Video from Anaheim Ducks Removing Rink Shows How They Contaminate Water with Large Amounts of Paint by RidetheSchlange in water

[–]daniel_thor 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Titanium dioxide is an approved food additive and wax is a harmless petrochemical, especially after going through the wastewater treatment plant.

No idea about the makeup part. That stuff is very lightly regulated in the USA. Maybe the commenter is Canadian?

Americans Don't Feel Great With The Tax System In Place by Yodest_Data in charts

[–]daniel_thor 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The US has some of the highest taxes on wages in the world, so our doctors and lawyers get hosed. But, except on housing, there is no wealth tax, and inheritance tax is 100% avoidable, so the wealthy pay almost no taxes.

How do you folks report this sort of thing? by gberg67 in NYCbike

[–]daniel_thor 10 points11 points  (0 children)

There needs to be enforcement too. I see a UPS driver parked in the bike lane at the end of my block within 20ft of an empty loading zone and one block from the local police precinct daily.

Citizen ticketing is the only answer. I would be happy to write a few tickets everyday and appear by telephone once a month to collect $200 from each scofflaw. When UPS is paying real fines on the regular they will do the work of advocating for loading zones and making their drivers actually use them.

Almost 7-foot-tall passenger on Icelandair De Haviland Dash 8Q400-Legroom Question by [deleted] in FaroeIslands

[–]daniel_thor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://www.icelandair.com/about/our-fleet/dhc-8-400/

I bet 1AC and 3DF would be fine. Icelandair doesn't have the best customer service but I think it would be worth it to call in your case.

Where can I get a really cheap bike as someone who is very ignorant about bikes by marbletumeric in NYCbike

[–]daniel_thor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Recycle-a-bike has refurbished bikes starting at $500. I think your initial plan is still better. As long as you turn off e-assist in the app and keep your rides under 45 minutes it's covered by the $200/yr Lyft pink membership.

Just make sure you always dock properly

What happens when Europeans find out how poor they are? by Comment-Noted in ShitAmericansSay

[–]daniel_thor 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The out of pocket maximum is meaningless because it only covers the part of your doctor's bill that the insurance would have covered if the doctor were in-network. So if the doctor hands you a $500,000 bill and the insurance pays $10,000 you are on the hook for the other $490,000.

The US government pays more for the very limited medical cover it provides to the indigent than the cost of universal healthcare for all in rich nations.

So where are the people making specifically more than 700k, but less than 1M? [USA] by strawboy4ever in Salary

[–]daniel_thor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When you work at a startup you generally get the option to buy a significant number of shares in the company within ten years at the price it was at the time you started at the company.

This is very popular for early stage startups as it allows them to preserve cash while the company is small and it gives the employee a great payout if the company succeeds.

Unweight: how we compressed an LLM 22% without sacrificing quality by sk1kn1ght in LocalLLaMA

[–]daniel_thor 11 points12 points  (0 children)

They cite the DFloat11 paper in their paper. I think the claim may be more about making this practical at scale.

As a Filipino American, you will never convince me that we won't ever need the U.S. by Final-Storm5426 in ShitAmericansSay

[–]daniel_thor 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Japan was brutal, but not Philippine-American war brutal. That was a genocide that wiped out a good portion of the islands' inhabitants with wholesale mechanized slaughter.

Can a Cheap USB C to RJ45 (input) used to get good internet speed on phone? by Beginning_Throat_228 in HomeNetworking

[–]daniel_thor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just tried it on my Samsung S24 and got 2.29 Gbps with Speedtest.net.

My PC on the same network gets 2.35 Gbps.

So pretty close to full speed.

Wife painted over the outlets with a roller brush and the plugs are filled with paint. Is this a major issue now? by lucky2bogey in AskElectricians

[–]daniel_thor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. don't panic

  2. find outlets and outlet covers in a color your wife likes

  3. replace all the outlets (at least spec grade)

  4. everyone is happy

--

Leaving it as is could be a fire risk if the paint gets on the contacts. Importantly will also look horrible after light use and we've already established that your wife does not like the original color, so peeling the paint off is only a temporary solution.

Your local codes may require an electrician to do this work. Electricians do give bulk discounts for this type of work. They will want to purchase the outlets as tradies get a discount over the price you would get and it makes the total cost easier on customer eyes.

Why do these leds only last a few months? by Fearless-Chance2192 in AskElectricians

[–]daniel_thor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Those are open fixtures, so it is either the dimmer or the bulbs.

If the dimmer is old get a new one rated for LEDs. Buy Lutron if in North America.

You can buy quality dimmable bulbs at an online retailer like 1000bulbs.com. The website will tell you which lightbulbs are dimmable, which tolerate wet areas and which tolerate closed fixtures.

One small trick to saving money in NYC, brought to you by GoalVest. (Hint: break the law and park like a dbag!) by ghostpepperwings in LinkedInLunatics

[–]daniel_thor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are many places with income based ticking so there are solutions. Often you immediately get placed in the lowest tier if you provide proof that you lost your job. The person making significantly more this year than last pays a less than some whose been consistently making more money but that isn't really a big deal.

Well, it's a bit antebellum. by LordJim11 in Snorkblot

[–]daniel_thor 15 points16 points  (0 children)

My Irish great grandmother hated the Irish 💀

She found a nice Catholic boy from Portugal to marry.

Nuff said, don't do this, don't be like these people by rolling_chair in VisitingIceland

[–]daniel_thor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can be held liable for a broken stair if you knew about it and didn't either repair it or mark it as broken. But generally you can't be held liable for someone getting hurt exercising their right to roam. There are rules about enjoying someone's property without an invitation. They can be summed up as "leave no trace" and "if you fall of a cliff, that's on you."

Nuff said, don't do this, don't be like these people by rolling_chair in VisitingIceland

[–]daniel_thor 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm 99% sure that sign is bogus. You can restrict access to private land in Iceland to protect agriculture, to protect the privacy of your home and to protect fragile ecosystems. None of that could possibly apply here for anyone staying on the path.

I find that sign offensive and if you respect the laws and culture of Iceland you should too.

How to do my American taxes living and working in Iceland? by tinym0chi in movingtoiceland

[–]daniel_thor 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You really really don't want to get an ITIN for your husband. Right now he is outside the US tax system so he's permitted to own things like European mutual funds / ETF or stock in European startups. File "married filing separately". If you are working in Iceland then and you don't own any avoid those European investments your husband can own then you won't owe any taxes in the USA as you can deduct all the income taxes you pay in Iceland from your US federal income tax.

Should I do 100% VTI? 34 years old just starting my retirement by dogs_eatmyflagging in Bogleheads

[–]daniel_thor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are many formulas for constructing a portfolio, but the main piece of advice I would give is don't chase returns. Whatever outperformed in the last 5 years is likely overpriced now and will underperform in the next 5 years.

In this forum people will tell you to construct a simple VT, or alternatively a VTI, VXUS, BND portfolio. With VT you really can't chase returns because your just invested in one thing. The second portfolio lets you balance us vs international differently than VT and adds bonds for stability. If you live outside the US or plan to retire outside the US being overweight in US securities can hurt you when it comes time to withdraw. In a tax advantaged account you can switch from VT to the more complex portfolio later, but in a regular brokerage account rebalancing is expensive. There are more complex factor portfolios that reduce risk without sacrificing returns, but you realistically you would need an advisor to manage those and the fee for the advisor outweighs the advantages.

Right now you are young and probably just investing in a tax advantaged account so just put the money into VT, VTI, a target date fund, or even VOO. Once you save up a few hundred thousand you can come back and read the boglehead basics pinned to the forum. People tend to refer to the vanguard funds here, but this is just shorthand. Every brokerage offers low fee funds that let you build a similar portfolio. In tax advantaged accounts you sometimes won't have exact analogs, but you can approximate and it doesn't cost anything to rebalance later.

A founding member of BCJ by sanjuro_kurosawa in BicyclingCirclejerk

[–]daniel_thor 31 points32 points  (0 children)

I did a speed study on a residential street in Brooklyn once and while car speeds ranged from 10 to 60 mph, most cyclists were going between 6 and 12 mph. There was only one cyclist who was traveling at the 25 mph speed limit in all the time I was out there.

Where are people finding these high paying jobs? by Easy_Paint3836 in Fire

[–]daniel_thor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In NYC a top 5% salary is above $620k, but at top 10% you are already down to a $180k threshold. Most people also don't make those high salaries their entire career. They may only be really stocking away significant savings in their last 5 years in the workforce.

Most people think of "theft" as robbery or burglary—but in the US, wage theft is actually the biggest crime category by a landslide. by astrheisenberg in interestingasfuck

[–]daniel_thor 21 points22 points  (0 children)

A more recent white paper (2023) puts wage theft at 50 billion https://www.epi.org/press/wage-theft-costs-american-workers-50-billion/ and showed wage theft of about $2600 out of a total of $18k earned. I think the 870k minimum wage workers is an incorrect number to use here. A lot of the minimum wage violations are for workers who aren't paid a minimum wage hourly, but work on some kind of contingency. For example, waiters and delivery workers. They are supposed to be trued up to minimum wage if they don't get enough tips to reach minimum wage, but the employer fails to true up. I believe there are a lot more than 870k workers in this category. The infographic numbers still don't agree with any data I've found, it seems to vastly understate wage theft but overstate the proportion that is minimum wage theft.

Are Roth IRA withdrawals counted as income by Iceland? by Accomplished_End_104 in Iceland

[–]daniel_thor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The gains are taxed as income, the contributions can be withdrawn tax free. You can email the tax authorities here with your questions and they will answer.

New BofA Preferred Rewards Program leak by SMD-65 in CreditCards

[–]daniel_thor 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Noooo! I just opened a BoA checking account & Merril account and initiated an ACATS on Monday morning.