You’re basically complaining that Roth 409s/IRAs exist

You’re basically saying “fuck Europe” (to use your technique of building a man made of straw). This is not a US-only forum. Roths are a US invention and they are US-specific. Canada has something somewhat like it but not quite (no conversion option IIRC, which blows it), and at least parts of Europe (if not all of Europe) have nothing at all like it.

Apart from that, it’s bizarre that you think I would have any problem with Roths. Where do you think you read that? Roths are a great tool that actually supports my goals – though in one country only. And only for as long as conversions are allowed, to the extent they are allowed, and to the extent of 401k limits and conversion limits.

I might have ignored this post without all the anti-NEET, anti … landlords? company owners? contractors? … all the tears of people who seem to me to be in the wrong place, in the comments.

Ah, so anti-work is an elitist movement that excludes some demographics of people you hate? Nonsense. Middle class people can (and should) practice anti-work philosophies. Please fuck off with the: this is for poor people only exclusivity. The geocentrism can fuck off too, particularly when simultaneously coupled with pretentious ass-hattery. Uber Eats contractors would be appalled with the prejudiced grouping you have stuffed them into. The poor people you want to restrict the anti-work movement to don’t have the 401ks needed for the Roth conversion approach to work for them.

There are some models for sabaticals, like lower pay and then basically a year of paid vacation. It also includes insurance policies, as there is an obvious incentive to just fire you before you take the time off.

None of my employers have offered that. Colleagues would take a sabatical but I think it must have been uncompensated – just an understanding that the gig was held for them. Is there a particular region where this arrangement is common? If it’s just 1 year off every 7 years, that’d be useful but doesn’t match up to my pattern of working about ½ time on avg (1yr on, 1yr off, 1yr on, 1yr off, 6 on, 6 off, etc).

That paying a little extra when you made more money is how a progressive tax system is meant to work.

You think the progressive tax system deliberately punishes people with unstable or fluxuating income? That’s foolish.

Whether that’s by design or not, no self-respecting anti-work proponent endorses it.

BTW, different countries have different tax tables, but 5% is ~100 hours. Would you like to work an extra ~1—2½ weeks per year for free? If yes, what are you doing in the anti-work community?

by coming up with a sophisticated tax avoidance scheme

The intellectual dishonesty here is atrocious. We’re talking about working less/minimally by leveling income across fiscal years (or achieving that effect) to avoid penalties for anti-work practices.

Great article. I think there are some flaws but it gives lots of good ideas.

Possible flaws:

• Insulating the underside of the work surface would prevent the work surface itself from getting warm. Hands have the most need for warmth. So I would be tempted to insulate the underside of the work surface as suggested but cut out a deliberate thermal bridge around the keyboard and mouse area – or maybe supplement a heating pad on top of the desk. But taking care not to add heat to the laptop.
• Space heaters are discouraged by the article because they output too much power (as they are intended for heating a small room). But space heaters often have thermostats. I have an a/c powered oil radiator on wheels. It may be high wattage but I think it will know when to quit. And it would save me the effort of rigging up a thermostat.
• IIUC, they rely on the blanket to mitigate heat loss around the sides of the desk. That’s where I would be tempted to use insulating radiator foil, perhaps in addition to a blanket.

Thick insulation foam for roofing is often thrown out, like when a neighbor re-roofs and buys too much. I will be on the look out for scrap pieces to use under the desk.

Some of the windows are leaky. The frames and window sills are old and irregular. Some window frames are painted unsmooth wood and the sills are ceramic tile (some textured) which would also be quite difficult to seal off. So I think attempting that would be in vain.

I stay mainly in a windowless room with the doors shut.

I’ve never been on the other side of that problem. And it’s not my problem, so I never looked too deeply into it. I just know if a bank or CU is using Cloudflare I am not using it.

Yeah I do the hand sitting and some other tricks… but was looking for a slightly more productive level of comfort without heating the room or house.

It’s not insulated. The thermostat it has a floor of 5°C/40°F, at which point it heats even in the off state to protect the pipes.

thanks! I did not know about that one.

Those mail services are a minefield in general. Most are compromised by Cloudflare. It’s crazy how companies handling inherently sensitive info like that are exposing their customers to Cloudflare.

I live in a country abroad that doesn’t have a postal system.

These could help with that:

• www.myrvmail.com
• ukpostbox.co.uk

Where did you get your list of banks (and their websites) to start with your research?

US fed banks

• https://web.archive.org/web/20210605171011/https://www.occ.gov/topics/charters-and-licensing/financial-institution-lists/index-financial-institution-lists.html
• https://www.ffiec.gov/npw/
• https://banks.data.fdic.gov/bankfind-suite/bankfind
• https://banks.data.fdic.gov/docs/
• https://www.bankbranchlocator.com/

US state-specific lists

• http://dllr.state.md.us/finance/banks/mdbanks.shtml
• http://www.ofi.state.la.us/WebsiteListThrifts1.html
• http://www.ofi.state.la.us/WebsiteListSavingsBank1.html

(edit) well shit… some of those links have gone to shit… Cloudflare, anti-tor, etc. But you can perhaps dig up archives.

That would help when my wrists rest on the cold desk (which is ergonomically bad anyway). It doesn’t seem like a solution for typing, though if I take frequent rests for hand warming maybe that’d be viable (which I do now by via many cups of hot tea).

About the eyes, I would not want to wear goggles. But I wonder if a good lamp shade could be sufficient. Or is the reflected light also retina deteriorating?

I wish you would publish your research.

I never finished the code and my partial results would be uselessly stale by now. But I hope to one day resurrect the attempt.

It sucks that the only way to know if a bank is secure is to signup and then find out after.

If that were true a crawler would have the same problem.

You can manually check by going through the motions of a manual login at a bank website. Clicking forgot password usually ensures you connect to the host of the portal.

But note that even if you find a usable bank, you need to think of it as temporary. So the most important feature to look for is gratis paper statements and gratis paper checks, so when enshitification happens you can land on your feet and stay functional.

Even if you use paper, another major vulnerability is that ACH and SEPA transfers are pull-based.

In terms of SEPA pulls (“direct debits”) have a little known benefit: consumers can demand a no-questions-asked refund on demand up to 8 weeks following the settlement date, guaranteed by EU law. That’s even better than pushing a “credit transfer” because those are non-refundable the moment they execute. But indeed in the US AFAIK you’re screwed if you want to take an ACH back.

In any case, it would be useful to have a healthy project to separate tor-friendly banks from the shitty ones, which would require ongoing maintenance.

I have no idea. I wrote a script that attempts to reach all banks and CUs over Tor and logs the results. But I never finished the project.

But I will not make myself part of the anti-tor problem by using tor-hostile services (not even over VPN because that still sends the wrong message to the bank). I do all my banking offline the old fashioned way.

The company is registered officially as a public company with a charter of providing Internet service. The law gives them the right to run their cables as needed and to make use of private and public property. And there is no need for an easement on the properties they use. But the law also says something like the carrier /should/ obtain consent on /how/ to run the cable… there should be a discussion that includes the property owner’s input. But “should” is a very weak word to have in legal text. They simply ignore that rule altogether.

The context in the case at hand is terraced homes. They bolt a cable right next to the cables of other carriers, which is a dozen or cables in some cases. But imagine if one person on your block had the power to refuse the cable. Then everyone else on that block would not get service. So it’s fair enough to some extent that they don’t need consent. But shitty that they can deploy a Cloudflare customer service website that excludes people. The law should impose inclusivity.

One of the nasty rules is that if you are a homeowner who wants to renovate your façade, you must send a registered letter to every company who has a cable on your façade to inform them. Each letter is about the cost of a big mac. So if there are 10 cables on your house, you’re spending 10 big macs on sending notifications. So this makes it a bit more disgusting that a network provider can be exclusive (and exclude you from service) while obligating you to inform them of your renovations.

Thanks for the insight!

Have you encountered any merchants charging a fee for cash back?

I’m astonished to hear of that degree of nannying. But then it occurs to me that’s probably not an ATM limit; it’s probably a limit of the bank that issued your card. I would check your bank’s contract.

Since ATM fees don’t apply in your case, the fix is perhaps to open a few accounts so you can use one card after another. I guess assuming these are gratis accounts (not sure if that’s a thing in NL).

Another trick: buy something at SPAR and ask for €150 in cash back. I’ve heard SPAR has a 150 limit but not tested it. I would like to hear if any shops have a higher cash back limit than 150 as well.

Perhaps that was the case a year ago when you posted this, but now the free accounts allow zero outbound msgs.

It’s interesting that their highest tier plan is capped at 150 msg/day. In any case, I think @jet@hackertalks.com has no cause for concern.

My problem is that they delete trial accounts without reason & without warning. So I distributed my email address to people and just a few months later the address is dead. They don’t say the free accounts have a time limit. I thought the only limit was lack of sending feature.

Yes, and in fact it’s worse than your linked page suggests. I was happy to receive email and not send. So that free trial would have been forever perfect for me. But after a few months my login creds mysteriously quit working. No warning and no msg after the fact to tell me why my #onionmail.org account was deleted.

It’s a dick move because people rely on email for important tasks. It’s fair enough to have limitations, but concealing the limitations is off.