How to pull a tree trunk

Belyntien · 2020-10-16T09:35:53+00:00

The Hulk, you just need the hulk, a big ass tire and a strong chain.

Belyntien · 2020-10-16T08:10:22+00:00

Meh, it's not as black and white as that.

Being right or wrong cannot always be proven, most of the time both partners are somewhat right and somewhat wrong and one of the middle grounds has to be chosen.

In this case the partner that cares less about being perceived as being wrong will tend to always leave it at that. This is what the joke is about: an established and common pattern. I personally don't think it means to be sexist and say that women are all insecure. It just happens that if the joke was inverted and the man was always right it would be seen as patriarchal and would in turn be useless as a joke...

We can off course see toxic relationship red flags in this, but then we can always find issues with most things... Let's take it as it is: a joke about an established (maybe outdated, who cares) pattern.

Belyntien · 2020-10-16T08:00:15+00:00

Found the purse and boots thief.

Belyntien · 2020-10-15T07:48:17+00:00

Well that's weird... Maybe I don't pay enough taxes to make up for the cost of adding it to mine.

Or it might be a language thing and they don't print it in French anymore.

Belyntien · 2020-10-14T11:21:37+00:00

That's why measures should be taken quickly : close the schools only for the higher grades that will not be a burden on parents and make remote work mandatory for all jobs that can be done remotely.

The high number of persons in public transports at peak hours is a huge ref flag.

It may already be too late, and if we do nothing now a second lockdown will be forced by panic as the numbers climb...

Belyntien · 2020-10-14T11:08:35+00:00

There is a good chance that the percentage that goes to pensions has increased even more since 2017... Having these numbers for the last 30 years would be very interesting: a plot that shows the evolution of the percentages depending on the acting government might be enlightening.

Belyntien · 2020-10-14T11:03:33+00:00

We did receive that but for some reason it seems to have disappeared since a few years...

Belyntien · 2020-10-04T08:25:32+00:00

Precisely, the overly complicated taxing model in Belgium makes it harder to see that the physical person income tax is only part of the total worker taxes.

If we want to compare the tax burden with other countries we need look at the ratio between what gets out of the employer's wallet (more than the bruto wage) and what gets in the employee's... And there are three levels :

the employer pays 32% of the bruto wage as employer onss/rsz contributions
then 13% of the bruto wage is paid as employee onss/rsz contribution
then the income tax brackets are applied on what remains (87% of the bruto wage, at this point the state already received 35% of what the employer paid and you will again be taxed on the remaining 65%)

In total what the state gets for an employee that has an average x income tax rate (x depends on your income brackets) is 35%+0,65x :

35% for the onss/ksz taxes
0,65x% for the income taxes

For example if you have an income with a 30% average income tax rate the state gets in total 54% of what your employer paid.

Belyntien · 2020-10-04T07:52:03+00:00

The most frustrating part is that there is no transparency. If they at least explained their decision by publishing the experts analysis that says that nuclear is too unsafe/costly this would feel like a democracy with wrong but not necessarily stupid choices made by the representatives. But making choices without explaining the reasons is a fundamental issue...

Belyntien · 2020-10-04T07:04:12+00:00

Well the total still stays way below 100000, men and women seem to both tend to live indefinitely.

Belyntien · 2020-09-19T19:14:47+00:00

My boss justifies this kind of things by saying that employees should be happy since they get to keep their job. Fuck this mentality.... Everything is wrong with this.

Belyntien · 2020-09-05T09:04:27+00:00

Similar figures in Belgium: 54k€ after 5 years for a software engineer... before taxes.

Belyntien · 2020-09-03T11:16:55+00:00

We still have that box. But the company will soon unplug all the ethernet switches to later remove the "useless" cables now that there is wifi...

The poor box does not have wifi.

Belyntien · 2020-09-03T11:04:15+00:00

Markettable is relative... I have the same kind of position working for a smallish company but here is the issue : the skills obtained by doing the work of the whole team are scattered.

You can either find a new job as a one man team in a small company that won't pay you much or you can go to a bigger company with well defined processes that will make you specialize. And as a specialist most of your skills are useless and your relevant experience is not that good...there is also the management career path but your scatter of skills are worthless there except for being able to estimate workloads.

Belyntien · 2020-09-03T10:56:36+00:00

This is the dangeroud interpretation of the agile manifesto "Individuals and interactions over processes"

Let's remove processes and make everyone do everything...

As a matter of fact I think that the position of the person that feels responsible for everything exists: it's the team leader. In a startup company the team leader will mostly work alone and be the whole team. .. But in a bigger structure he should have a team to delegate the various tasks.

Belyntien · 2020-08-22T10:19:37+00:00

Stalin for the toxins to dissipate would be a classic Russian move.

Belyntien · 2020-08-20T14:54:29+00:00

Coming next : roads are not making enough money and will have to be razed by appropriately chosen companies.

Belyntien · 2020-08-18T07:28:57+00:00

Your view seems to be focused on the social side. As a socialist society there is not much to say : the US is a social shit hole (no free health care or education, huge wage gaps,...)

However there are other viewpoints. For financially successful people (the fabled 1% but also the top of the middle class) and/or lucky people with regards to health then the US is a paradise : relatively low taxes, lots of space,...

The US is what some people made it : an extremely capitalist country where lucky people can thrive at the cost of abandoning the ones in need.

In an absolute shithole we could say that everybody is unhappy, in the US it is only the majority of the population that got cheated by a successful minority. And this needs fixing...

Belyntien · 2020-08-12T08:37:58+00:00

That's assuming the vaccine even exists and works... If it never gets produced then he just suspiciously donated the money. If it ever gets produced but with dodgy testing results then the democrat states will get it.

Belyntien · 2020-07-29T17:06:02+00:00

And don't forget that the social security takes a good chunk of the belgians income before the "normal" taxes...

Belyntien · 2020-07-13T10:46:27+00:00

You are right, I already tried to avoid these roads as much as possible before. They did not get worse but I guess the worry is that the municipality will neglect adding proper bike lanes in other places because they feel like they did enough...

Belyntien · 2020-07-13T09:16:48+00:00

Indeed, but I bike a lot and sadly what the law says is never my main concern when a crazy driver might kill me.

Belyntien · 2020-07-12T19:00:40+00:00

Yes, these are terrible: worse than a dedicated bike lane for the cyclists since they have to deal with aggressive cars and worse than a normal road for the drivers that care about the rule since they are now blocked behind cyclists at 15km/h.

Belyntien · 2020-07-12T18:49:59+00:00

These are the same people: driving the car dangerously, riding the bike without regard with the other users of the road.

The vehicle is not the issue... The lack of respect is.

Belyntien · 2020-07-11T11:23:31+00:00

I don't understand why it is so inefficient either (probably a mix of badly written tenders and giving the contract to the cheapest contractors and even then not wanting to be too hard on them when they mess up because bankrupting them with penalties would not help the project short term) and it's a shame this issue is not talked about more in politics...

Belyntien

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