In calculating various people's effective tax rate, there are decisions to make. Deciding wrong leads to giant confusion.

Thru April 16.

A documentary about Julian Assange is touring US cinemas. The tour continues till mid-April.

Each showing is followed by a Q&A discussion with Julian's father and/or his brother.

Online services that allow advertising tend to pass through a transformation known as "enshittification".

First, the service shows users what they want to see. Then it shows users with high priority whatever businesses pay it to show them. Finally, it shows users with even higher priority whatever will keep them spending more time on the site — at which point the users and the advertisers hate it but feel they don't have an option to refuse.

I do refuse. It just happens that these disservices tend to require users to run nonfree client software, and I refuse to do it. Thus, by defending my control over my computing, I avoid the shit too.

I think that the key to ending enshittification is to pass laws to change the funding model.

The US continues to hold on to art done by prisoners in Guantanamo even when prisoners are allowed to leave.

A heavy snowfall in California is crushing trees and buildings.

The heavy storms in California result from global heating. This won't be the last one that drops snow instead of rain. I have a feeling that in isolated mountain areas most of the inhabitants will have to move away.

Heavy rains may reduce the fire danger, if they are frequent enough.