The Tao of Texas Taxes: Tax and DON’T Spend

From an email I just got from the American Motorcyclist Association, of which I am a paying member.  Like most “lifestyle” associations (e.g. the NRA), the AMA is now almost entirely in the business of lobbying.  Although I do also get really good roadside assistance coverage.

Currently, $5 of every motorcycle license fee is funneled to a separate account designed to help the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) offset some of the costs of running the motorcycle safety program in the state.

In order to certify the budget, the legislature has declined to appropriate money from the fund since 2005, and as a result, DPS has spent less and less on the program. As a result, the general revenue dedicated account for motorcycle education has accumulated a balance of more than $17.7 million in unspent funds (see acct 0501).

As a result of S.B. 754 an additional $3 would be collected with motorcycle registrations and sent to a subaccount within the existing account to help fund motorcycle education programs. Furthermore, the Texas Department of Transportation would be able to access the funds to help pay for motorcycle awareness campaigns.

In case you can’t tell, the AMA is pro this bill, meaning the state would then collect $8/year/motorcycle that it would never be allowed to spend because the overall budget threatens not to balance.

This is both insane and completely par for the course.

The First Rule of Ninjas

The .ninja domains go on sale today. Dumb, because this violates all the rules of being a ninja that I’m aware of:

1. Don’t talk about ninjas
2. Don’t call yourself a ninja
3. Deny there is or ever was any such thing as ninjas
etc.

Similar to anyone who refers to themselves as a “guru,” “genius,” or “Jedi.”

Although, I suppose in our cynical, meta times, it might be a valid strategy to call yourself the thing you’re not allowed to call yourself as a method of concealing that identity via paradox. Sort of like walking into a party, planting your feet, crossing your arms and shouting “I’m Batman!” They’ll never suspect!

Deceive, inveigle, obfuscate. Everything I say is a lie, including this.

Comcast and Netflix, Already Crushing the Internet, Now Outright Breaking It

This is some seriously bad news, and the best argument so far against the Comcast/Time Warner merger (not that TW is a network neutrality saint either).

Also exactly why Google is building Google Fiber (and, please, do it fast), because if they don’t, as their services require more and more bandwidth, their options are to either cut exactly this kind of private deal with the broadband providers (assuming we’re left with more than one) or to live in the internet ghetto of grudging “open” peering that remains after all these private deals get made.

Beer Proliferation

From a post at The Church of Zymurology beer blog today:

Tonight I passed up driving ten blocks to try a Ranger Creek 10% ABV mesquite smoked porter aged in Bourbon barrel cask with vanilla, cacao and cherries added to it – seriously where does it end…

Having driven across town to try some “extra-special” cask beers only to find out they a. are out, b. cost $10 for 6oz. and most often c. taste like foamed ass, I kind of get the point.  The point of ranting that is.  I don’t want locals (or anyone else) to quit making crazy beers.

Experimentation is the soul of craft beer, and like it or not novelty is a major driver of consumer culture.  The mainstreaming of craft beer has (so far) been to the benefit of “serious” beer people.  We’ve essentially tricked the “squares” into financing our outlandish beer tastes.  The constant churn in the casks and guest taps also ensures my old favorites aren’t tapped out by 8pm on a Friday.  And occasionally you do still find something enjoyable (if not always local).  For example, not too long ago Black Star Co-op had Bear Republic’s Racer X in their special tap.  Was it worth trying one (even with the tiny pour)?  Yes.  Will I still relish Black Star’s house Vulcan and occasionally truck down to the Draught House for “plain old” Racer 5?  Hell yes.

E(-)state Planning: What Happens to Kindle Books When You Die?

I woke up wondering “what happens to your Kindle books when you die?” Though not an urgent question, it’s relevant considering I live in a Kindle-converting household. The ownership of the 1,000+ paper books in the house will be pretty clear when I die, but what about my Kindle books?

Based on a Google search, I’ve found two related arguments:

  1. Kindle books are licensed to you and the license expires when you die.
  2. Kindle books are licensed to your account, which can theoretically continue after you die.
Next I went back and read the actual current Kindle terms of use. It’s refreshingly brief. As was pointed out by the referenced sources, there are two relevant passages under “Digital Content”:
the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Kindle or a Reading Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Kindles or Other Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider.
and
you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense, or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove or modify any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not bypass, modify, defeat, or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.

I’m not even slightly a lawyer, but my take on this is that the letter of the agreement indicates you can’t bequeath your Kindle content in your will, as that would fall into the “otherwise assign” category.

However, having seen some of the tricks lawyers are able to pull, and wanting to sympathize with the second “account” interpretation, I have to ask, when they say “grants you a non-exclusive right,” who do they mean by “you?” And, important to this discussion, does “you” extend beyond your physical presence into your electronic presence? Because imagine this scenario: You own two Kindles. You sync both Kindles to your account and download two “copies” of the same book. You hand one of your Kindles to someone and say, “hey, read this, and let’s talk about it.” They take your Kindle home with them for a few weeks. When they’re done, they hand your Kindle back to you. In that transaction, you didn’t “sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense, or otherwise assign any rights.” But someone else was able to read a book from your account, outside your presence, seemingly without violating the license agreement. In court, the counter-argument might be that this somehow served to “bypass, modify, defeat, or circumvent security features.” But would a jury buy that?

Assuming you think handing someone your Kindle isn’t breach of contract, let’s take the next step. What if you leave your physical Kindle to someone in your will? No problem there. The device is property. What if you take another step and leave them the device, still activated, and include an envelope containing your Amazon account username and password? Easy enough to do. But what are the implications? Is this materially different from the first scenario, the loaning of an activated Kindle? Perhaps in intent, but let’s set that aside from a moment.

At least initially, your heir needs to take no action to continue reading “your” books. You’ve given them a device which has access to the content licensed to “you.” As anyone who has gone through a probate knows, the concept of person-hood does not completely disintegrate after death. I’ve received and cashed checks in the name of a dead person up to four years after first standing at her occupied grave. Granted, there was some assignment of rights making that possible. But it’s not uncommon for us to act upon the wishes of the dead, written and unwritten, spoken and unspoken, for years after they die. They’re still a person, and we’re still taking actions on their behalf. This is totally accepted in our culture and our legal system.

So let’s get back to the Kindle. You have a physical Kindle you now own, with an account “loaned” to you by a dead person. So far, you (the heir) have taken no action different from borrowing an activated Kindle. You might not have to take any action for several years. Probably you should log into the account and change the notification email address, remove any credit cards, cancel subscriptions, etc. This is, in fact, what the executor of the estate would be expected to do. Would the executor be required to close or delete the account if it were rendered incapable of incurring new charges? Probably not–their job is primarily to settle financial claims.

So let’s say the account is changed in such a way that it can be maintained in perpetuity without further input. That Kindle should have access to that content “forever.” But what happens when the physical Kindle dies? Does buying a new Kindle and assigning it to the dead person’s account (or connecting Cloud Reader to that account) constitute an effort to “bypass, modify, defeat, or circumvent security?” I’d still argue no. All security inherent in the system is still present. The DRM on the files in intact; the account has a password. They didn’t say you may not “bypass, modify, defeat, or circumvent” the license.

What surprised me in all of this is that Amazon hasn’t been more explicit about what happens when an account holder dies. I’d guess this is because reminding customers of their mortality is bad marketing, but also because it probably hasn’t come up very often, and almost certainly hasn’t ended up in court. I’m betting there will eventually be a clarification on this one way or another. Until then, I’d say make sure your Amazon account credentials are in your estate planning package.

Soft Re-Launch

For those tuning in at home, yes, I’ve finally relaunched under WordPress, such as it is.

This all started back in 2007 because of the pending Blogger FTP cutoff.  They pulled that plug in 2010.  In between, and since, I’ve been playing with numerous versions of WordPress, themes and plug-ins.   I’ve finally gotten the site back to the original level of functionality, including all the old archives imported from Blogger, and even the hand-coded deep archives going back to December 2001.  I think that means that pretty much everything that was ever on this site is still here.  Although, going by my first post, there must have been a precursor, I just don’t remember what it was.    Fortunately or unfortunately the Internet Archive does remember.  Mmm  mm,  1996-licious.

In any case, we’re coming up on the 10-year anniversary of this blog as such.  Does it count when you’ve taken years off at a time?  Will there be a party?  Will I at least finally come up with a theme I like?  Stay tuned to find out.

A fluke among flounder