#colleague: yeah i drafted this with AI

[cyborgrhodey]

So uh. Im not sure where Im going with this. The endgame is a Lila/Suzi/Rhodey team up to parallel Riri/Pepper/Tony, but. Yeah. Anyway heres 2k of meandering present tense thoughts.

Suzi Endo thrives on information. Getting access to hidden information, analysing and synthesizing it on the go, whether from command or in the field—that was her superpower, her occasional use of her superpowered suit of armor notwithstanding.

Accumulating information is accumulating power, so that’s what she does. She keeps backups of everything, details and reports meticulously filed away and stored for later use. She keeps the universe she once beheld in her hands in her secure servers.

The first time Rhodey died, she transferred his consciousness from his old patchwork body to his brand-new one. But she also kept a backup, because that’s what she does.

For years and years the file gathered dust, a complete snapshot of who Rhodey was at his lowest. She forgets that she has it for a long time; or, well, not forgets, but it certainly wasn’t in the forefront of her mind. She hasn’t even talked to the actual man in so long.

And then she turns on the television one day and sees War Machine go down, sees Captain Marvel scream, sees the empty tributes of the media, and she is violently reminded of the information (the power) she holds.

At first she figures that apparent king of being not actually dead Tony Stark, who had only months before suddenly turned back up after the entire world believing he was dead, would help Rhodey cheat death this time; after all, he already has before. She knew that Tony would probably do everything in his power to make this one not permanent, and if anybody could do it, it’s him. (At the back of her brain, though, she explores plans and possibilities, telling herself that they were just hypotheticals. She could upload her backup to an LMD. She could probably even grow a new organic body for him like Tony did; while she didn’t have Jim’s DNA sequence, it was probably on Stark servers somewhere. Getting it wouldn’t be easy, but she was Cybermancer. Or she can just leave the consciousness without a physical body: an AI, essentially, except not artificial at all.)

And then he gets decommissioned on national television, after a long few weeks of tension with Captain Marvel.

All of it reminds her of why exactly she left the business so long ago. Not that being a tech personality and private military consultant was any less stressful, but it tended to be less drama as long as she keeps out of superheroes��� ways. She still remembers meeting alternate her, taming an ancient robot, feeling the entire universe compressed in her brain. As much as she wanted to help people, all of that did not make for a sustainable life. So she cuts them all off, burying all those ties in her past. Her tech helps people too, she tells herself, if indirectly.

Tonys death jolts her, though. Suddenly all the plans she had told herself she was not making all become very real.

She thinks of calling Jake, or Parnell, or Beth, or maybe all of them. Get Team War Machine back together; have drinks, maybe. Remember their fallen friend. (She watched the national telecast of the funeral from her office; none of them attended.)

In the end, it’s Glenda Sandoval she calls. She figures she was the only one who’d understand that cold metallic taste of almost when it comes to Jim.

Suzi takes a week of leave, leaving projects and contracts hanging, and flies to Philadelphia.

They meet one weekend mid-morning in a big chain coffee shop in downtown Philadelphia, just across the hospital where Glenda worked.

They greet each other with a hug like old friends, and Suzi asks after Parnell, but they are quick to run out of small talk. Rhodey--Jim--was the only thing they ever really had in common. Maybe she should have called Beth instead.

“You weren’t at the funeral,” Suzi finally brings up.

“No. Neither were you.”

Suzi tilts her head to the side in agreement, and brings her coffee to her lips as she muses on what next to say. She should tell her about the backups; if she was being honest, that’s the reason she wanted to meet up, anyway.

“That wasn’t really him at all, though, was it?” Glenda says.

Suzi takes a too-big sip in surprise. The coffee leaves a stinging line down her throat that she’s sure she’ll feel later.

Glenda raises her eyebrows in concern, but continues. “His mother told me about it. Jim, the real one—he died back then. The one they buried was just his clone. They had the same memories, sure, but those weren’t the fists that saved me from my bullies, or the hands that helped me up, or even the cyborg we fought alongside in Santo Marco. No, I’ve done my mourning for Jim long ago.”

Suzi knows she’s staring, but she can’t help it. She cannot fathom the reasoning in Glenda’s head. The information that made up the Jim Glenda knew—the memories, the DNA, everything from the map of his neurons to the color of his eyes—was the exact same information that made up the Rhodey who died. Thinking of them as two different people was just plain wrong.

But something tells her that she wouldn’t be able to convince Glenda of that. And that she shouldn’t, not when Glenda has already put Jim in her past. So, instead, she asks, “Can you give me Roberta’s number?”

Glenda eyes her distrustfully, probably knowing that Suzi is completely capable of getting it through other means, but still she takes a pen out of her pocket and copies a number from her phone onto a paper napkin. “I haven’t talked to her in a long time, so I don’t know if this is still accurate, but here’s what I have.”

“Thank you.”

Glenda watches her carefully fold the napkin and put it in her pocket. She checks her phone for lack of anything better to do, and then clears her throat. “Well, I have to get back to the hospital now. My break is ending soon.” She starts gathering her things and stands up. “It was good seeing you again.”

The statement is not as empty as Suzi expected. “Yeah”, she says, “it was.” She stands up and gives Glenda a hug that was marginally less awkward than their hello hug, and she knows that this is probably the last time their paths will cross.

Suzi sits at the coffeeshop, staring at the holographic screens projected in front of her. Outside, the sun is already at its highest point in the sky, and its reflection from the hospital windows is enough that she has to set them on maximum brightness. She could feel herself being watched by the other coffeeshop patrons, but she ignores them.

She drafts and redrafts an email, each one sounding worse than the last. Dear Mrs. Rhodes, I am writing to inform you that--. No. Dear Mrs. Rhodes, I heard about the--. No.

Dear Mrs. Rhodes, I was a colleague of your son. I could also bring him back to life. Would you want me to?

Her fingers hang in the air, hovering over SEND. It was wrong. She can’t even imagine what she would do if she received something like that. She deletes the draft. This is something she had to do in person.

She called the number Glenda gave her, half hoping that it wouldn’t work, but it goes through. Mrs. Rhodes still remembered her from that time all those years ago, which was surprising, but did simplify things. She said she had something to talk about in person, and Mrs. Rhodes (call me Roberta) invited her over for dinner at the Rhodes residence, which is now where she finds herself.

Entering the house felt like intruding on a part of Rhodey’s life that she was never a part of. She had known him as a superhero, as a soldier, as a fellow engineer. She didn’t know what to do with the childhood photos on the walls, or the flowers from loved ones and admirers that still littered the house.

Suzi thought she was prepared for the conversation. In the five hours between the call and getting to their house, she rehearsed all the different scenarios she can think up in her head.  She hadn’t expected to be sitting across Rhodey’s niece (Hi, I’m Lila!) at the dinner table, though.

She didn’t even know Rhodey had a niece.

“So, Suzi, you said you wanted to tell us something?” Roberta asked, setting her fork down for a moment.

It feels cruel, now, to bring it up. Maybe she should just play it off, make some empty statement about how great a man Rhodey was. It would make her look callous, but the alternative was also pretty callous anyway.

But that wasn’t her call to make, and they deserved to know.

“I—”

Like peeling off a band-aid, Endo.

“I might have a way to bring Jim back.”

Suzi studiously ignores their gaze in favor of staring at her food. She has to resist the urge to play with it.

“When we transferred his consciousness to the new body, well. I kept back-ups. And, it’s not going to be exactly the same, it’s going to be like him losing, what, five years? But.” Suzi hazards a look up, and she takes in Robertas ashen face and Lilas confused and slightly intrigued one. That makes her lose her train of thought. She can’t help but feel like she’s made a huge mistake. And really, she has, in not deleting her copy a long time ago.

“Whatever you decide, I want you to have the file. And I’ll delete it from my servers, so you’ll have the only copy.”

The silence drags on, and Suzi braces herself for Roberta throwing her out in a fit of rage. What right did she have, after all, to burst into their lives after weeks of their moving on, to offer them a second chance with too many catches?

She never should have kept those files.

“Grandma?” Lila wraps her hand around Roberta’s, which was clutching her fork a little too tightly.

When Roberta speaks, it’s strained. “He rebounded from that whole thing really fast, you know. I’m pretty sure he just pretended it didn’t happen. And it seemed to work. But I don’t know if—I don’t think that—”

Her words trail off, and Suzi wishes for the ability to disappear into thin air.

She takes a couple more bites and then she can’t take it anymore. She sets down her utensils on her half-eaten plate of pasta that she was sorry to be leaving. “Well,” she says, “I’ll, um. I have to go. Take your time to decide and talk it over. You have my number.”

Roberta just nods dumbly. Suzi sees herself out.

[christophergill8]

6 tax matters that will dominate 2018

Welcome to the first work day of 2018. By now you (and I) have had enough coffee (maybe, even this late in the day) to think about what the year ahead will hold for taxes.

Chippy the Dog via Giphy.com

Since my personal orbuculum is still a little blurry — I'm blaming equally the aftermath of New Year's Eve festivities and the craziness that now rules Washington, D.C. — I have only six tax-related prognostications.

But even with the fuzzy focus, one thing is clear. Most of what we'll see happen in the tax world in 2018 will be related to the new tax laws now in effect, and which topped my list of last year year's top 10 tax matters.

So, with my mug reloaded with caffeine, here goes my 6 tax forecasts for 2018.

1. Glitches in the new tax measure will mean lots of cleaning up. Or not. Even under the best of legislative circumstances, changes to the Internal Revenue Code mean unintended consequences and flat-out mistakes. The process used to hurriedly ram the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (yeah, I know that's not the formal title, but it's catchier that what we ended up with) though Congress was far, far from the best.

The phrase "holy crap" was one of the few printable descriptions of the bill used by folks with experience shepherding tax legislation through Congress.

That means that Capitol Hill will be consumed in 2018 with technical corrections. Typically, this is the effort by the House and Senate to fix a bill's drafting or policy problems, that range from minor mistakes to total rewrites of provisions.

But things are far from typical in Washington, D.C., right now. And that will complicate the tax bill's correction process.

First, there is the size of the bill. It's huge. Many provisions were added and tweaked during unofficial debate of the bill in an effort to get the bare-minimum 51 votes the GOP needed to pass it. That means there are lots and lots of areas that need a once (or more) over.

Second, it's vague and depending on the Internal Revenue Service to help clarify things. (See #6 in my 2017 tax review). What the IRS decides here could help or hinder things.

Third, there's the political issues. To make corrections to the tax bill, Republicans will need more help from the Democrats than they got in passing it, which was none. The Senate used budget reconciliation, which required the aforementioned simple majority, to clear the tax bill. The correct it, the upper chamber will need help from at least nine Democrats to get to the necessary 60-vote majority to correct the bill.

Like that's going to happen. Democrats still remember how the GOP wouldn't help fix problems in the Affordable Care Act. So their message to their Republican colleagues, at least right now, is "you broke the tax bill, you bought it."

And that means we taxpayers might just be living with the new tax law problems for longer than we want.

2. Tax changes will be a key midterm elections campaign issue. Will the tax law changes help or hurt Republicans seeking re-election to the House and Senate in November? That depends.

The GOP is counting on the bill, it's only major legislative victory of 2017, to give them a boost. Before the vote, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told Fox News Radio, "I think all of us realize that if we fail on taxes, that's the end of the Republican Party's governing majority in 2018. We'll lose the House, probably lose ground in the Senate."

Well, the GOP got its tax bill, but will the savings for most middle-income voters show up in paychecks soon enough and, more importantly, be enough to win voters?

That's a big if, especially since throughout the tax bill debate and even after its enactment, public opinion of the measure has been less than supportive.

Democrats, meanwhile, will emphasize the much larger savings the tax changes will provide wealthier Americans. Plus, they'll point out that the bill's major corporate tax cut is permanent, but individual tax breaks are set to expire at the end of 2025.

Yep, it's going to be a loooong campaign season.

3. The SALT deduction limit will alter America's housing industry. Among those voters the Democrats are counting on are those in high-tax states. Even with lower tax rates for many, a lot of these folks will take a tax hit because of the new law's $10,000 limit on itemized state and local taxes (SALT).

That cap, they argue, is way too low to account for the income or sales taxes and residential property taxes that they are used to deducting.

A lot of folks in such situations will simply deal with the loss of tax breaks and try to hold on until the provision expires in 2025. Or they'll vote (see #2 above) for candidates they think might be able to repeal or at least ease the limit.

Or, say some in the housing industry, they'll move to lower-tax tax locales. There's some data to support this possibility.

In a recent survey by real estate brokerage Redfin of 900 homebuyers, one-third of respondents said that they would consider moving to another state if they could no longer deduct state and local taxes.

Nela Richardson, Redfin's chief economist, forecast in the company's 2018 prediction of the state of housing that the elimination of these deductions will adversely impact high-tax states like California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois.

And that, worry real estate and housing industry officials, could send the housing markets in high-tax states into a downward spiral. An exodus will lead to a flattening or decline in prices, especially in the luxury markets as high-wealth individuals leave.

The loss of richer residents' income and home-related taxes ultimately will lead to state government revenue losses, say the opponents of the tax bill's SALT deduction cap. And that will lead to state and local service cuts, that will prompt an increase in taxes in those areas or elimination of the services.

I think folks in the realty/housing sectors are being a bit hyperbolic. Yes, some folks will move, but I doubt it will be droves. There's a lot more to consider than taxes when it comes to relocations.

Remember, too, that wealthier homeowners will have access to high-paid tax professionals who should be able to make the most out of tax glitches mentioned in forecast #1, so they won't have to move.

But it is true that as all homeowners adjust to the changes in tax breaks they've likely used for as long as they've owned their houses, there will be some short term real estate effects. It's more likely, however, that people will stay in their current homes or, if they buy, they'll choose smaller homes that are more appropriate for their needs.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

4. States will revise their tax systems, too. To keep residents from relocating or getting hit too hard by federal tax law changes, look for states, especially those (few) run by Democrats and/or high-tax locales, to tweak their state tax codes.

One idea being floated is replacing an income tax with a payroll tax levied only on employers. If employers pay the payroll tax and reduce employees' salaries by the same amount, workers wouldn't have to deduct anything and would wind up being paid the same. States also would collect the same amount of revenue.

My favorite idea, though, is to essential restore the full SALT federal deduction by making the amount in excess of the $10,000 cap a charitable contribution to the collecting, I'm sorry, donee government. That amount then could be fully deducted as an itemized charitable gift on Schedule A, which is still allowed under the new tax law.

5. Social Security, Medicare will be under fire. Entitlements, the Washington, D.C. code word for federal benefits like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, have always been in Republican sights. Now those most opposed to these program will use the huge deficits created by the new tax law as an excuse to trim them.

Or at least try.

House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) has already made it clear that's his plan. He's getting some support from colleagues, especially so-called deficit hawks who stifled their fiscal tendencies briefly to OK the costly tax bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), however, is not as committed to this course, at least pre-midterms. With a reduced majority thanks to the Democrats surprise victory in the Alabama special election, McConnell is at least giving lip service to a bipartisan approach in that body.

If that happens, at least for some specific measures, it definitely won't happen on entitlement reform. If fact, Democrats will be using the possibility of Medicare and Social Security cuts as part of their campaign efforts to unseat Republicans (see #2) since older voters who rely on or about to qualify for these programs already are the most reliable voting bloc.

So that actually means, notes the Kaiser Family Foundation, that tax cuts could make it harder to make entitlement changes.

6. Robots will continue to make tax inroads. Finally! Something in 2018 that's not related to the new tax law. But it's just as scary.

Despite warnings for the last few years, robots aren't doing out taxes. Yet.

But artificial intelligence and more automation is continuing its inexorable march into the tax world.

Don't worry. There won't be Westworld tax preparation chains; nobody would trust any of those animatronic figures. But H&R Block has explored virtual tax reality.

And more tax AI is inevitable.

Some accounting pros reportedly are using Google's DeepMind and Amazon's Alexa to gain better insights and anticipate challenges.

And changes are being made at the support staff level. Some entry level workers who input data already have been replaced by automated ways to accomplish this.

Overall, though, the key concept to keep in mind is that nonhuman help is a tax accessory, not the full package.

As I told Silverfin, a major provider of accounting automation software to European financial services companies, last August: "You’ll never be able to automate the individual, personal analysis that is key to an accountant's job. Face-to-face advice and explanations to clients can never be replaced."

AI will give tax pros ways to hand off routine taxes, freeing up time for what they do best: provide knowledge, strategy and one-on-one counselling to clients for bigger-picture financial advice.

So in 2018, welcome your robot tax helpers. You're going to need all the extra time you can get to sort through the new tax laws!

Advertisement

// <![CDATA[ // &lt;![CDATA[ // &amp;lt;![CDATA[ // &amp;amp;lt;![CDATA[ // &amp;amp;amp;lt;![CDATA[ // &amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;![CDATA[ // &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;![CDATA[ // &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;![CDATA[ // &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;![CDATA[ // &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); // ]]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; // ]]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; // ]]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; // ]]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; // ]]&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; // ]]&amp;amp;amp;gt; // ]]&amp;amp;gt; // ]]&amp;gt; // ]]&gt; // ]]>

from Tax News By Christopher http://www.dontmesswithtaxes.com/2018/01/6-tax-topics-that-should-dominate-2018.html

[sidmjkgc]

OP here. This post went kinda viral today, the are also additions and updates, and many amazing tags. Also some questions, therefore I think I should give some answers and sources. And keep adding stuff if you want, or correct me if I'm wrong about something.

First off all: are the italians ok? To which I say: eh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Pope did say "frociaggine" (faggotry or fagotness) and then apologised. And he said it again today, 'cause why not. Here's an article about it, in english. The thing is that "frocio" is the main slur, just like "faggot", while "frociaggine" is the queer slang. It wasn't a mistake 'cause he speaks spanish or whatever. The Pope also complained about the high renting price in Rome, and about his participation in the G7 later this week.

Yes, Italy will host the G7 in the next few days, and there's a rumour saying that the talking point about safe and legal abortion has been removed from the draft. Disappointed but not surprised since Giorgia Meloni and her party are against abortion, and want pro lifers inside the abortion clinics.

@ambreiiigns asked in the tags: please someone explain where That Bitch Meloni comes from. we WILL give re de luca the respect and merits he deserves Well... Campania's governor Vincenzo De Luca called her "stronza" (a bitch) while talking with other colleagues in a private conversation, and some journalist from La7 recorded the video in february. And then Meloni, during an official political moment, introduced herself as "that bitch". Because it's clearly the mature thing to do.

Yes, Tajani (Forza Italia) really said you can vote for Silvio Berlusconi who died literally a year ago, and the vote was considered valid but of course not as a preference... You cannot have a dead person in the parliament, right? Right?! Anyway, Tajani dedicated the victory (less than 10%) to Berlusconi's memory.

Side note: they are currently making a law, called "premierato", where you can directly vote for the Prime Minister. Which is in contradiction with the Italian Constitution, therefore it would need a referendum to actually pass it as law, but they are trying to avoid that. Keep an eye on this 'cause it doesn't sound good.

Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League, had an entire political campaign based on AI pictures including the bottle caps. Just so you know, Umberto Bossi, the founder of the Northern League, said he voted for Forza Italia, and there's talking about him getting expelled from his own party.

Roberto Vannacci was the main candidate for the Northern League, and got a shitload of votes. We're talking half a million votes. Who's this person? Short version: an homophobic fascist asshole. Longer version: he's a general in the army, he wrote a book a year ago where he says that queer folks are not normal, italians can't be black, immigrants are taking our place, feminism is shit, patriotism is important and killing in self defence should be the norm. A bunch of fascist bullshit. During the campaign he said to "put a decima", as in the X but also the X Mas, the Decima Mas, the fascist flotilla. Like I don't know how to explain it to you that this person is a fucking fascist.

But don't worry, this Decima Mas thingy is but a fluke, right? Well, it happened again today, in the Parliament where a bunch of deputes from the Northern League did the gesture again with their hands towards the opposition that was singing Bella Ciao. Oh right, and just before the brawl took place.

So, yeah.

In less than a week in Italy we had:

the Pope saying "there's too much faggotry in the seminary"

the Prime Minister announcing herself as "I'm that bitch Meloni"

a right wing party saying to vote for Berlusconi, who died a year ago

the leader of the racist party saying "more Italy, less Europe" and complaining about the new bottle caps

the main candidate of said racist party saying to vote with "an X like Decima Mas" a literal fascist naval flotilla

Feel free to add more or update, there's still another week of election campaign.