"It's not illegal to sell bitcoins per se, but at least four people across the US this year have been charged or pleaded guilty to the crime of exchanging the cryptocurrency for fiat as a business without a license—'business' being the keyword." Continue reading →
"The elderly Thai immigrants sunk their life savings into designer wedding dresses and were left penniless when the IRS sold them all, according to the couple's attorney. The legal filing claims that the agent on the case originally recognized that the entire inventory would not need to be sold to satisfy the debt. However, Freeman obtained internal IRS communications through a Freedom of Information Act Request and found that IRS higher-ups decided that the agency should 'shut down this failing business.'" Continue reading →
"Two telepresence robots roll into a human-computer interaction conference. Sounds like the beginning of a very nerdy joke, but it really happened (#2017). A few weeks ago in Denver, Colorado, a robot I was piloting over the internet from my computer in Idaho stood wheel-to-wheel with a similar 'bot in a pink skirt controlled by a researcher in Germany. We huddled. We introduced ourselves by yelling at each other's screens. Given the topic of the conference, this particular human-computer interaction was a little too on the HD touch-screen nose. But as much as we symbolized the future, we were also a political statement about a troubled present." Continue reading →
"In the coming days, the Trump administration will take steps to delay and ultimately rescind an Obama administration rule allowing foreign entrepreneurs to come to the U.S. to start companies, sources familiar with the situation tell Axios." Continue reading →
"Iowa makes it a crime for doctors to open up a new location and offer services without obtaining special permission known as a 'certificate of need.' Permission is not easy to come by: Dr. Birchansky must persuade state officials that his outpatient surgery center is 'needed' in the proposed location through a cumbersome process that resembles full-blown litigation and that allows existing businesses (his competitors) to oppose his application. This process amounts to nothing more than certificates of monopoly." Continue reading →
"The city council felled an entire stretch of this Urban Food Street, even preventing residents from collecting the fruit before the destruction." Continue reading →
"You need food, so you grow some vegetables. If you have extra you sell them on a street corner to your neighbors, and if you live in California you get arrested for it." Continue reading →
"We devote impressive money and manpower to the fight against illegal immigration, but meanwhile, in Big Bend, one can find a modest example of free enterprise defying borders." Continue reading →
"There's just something about uniforms that garner an almost naïve trust. People trust uniforms. Most of us obey the word of those clad in uniforms to an almost Stanford Prison Experiment-esque degree." Continue reading →
"Here’s a short story about how I became a real American: Someone whose debt is gonna take a few years to pay off. 28 months by current count." Continue reading →