@skanman

i think you may have thrown another monkeywrench into the cogs for me. didn't think about the residence address in Alaska, or at least not in that way

Answer is yes & no....

Active duty military for another 4 months. so I have my home of record in Alaska, which is my residence address at the moment. my mailing address is in Virginia where I'm stationed. the address where i live is considered both my residence address and physical address. but they get intermingled and confused a lot. home of record is a legal thing, perk of being military, lets me keep my state residency while i am in.

as long as i go to school full time 12 credits I similarly get to keep my Alaska residency. i haven't dealt with this aspect and worried about it now that you said something. some of it is protected by law, but essentially i lose my home of record address, which is my sole link up there. that is ok for now as long as I don't mess with my drivers license. essentially I will no longer have anything to really prove my "residence address" anymore. vehicle titles and voter card maybe. will need to look what is on my other stuff.

mastodon.northstar.engineering

How is everyone doing in the federation? i have been pleasantly experimenting with Mastadon. I like it for the most part however I never was a Twitter / micro blog/tictoc ect user either.

Watching the drama enfold with twitter. definitely a lot of emotion, drama with some of that exodus, but at the same time business wise I cant see how the company will remain unscathed or profitable with some of its decisions. the positive side is the drastically increased user base, interest and participation or donations towards Open source and non-centralized social media. i cant help but thing this will have a positive impact there.

it made me really think about all the info, data and pictures I have on facebook. I have been looking into Hubzilla and friendica as replacements. Hubzilla looks more interesting and future proof. i don't see enough users to get a good feeling on good setups, and pages or what to shoot for, or usable on a realistic manner. groups, and Marketplace are more of my must haves, but i don't see that enacted in the fediverse. what are good strategies for migrating things over. where do you keep it all, i don't see that much data working well on small instances. should i rent a server and do my own thing? how does that look in reality?

I am hoping there is a few tax lawyers or at least tax informed peops out there in Mastadon land.

I have a unique tax puzzle/situation

Alaska resident, stationed in Virginia. Active Duty Military. retire in a few months, which in itself has a lot of tax implications I am not used to.

everything is set up to go to school using my MGIB. as long as I go to school full time I remain an Alaskan resident. I get to keep my vehicles registered in Alaska, and dont pay Virginia taxes. i can make a little extra income with a fed program, tax free but limited to 20 hours a week at Virginia min wage. first couple months and first year out is anticipated to be the most difficult financially, very much on my mind. I suspect I'm not calculating a lot things that will have inpacts.

Problem set 1 - if i work, or maybe even think about working, Virginia forces me to change residency, pay Virginia taxes on my military pension, and switch my vehicles over (which may or may not include use tax). it also means i cant get unemployment as I am not a Virginia resident, and wont be in Alaska.

Problem set 2 - I have a CDL i got through the military. a good deal i thought, so i did what was needed to submit everything, took my written tests...kinda been a pain honestly, real id was a nightmare. Virginia has some grey area stuff and I'm not so sure that Virginia wont make me switch it over even with full time school. there was some vague text in the law when i was looking into it. didn't get warm fuzzy answer that was solidly yes or no. part 2 of this is I was intending to go home to Alaska and work during the summers while in school. those jobs require an Alaska drivers license or CDL. if Virginia switches it over ill have to switch back and forth through out the year which is a pain. possibly dangerous as i wont have the stability or backing of the military/laws with that aspect so I'm a bit transitory. my home of record wont be usable anymore, family hasn't lived there in decades. wont have enough history in Virginia. May get stuck without anything switching license back and forth.

Problem set 3 - here is the 2020-2022 issue. remote work has become more prevalent. in theory if i work remotely i would pay taxes based on either my home state of Alaska, or the state the company is in. so technically i can get around some of these issues. i keep finding the little nagging voice in my mind that states simply haven't dealt with the problem enough yet and suspect Virginia may come after me later.

Really just looking for advice on how to not get a surprise bill for my left leg, lifetimes worth of wages or future of spring in surprise back taxes, while also not trying to lose my residency or get trapped in no win scenario. hints/tricks on setting this stuff up. i have seen things about several of these issues, but not combined like this. the first year of school/military separation is going to be rough, so i wont have a lot of leeway for a bunch of surprises. the remote work thing really twits things up even more but maybe a decent solution for part time work. I fear ill lose my mind if I don't do anything when not at school.




I have 4 months left. This year has blasted past. its already way to late to change my mind, I have approved retirement orders in hand with the end of march set solid. I still find I flit back and forth about becoming a civilian. its depressing, exciting, full of dread, full of future possibilities, sad, Loss, overly happy, proud, overly patriotic, exhausted, energized. somedays all of that at the same time.

I have to really force myself to keep to my plans. as I get closer to getting out, I keep wanting to change things up, in ways that don't even make sense. feels like I cant make up my mind on anything right now.

@robryk @freemo @trinsec @khird

it doesnt, there are commas.

however, the words can be swapped so there is no mistake

@freemo @trinsec @khird

sounds ok. maybe put more emphasis on the STEM sciences aspect

@carolinegillpoetry

I seen a post earlier. visually disabled or something. looks like the norm is to capitalize each word for multiple words.
i.e. PoetryCommunity

it doesn't appear that there is a similar thing for single word hashtags. i have seen both

@glw907@mas.to @thezerobit

I do find it ironic however, that the last frontier is the state that is pushing the way forward with jungle primaries and ranked choice voting.

I did my ballot this year. hey email me, I log into the state system and verify my info to get to ballot selection. filling out the ballot online was easy, print it out and mail it off. again its the last frontier, not silicon valley. all our electronic pieces in the process simply work.

I talked to a coworker from Wisconsin, who described their process as more like medieval torture.

@glw907@mas.to @thezerobit

you might be right, but i cant help but wonder where all the blues and independents would vote in that scenario. i don't see them voting forTshibaka, she was decently extreme.

i just saw that Murkowski is in the lead after they finished counting all the military and mail-in votes. not by a lot

@glw907@mas.to @thezerobit

not my area. we got a choice between crazy red and slightly less crazy. all you could do was vote the lessor evil, to try and keep the really bad ones out.

I did see that it looks very close to a 50/50 split for state legislature. I don't think i have ever seen that before

if you get a subway sammich with the healtiest-ish bread, top it it with loads of veggies, and also get cookies...Does that count as eating healthy?

Just asking for a friend...

if you get a subway sammich with the healtiest-ish bread, top it it with loads of veggies, and also get cookies...Does that count as eating healthy?

Just asking for a friend...

Hello Mastadon!

A quick intro

- I am a Boatswain's Mate Chief Petty Officer, in the U.S. Navy. I am retiring this March after 23 years.

- going to school at ODU for mechanical engineering. Being a retiree veteran student is far harder than I thought, the info takes more to fix into my head.

- I primarily operate and train others with small boats, coastal warfare. That roles has changing into a systems engineering role with boat systems (AC & DC electrical, propulsion, fuel, plumbing, hydraulics, septic, hvac and refrigeration ect). I update install or repair theses systems and make stuff work together.

- currently I am in an executive level training and strategic planning role. Planning and running large scale global events and scenarios, simultaneously with multiple units. Not a lot of excitement but lots of spinning plates.

- I was born and raised in Alaska and I'm still very engaged in supporting and protecting my beautiful home state.

- very interested in agriculture and specificly within Alaska. The state produces 5% of its own food and everything is shipped in.

- I'm more into the design side of mechanical engineering, how things go together and effect the corresponding systems. Likely to expand into aeronautical engineering for that fulfilling impact type of stuff. I also have interests in agricultural engineering and robotics ect. I especially interested in how engineering can help us create a better society.

- I'm incredibly interested in and protecting our democracy.
- I'm often found on my sailboat or on the water somehow. Fishing, kayaking, boating, doesn't matter. The water and lifestyle is in my blood, the Navy is just an enabler.

Have a good day
















@glw907@mas.to @thezerobit

I'm not certain that that is the case. Alaska's 2022 election may not be the best example of ranked choice voting.

Alaskans can't stand Palin generally. Had it been the old system, Palin would have won the red primary and Peltola would have won the Blues.

The same issue exists however, half those that voted for the reds wouldn't vote for Palin. Peltola is hitting 47-48% as is, before rank choice. Palin would have still got roughly the same votes as she did for the special election, which wouldn't have been enough. So for this election it will essentially be the same outcome for either system. No one has 50% and it would go into a runoff. Rank choice means I voted for my runoff already essentially so it speeds things up.

Of course this will be really determined by how the Alaska results at the end of the month go. Will the reds choose power over Thier dislike of Palin. I dont believe so, I'm betting on Peltola.

For Murkowski, there are similar issues, so I wouldn't use this as an example either. she won on a write in campaign before. Generally she has done good things for the State in her committees and resource/energy laws. So Alaskans have been affected positively by her while she's been in Congress. Ranked choice allowed voters to vote for the blue, but I'll be shocked if Murkowski doesn't get all or most of the blue votes as a second. This would have played out the same way in either system, however the outcome will take longer to come out with ranked choice. Ranked choice does send a signal to Murkowski however. It will give an actual number of how many blues/reds/others are voting for her this election, and specifically that she won because of those votes. In theory this may affect her policies down the road.

There isn't a lot of policy debate or plans in Alaska's elections. Voter's are not really ranking that way as the info isn't necessarily there or focused on. For the special election/primary there was a large number of candidates, but not a lot of competition going on really. Similarly with Peltola/Palin there wasn't a lot of competition or tricks. There was a lot for Palin/Begich on the red side but that was mostly it for the whole election. In the future this won't be the case. Rank choice should tend twards forcing more debate/comparisons/competition between candidates. So they will actually need policy and plans.

Additionally everyone is figuring out strategies for rank choice. I think the peltola race would have been different if Begich had been the second place instead of Palin, as Palin's votors would have likely voted red as a second choice which would have been enough for the 50% threshold. We only got a blue victory because Palin was so disliked and because Palin was second place, eliminating Begich during the ranked choice. Thinking on it it, the jungle style primary may be just as important as the ranked choice getting away from two party monopoly

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