bjtitus

> Capital gains generally are taxed at the same rate as income in this country

Maybe I'm missing something but the "Sales of Capital Assets Reported on Individual Tax" from 2012 shows 7.5x as many long term Capital Gains as short term. https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-sales-of-capita...

Doesn't this mean the majority of individual investment gains are not taxed as income?

It's almost like there was a mob mentality leading a mob...

Many came prepared with plenty of non-lethal weapons. There's video evidence of the use of bear spray, assault of police officers, and property destruction.

Just because it could have been worse doesn't mean each person shouldn't be held to account.

> House members are outperforming market averages

Some of the specific cases are compelling but it doesn't seem particularly surprising that one year's worth of relatively spectacular returns in many top sectors results in outperforming the market averages.

There are many many people who far outperformed the market averages by the end of 2020.

TLDR: There is no "popular crusade" telling people to end all meat consumption which will somehow leave you nutritionally deficient. Hundreds of millions of people eat vegetarian diets around the world and numerous studies show the benefits of reducing red + processed meat consumption. Replacing fast food burgers with plant based alternatives could be a good option for people with decreased availability of plant based alternatives to meat.

> The popular crusade against meat is one of the more misguided.

The only "popular crusade" is the universal dietary guidance against the excessively high consumption of red meat in the western diet. There are mountains of evidence showing links between higher red meat consumption and increased risk of the top killers in many western societies (heart disease, colon cancer, etc.). [1] [2] [3]

There's a quick summary from the Harvard School of Public Health for those who don't want to pour through the published studies: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/whats-the-bee...

You cite many studies here about the environmental effects of meat production and exactly 0 citing the nutritional or health aspects of meat consumption. Meat can contain valuable nutrients but hundreds of millions eat vegetarian diets around the world and many other sources (nuts, legumes, fish, etc.) can provide these nutrients in better forms. All major health organizations recommend limiting red and processed meat consumption below what the average American diets currently consist of.

Replacing fast foods with plant based alternatives doesn't seem like a bad thing at all when you consider that meats and grains are the only things Americans are consuming over and above the dietary guidelines – at 140% of the recommendations [4]. Given that Heart Disease is the number one leading cause of death in the United States, shouldn't we be prioritizing alternatives which reduce the intake of high-glycemic carbohydrates? There have been many studies covering plant-based alternatives which back this up. [5]

[1] Battaglia Richi E, Baumer B, Conrad B, Darioli R, Schmid A, Keller U. Health Risks Associated with Meat Consumption: A Review of Epidemiological Studies. Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2015;85(1-2):70-8. doi: 10.1024/0300-9831/a000224. PMID: 26780279.

[2] Salter AM. The effects of meat consumption on global health. Rev Sci Tech. 2018 Apr;37(1):47-55. doi: 10.20506/rst.37.1.2739. PMID: 30209430.

[3] Abete I, Romaguera D, Vieira AR, Lopez de Munain A, Norat T. Association between total, processed, red and white meat consumption and all-cause, CVD and IHD mortality: a meta-analysis of cohort studies. Br J Nutr. 2014 Sep 14;112(5):762-75. doi: 10.1017/S000711451400124X. Epub 2014 Jun 16. PMID: 24932617.

[4] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery...

[5] Vatanparast H, Islam N, Shafiee M, Ramdath DD. Increasing Plant-Based Meat Alternatives and Decreasing Red and Processed Meat in the Diet Differentially Affect the Diet Quality and Nutrient Intakes of Canadians. Nutrients. 2020 Jul 9;12(7):2034. doi: 10.3390/nu12072034. PMID: 32659917; PMCID: PMC7400918.

Kind of hard to tell how much the transition announcement is driving things given that they just announced predictably stellar Q4 results.

This feels like a shoddy contract dispute just thrown in. I think it's a pretty immediately dead end and they probably know this. The contract is available to all here: https://aws.amazon.com/agreement/

Don't think that flies. They quote a generic section on Termination for Convenience but completely leave out the relevant section on Suspension + Termination for Cause:

From section 6.1 on Suspension:

    We may suspend your or any End User’s right to access or use any portion or all of the Service Offerings immediately upon notice to you if we determine ... (a) your or an End User’s use of the Service Offerings (i) poses a security risk to the Service Offerings or any third party

Then they go on to complain about how AWS has completely terminated them, but that section also doesn't appear favorable.

From section 7.2 on Termination:

    We may also terminate this Agreement immediately upon notice to you (A) for cause if we have the right to suspend under Section 6

Parler has copious amounts of this violent content going back for months, so it seems like this is a sure case of a "willful and continuing failure" to apply the required moderation in the agreement. IMO this shows an ongoing breach of contract so the "for Cause" clauses would apply.

The Anti-Trust argument seems like the strongest here but that's pretty notoriously difficult to succeed with. I guess not too far from the App Store cases going on right now.

The AWS agreement is here: https://aws.amazon.com/agreement/

TLDR: Content promoting violence - clearly more than mere threats given the actions of several users on Jan. 6 - is against the AWS agreement and services can be terminated immediately upon notice.

Just a few examples of deplatforming situations:

8chan and Cloudflare: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/04/cloudflare-will-stop-servi...

Daily Stormer by Cloudflare: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/

In 2007, Verizon blocked a text message campaign from an abortion rights group: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html

Similar kinds of censorship have, realistically, been going on for quite a while. IMO it's the monopolies which are now making it more of a concern. Deal with the anti-trust problem and everyone wins.

I'm not really sure how a longer clip or even a live stream is as reliable as a reputable source + those things. They can both be easily dubbed over and manipulated as well. I don't think it will be long before this is happening regularly.

If a reporter and publication release the evidence and also stand by it's authenticity, that definitely lends more credence and at least allow you to filter where information is coming from by reliability.

It is really not Apple or any private company's responsibility to make all information accessible. They can use an Android phone, they can use a website, they can create their own Android based platform.

I am an advocate for Apple allowing side loading, but that is a different argument than requiring the App Store to host specific software.

Parler has been hosting TONS of incitements to violence and seems to refuse to take it down (or is at least extremely slow to). I don't see why it's particularly crazy that Apple would want to avoid the liability from that.

FWIW, I think alternatives to Twitter, like Parler and Mastodon, are a good idea, but Parler acts like they have a fair takedown process when it's evident that it is not working particularly well.

> Their legal cases are rejected. The mainstream media refuses to take them seriously.

Well these last two seem pretty par for the course for illegitimate claims been promoted as legitimate. At a certain point the line of absurdity has been crossed at it is not the duty of society to constantly debunk illegitimate claims.

> The other side keeps deplatforming them

In this particular case, Parler has been host to a number of specific violent threats against the Vice President and members of Congress. Those threats are a crime under Title 18 Section 871 of the United States Code. Threats to others could constitute assault in many jurisdictions.

I really see it as no surprise that platforms hosting Parler entry points are concerned about this. They could be potentially held liable since this type of speech is not protected by the first amendment.

> It's not surprising that police don't side with Democrats who vilify them for defending themselves

I honestly don't disagree with this. However, I think it's possible to believe that police are abdicating their duty instead of handling it like proper authority figures while simultaneously believing that the harsh rhetoric of some reformists isn't helping the situation.

This cuts both ways since, as your comment indicates, we always blame "Democrats" or "Republicans" instead of identifying actual problematic behavior. "Democrats" are no more to blame for this than "Republicans" with their "thin blue line" which quite obviously pits the police against some underworld of crime (or, at this point, the "radical left") instead of presenting the reality that police work for and with the community.

> Consider the killing of Walter Wallace, one of the "psychiatric incidents" you're talking about

Cases like this are a very real concern amongst police, EMS and fire in many jurisdictions. I don't think it should be swept under the rug. On the other hand, police, in particular, have vast amounts of leeway and are often not held accountable (certainly not criminally) in many cases that go the opposite direction of the one you describe. This is evident to everyone reading this, I'm sure.

There are no easy solutions but I'm tired of police departments acting entitled. Refusing to perform your job and acting like the legislature + the reform minded public is your enemy does not help anyone. Responsibility lies in police chiefs, police unions/brotherhoods, and the executive and legislative bodies of our local governments to work together.

I completely agree with this take. 85% of police officers voted for Tump in 2016.

Just from personal experience, I've noticed a growing animosity from police pushing back on the reform movements happening across the country. I've heard officers refusing to be involved in psychiatric calls due to changes in use of force laws which could hold them personally accountable. Instead of working to find a legal solution, their attitude seems to be one of revenge and their actions a punitive measure on the electorate and government which chose to enact those laws.

There is a culture of us vs. them that is being focused towards politicians and reformists. I hope it's not a pervasive one.

I think you should just remove "we don't sell ads". You are absolutely selling ads and personalizing them based on user data.

It's just flat out wrong to say you don't sell ads.

Not saying the practice itself is wrong, just that your copy is not factually correct.

So:

We don't sell ads, but we do sell "personalized recommendations" and "exclusive deals".

I love the theming options, nested communities, and your goal to federate the network in the future!

The concept of having different types of "breads" based on things like content type and length is intriguing.

One small feature request: It looks like this may be in progress because I noticed a URL on user profiles, but I'd love to see RSS for each user and community.

Both public services which don’t directly bill you. Maybe something like a public health system is a good idea...

A month or so in and it's still a lot of micromanaging. My biggest sticking point is that I'm unsure of which email address may be used for important notifications and the like so I'm hesitant to screen things out a lot of the time unless they are basically spam.

I like this take. It's not like hyper targeted ads are the only thing the internet provides us with now. It's also MUCH easier to build and stay connected with your community. Focusing more on that could be much better overall than ads.

What's special about this? They release a new Technology Preview every 2 weeks or so.

Which part? This is a report identifying breaches from a specific group (APT29) and the relevant signatures to detect them. They are releasing this to warn private companies of breaches.

I don't see how it's a "joke" to release a report that could benefit the security posture of an organization. Isn't that what our governments' cyber security groups should be doing?

> Also the virus doesn’t discriminate

I mean, of course the virus "discriminates" in the sense that there is a huge disparity in mortality rate between age and pre-existing condition groups.

Sure, it can infect anyone but it's obviously false to act like the effects are equal across demographics.

You need to logout to see the first time user experience.

Those in-app purchases are grandfathered in from older versions of the app so they don't lose those subscribers. They no longer allow new subscriptions through IAP.

This doesn't mean the Guidelines are foolproof and always consistently applied.

If you're just trying to read the Guidelines as legalese then it seems to me like there's some serious ambiguity with what exactly the "Reader" section allows.

It seems like Basecamp gets a pass based on the "access to professional databases" exemption. But at what point does a service that caters to consumers AND businesses cross over that line?

The App Store Review Guidelines have been a nightmare to parse through and the Review process an inconsistent mess for many years now. IAP really took it to a whole new level.

Yes, but streaming video apps are explicitly given a pass on that rule, along with several other categories:

"magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video, access to professional databases, VoIP, cloud storage, and approved services such as classroom management apps"

How the hell they came up with this list is anyone's guess. Seems like they kind of tacked things on that they were concerned about completely removing.

They were in the ad business years ago with iAd. https://developer.apple.com/support/iad/

Perhaps that's because that's what's going on and those are the only real ways to look at this.

To be clear, the 1992 Los Angeles rights invoked the Insurrection act AT THE REQUEST of the state which is markedly different than Trump's proposal.

The more direct example of invoking the act in spite of opposition from states would be the enforcement of federal law law during the Civil Rights era.

Two good explainers on this:

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jun/02/can-donald-tr...

https://time.com/5846649/insurrection-act-1807-donald-trump/

The comment was edited to show that iOS does in fact do this.

But even if it did send HEIC, if you're going to fail to handle "any" format, then you better specify the one you can handle. By the same token, why shouldn't my computer convert every .docx to PDF, or some other "more universal" format?

Instead of specifying the requirement programmatically, they spent their time sending out tweets and writing help docs.