FredPret (u/FredPret)

FredPret commented on The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia cnn.com/2025/11/12/busine... · Posted by u/andrewl

stetrain · a month ago

Knowing the sales tax at a particular in-person store is more feasible, and that’s the only case where you have to deal with cash.

If I’m buying online with a digital transaction you can charge whatever cents are necessary.

FredPret · a month ago

You then still have the issue of standardized advertising prices.

Right now, a company can say they sell gadget X for $999, which would not be possible if they had to work out item taxes.

The other possibility is that they now have to mark X up to take into account the most pessimistic possible tax rate and advertise the marked-up rate.

FredPret commented on The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia cnn.com/2025/11/12/busine... · Posted by u/andrewl

SoftTalker · a month ago

Forcing the simplification of all those taxes doesn't seem like it has a downside, to me.

FredPret · a month ago

That would centralize power to the larger taxing authority.

Right now, there's a huge number of elected people in the US who wield real local power through these taxes and other rules that they can make.

It's a headache but we live in the computer age and we can automate administrative things like tax calculation at checkout; we should be using systems to aid decentralization and democratization instead of the opposite.

FredPret commented on The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia cnn.com/2025/11/12/busine... · Posted by u/andrewl

stetrain · a month ago

Yes, the quarter is pretty much the smallest useful unit of US currency and even that usefulness is shrinking pretty quickly.

If we would adopt a policy of including local sales tax in advertised prices, skipping to whole dollars would be pretty painless.

The main reason to keep at least quarters is all of the various coin-op machines that are still in service.

FredPret · a month ago

The US has too many tax permutations for this to be practicable. Companies would have to make prices a bit higher to accommodate unexpected sales tax increases in some or other jurisdiction.

There's a small industry that specializes in knowing what the sales tax for a particular transaction should be at the moment it goes through.

FredPret commented on Europe converged rapidly on the United States before stagnating constitutionofinnovation.... · Posted by u/tbs1980

stego-tech · a month ago

I am not your search engine. If you have data that refutes my position, share it. Otherwise, personal experience is not indicative of a larger consensus or observed attitudes and outcomes, nor are “grass is greener” lamentations an acceptable supporting argument.

FredPret · a month ago

Until we mass-scan people’s brains, there will never be reliable data on this. Facebook-tier research and anecdote is all we’ll ever have on happiness.

When “the larger consensus” is built on nothing but bullshit soft science coming out of the hard-left humanities departments and old Soviet propaganda that’s still echoing in people’s minds today, I’m just going to ignore it and form my own impression.

FredPret commented on How I fell in love with Erlang boragonul.com/post/fallin... · Posted by u/asabil

imglorp · a month ago

> “How can you sum the numbers from 1 to 10 without using a loop?”

Sum = n(n+1)/2

FredPret · a month ago

Not even Erlang can beat Gauss

FredPret commented on How I fell in love with Erlang boragonul.com/post/fallin... · Posted by u/asabil

jimbokun · a month ago

It's kind of like this:

https://xkcd.com/224/

Also this:

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/

For me, there's a dopamine hit in taking a complex problem, and breaking it into simple interacting parts that solve the problem in an elegant way. Overly complex programming languages add lots of incidental complexity that slow down this process. A clear, simple, consistent semantics accelerate this process.

If that doesn't inherently excite you, the life altering experience probably isn't going to happen for you.

FredPret · a month ago

> https://xkcd.com/224/

> “My God, it’s full of ‘cars’”

Classic

FredPret commented on Europe converged rapidly on the United States before stagnating constitutionofinnovation.... · Posted by u/tbs1980

stego-tech · a month ago

I hate these hit pieces against the EU, but I’ll give OP credit that theirs actually has a mixture of credulous proposals (Federal preemption, ending directives, commercial court) alongside the usual pro-billionaire insanity (a 28th regime just for business? Removing regulations on product standards? Are you fucking kidding me here?).

Europe has its fair share of issues, but a lot of them can still be traced back to unresolved wealth pumps and neoliberal policies weakening the state and labor force in favor of business and billionaire interests. There’s also unresolved questions about how much of America’s economic growth is tangible versus theoretical, given the dilapidated state of America’s infrastructure and ballooning national debt problem. Neutering what makes Europeans so much happier than their American peers just for the sake of “productivity” comes off as gallingly tone deaf to the practical realities on the ground.

FredPret · a month ago

> “Europeans… so much happier than… Americans”

Citation needed, and not to a Facebook Quiz-tier “how happy are you on a scale of ten” questionnaire.

My experience is obviously anecdotal, but it is quite varied, and the exact opposite.

FredPret commented on Anxiety disorders tied to low levels of choline in the brain medicalxpress.com/news/20... · Posted by u/clumsysmurf

dzonga · a month ago

some eggs, some steak, some vegetables, some human company, feeling valued & working on things that bring fulfillment

that's how most people never experience anxiety in most parts of the world.

no need for drugs, medicines etc.

FredPret · a month ago

I would add exercise and sunshine.

But yeah, our ancestors lived in constant danger of getting eaten by sabre tooth tigers, freezing in the snow, catching maalria, and, in general, watching terrible things happen to their tribe.

They had no therapy, no supplements, no self help section on the cave wall art.

They were forced into a continual outward focus with no time for navel-gazing.

They carried on through all exigencies, and succeeded mightily.

FredPret commented on Writing your own BEAM martin.janiczek.cz/2025/1... · Posted by u/cbzbc

FredPret · a month ago

I have learnt to love and embrace the BEAM.

Wikipedia says "Originally BEAM was short for Bogdan's Erlang Abstract Machine, named after Bogumil "Bogdan" Hausman, who wrote the original version, but the name may also be referred to as Björn's Erlang Abstract Machine, after Björn Gustavsson, who wrote and maintains the current version."

Whether the B is for Bogdan or Bjorn, there's something really fun and Space Quest-y about it.

FredPret commented on XSLT RIP xslt.rip/... · Posted by u/edent

api · a month ago

I have the same mixed feelings. Complexity is antidemocratic in a sense. The more complex a spec gets the fewer implementations you get and the more easily it can be controlled by a small number of players.

It’s the extend part of embrace, extend, extinguish. The extinguish part comes when smaller and independent players can’t keep up with the extend part.

A more direct way of saying it is: adopt, add complexity cost overhead, shake out competition.

FredPret · a month ago

This is also the argument against overregulation.

A little bit can be very good, a lot can strangle everyone but the biggest players