Sunday, October 19, 2003
K.F. has a Klein bottle hat. Needless to say, I am very, very jealous. For hats nearly as cool as his, as well as other goodies for the mathematically inclined, look here.
Saturday, October 18, 2003
"First, we have to get out of this bar..."
[Sorry, didn't post this one for a while and the time is totally arbitrary... The whole draft-then-post-date feature is interesting, but somewhat troublesome!] Escaped from New Haven for about 30 hours this weekend and it was lovely, lovely, lovely. No cell phone calls. No books. Nothing but views, good company, good food, good books, and even some good movie (saw Lost In Translation again.) Drove up (or rather, I should say, was driven up) I-91 through Connecticut and central Massachusetts to Brattleboro, Vermont. The foliage on the way up was quite stunning, although I think we were either a little too early or a little too late for the peak -- not all reds and oranges, but also still a lot of green, and a lot of trees with leaves already fallen. Brattleboro is a cute town, if a little small for my taste (not that this means much, coming from a city girl!) Little shops and good restaurants, all on winding hilly streets -- a little bit like San Francisco in miniature. Awoke in the morning to a brisk swim and a bubbly hot tub before yummy breakfast. Then onwards through the Green Mountain National Forest to Bennington, which had a lot more charm than the guidebooks might suggest -- it feels more "real", less touristy than Brattleboro. South to Massachusetts, stopping in Williamstown, then Lenox. Fascinating how the landscape changes from state to state -- as soon as we crossed the Massachusetts line even the middle of nowhere started to feel like a suburb. Finally had a chance to go back to Tanglewood -- scary that it's been seven years since I was there. Wish J.C. and J.W. could have been there -- I remembered the music and the excitement that surrounds the place, but I had forgotten about the views -- vast green lawns looking out over the Stockbridge Bowl, stately trees framing the view. It was nice to be back.
[Sorry, didn't post this one for a while and the time is totally arbitrary... The whole draft-then-post-date feature is interesting, but somewhat troublesome!] Escaped from New Haven for about 30 hours this weekend and it was lovely, lovely, lovely. No cell phone calls. No books. Nothing but views, good company, good food, good books, and even some good movie (saw Lost In Translation again.) Drove up (or rather, I should say, was driven up) I-91 through Connecticut and central Massachusetts to Brattleboro, Vermont. The foliage on the way up was quite stunning, although I think we were either a little too early or a little too late for the peak -- not all reds and oranges, but also still a lot of green, and a lot of trees with leaves already fallen. Brattleboro is a cute town, if a little small for my taste (not that this means much, coming from a city girl!) Little shops and good restaurants, all on winding hilly streets -- a little bit like San Francisco in miniature. Awoke in the morning to a brisk swim and a bubbly hot tub before yummy breakfast. Then onwards through the Green Mountain National Forest to Bennington, which had a lot more charm than the guidebooks might suggest -- it feels more "real", less touristy than Brattleboro. South to Massachusetts, stopping in Williamstown, then Lenox. Fascinating how the landscape changes from state to state -- as soon as we crossed the Massachusetts line even the middle of nowhere started to feel like a suburb. Finally had a chance to go back to Tanglewood -- scary that it's been seven years since I was there. Wish J.C. and J.W. could have been there -- I remembered the music and the excitement that surrounds the place, but I had forgotten about the views -- vast green lawns looking out over the Stockbridge Bowl, stately trees framing the view. It was nice to be back.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Constructive Dating
Not so very, very long ago, I found myself in a somewhat ambiguous situation -- was the dinner & a movie I was attending just a friend thing, or something more?
It depends, I am told, upon the intent of the parties involved. For most people, there is a presumption that dinner & a movie constitutes a date -- the presumption being subject to rebuttal through a showing that the parties have a long-standing friendship or suchlike. But if the invitor intends a date and the invitee does not, what is it?
In the tax law, as I learned today, courts have recognized two slightly different doctrines for things that appear to be one thing but are actually another. For instance, suppose corporation X has a sole shareholder A, and shareholder A has an elderly mother who needs a nice place to live. If corporation X buys A's mother a house, A is really the one to benefit here. Even though A has actually received no money (i.e. no dividend), A has still gotten something, substantively: a constructive dividend. For tax purposes, A is treated as if A actually received money. The second doctrine is slightly different. Suppose A tries to sell some stock back to the corporation X. A might want to treat this the same way as a sale to a third party -- which would give A more favorable tax treatment. But really, this is just another way of getting money into A's hands -- A actually did receive money here. So A should be taxed as if A had gotten a dividend (which is less favorable to A), because what A got was essentially equivalent to a dividend.
The same applies to dating -- sort of. If you go out to dinner & a movie but both you and the other person involved are fully aware that you are not on a date, then what you've gotten is a good meal and a nice time with your friend... but no actual date-like benefit at all. Still, your friends might tease you mercilessly about it. You're suffering for date-like benefits being imputed to you -- in other words, it's a constructive date. However, if you do not think you are on a date but the other person does, then according to my expert panel, you have in fact gotten the date, whether you intended to or not. Your dinner & a movie is now essentially equivalent to a date. The point (insofar as there is a point) being: if you're having dinner & seeing a movie afterwards, you had better be pretty sure about what the other person is thinking, or you might just find yourself in something essentially equivalent to a relationship before you know it! :-)
Exercise left to the reader: if the corporation/invitor does not intend a date while the shareholder/invitee does, what result? Assume that the IRS/teasing friends are unbiased and will seek to provide objectively fair treatment for the taxpayer/datee, rather than the treatment most favorable to themselves.
[Thanks to S.W., J.W., and of course T.C. for the conversation.
S.W. also gets credit for the following flash of brilliance, illustrating yet another intersection between dating and tax law:
You are having a business dinner with an attorney, ostensibly to talk shop -- except that suddenly the dinner is going, er, much better than you expected. How do you clarify the situation? I don't think this dinner is deductible any more, if you know what I mean... ;-D ]
Not so very, very long ago, I found myself in a somewhat ambiguous situation -- was the dinner & a movie I was attending just a friend thing, or something more?
It depends, I am told, upon the intent of the parties involved. For most people, there is a presumption that dinner & a movie constitutes a date -- the presumption being subject to rebuttal through a showing that the parties have a long-standing friendship or suchlike. But if the invitor intends a date and the invitee does not, what is it?
In the tax law, as I learned today, courts have recognized two slightly different doctrines for things that appear to be one thing but are actually another. For instance, suppose corporation X has a sole shareholder A, and shareholder A has an elderly mother who needs a nice place to live. If corporation X buys A's mother a house, A is really the one to benefit here. Even though A has actually received no money (i.e. no dividend), A has still gotten something, substantively: a constructive dividend. For tax purposes, A is treated as if A actually received money. The second doctrine is slightly different. Suppose A tries to sell some stock back to the corporation X. A might want to treat this the same way as a sale to a third party -- which would give A more favorable tax treatment. But really, this is just another way of getting money into A's hands -- A actually did receive money here. So A should be taxed as if A had gotten a dividend (which is less favorable to A), because what A got was essentially equivalent to a dividend.
The same applies to dating -- sort of. If you go out to dinner & a movie but both you and the other person involved are fully aware that you are not on a date, then what you've gotten is a good meal and a nice time with your friend... but no actual date-like benefit at all. Still, your friends might tease you mercilessly about it. You're suffering for date-like benefits being imputed to you -- in other words, it's a constructive date. However, if you do not think you are on a date but the other person does, then according to my expert panel, you have in fact gotten the date, whether you intended to or not. Your dinner & a movie is now essentially equivalent to a date. The point (insofar as there is a point) being: if you're having dinner & seeing a movie afterwards, you had better be pretty sure about what the other person is thinking, or you might just find yourself in something essentially equivalent to a relationship before you know it! :-)
Exercise left to the reader: if the corporation/invitor does not intend a date while the shareholder/invitee does, what result? Assume that the IRS/teasing friends are unbiased and will seek to provide objectively fair treatment for the taxpayer/datee, rather than the treatment most favorable to themselves.
[Thanks to S.W., J.W., and of course T.C. for the conversation.
S.W. also gets credit for the following flash of brilliance, illustrating yet another intersection between dating and tax law:
You are having a business dinner with an attorney, ostensibly to talk shop -- except that suddenly the dinner is going, er, much better than you expected. How do you clarify the situation? I don't think this dinner is deductible any more, if you know what I mean... ;-D ]
Sunday, October 12, 2003
Saw Lost In Translation last night. I think it may be one of the best movies I've seen in the past several years -- certainly one of the best American movies.
It's beautiful, in the way that Haruki Murakami novels or Wong Kar-wai films are beautiful -- stylized, elegant, the real world with the odors and smog filtered out. But not the noise... The shots of Tokyo in particular are dazzling -- avant-garde skyscrapers and cacophonous neon lights, car horns, crowds.
I've never had too much of an objection to movies that don't do much beyond aesthetics. This one does. In the middle of this completely artificial world are two characters so completely real in everything they say and do, it's startling. So often film-makers place their characters in a scene and leave you to infer that the characters are feeling whatever is appropriate to further the storyline. Here, their thoughts and emotions are palpable -- the exhaustion and odd fascination of getting off a plane in a new city; the humiliation of an actor being admired for work he knows is beneath him; the lostness of the recent college grad transplanted from New York to L.A.; the way the friendship between the two main characters can seem so completely, entirely natural and yet so... frustratingly ambiguous.
It's beautiful, in the way that Haruki Murakami novels or Wong Kar-wai films are beautiful -- stylized, elegant, the real world with the odors and smog filtered out. But not the noise... The shots of Tokyo in particular are dazzling -- avant-garde skyscrapers and cacophonous neon lights, car horns, crowds.
I've never had too much of an objection to movies that don't do much beyond aesthetics. This one does. In the middle of this completely artificial world are two characters so completely real in everything they say and do, it's startling. So often film-makers place their characters in a scene and leave you to infer that the characters are feeling whatever is appropriate to further the storyline. Here, their thoughts and emotions are palpable -- the exhaustion and odd fascination of getting off a plane in a new city; the humiliation of an actor being admired for work he knows is beneath him; the lostness of the recent college grad transplanted from New York to L.A.; the way the friendship between the two main characters can seem so completely, entirely natural and yet so... frustratingly ambiguous.
Friday, October 10, 2003
An end to FIP-ery
So, two weeks and seventeen screening interviews later...
While the on-campus interview process itself was fairly exhausting, the actual interviews were surprisingly painless. On the whole, they were much more conversational and low-key than the interviews I did last spring. I had several interviewers who seemed genuinely enamored of their jobs -- one of the great things about my externship last summer was how happy the attorneys were and how much they enjoyed telling the externs about their work, and it's nice to see that kind of enthusiasm in the private sector too. Of course, there is a certain play-acting aspect to interviews -- in 25 minutes, it's hard to convey anything real about yourself or your interests, and everything you say and do is really just code for something else. Still, given that I have many hours of interviewing to look forward to over the next few weeks, I'm choosing to look on the bright side of things!
Most common interview question: What can I tell you about Firm X?
Least common (in fact, totally non-occurring) "standard" interview question: What would you say is your greatest weakness?
Hardest interview question: How do you like law school?
Most simultaneously heartening and disheartening interview question: How do you have enough hours in the week to do all of that?
My favorite interview question: What things have interviewers been telling you about their firms that make you think, "I couldn't care less about this"?
So, two weeks and seventeen screening interviews later...
While the on-campus interview process itself was fairly exhausting, the actual interviews were surprisingly painless. On the whole, they were much more conversational and low-key than the interviews I did last spring. I had several interviewers who seemed genuinely enamored of their jobs -- one of the great things about my externship last summer was how happy the attorneys were and how much they enjoyed telling the externs about their work, and it's nice to see that kind of enthusiasm in the private sector too. Of course, there is a certain play-acting aspect to interviews -- in 25 minutes, it's hard to convey anything real about yourself or your interests, and everything you say and do is really just code for something else. Still, given that I have many hours of interviewing to look forward to over the next few weeks, I'm choosing to look on the bright side of things!
Most common interview question: What can I tell you about Firm X?
Least common (in fact, totally non-occurring) "standard" interview question: What would you say is your greatest weakness?
Hardest interview question: How do you like law school?
Most simultaneously heartening and disheartening interview question: How do you have enough hours in the week to do all of that?
My favorite interview question: What things have interviewers been telling you about their firms that make you think, "I couldn't care less about this"?
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Perhaps some candles are in order
Eeee! This page officially made 1000 hits today. Yes, I know it's just the same six of you over and over (don't think I don't know who you are)... but it is nevertheless exciting! Say about six of you, about 1000 hits -- so you're looking at something like 160 hits apiece (subtracting a few to account for the occasional random google search that results in a hit)? Just think of all that valuable class/work time you have instead spent perusing my random musings -- that's true friendship for you. Heartening, isn't it.
Thank you O Loyal Readership for getting me & my blog to this happy occasion. I am full of gratitude. :-D
Eeee! This page officially made 1000 hits today. Yes, I know it's just the same six of you over and over (don't think I don't know who you are)... but it is nevertheless exciting! Say about six of you, about 1000 hits -- so you're looking at something like 160 hits apiece (subtracting a few to account for the occasional random google search that results in a hit)? Just think of all that valuable class/work time you have instead spent perusing my random musings -- that's true friendship for you. Heartening, isn't it.
Thank you O Loyal Readership for getting me & my blog to this happy occasion. I am full of gratitude. :-D
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Again with the leftist conspiracy theories...
Today: the California recall election. And in just a few hours, it's entirely possible that an action movie star with no political experience could become the head of the executive branch of the largest state in the nation -- a state with an economy larger than France's. Oh well -- as someone noted the other day, at least we can be thankful that the Constitution requires the President to be native-born... possibly the first time I've been happy about that rule! Meanwhile I continue to believe that there's mischief afoot. About three weeks ago, within the 29-day maximum imposed by California election rules, I mailed in a request for an absentee ballot. The election has arrived -- the ballot hasn't. And it's not just me either! Random? I'm not convinced. While I don't have firm numbers on this, I'd think it would be likely that a fairly substantial proportion of absentee voters would be anti-recall, no? After all, the issue tends to divide on party lines -- and even if California weren't already an overwhelmingly liberal state, I'm thinking college students, retirees who have moved to Arizona, etc. Interesting, isn't it...
Today: the California recall election. And in just a few hours, it's entirely possible that an action movie star with no political experience could become the head of the executive branch of the largest state in the nation -- a state with an economy larger than France's. Oh well -- as someone noted the other day, at least we can be thankful that the Constitution requires the President to be native-born... possibly the first time I've been happy about that rule! Meanwhile I continue to believe that there's mischief afoot. About three weeks ago, within the 29-day maximum imposed by California election rules, I mailed in a request for an absentee ballot. The election has arrived -- the ballot hasn't. And it's not just me either! Random? I'm not convinced. While I don't have firm numbers on this, I'd think it would be likely that a fairly substantial proportion of absentee voters would be anti-recall, no? After all, the issue tends to divide on party lines -- and even if California weren't already an overwhelmingly liberal state, I'm thinking college students, retirees who have moved to Arizona, etc. Interesting, isn't it...
