The tax preparation racket

The deadline for filing one’s taxes in the US is April 15th of each year though this year it is April 18 due to holidays. I always do our own tax returns without using any commercial software and just finished preparing our tax returns. Over the years I have developed my own spreadsheet that automates much of the process, so each year requires just a few tweaks to update it. But it still took many hours of work over many days. Most people cannot be bothered to learn how to do their taxes on their own and either turn to paid preparers or buy commercial software, little realizing that they are being coerced into doing this by the collusion of tax preparation companies and the government that deliberately keeps the process complicated.
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John Oliver on the Trump budget

It is a pretty good description of the fact the budget hits the poor and those who voted for Trump the hardest. But I think Oliver is wrong in thinking that Trump’s fans will get fed up soon. While there is a little support for this view, usually once people have visibly given their support for someone or something, they tend to have suffer from a version of the ‘sunk cost’ mentality and will double down on their support just to convince themselves that they did not make the wrong decision. We have a long way to go until the reality hits them so hard upside the head that they will be willing to concede their error.
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Replacing Mercator with the Gall-Peters projection of the Earth

That the Earth is a globe has been known for millennia. But how does one represent a sphere on a two-dimensional surface? For a long time the projection method called the Mercator system, created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, has been used so widely that it has seemed as if it were the only way. But it is not and there are many ways of doing so. The popularity of Mercator has a lot to do with the fact that, in addition to making the shapes of countries similar to what they look like on the globe (with the extent of distortions increasing as one approaches the poles), it gives Europe and North America a larger size and puts them at central positions on the map, thus endowing them with a prominence that they do not merit.
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We are just one incident away from further loss of civil liberties

As we are all repeatedly told, the loss of even one American life as a result of an attack that can be blamed on ‘terrorists’ (i.e., Muslims) that entered the US somehow or an undocumented immigrant is an awful tragedy, unlike the losses of hundreds, thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of worthless foreigners at the hands of the US military. Of course, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans due to gun violence and lack of adequate health care and social services are considered acts of god that we can do nothing about.
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Frank Oz talks about his work with the Muppets

Long time readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of the Muppets when they appeared on Sesame Street and in the TV shows and films. I was particularly fond of Grover, Cookie Monster, Fozzie Bear, Bert, Ernie and Kermit, and the first four of them were the creations of master puppeteer Frank Oz who later went on to be director of feature films while still keeping his hand (literally and metaphorically) within the Muppet world. He was also Yoda in the Star Wars films.
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Trump’s “big, beautiful” wall with Mexico takes shape

The US Customs and Border Protection agency has posted guidelines for people to make proposals for building the wall across the US-Mexico border, the “big, beautiful” magical wall that is going to stop all drugs, crime, and terrorist attacks in the US and make America great again, so that it is well worth gutting programs like providing meals to shut-in seniors to pay for it.
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Chuck Berry (1926-2017)

One of the great rockers of all time, a pioneer in blending blues, swing, and country into what became rock and roll, died today at the age of 90.

Musicians of all genres and ages paid tribute to Berry. “Chuck Berry was rock’s greatest practitioner, guitarist, and the greatest pure rock ‘n’ roll writer who ever lived,” said Bruce Springsteen, who played with one of Berry’s pick-up bands before achieving his own fame.

“Thou Shall Have No Other Rock Gods Before Him,” the drummer and producer Questlove wrote. “His lyrics shone above others & threw a strange light on the American dream,” said Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger. “Chuck you were amazing [and] your music is engraved inside us forever.”
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Berry’s music was a hugely influential figure for generations of rock musicians who followed him, many of whom recognized him during their lifetimes. “If you had to give rock’n’roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry,” John Lennon.

But he had a very dark side to him too when it came to women.
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Republicans really, really hate poor people

It is no surprise that Republicans love the rich and want to make them richer. So do the Democrats for that matter. What separates the two is that Democrats at least try to mask that deep love by offering crumbs to the poor and the middle class. While Republicans in the past tried, at least faintheartedly, to act as if they too cared for the less well off, now that they control the White House and both houses of Congress, they don’t even try and with Paul Ryan’s health care proposal and Trump’s proposed budget, the mask has really come off, revealing the ugliness beneath.
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Why making accommodations for discrimination is problematic

Some of you may recall the case of Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, who refused to accept a gay couple’s order to make floral arrangements at their wedding because of her religious objections to same-sex marriages. She said that she felt that if she were to accept the order, that would be tantamount to her endorsing such marriages.
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How a car’s differential works

In the old days, cars could be called ‘one wheel drive’ vehicles since a car’s engine powered just one of its four wheels. The problem was that in such cars, if the powered wheel ended up in a place with low or no traction, say because of snow or ice or mud or dangling over a ditch, you were literally stuck. The development of two-wheel drive vehicles that sent power to the two rear wheels improved this situation since if one wheel lost traction, the other could pull you out of it. But this created a new problem in that when you turn a corner, the outer wheel on the axle has to rotate faster than the inner wheel since it traverses a circle of larger radius.
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