Why not use both? If your government requires KYC, you ain’t getting around that. They want to track crypto the same way they track other assets, and that will involve monitoring all the on/off ramps. But once you have crypto assets, you now have the freedom to transfer them wherever you want, including wallets and exchanges that are more open/have fewer documentation requirements.

However, this freedom still doesn’t exempt you from legal requirements, no matter how much bullshit you think they are. If the non-KYC exchange you transfer to happens to be under some sort of sanction, then you might get screwed if the authorities find out. Are they paying attention to you? Probably not. But it’s up to you to decide whether the potential penalty is worth the risk.

My biggest issue is with how AI is being marketed, particularly by Apple. Every single Apple Intelligence commercial is about a mediocre person who is not up to the task in front of them, but asks their iPhone for help and ends up skating by. Their families are happy, their co-workers are impressed, and they learn nothing about how to handle the task on their own the next time except that their phone bailed their lame ass out.

It seems to be a reflection of our current political climate, though, where expertise is ignored, competence is scorned, and everyone is out for themselves.

But if I remember from back in the day, the DMCA doesn’t have any exception for that. This is why CD ripping was legal, while DVD ripping was not. It had nothing to do with fair use or backups, but rather that DVDs have encryption, and CDs do not. Circumventing that encryption for any reason was illegal.

I don’t think it has changed, but it’s been a hot minute since the Cypherpunks all wore DeCSS T-Shirts…

I think ripping DVDs is still technically illegal, even though CSS has long since been broken. It is still illegal to circumvent encryption in a copy protection scheme, even if it’s for your own personal use and the encryption scheme has been pwned.

I bet if he didn’t mention that his videos were ripped from DVD, they might have left it up.

A lot of good advice here! One thing I would add is that large international flights typically board early. So your long-haul flight to Seoul may board 45 minutes or more in advance. And since you are in Business Class, you will board earlier than most.

My advice would be that once you arrive in Munich, check your phone (or look at the departure screens) to find out what gate your Seoul flight is leaving from, then go there right away. No rush, but don’t hit the gift shop just yet. Once you get there, the screens at the gate should tell you when the boarding time is (or you can ask the gate staff.). Once you confirm that, you can leave for the restroom, grab a quick snack, or go shopping.

You shouldn’t have to worry about a full meal because they normally feed you well in business class. (Free booze, also, if that is your thing.)

Certs and experience are more important for sysadmin type jobs anyway. Besides, if the company values a degree more than your experience, would you really want to work there?

Hurry up and clone that ASAP, this is gonna get taken down once DOGE realizes what it is

It is likely the car USB port is looking through directories for MP3 files, and thats not now those iPods present themselves when hooked up via USB. You might be able to find an audio-to-bluetooth adapter, but it is likely you will not be able to control the device through the car’s interface, so you would have to press play manually.

(Side note: older cars with USB might have a very low-level relationship with the USB sticks, where they read files in the order they were written to the device, without regard to what folders you put them in. There are utilities that can reorder the files’ physical position on the stick so that albums play in order)

DOGE replaced the entire hurricane relief budget with a box of Sharpies

Isn’t “English food” just an amalgamation of foods from cultures they subjugated in the past, and beef?

There are some companies with so much overhead with regards to hiring people that it is much quicker to just approve a consultant, and the cost/benefit analysis takes this into account. Sometimes it is because project dollars and employee dollars come out of different buckets, with different approval chains. There may be more money in the project budget with a simpler approval process, making it easier to contract than to hire.

Regardless, internally they have a budget for each job you do. It may be simpler for them to simply approve each job as they come, even at a premium, then to fight to get more headcount approved. Theoretically this also gives them the opportunity to cut you on each job, but if you are that awesome they’ll keep signing you up.

(And in some dysfunctional companies, headcount is directly related to management authority, so it can be easier politically to spend more on a consultant than to fight to figure out which manager gets to become more important by having another direct report.)

But the most I’ve ever made as a w2 was about half that amount, after taking all the tax and benefits stuff into account. I’ve never fully understood why clients are willing to pay that much, but they are.

Three reasons: First, as you know, contractors pay the “employer” portions of a lot of benefits themselves. Payroll taxes, insurance, etc. Part of the reason why the self-employment retirement contribution limits are so high is that they also on the hook for the “employer” contribution to their retirement. So right there that justifies at least a 33% premium (probably more)

Second, it’s a lot easier to bring on a consultant part-time for a specific task, if they don’t have enough work to justify a full-time hire to perform that same task. You know this, also, because I doubt any of your contracts are intended to occupy all of your time on a full-time basis. Yet, if your clients had enough work to justify that full time position, they would hire for that and dump you. You charge a premium because even with that you save them money over having to hire that position full-time.

Which leads to rhe third, which is that contractors are much easier to get rid of than full-time people. That requires documentation and a paper trail, to make sure that the company complies with employment law. But the terms to cancel a contract are normally written right into the contract, and are simple. In effect, you are charging a premium in order to be easier to get rid of.

I’ve looked into consulting myself, but was fortunate enough to always find full-time employment so never took the jump…

The bitcoin community in particular “has historically been about freedom from sovereign interference,” he said.

Maybe 10 years ago that was true. But now the Bitcoin Community is all about Number Go Up

Advice you get on the Internet is worth what you pay for it. So what you should really do is talk to a local CPA. Everything I say below might be bullshit.

But, in general, you owe income taxes to the state where you live, not the state where your company is based. Two exceptions I know of are NY, which will insist on collecting non-resident income taxes from remote employees of NY companies, if their work duties do not require them to be there - it is confusingly called the “convenience of the employer” rule. The other exception is CA, which may require a remote employee to pay CA state taxes for work they do for a CA company while physically in CA. (So fully remote employees would be OK, but you might have to keep track of all the time you are present and working in CA).

However, this just covers who you owe taxes to. Smaller companies may not have the infrastructure to withhold for multiple states, and may be forced to withhold taxes for their state even though you technically don’t owe that state any tax. Which may force you to pay estimated taxes direct to the state you live in throughout the year (effectively double-taxing you), but then you should be able to file a non-resident return in your companies’ state to get a full refund.

My only experience with this was when I worked for a huge CA company with offices all over. They had an office in my state, so they were able to count me as a local employee there, even though I never worked in that office. They withheld the proper taxes and everything went smoothly. (Except for the fact that they never got my withholding right for my state, and withheld way too much…)

My IP never changes until I have a power outage. Even then the lease usually gets renewed with the same IP address

“Ban Evasion” is such a bullshit concept anyway. Do something we don’t like, and try and come back early? You can no longer come here, for life! And since I bet they IP ban, it bans your entire household! I wonder if there are some public places that are Reddit black holes, silently banning any Redditor who goes there because one person once called King Steven a greedy pigboy.

I left Reddit at the time of the great APIcalypse, and there were some businesses whose customer service was so abysmal that the only practical avenue for customer service was on Reddit. Getting a permanent ban for bullshit reasons can have an actual effect if you need support from one of these companies.

It surprises me that they haven’t banned the wrong lawyer at the wrong time to prompt a class action lawsuit over how arbitrary it all is.

“Work for free to review” oversimplifies it. Peer Review is a key part of how Science operates. These smart folks are getting paid by their companies and academic institutions to conduct Science, and a key part of that is making sure that new advances get the proper vetting. So it’s all part of their normal job description as a Certified Smartypants. And then there is also a clear conflict of interest if these journals pay reviewers, because that might influence reviewers in how they judge the paper.

This is really an attack on peer review, because the kind of junk science the Right espouses these days can’t get past it. Get rid of that, and a lot of their ideas can start to gain more traction, even if they are incorrect and not backed by science. Because they will no longer have independent Scientists as Gatekeepers…