact info.
The stick is light and very sensitive/touchy. As in it takes very little input with your fingertips, if your hand is resting on your leg, to make major changes.
You want smooth glassy air to fly it in, the wings are loaded at maybe 10 to 11 lbs per sq ft of wing surface. Moderate turbulence will bounce and spin you around pretty good, it's a very light, slippery aircraft.
Sometimes, it's very hard to get it to come down to land, without slipping the plane with flaperons down 1 or 2 notches on the Johnson bar.
The landing gear is light, don't beat it up, falling out of the sky. Use some excess speed, and the runway to bleed off excessive energy, if enough runway is left. 60 MPH has been working well for me, but I'm a student. I like soft landings.
Jeff, Dave is a good guy, 2nd RV12 and both are well built. If you end up buying his you would not go wrong and ask him to throw in the transition training needed for your insurance. Have fun flying with him.
Last edited by Dvalcik : 03-14-2019 at 06:01 PM.
Moderate turbulence will make the rid uncomfortable in most any light general aviation aircraft. yes it has light wing loading (all LSA's do by definition, to meet LSA performance requirements). I have no problem flying one on most any day that I would be willing to fly any other lighter single engine gen av airplane.
An RV-12 comes down just fine when flown properly.
Touching down at 60? Knots?
Then my suggestion would be that you search for a different instructor.
On Thursday, the 6th of August at about 2:30, Ken Scott of Van's took me up for a demo flight in N412RV.
For the record, my pilot experience is rather limited, (less than 100 hr – mainly Cessna's), dated (soloed in 1983), and my last stick time was over a year ago in a TH-67. My goal is to have a fun aircraft that I would be comfortable with my kids using it to learn to fly. Talking with Van, reading the Sport Aviation and Kit Planes articles in addition to all the pilot reports here on VAF, all indicated that the 12 would be a good candidate for this mission. Reading and listening is however not experiencing. Would responsive be another word for twitchy? Would light weight be another way of saying flimsy? Would low fuel consumption translate to poor performance? After failing to get rides at Sun N Fun for the past two years (yes I do act slowly), I made the trip out to Oregon for the ride (and also for a family wedding celebration).
The day was overcast with some bumpiness. The fit (i.e. room inside) was better than a 172. By my calculation, the aircraft was near its max gross weight of 1320, and a significant portion of useful load was from the people in it – we would not have fit in a 150. Take-off was with partial flaps. I can't estimate the amount of runway used in feet, but it was 'not very much'. The VSI on the Dynon indicated 900 feet per minute with flaps up. Impressive. Forward visibility was good in the climb. The aircraft felt steady and solid despite the bumpiness – not flimsy. We leveled off below the clouds at about 2000 ft msl and with a little less than full throttle (didn't get the number) the airspeed settled at a comfortable 110 KIAS. Again exactly what has been previously reported. The view out was outstanding. Began feeling out the controls; it was simply amazing. The aircraft moved with the stick with very very very little delay from stick input to aircraft response and the aircraft's response was totally proportionate to the amount of input. Tiny stick movement (pitch and roll) equaled slow aircraft movement (technically acceleration but that is for another day fellow gearheads). Large stick movement equaled fast aircraft movement. Center the controls and everything stops - now. Not twitchy at all. I think this would be great for my kids and me. The lack of delay between the input and the aircraft's action made it very easy to be in synch, which in turn made it easy to control but without being boring. So that is what the difference is between responsive and twitchy: prompt proportionate controls. Who knew? Rudder? Same way. Low speed (i.e. stall horn blaring) retained the responsiveness of the controls but appeared (Ken flew this segment) to require more input for the same rate with the maximum rate being correspondingly reduced but still substantial. Stall was unexciting. Landing was unexciting. Roll out was again 'not very much'.
In short, my experience was just like what everyone else has reported. The only difference is that, for me, it was in first person. Now if I can just get over thinking about the $60K. That's right, it is an investment not an expense. Yes, that is definitely it.
I subedequently began RV12 120500, and am currently working on Section 32 at 2R4. A lot of life has gotten in the way.


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Q: How to map Ctrl-[ to escape key in VSCode I'd like to map Ctrl-[ as if it is the Escape key.
Is it possible in VSCode?
I don't want manually map Ctrl-[ to all the potential commands that are mapped by the Escape key.


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Which character would you want in an emergency?
ABC Announces Episode 5.08 Posted November 18 2013
ABC has announced the details for the December 4 episode of The Middle.
"The Kiss" - When Frankie's sister asks her to house-sit, Frankie and Mike jump at the opportunity to have a romantic, kid-free weekend in an upscale home. But technology might just trump romance when they find themselves having a difficult time navigating all of the computerized gadgets in the house. Meanwhile, Sue, who has been left in charge of watching over Brick while the parents are away, finds the Heck house being invaded by the bratty neighborhood Glossner kids, and Axl takes a road trip with Darrin and Sean in an attempt to drive to Vassar and reconnect with his ex-girlfriend Cassidy, on "The Middle," WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4 (8:00-8:30 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.
Episode: The Kiss Tags: Season 5, episodes, Season 5, episodes
Season 5, Episode 8 - Aired December 4, 2013
When Frankie's sister asks her to house-sit, Frankie and Mike jump at the opportunity to have a romantic, kid-free weekend in an upscale home. But technology might just trump romance when they find themselves having a difficult time navigating all of the computerized gadgets in the house. Meanwhile, Sue, who has been left in charge of watching over Brick while the parents are away, finds the Heck house being invaded by the bratty neighborhood Glossner kids, and Axl takes a road trip with Darrin and Sean in an attempt to drive to Vassar and reconnect with his ex-girlfriend Cassidy.
ABC Announces Fifth Season Finale May 5 2014
ABC has put out the press release for the fifth season finale of The Middle, which sees the Heck family take a trip to Walt Disney World. Read the full story
ABC has issued the press release for the May 7 episode of The Middle. Chris Kattan and Brian Doyle-Murray return as Bob and Mr. Ehlert, respectively, in this episode. Read the full story
ABC has put out the press release for the April 30 episode of The Middle. Jack McBrayer returns as Frankie's boss, Dr. Goodwin. Read the full story
ABC Announces Episode 5.19 April 7 2014
ABC has put out the press release for the next episode of The Middle, which will air April 23. Brooke Shields returns as Rita Glossner in this episode. Read the full story
ABC Announces Episode 5.18 March 17 2014
ABC has issued the press release for the April 2 episode of The Middle. Read the full story