blago

I had such high hopes for this phone, but now I know it won’t replace my 13 Mini. It looks so wide you can barely hold it comfortably, let alone use it one-handed — and that's the whole point of a small phone for me.

There is no need for exact numbers. I'm mostly interested in your tax bracket and effective federal and state rates. It sounds like you had a good year with a one-time payment that couldn't be classified as long-term gains, virtually no expenses, and you are probably filing as a single. That's the only way those numbers can make sense. Do you think this one-time fluke puts you at odds and you are being "squeezed by the working class"? Do you think your fluke-year taxes are representative? Do we really have a country or a CA-wide problem with 60% tax? Is there anything that you, or your company, could have done to better plan for this event?

> ...52% tax which is still damn egregious given that I had better roads and most public services in Florida (0% income tax)

Hmm, I live in Southern Florida. Full time. It has the shittiest roads of any place in the US I have been and some of the highest fatality rates to go with.

Highways look like someone ran a snow plow at full speed, turning what were once scattered potholes into a continuous network of trenches making their own interstate.

This is in a state without cold weather, ice, or snow...

There are many non-0 income tax states that have vastly superior roads than FL. Does this prove anything about taxes?

Oh boy. Tax brackets are incremental. Most people in the 40% bracket will not pay anywhere near 40%. There is a theoretical possibility that someone, who's income exceeds the highest bracket MANY times will have an effective tax rate approaching 40%. But in reality people with that kind of income derive their earnings from sources that are taxed in a very different way such as long-term gains.

> Well positioned to take over VR if it becomes a thing.

This is an incredibly generous way to admit that Meta failed their pivot to VR and they will probably never recoup the tens of billions of dollars that was spent on it.

Sixty percent is high. So high, that it almost seems impossible. Can you provide some details? What's the breakdown?

> Taxes on corporations, like tariffs, are just passed onto consumers

Never heard this argument before - it sounds very implausible. Do you have any studies or source for that claim?

I'm all for the TikTok ban but listening to your last argument a reasonable opponent might notice that:

1. You assume others play dirty by default, even though we never caught them red-handed. Not necessarily unreasonable, but see 2.

2. You assume we play fair even when we are caught red-handed. You rationalize it with "it only goes to show this was the exception and look what happened after". Spoiler alert, nothing happened after, neither the courts nor public opinion shit it down.

You have to admit these two are a little inconsistent to say the least.

> Proponents of small functions argue that you don't have to read more than the signature and name of a function to understand what it does;

Although this is often the case, the style of the program can change things significantly. Here are a few, not so uncommon, examples where it starts to break down:

1. When you’re crafting algorithms, you might try to keep code blocks brief, but coming up with precise, descriptive names for each 50-line snippet can be hard. Especially if the average developer might not even fully understand the textbook chapter behind it.

2. At some point you have to build higher than "removeLastElementFromArray"-type of functions. You are not going to get very far skimming domain-specific function names if don’t have any background in that area.

More examples exist, but these two illustrate the point.

> Companies are afraid of being left behind in the new arms race...

Sometimes it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.