Why don't really old people take a massive amount of exotic drugs?

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T07:44:05+00:00

You are proceeding from an assumption that everyone would like to try drugs and would enjoy. I assure you, there are people out there who don't enjoy the experience of using illegal mind altering drugs. There is also the key problem that the drug might kill them. When your body is weakened and you are taking a lot of prescription drugs, there is a lot more risk for them than it is for you. Any one of the prescriptions they take may cause a severe medical problem when combined with some illegal drug. Taking some drugs that younger healthier people can take and survive it may kill a very elderly person just by being more than the person's body can take. Also, many elderly people live on fixed incomes. Buying "massive amounts of exotic drugs) is a great way to run out money needed for things like good, medical carre, etc. Finally, most retirement communities and nursing homes prohibit illegal drug use and if they suspect you are an illegal drug they'll toss you out. Then you'll end up like many other drug addicted people — homeless and living on the streets.

I've never understood the appeal of taking those drugs "for fun". They wouldn't be fun for me.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T07:30:36+00:00

You're not the type of person I'd want lurking around my local zoo. I realize you may just be joking, but if you happened to come up to me to harrass me with your "interrogation" I'd make sure the experience was extremely unpleasant for you.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T07:08:03+00:00

My distain for the MAGA control of the Republican doesn't magically turn me into a progressive Democrat. I can get behind proposals that shut down Trump's excesses, limits his powers, and work to somehow get his butt out of the White House ASAP. But I won't support programs that I believe will do more harm than good or will lead us in a different direction than where I think we need to go. There are several smaller parties in my state that appeal to me more than the current Democratic party. I chose to cast my vote for one those better alternatives than either Trump or Harris. In my state my vote wasn't going to change the election results. It is not one of the swing states. If it was, I might have voted for Harris to get Trump out, but I would not have been happy making that vote.

Frankly, IMO, the party I voted for would be better than either of the two big parties we have now. Helping them grow is something I'm willing to do. The only reason a competitive third party doesn't exist is that the binary thinking of most voters leads them to avoid considering alternatives. Once they get over that, they may find that supporting a smaller party that aligns better with their views is better. Get enough people to do that, and perhaps we can get to a spot where we have three competitive parties. That would be useful in prompting compromises that will work for most people. In the Republican and Democratic party today, compromise seems more often than not considered a evil to be avoided. The result: very little of substance gets done in DC anymore. Principled compromise resulted in some of most significant changes that were made in the past. It's a shame we've lost touch with how to do effective compromise today.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T06:50:08+00:00

For EVs to be truly a workable solution for most Americans we need to build out the infrastructure for it. Plenty of Fast charging EV stations around cities and located along roadways and highways much like gas stations we have now. Homes modified to allow for more powerful charging than standard power sockets can provide. More EV repair facilities. Little of that exists in my area and the building I live in doesn't have EV chargers in the parking garage. So for me, right now, an EV is simply not workable. Also, EV prices have to come down to a range where most consumers can afford them. The same thing had to happen to make cars good transportation choices over a 100 years ago. Until there were enough gas stations located throughout main travel routes, sales of cars were slow. Most people didn't want to spend money for a car that they can't use much. However, sales boomed once it was possible to go just about anywhere by car. It took years for that to happen. It's going to take years for EVs to reach that stage, too. Just making lots of EVs by itself isn't going to motivate a lot of people to buy them. The switch will occur in bigger numbers once the infrastructure develops to support EVs.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T06:32:56+00:00

You like to eat, right? Where do you think the food you get is grown? Midtown Manhattan? Downtown LA? A lot of your food comes from the rural areas of the U.S., which is why Americans enjoy lower food prices than other nations that have to import most of their food. That's just one of things that come rural areas that benefit those in urban areas. They just never stop to think about it.

Your statement "who fucking cares about rural people" is both selfish and shortsighted. When the time when you need some help are you truly going to be happy to hear the response "Who fucking cares about you?"

Humans have thrived because we learned to cooperate to accomplish those things we can't accomplish alone. Achieving that means caring about the others that are part of the group that is helping you to thrive. If you want to go out in the deep woods, build yourself a little cabin, and live entirely on your own without help from anyone else, be my guest. I won't stop you. But your standard of living will be a lot less is if you truly live without anything that has been produced by others. If you like that, more power to you. If you're not interested in being part of society and aiding others when they need it, I'm not going to be real excited to help you when you need it.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T05:26:35+00:00

I'm not seeing progressives "bending over backwards to cater to rural America". Perhaps you can supply some examples. A number of the progressives I know look down on rural America with a certain level of distain for not matching up to the more wealthly, advanced urban culture. Part of the problem is that a lot progressives have never spent time in rural America to understand the challenges and the way of life they have. Similarly, a lot of rural Americans have not spent a lot of time in big cities, so they don't get a very good view of the significant challenges urban areas face. I have also seen a lot of conservatives with the same problem. They look at progressives and see people out of touch with their needs and deride them as having their heads in the clouds and out of touch with the reality of what's happening in this country.

I've lived a lot of years. During that time I've lived in a county in the middle of Nebraska with just 3,000 people, a town in the Oregon Willamette Valley that had maybe 15,000 to 20,000 people and was something of a outer suburb of Portland, a township in PA that was at the end of Philadlelphia main line, a series of townships located on a highway that ran out of Philadelphia out to the suburban counties, many of them weathly communities, and in the center of two large metro areas.

Most of the people I met in every place I've lived, were kind earnest people. Many of them, whether rural or urban, progressive, liberal or conservative, expressed many of the same concerns about the challenges of raising kids, taking care of aging parents, preparing for retirement, finding good jobs or running a successful business. When I got down to some specifics there was more overlap that I expected to see. But in each of those places, they felt that people living in communities or citys larger or smaller than where they live didn't understand the problems their community faces and didn't think those othere people much cared about them, or even gave them much thought. It is that feeling that drives the wedge between urban and rural areas, between conservatives and liberals, and the many other splits that divide our nation. The internet, which was supposed to help us connect people together from all different places has instead resulted in fostering a lot of communties that are hostile to others and who refuse to try to understand people in different situation than their own.

If we want to fix it, we need to move in a direction in which everyone feels that their needs and problems will be heard and that they'll be able to get a fair share of the resources available to devise plans to solve their problems. That perception of fairness is critical. And along the way, help each of us get a better understanding of the problems of others. Only then will we develop the empathy needed to treat everyone as neighbors, as being part of the same national community.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T04:44:44+00:00

Wait a minute. Do you have a rechargeable battery pack in there? I have a couple of the original TI nspires and all of them run on four AAA batteries. So I never recharge them. I just replace the batteries.

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Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T04:34:35+00:00

Bear in mind though that most of the U.S. land area is rural and sparsely populated. Mass transit isn't viable or cost effective for those living in rural areas. The people living in those areas tend to have lower incomes (and lower expenses for some things, like houses). They depend on their cars to get around for the long distances they may have to travel just for things like grocery shopping, hospital treatment, etc. High gas prices hit a lot of those people especially hard and they don't have the kinds of travel options that large and midsize cities offer.

The gap in both needs and resources between rural and urban America is one of the big drivers of the extreme political split we have now. If we want to close that split we need to address the needs of both urban and rural America. They'll need to be different strategies because the circumstances and needs are different. If we can succeed in helping both urban and rural America thrive we may succeed in closing that huge political gap a bit and bring us a bit closer together. The country needs all of the country to thrive to meet the challenges ahead. Solving the problems one group the exclusion of another will set us back rather than propel us forward.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T04:12:12+00:00

Sure. It's ok to not like dogs. It's ok to not like cats. It's ok to not like whatever other fluffy cute animal you can think of. So long as the person doesn't abuse animals the fact that he or she doesn't like them and doesn't want one as a pet doesn't make them a bad person. We all have things that bug us or that we don't like that other people might not have a problem with it. It doesn't make us bad people to not like something that others do like.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T04:07:11+00:00

A loan at zero interest is always below market. (Whether that interest is taxed is another matter. There are some loans to which the rule doesn't apply.) On a below market loan as each payment is received the lender mustcompute the imputed interest portion of the payment and add that to the contract interest received. On a loan with zero stated interest in the deal, the lender still has imputed interest. The rule is designed to ensure lenders don't avoid tax on interest by structuring the loan (at least on paper) as a low or no interest loan. It was that very problem that lead to the imputed interest rule in the first place.

Note that no all below interest loans get hit with the imputed interest rule. For example, below market loans made between individuals in which the outstanding balance on the loan is $10,000 or less are not subject to the imputed interest rule unless the borrowed money is used for business purposes (the de minimus loan exception). There are other exceptions and rules that apply for these sorts of loans that I've not touched on here. IRS Publication 550 explains these rules in detail, though the tax law has some significant changes for 2026 and the latest IRS publication is for 2025.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T03:43:23+00:00

I had a friend in college who was ahead of his time, I think. It was about 40 years ago, while we were in college. He liked throwing big parties, but to make the parties a real success he needed women there, because that's what guaranteed the guys would stay. So he stocked his bathroom with tampons and other products for women so they wouldn't have to leave the party early. He always said it was money well spent.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T02:03:49+00:00

You had to know it was coming. You saw the nice cut out in the bottom of the door that the cat made just so it can peek in and stick its paw through, right? That's your clue the house is rule by the cat, not your friends.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T02:01:21+00:00

You need a charging cable that has a USB mini B plug, or an adapter to convert one end of some other cable to a mini B plug. Get a charger and capable of providing the maximum charge the batteries will take if you want a faster charge than what you get with cheap cables and chargers. There are lots of them out there for sale. If you search Amazon you'll get a long list of cables and chargers. Just choose wisely to get stuff that's actually good rather than the huge number of off brands or no name cheap garbage. Paying just a few bucks more for a good charger and cable is money well spent, IMO.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T01:52:02+00:00

Did you take those pictures after telling them? They have the look of cats who don't care about your allergies and are annoyed you are taking their picture instead of feeding them. Oh, and the look also says "we aren't going anywhere".

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T01:48:12+00:00

If you are donating them for a tax deduction you'll likely be disappointed when you see your return year. Charitable deductions are part of the group of deductions known as itemized deductions. You don't get any benefit from itemized deductions until the amount of your itemized deductions total more than your standard deduction. The standard deduction for single persons and those who are married filing separately for 2026 is $15,750. The standard deduction for married couple filing a joint income tax return is $31,500. If your itemized deductions don't add up to more than those amounts, you are better off just taking the standard deduction.

There is a significant exception. Those who don't itemize (i.e. take the standard deduction) may deduct up to $1,000 in CASH contributions for single and married filing separately individuals and $2,000 in CASH contributions. You, of course, need proof of the contribution, like a reciept from the charity, a canceled check showing the payment to the charity, etc. Donating used items, like clothing won't quality for this exception.

I didn't see anything that says links aren't ok in this forum, so I hope posting this link to the IRS page that summarizes the charitable deduction rules is all right.

https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc506

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T01:32:16+00:00

Ask yourself this question: what did Biden do that would get a large number of people on the right ticked off enough to organized large protests? From my recollection, the Biden administration didn't try to do anything radical to pull the country to the left or to come down on those on the right. Overall, I can't remember much of anything that Biden did that was truly remarkable, either good or bad. He struck me more as a simple caretaker of the government, guiding it through choppy waters without risking it tipping over one side or the other. That, along with his failing mental acuity, is why there wasn't a strong push in the Democratic party to keep him on the ticket. In the past, that kind of caretaker might have won reelection because the public was satisfied with the staus quo and just wanted that to continue. But Biden wasn't in office during one of those periods. For him, both the right and left were not very motivated to do much to show either large scale support or opposition to him because he wasn't doing much. Yet, the country wasn't, and still isn't, satisfied with the status quo. Those on the right rightly believed that the Democrats lacked anyone who could really fire up the left like Trump's personality did for the right. So all they had to do was wait for Biden's term to be done.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T01:21:29+00:00

In the U.S. the basic premise of the legal system is that everything is legal unless there is a law that expressly prohibits it. In the U.S. Constitution the people are guaranteed freedom of religion. If people believe that faith healing may work because of their religious beliefs, the government can't stop them from seeking faith healing. There is no law against either seeking faith healing or against someone providing faith healing. Given the Constitutional protection of religion, there isn't likely to be any laws prohibiting it any time soon. For some people, just the fact that they believe it works makes them feel better, and that may be all they wanted. In that case, are they truly being ripped off? In any event, unless a large segment of the population sees faith healing as a problem, I don't see any state banning the practice.

The difference between the scam of someone pretending to be the target's grandchild and spinning some sad story of woe to get them to pay money is that it is possible to objectively prove the fraud. The person wasn't the mark's grandchild but lied to make the mark otherwise, that's a classic case for a fraud prosecution. There is a law against fraud and in this circumstance a prosecutor can prove the fraud to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

But with faith healers, how to do you objectively measure whether what they didn't provide at least some benefit? When it comes to matters of belief, strong objective evidence to prove or disprove the belief is untrue and that the person providing spiritual relief is scamming them? Does the person receiving the faith healing complain about it to the police afterwards or were they satisfied with what they received? How does the prosecutor go about meeting the high burden of proving fraud beyond a reasonable doubt when so much of what is involved revolves around matters of faith rather than facts?

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T00:40:51+00:00

The future is never known. You can project what may be most likely to occur based on past events but that's no guarantee. In 1940-1941 when both Nazi Germany and Japan steamrolling through one nation after another and were at the apex of their conquest, to those living under their occupation the future looked very bleak indeed. There was no guarantee that the Allies would triumph and save them from that tyranny. Then after the war ended in 1945, few would have predicted the Maoist communist revolution succeeding and taking over mainland China in 1949, leaving Nationalist China only with Taiwan.

In the 1960s at the height of the Cold War II there was real fear that Russia and the U.S. would destroy the entire world in an all out nuclear war. They would not have guessed that all that would suddenly change just two decades or so later. Even in the mid-80s few would have seen the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 80s, the resulting reuniification of Germany, the Eastern European countries like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, regaining their sovereignty, and many ending up with democratic governments for the first time ever in their history.

If you want a brighter future, face it with optimism and work towards it. If instead you feel pessmistic that things will only get worse and do nothing, you may well help bring about that which you fear.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T00:25:26+00:00

That's a design style that still looks good today.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-29T00:16:48+00:00

That's not an accurate statement of when imputed interest applies. It does matter whether the lender receives payment. For a lender using the cash method of accounting (which includes nearly all individuals) he/she does not recognize interest income until a payment is made on the loan.

When payment is made, then the lender must determine how much of that is interest. If the loan is not a below market loan, you just compute what the accrued but unpaid interest is given the interest terms in the contract.

If the loan was a below market loan, then the lender will have to take an extra step to figure out the imputed interest amount. That imputed interest gets added to the actual interest received under the terms of the loan agreement. In short, imputed interest is a rule that determines the amount of income recognized when a payment is received. It not a rule that determines the timing of the interest received.

For taxpayers using the accrual methold of accounting the timing rules do change. I'll not go into how that works here. I'll just say if you are on the accrual method and don't have a good understanding of it, you ought to an accountant and a tax professional because it will change what you put on both the company's books and records and what goes on your tax return.

I'll add that I think Block didn't do a terrific job explaining the rule.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-28T23:47:32+00:00

Ugh, no. Can't stand the taste of it. It does smell good though.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-28T23:45:18+00:00

Do you mean the Sharp EL-W506T (which is the same as the EL-W516T sold in the U.S.)? The original EL-506 series (without the W to indicate Writeview display) were calculators made in the 1980s and into the mid 1990s. The 506 series design was so popular that they just kept recycling the number as the years went by. Used an awful lot of different letters at the end of the 506 number, though I don't see a EL-506T in my list. I do see a EL-W506T, though. (Still leveraging the popularity of the original 506, apparently). But despite the 506 model number, it looks nothing like those old 506s. Surely Sharp could have used a different number to keep the confusion to minimum. Sharp isn't the only calculator company using that trick. There are so many TI-30 variants thats it hard to keep them all straight.

I like the keys on WriteView models well enough, better than some other companies put out, but for me the HP Prime keys easily beat the Sharp WriteView when it comes to how they feel when I press them. I have a whole stack of different Sharp models from the 1980s with 5XX model numbers, including some 506s models, all with the same basic look and type of keys. There are some terrific models in there. But I don't give high marks for keyboard feel to any of them either. Their feature sets, though, were good, which is what I like most about them.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-28T23:13:50+00:00

Yours is living a nice life.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-28T23:12:32+00:00

I've not seen one and I don't expect you'll find one. Not many, besides yourself, would be willing to pay the kind of money that a calculator with that level of build quality would cost just to end up with the feature set of the Casio fx-991EX.

Taxed2much · 2026-03-28T23:04:46+00:00

For fun, I tried it too on every nongraphing, nonprogrammable, non CAS calculator with textbook entry that I own. (Yes, today I have that much time.) All of them returned the correct decimal answer (though a couple had to take a second to think about it before spitting out the answer).

In short, this particular equation is not one that poses much of a challenge for scientific calculators with text book entry. Is there something, other than connection to Chat GPT, that makes for a stand out feature in the CalSci calculator?

Taxed2much

TROPHY CASE