They had fun with on UP With Steve (Kornacki). Had a guy on who has the first thousand digits memorized, while they counted down the seconds.
Another friend's status: Happy math popularization day! All in all, probably a nice thing to exist.
3: Say you have a continuous function, say the height of your child over time. If you know your child's height at two moments, then you know that your child passes through every heigh in between, during that interval. The IVT says that if you have a continuous function on the closed interval [a,b], that you're guaranteed that the function will hit every value between f(a) and f(b), at some point.
In this case the function is time - since we know it hits 3/14 at 9 am and 3/14 at 10 am, it must pass through 3/14 at 9.26whateverwe'reworriedabout at some point in that interval.
Its funny that by the calendar the rest of the world uses today is 14/3/15, and is not actually Pi Day. The Bitc/oin People had a big promotion event scheduled for Pi Day on the small country of Dominica. The event ended up being cancelled and they were basically run off the island, largely as a result of a complete lack of familiarity and ability to engage with the local culture. Picking a day that was not actually Pi Day in that country probably wasn't a big factor, but it sure didn't help.
I once had a snarky reference to the intermediate value theorem in a paper, but the editors made me take it out.
I want to hear more about 7. IT'S BITCOIN DAY IN DOMINICA PEOPLE.
OK, here it is. Welcome to our ponzi scheme Carribean residents!! The "Bitcoin Beauties" will be there.
7: No problem, just let the d/m/y people have Pi Day on April 31st.
It's Bitcoin Day in Dominica
Bitcoin Day in Dominic-a
Everybody's moving
Whole island grooving
It's Bitcoin Day in Dominica
A previous version of the paper that will eventually appear here contained the following text (which perhaps plays fast and loose with the actual results):
But the most telling objection to this way of taking things is that there is no place at all for practical thought here: one does not deliberate about what cannot be otherwise, and it is impossible, in tracing a path between two points, not thereby to trace all the partial paths. Agents need not concern themselves with seeing to it that this happens. The intermediate value theorem can shift for itself.
That's good, Neb. I'm annoyed at your editors.
IT'S BITCOIN DAY IN DOMINICA PEOPLE
Except its not! Dominican politicians bailed when the country's people said, en mass, WTF is this scam?
Why were they having it on Pi Day? I guess Bitcoin advocates do seem like generally the same sorts of people who would care about Pi Day.
We all agree, I hope, that the most sensible number-theoretic way to order the elements of a date/time is: month, day of month, year mod 100, hour, minutes, seconds. It has the nice property of inverting the significance of the elements twice, as well as introducing a meaningless information-destroying operation just because.
Let The Bit Drop
Jesus Christ, that's the best they could come up with?!
We all agree, I hope, that the most sensible number-theoretic way to order the elements of a date/time is: month, day of month, year mod 100, hour, minutes, seconds.
This is a crime against ISO 8601 compliance.
ISO's black helicopter corps ought to rappelling down on the pie shop as we speak.
&: Hmm, there was a pretty stupid Bitcoin piece on Steve Kornacki this morning as well as the Pi countdown.
There is a toilet paper commercial that says their brand can clean your butt so well that underwear isn't needed. I blame late capitalism.
There is a toilet paper commercial that says their brand can clean your butt so well that underwear isn't needed. I blame late capitalism.
Are you kidding? That's some beautiful technological progress.
To the OP, this wedding has cake, not pie, so I think they were not aiming for a day of significance.
You're at a wedding? Good this is topical then so I can ask it before 40.
I'm at a bat mitzvah. My kid is playing with his rubiks cube which he's learned to solve. A server (looked like a manager type, resupplying stuff and checking on other servers) saw him with it scrambled and said if he solved it she's give him a prize. He solved it in about five minutes, he went to find her, and came back with $10 from her. About half an hour later kid told me server lady wanted to ask me something. We found her and she just wanted to make sure it was ok giving him something since she was a stranger, I thanked her several times and said it made him very happy.
Ok, but now I'm in this weird situation where a server at an event has given us money. It's not like I can leave a tip for her since she's not actually a bartender or something. Also the hosts are picking up all tips- this is an insanely expensive party, like 220 people, cocktail snacks were raw oysters, shrimp, sushi with a guy standing there making it, rack of lamb, carving station, much more. Open bar for the last five hours and still going. Anyway, should I try to find some way to make it so she isn't out $10 to my kid?
28: No. She knew exactly what she was doing, and that you weren't going to make it up to her in tips. It's a weird situation but you're not obligated to pay her back.
I'd be more concerned that your kid kind of conned her. My guess is she didn't realize he knew how to solve it, or that there's a trick to it such that solving it isn't that hard once you know how.
Send the kid to do the Rubik's Cube trick on a wealthy guest of the bat mitzvah, only this time have him ask for a twenty.
Now there are bottles of fireball whisky on the bars. Are we supposed to do shots vs all the 13 year olds?
||
First pass on my taxes, AGI is above $300k for the first time. I feel strangely dirty.
|>
If you were making $400k, you could finally be happy.
I say this in full disclosure as someone who's AGI has been at the level, which I say only to avoid accusations of jealously, but what the fuck mind of humblebrag bullshit is that, "Manuel Noriega."? Yay, let's post how much (more than most people here) I make, and do it anonymously for the smug frisson of making it a dirty little secret? Go fuck yourself, and learn something about how to fucking behave.
I mean, it's even done presidentially! At least have the nuts to identify yourself, you piece of shit.
That's a lot of Awkward, Gauche Indicators.
Let's all post whether the taxes we pay on our incomes exceed the incomes of other commenters!
I, for one, thank Mr. Noriega for reminding me that I should probably do my taxes this week.
Yeah. I need to do that. It's good that I didn't do them earlier. In the blur of my parents' shit, I'd forgotten that I'd been given money for my parents. Extra income for me, no extra money for me. K-1s don't seem to come out until March, though.
Most people who get K-1s have money and somewhat complicated taxes. You'd think they'd need more time to get them off to their accountants.
This seems like a good opportunity to turn this thread into a hate-in about TurboTax. Is there any application so widely used that is so unremittingly awful? (iTunes aside.)
Last year I had to bail on TurboTax due to an extremely complicated tax situation, and wound up doing my taxes by hand, which was no end of suck. My taxes should be quite a bit easier this year, so hopefully TurboTax won't let me down.
Ok, but what were your SAT scores?
Last year I found an error in TT that I had to correct manually. I forget exactly what but it asked you about some piece of information after it would have been relevant to another calculation and it didn't recalculate after getting the new info.
I'm mixed on it; I certainly have fewer errors with it than my sloppy work by hand. I did have to make a correction last year for some education costs (had to put in numbers differently than they prompted). But we have 4 filers who use one copy, so I find it pretty cost-effective if you avoid the traps like extra state filings.
35/36 are weirdly harsh. It seems reasonable to me that someone might not want to be known for making mega-bucks.
Fine, but then why mention it at all in a public forum instead of just keeping quiet, and especially in a smug smirking misuse of Presidentiality way? And with nothing other than the fact of income mentioned? "tee hee I'm rich."
I see where TRO is coming from, but, on the other hand, there are taboos around talking about money that there should be, because those taboos only serve to enable the 1% to keep the rest of us from recognizing that we should be getting a bigger share of it. So I'm not really down with enforcing that particular taboo.
"The first rule of rich club is you don't talk about rich club."
I agree with 48, but this asshole wants it both ways -- no actual owning up to how much he makes to preserve plausible I'm not a rich asshole deniability, while at the same time indulging the desire to crow about it to the (mostly) poorers.
Yeah, no. I understand that people in the 10% disproportionately think they're in the 1%, but a few specific individuals talking about numbers isn't going to improve anyone's understanding. It's not like we aren't all confronted by someone's conspicuous wealth pretty much all the time, whether ball players, movie stars, zillionaires buying up local landmarks (or politicians). Wall Streeters.
But how on earth would the non-presidential comment go? I'm in the top 10% of wealth and having this odd experience! Maybe you could say it gracefully, but it would also be easy to feel awful saying such a thing. Yet still wanting to reflect on the oddness of the experience.
while at the same time indulging the desire to crow about it to the (mostly) poorers.
I think this is the crux of our different opinions - I didn't read it as crowing. I read it as "I'm genuinely struck by the weirdness of this lucky break in life".
It's not at all hard to do gracefully and with ownership and reflection. This was not that -- it was an asshole being an asshole
It's not at all hard to do gracefully and with ownership and reflection.
It can be done, but I wouldn't say it's not hard. I certainly think very hard every time I mention how long it's been since I last had a real job (and usually do what I can to avoid the issue, unless it's with people I know really well).
This year I switched from HR Block to TurboTax (or the other way around, who knows?) because each of them asked something in a vague way about my idiotic NY apartment situation, but TurboTax was vaguer and allowed me not to lose my not huge but worth-having refund. 2015 taxes will be fun because they'll have (I assume) one job, one state, no real estate, no student loans, and I can do them for free or whatever smallish fee they charge to file the state return.
misuse of Presidentiality
Noriega is pretty obviously not me but are there more rules to presidentiality than I think there are?
You clearly do not understand the parameters of correct speech about wealth. Nor do I. But our rageful friend apparently does.
Obviously Noriega is T"R"O and these berating comments are a masochistic means of catharsis to atone for the guilt of being too rich.
I'm annoyed about taxes this year, because I thought once we had regular normal jobs then withholding would be roughly right, but apparently we still owe almost 5K this year. I'm not totally sure why either. Which is fine, I mean we made a lot of money and I don't mind paying taxes, but it's just that it's a bit of a surprise when it's the same month we're buying a house.
I'm dreading taxes this year just because it's the first time I have to do two state returns. But it's just one job in each state, the student loan interest deduction was straightforward last year so it should be this year, and I don't have any other complicated stuff, so I'm not too worried. Last year I tried Taxslayer, because it was marginally cheaper, but I didn't like the interface so I think I'm going back to TurboTax. I'd probably file on paper if I just had one job in one state.
I thought the rule of presidentiality was that you should use it if you're a regular commenter who wants to talk about something actually embarassing or that you'd like other people not to know. I don't think "tee hee I'm rich" is a remotely legit use if you're not a total asshole, precisely because of the having it both ways problem I mentioned above.
This year I had one job, didn't have tax implications regarding the associated reimbursements for moving expenses, didn't worry about having to pro-rate income between multiple jurisdictions, worked in only one country which was exclusively outside of the US, didn't sell a bunch of capital assets to buy a house, and am no longer a resident of NYC, so my taxes are much frickin' easier this year, though I still have to convince TurboTax that I am indeed on the hook for self-employment tax.
I'M RICH, BITCH!!!!
While such a portrayal--the character in the game is even called Manuel Noriega--may ruffle the feathers of the weak-kneed, defamation-minded celebrity, Noriega isn't disputing how he's portrayed--he's peeved that he's not getting a piece of the profits.
Tim "R" O's ability to detect assholes really is impressive. Why, barely a day goes by when he doesn't see that someone is an asshole - even when no one else can tell they are!
Eh, while I do actually appreciate the spirit of TRO's outburst, and am glad he made it, I don't think it's a big secret that any number of commenters on this blog are in the top 10% or even 5%.
I can say, as a member of the bottom 50%, that it's grimace-producing to hear it, but at least if it's to be said, a token remark about the felt dirtiness of it is, well, the least one could do. Maybe that's a conversation you all should have, I don't know.
Now, now, Ripper's readiness to be a dick in the name of civility is one of my favorite things about Unfogged. That takedown of the Later guy? Highlight of last week.
I forgot about relocation moving expenses. I hope I find those receipts.
So I cashed in some options last year. Nothing huge, a couple paychecks worth of money. Did my taxes this year, it seemed all was well, I went ahead and filed. Then I get a notice that the company that managed the options purchase fucked up and are issuing new 1099s and that I have to file an amended return. So pissed, especially since I think I'll have to pay the filing fee again.
70: The changed the way 1099s are supposed to report options this year--it may be related to that. Take care when doing them since the most straightforward way to enter the numbers make the gain get taxed twice . Most (all?) companies show the gain upon exercise in the W-2. 1099s now show the basis as the grant price, so unless you adjust to show the basis as equal to the sales price, that would also show as short-term cap gains.
This is for the style of options I am familiar with--yours may differ. (And there is a good chance that your tax will actually not change, but the reporting on IRS Form 8949 will.)
I find it pretty cost-effective if you avoid the traps like extra state filings
Their language about the charge for state filing is so misleading. I read it over a bunch of times, and was surprised how little it was supposed to cost me. And then got to the payment page and found that what I thought they were saying was the cost for the federal and state filing together was the state-only filing. And funny, this was the first screen without a "go back" button. I went back and deleted the state return anyway, but I can imagine someone less familiar with TurboTax or more uneasy with computers in general could panic and just pay for it.
Yeah, it's getting more and more of that malware download site feel.
Try to download Minecraft mods. It really shifts the Overton Window on Malware trappy-ness.
If a regular commenter won the lottery I'd expect they'd mention it here.
Manuel Noriega should enjoy it while he can; once it happens a few more times the novelty will have worn off and he'll wonder how he ever survived on anything less.
Not that I don't understand TRO's anger.
75: I did. Was I an asshole for going vice-presidential?
No, but we only really care if it's fuck-you money because it means you'll rent a grotto for everyone for the next meetup.
My best was $550 on a scratch ticket.
Josh! How goes?
77: not at all? no one thinks winning the lottery reflects positively on their character.
81: Goes not bad - coming up on 9 years at the Tube, pays too well to quit yet not well enough to quit. IYKWIM. On vacation now, so, you know, could be worse.
Not really feeling the Ripper reaction on this one. I guess he sees it as "I'm so beautiful it hurts," but there's not really enough content in the comment to tell whether it's that or "huh, this is kind of weird," which is a totally natural thing to say to your online friends.
no one thinks winning the lottery reflects positively on their character.
Are you kidding? Under some theologies, it would mark him as one the the Elect.
Lerner(1980) is probably The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion* which is probably one of the most important works of moral psychology out there and which, as far as I can tell, no moral philosophers have read**.
*Which is why I couldn't find a tidy abstract about it. I don't know about the paper here.
**HANDS OFF IT'S MINE.
Hey, I'm working under one of Jake's former colleagues.
Great article by Barney Frank on his coming out.
86: small valley. Are they what you might call a good sort of person?
88 really is interesting. Thanks, Stormcrow.
In The Big Valley, you work for Barbara Stanwick.
Taxes this year have me stressed out. CoveredCA somehow fucked up, and never sent me my 1095-A, so I don't know much I received in ACA premium credits (and which I now have to repay fully). I sent in the form asking them for a new 1095-A, but I doubt it will be sent in time for me to file by April 15. I know I can get an extension to file, but this page says that extensions don't change the payment deadline, which has me a bit confused. I'm supposed to pay on April 15th, even though I can't know how much I owe at that point?
I suppose I could make some rough estimate--I think my Kaiser individual plan would have been around $500/month without a subsidy, and so estimating $1500 of subsidies for the 3 months I was on the exchange should cover it, since I was still paying a premium of $70 or so. So I guess I can use some tax software to estimate the amount, overestimating the subsidy amount, then pay all that using IRS Direct Pay, and then when I do file, put that amount in as my "2014 Estimated Tax Payments". And oh joy, just now seeing the Alternative Calculations for First Year of Marriage, which sounds like as much fun as a barrel of monkeys.
Ah well. It's important to remind myself that these are all good problems to have, really--I got nearly free health insurance when I couldn't have afforded it otherwise, and now that I can, I have to pay it back, which is fair enough. Thanks, Obama!
That's what you're supposed to do, estimate (or over-estimate) then settle up once you have the info.
I don't know much I received in ACA premium credits
They probably won't tell you because you're not a Resident of the State which according to the plain text of the law means they can't tell you anything.
That's what you're supposed to do, estimate (or over-estimate) then settle up once you have the info.
Yes, when you put it like that it seems pretty straightforward and unobjectionable. Something about filling out bureaucratic forms makes me anxious entirely out of proportion to the actual length and complexity of the forms.
IME. interest runs on the amount still due after an extension, but they won't bother you about whether you underestimated your liability when applying for the extension. IANATL, but I just pick a number I know absolutely that it won't be lower than, and go with that.
The IVT says that if you have a continuous function on the closed interval [a,b], that you're guaranteed that the function will hit every value between f(a) and f(b), at some point.
Is that not tautologous? What would it mean for the function to be continuous if this were not the case?
There are functions that satisfy the IVT but are not continuous. Wikipedia has an example.