Sailor Sega Saturn

I think an actual building. Though Forest City is not exactly prime real estate.

There’s some pictures here: https://www.ryanchern.com/posts/network_school (and probably a few other sites scattered across social media). I could geolocate it better than that but I’m currently on shitty mobile hotspot internet.

I’m using the term a bit loosely to mean “libertarian citadel except with techies”. Though I think the phrase is technically supposed to mean a nation that starts out as an online community.

Anyway for some reason these weirdos all have this idea that if it wasn’t for all those pesky regulations and people they could usher in a glorious new sci-fi and/or cryptocurrency society. Like look at this example: this B-list CEO in the apartment rental business thinks he’ll be the ruler of a fiefdom that brings about AGI, Quantum Computing, a nuclear energy revolution, bladerunner style flying cars, and sci-fi materials. It’s delusional; or at best grift.

The canonical example of network state is Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School. He owns(?) a building in Forest City, Malaysia (or as he calls it: an island in an undisclosed location off the coast of Singapore). But in a broad sense it’s useful to consider everything from Sidewalk Labs to California Forever to the M.S. Satoshi as thematically in the same sort of ballpark.

More network state nonsense is afoot: https://frontiervalley.com/ https://www.thenerdreich.com/startup-seeks-trump-ai-emergency-for-california-tech-city/

They (who?) have publicly drafted an executive order because they want to take over the Alameda Naval Air Station (a superfund site).

Edit: Per the twitter account the weirdo behind this is James Ingallinera.

Every time I see one of these AGI meltdowns I’m reminded of this anime / manga:

Hell yeah!

Seems there’s a lot of buzz about pride month this year. I’ve been to one pride parade as a teen and have approximately zero LGBT fashion items, but solidarity and visibility seems more important in recent years. I should find a necklace with trans flag colors or something.

Nah it’s not too bad the IRS guide is only 40 pages! ^{somebody save me}

• All US citizens get to file US taxes every year regardless of if they have any US sourced income
• Foreign income is also taxed (but see next two points)
• The first 126k of foreign income earned while living abroad is excluded from taxation (Foreign Earned Income Exclusion)
• Income that went to paying foreign taxes is also not taxed (Foreign Tax Credit)
• Banks hate opening accounts for US citizens since we’re subject to FATCA filing requirements and thus generate extra paperwork
• Also certain foreign mutual funds are taxed heavily (PFICs), requiring care in planning investments.
• There are a bunch of tax treaties with different countries, which may influence the exact details.
• If you do have deferred compensation that was granted in a state but that was vested or exercised while a non-resident of that state you may also have to file state taxes (e.g. FTB Publication 1004 for California)

I haven’t run through this in practice yet and I will probably give up and hire a professional.

OK completely off topic but update on my USA angst from earlier this year: I’m heckin’ moving to Switzerland next month holy hell.

Back on topic: Duolingo continues to circle the drain. I kind of hate that I’m linking to this because it’s exactly what that marketing-run company wants; but they posted these two videos to TikTok in response to the AI backlash: https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo/video/7506578962697456939?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo/video/7507337734520868142?lang=en

I uh… I don’t think it’s going to change anyone’s minds. Half the comments on the videos go something like:

EVERYONE LISTEN UP!!! 🚨 - starting from today, we are gonna start ignoring duolingo. We will not like the video it posts, or view it. - BASICALLY WE WILL IGNORE DUO!!💔 💔 ON EVERYBODY SOUL WE IGNORING DUO!! 💔 (copy this and share this to every duo related video)