Random Stuff (2026)

[varoadking]

Priority Mail labels and receipts come with a date stamp...to include the time of day...

[Natsinpwc]

Priority Mail receipts come with a date stamp...to include the time of day...

Last year when I mailed taxes priority it just showed no movement for like ten days. When I was going to check on it finally showed that it went to the IRS address.  In reading some stuff on line they may just hold tax returns at the post office until they get a bunch. Of course they collected my priority mail money without telling me that. So electronic this year.

[English Natsie]

Just don't bother filing any returns or paying any taxes - dead easy...  

[varoadking]

Last year when I mailed taxes priority it just showed no movement for like ten days. When I was going to check on it finally showed that it went to the IRS address.  In reading some stuff on line they may just hold tax returns at the post office until they get a bunch. Of course they collected my priority mail money without telling me that. So electronic this year.

No doubt that electronic is indeed the way to go...

[English Natsie]

No doubt that electronic is indeed the way to go...

Just for reference, it's standard practice by HMRC (over here), to favor online. For example, if you request a refund online it's paid within three days - do it on paper and it's several months...

[The Chief]

My favorite trick is to not give the govt an interest-free loan in the first place

[JCA-CrystalCity]

My favorite trick is to not give the govt an interest-free loan in the first place

I am with you, but TurboTax always suggests really high estimated taxes.

[varoadking]

My favorite trick is to not give the govt an interest-free loan in the first place

When you don't have traditional employment income, having your brokerage withhold estimated taxes from IRA's is the easiest way to avoid underpayment penalties.  I'm all about easy...

[blue911]

When you don't have traditional employment income, having your brokerage withhold estimated taxes from IRA's is the easiest way to avoid underpayment penalties.  I'm all about easy...

Yep.

[Natsinpwc]

This is the first year I’ve ever received a sizable federal tax return. Due to the special tax credit for us old farts.  Figuring out if I should reduce my pension withholding. Wife is excited about the large return.  She understands it’s better to get more money each month during the year but I guess the lump sum effect is appealing. Maybe I’ll just reduce it a bit.  I do hate letting them use my money all year.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Were she still alive, Leona Helmsley would be IRS commissioner

[tomterp]

My favorite trick is to not give the govt an interest-free loan in the first place

The problem is that it's an asymmetrical calculation.  If underwithheld you may owe interest AND penalties based on your quarterly shortfall, so better to give a small interest free loan than risk significant penalties and interest.  You're not wrong in concept, but it relies upon good estimating as the year unfolds.  I got hosed this year, one of my old mutual funds (started investing in 1981) declared a big capital gains distribution in December that I hadn't planned for.   

[The Chief]

The problem is that it's an asymmetrical calculation.  If underwithheld you may owe interest AND penalties based on your quarterly shortfall, so better to give a small interest free loan than risk significant penalties and interest.  You're not wrong in concept, but it relies upon good estimating as the year unfolds.  I got hosed this year, one of my old mutual funds (started investing in 1981) declared a big capital gains distribution in December that I hadn't planned for.   

Yeah I get it.  Just a principled tongue-in-cheek remark.

[varoadking]

Were she still alive, Leona Helmsley would be IRS commissioner

I loved her notice in the Harley Hotel bathrooms:  "If you love my towels as much as I do, you can buy them in the giftshop."

I built two homes on Round Hill Road in Greenwich, CT back in the mid-80's.  The Helmsley mansion was situated on the road such that you had full view of it across the sprawling front yard, again on the flank as the road swept to the left and then again a view of the rear as it swept back to the right.  There would always be a mob of domestic workers lined up in the rear waiting to be allowed entry into the residence in the mornings.  I've little doubt that the wages for each was charged against one or more of the hotels...

[1995hoo]

The problem is that it's an asymmetrical calculation.  If underwithheld you may owe interest AND penalties based on your quarterly shortfall, so better to give a small interest free loan than risk significant penalties and interest.  You're not wrong in concept, but it relies upon good estimating as the year unfolds.  I got hosed this year, one of my old mutual funds (started investing in 1981) declared a big capital gains distribution in December that I hadn't planned for.   

You also sometimes get situations where something out of your control causes unexpected results. We are getting a much bigger federal refund this year than I expected after a couple of years of the amount being pretty level from year to year, and I assume the reason must have something to do with the various tax law amendments enacted last year. Our state refund is pretty similar to last year's amount.

I could roll the refund over to reduce the federal estimated tax payments for the next tax year, but I'd rather earn interest on it in our high-yield account.

[Natsinpwc]

These are the general rules from IRS. 

“Generally, most taxpayers will avoid this penalty if they either owe less than $1,000 in tax after subtracting their withholding and refundable credits, or if they paid withholding and estimated tax of at least 90% of the tax for the current year or 100% of the tax shown on the return for the prior year, whichever is smaller.” 

[JCA-CrystalCity]

The head of the Jalisco cartel was shot in a Mexican military operation and died when being transported back to Mexico City. The cartel is attacking Puerto Vallarta and blown up several buildings in response.

[imref]

The head of the Jalisco cartel was shot in a Mexican military operation and died when being transported back to Mexico City. The cartel is attacking Puerto Vallarta and blown up several buildings in response.

scenes from the airport are insane

[English Natsie]

I've been asked to do some work for the Forestry Service - not at a main center, you understand, just a branch office...

[Natsinpwc]

I've been asked to do some work for the Forestry Service - not at a main center, you understand, just a branch office...

Ouch.

[varoadking]

Thanks Drac & EN...this has just been so random...4 times in 3 days with no real clue why it disconnects or why it comes back on...

My Norton is current and I updated my drivers...if that doesn't do the trick, I will delve into your other suggested solutions...

 

The driver updates seem to have been the answer...thanks again, fellas...

[dracnal]

The driver updates seem to have been the answer...thanks again, fellas...

Fantastic! I really do need to be better about suggesting driver updates as an early step. As EN helped show, that can really help solve a lot of quirky behavior and issues. I default towards 'nah, they wouldn't release terrible software just to get a new version out with some feature that helps them scrape revenue from their customers....' which is sadly way too common these days and 'ship now, patch later' is the primary way of thinking. A lot of the updates are fixes for things they knew about but shipped anyway because deadlines

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Fantastic! I really do need to be better about suggesting driver updates as an early step. As EN helped show, that can really help solve a lot of quirky behavior and issues. I default towards 'nah, they wouldn't release terrible software just to get a new version out with some feature that helps them scrape revenue from their customers....' which is sadly way too common these days and 'ship now, patch later' is the primary way of thinking. A lot of the updates are fixes for things they knew about but shipped anyway because deadlines

It's funny but  the "go fast, break things" attitude seems pervasive among the tech companies, which leads to a lot of oops when products are rolled out. One of the things that scares me about autonomous driving, especially Tesla, is the sense they push out things half baked and hope to learn the problems in the field. I say that knowing it's still safer than human driving. The early accidents probably hurt adoption, and the occasional "oops we didn't see the pedestrian / cyclists" incidents don't help. The history of Grok doing weird stuff (some of it intentional) doesn't help, either.

[dracnal]

It's funny but  the "go fast, break things" attitude seems pervasive among the tech companies, which leads to a lot of oops when products are rolled out. One of the things that scares me about autonomous driving, especially Tesla, is the sense they push out things half baked and hope to learn the problems in the field. I say that knowing it's still safer than human driving. The early accidents probably hurt adoption, and the occasional "oops we didn't see the pedestrian / cyclists" incidents don't help. The history of Grok doing weird stuff (some of it intentional) doesn't help, either.

There's one major problem with the self-driving cars and how they train them. They are consistently training them on what is expected for 99% of driving. They are not training them nearly enough on unexpected stuff. When they train it, a semi is a big square with lights of a particular color showing at several places. The view from behind. They don't train them on what a semi looks like when it's jack knifed and covering five lanes of traffic with the underside showing. It doesn't have much data for that so it just picks something that it thinks is probably closest. Usually that would be 'road sign I haven't seen before,' or 'overpass,' both of which are okay to drive past. It's an extremely common failing with engineers to not test for unexpected outcomes and it's why things like NTSB testing or high quality software QA testers can be so critical. But as you say testing department budgets are being slashed and the attitude of 'we'll work it out in production' is rampant.

I'm sure that self-driving cars are absolutely safer when the road conditions are normal vehicle orientation matches the expected. I suspect that their rate of reliability in unexpected conditions is dramatically worse than human drivers and the low adoption rate and requirement to have a human at the wheel and alert have a major role in why there aren't many, MANY more reports of problems. If they fail at 80% of the 200 unexpected situation they come across in a year vs failing at 15% of the 78000 unexpected situations the human driving population of the United States faces in a year, it's going to mask the problem and make it seem like not really all that big a deal and see how much safer they are overall?

[imref]

the potential injury reductions from self driving cars are staggering: https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-cars-million-road-injuries.html

But, killing off a large sector of the economy is not without its downsides as well.