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Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

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Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#231

This reminds me of the Subaru BRAT in the early '80s. There was a 25% tarrif on imported pickups. So Subaru added two plastic jump seats in the back of the BRAT, even making them face backwards. No seat belts as I recall just handles. They weren't even really intended to be used. They were just cheap plastic. But they served the purpose of making the vehicle a four-seater car instead of a pickup, with only a 2.5% tar…

Recently in Europe we had a kinda reverse - Suzuki removed the rear seats of the Jimny, a small 4x4, to reclassify it as a commercial vehicle to qualify for laxer CO2 emission standards.

I’ve sat in the back of a Jimny, the rear seats might as well not exist.

Anyway here’s a popular video of a 660cc Jimny towing a large truck that’s stuck in snow during the great Tokyo Blizzard of 2014.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek5OebM4BC4

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#232
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it still did its job of increasing cost of external cured ham… just by not as much of an increase, or as directly, as they intended

Also an egregious waste of carbon emissions in the era of climate change though.

No post body was provided.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#233
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Jaffa cakes classed as biscuits or cakes? https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38985820

That's a great article. Dives into philosophy without getting wishy-washy. Must have been a fun article to write. > And if it's true to say, "a Jaffa Cake is a cake" (or "a Jaffa Cake is a biscuit") then that also tells us something about the world, i.e. about the properties of a Jaffa Cake, as well as about the meaning of the word "cake". And of course it's even more fun because I have to mentally substitute "cookie…

I’ve always thought of cookies as that American food thing you dunk in milk while biscuits are that British food thing you dip in tea.

When I was young, I dipped my biscuits in Milo.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#234
post #58

> Without the stiff competition of the smaller, lighter, easier-to-drive, and more fuel efficient import pickups and vans, Detroit automakers were no longer required to keep pace with innovation of foreign brands. One has to wonder how much this innocent-looking levy contributed to the overall global warming situation, by never having the US automakers to be incentivized to manufacture more efficient commercial fleet…

I’ve heard that pickups got so big in the past decade or so because of Obama-era emission regulation. A bigger truck was classified differently and not subject to such strict guidelines, so when the old 3/4 and 1-ton trucks couldn’t possibly meet the new rules they got bigger to get around them.

To this day, super-duty pickups do not have to report fuel economy figures. I technically own a 1984 Ford F350, with a 460 cubic-inch (7.5 L) V8, that is rotting in a family member's yard in North Carolina, which (when operative) got 8-9 miles per gallon. It's about the size and length of a brand-new Honda Odyssey; the real split is between vehicles classed as commercial, and those that were not. Even today, you can buy an F250 with no EPA ratings due to the GWVR

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#235

This reminds me of the Subaru BRAT in the early '80s. There was a 25% tarrif on imported pickups. So Subaru added two plastic jump seats in the back of the BRAT, even making them face backwards. No seat belts as I recall just handles. They weren't even really intended to be used. They were just cheap plastic. But they served the purpose of making the vehicle a four-seater car instead of a pickup, with only a 2.5% tar…

Here in Norway we have the infamous "E6 ham". We have an import tax on dry-cured ham[1], but not unprocessed meat. Someone figured out it was cheaper then to import unprocessed meat from Spain to Norway, turn the truck around as soon as they were customs cleared and drive the 3000 km or so back to Spain for curing. Once cured they'd re-import the processed meat, which now has a different tariff due to being "Norwegia…

If hams are fungible from a customs point of view (why would they not be?) you could try pre-curing the hams and have them ready just across the border. Ham in, ham out, ham in again, no extra trip to Spain required.

Then you sell the uncured hams you needed for the stamps to a pet-food factory or for German “salami” or whatever.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#236
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it still did its job of increasing cost of external cured ham… just by not as much of an increase, or as directly, as they intended

Also an egregious waste of carbon emissions in the era of climate change though.

If you are a major oil exporter, is that a bug or a feature?

https://www.npd.no/en/

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#237

It's called tariff engineering for a reason. Columbia will add an extra pocket below the waistline on a women's shirt so it gets classified as a utility/work garment and they can price it 10% cheaper. https://www.marketplace.org/2019/05/29/theres-a-reason-your-... Converse will line the rim/bottom of a shoe with felt so it can be classified as a slipper. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-is-why-your-c...…

>Canon will choose to make an insufficiently sized heatsink on its DSLR so that in video mode it has to shut down after 20 minutes so it can be classified as a camera and not a video recorder. The camera will record indefinitely in 4K line-skipping mode, so that's not actually the reason they didn't put the heatsink on. That reason is either incompetence or market segmentation.

> That reason is either incompetence or market segmentation.

Yes

Or simply because most people don't record longer videos. Or because that heat has to go somewhere and a bigger heatsink might heat some areas (or the user).

Or the current heatsink is an existing part and it was "good enough"

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#238
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Norway we have the infamous "E6 ham". We have an import tax on dry-cured ham[1], but not unprocessed meat. Someone figured out it was cheaper then to import unprocessed meat from Spain to Norway, turn the truck around as soon as they were customs cleared and drive the 3000 km or so back to Spain for curing. Once cured they'd re-import the processed meat, which now has a different tariff due to being "Norwegia…

If hams are fungible from a customs point of view (why would they not be?) you could try pre-curing the hams and have them ready just across the border. Ham in, ham out, ham in again, no extra trip to Spain required. Then you sell the uncured hams you needed for the stamps to a pet-food factory or for German “salami” or whatever.

That sure sounds like fraud and lying to customs officers, a bit like saying you import cheap Chinese tablets and instead you import WACOM cintiq drawing tablets worth thousands

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#239
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it still did its job of increasing cost of external cured ham… just by not as much of an increase, or as directly, as they intended

Also an egregious waste of carbon emissions in the era of climate change though.

We should just put a price on carbon directly instead of optimizing lots of other rules to also take emissions into account. Fuel is just too cheap.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#240

This reminds me of the Subaru BRAT in the early '80s. There was a 25% tarrif on imported pickups. So Subaru added two plastic jump seats in the back of the BRAT, even making them face backwards. No seat belts as I recall just handles. They weren't even really intended to be used. They were just cheap plastic. But they served the purpose of making the vehicle a four-seater car instead of a pickup, with only a 2.5% tar…

In Automotive manufacturing, CKD kits are a thing - Completely Knocked Down, or disassembled and shipped as parts and re-assembled again, to avoid taxes like this.
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