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I’m trying to get rid of 2 extra tickets I have for Burning Man. I was trying to sell them using the official Burning Man reseller program called STEP and I noticed the fees charged by the middleman, Tixel.com were quite steep. Most notably, Tixel was adding an $80 Nevada Live Entertainment Tax (LET) to the price of the ticket. Since I already paid that tax when buying it, it seemed wrong that they were adding it again!

I’ve been leaning in and it gets complicated.

The current law and Nevada SB 431 either requires or doesn’t require that the LET be charged by the initial seller AND all resellers. Are you a legislative lawyer that wants to help out the Burner community? Figure out how much Tixel.com needs to charge!

In the meantime, Tixel removed the LET fee… in apparent response to my emailing them about it!!

The checkout screen from yesterday

The checkout screen today

In a related issue, they were charging the 9% Nevada Live Entertainment Tax on the entire $895 listing price even though that $895 includes several fees that are not part of the ticket price. The ticket cost me $750 + $30 delivery fee + $135 Nevada Live Entertainment Tax + $67 credit card processing. Those fees aren’t supposed to get double-taxed-again on the second resell. So that’s got to get figured out.

Do you want to buy my Burning Man Tickets? Buy them on Tixel here or message me and we’ll figure out to trust one another on the internet and save $214 $130 per ticket.

I’m happy I get to update my original listing for my ticket!

Selling 2 $750 tickets at our cost.

In our panic to get tickets, my wife and I both bought tickets to that thing in the desert. Please buy our extras. 2 tickets at the $750 level, selling for what we paid, $870.48 each. No car pass, sorry.

Here’s my Tixel listing but don’t buy from those bastards! The listing shows how I listed at $895.68 (I aimed for us to split the Tixel $50 listing fee) but a few clicks later you’ll be paying $1084.81 for the ticket https://tixel.com/u/3693633 . Screw those guys!

PM me. We can figure out how to trust one another on the phone to save $214 $130 per ticket.

My GoConfirm code: L72T

Michael Geier’s post on the topic

“…Important Update for Burning Man Ticket Buyers via Tixel / STEP ????

It looks like Tixel has quietly removed the 9% Nevada Live Entertainment Tax (LET) from current Burning Man ticket resales….”

Screenshot

and my response on FB:

Holy shit! That was me! I’ve been talking to them over the last few days about being double-taxed with the Nevada Live Entertainment Tax! They didn’t reach out to me specifically about removing the LET but my messages, apparently, got them thinking!
I’m continuing to research it right now and I’m gonna tell you, reading the existing and proposed law is hard and MIND NUMBING (and not in a good way!) My first thought is that it’s important to not be too harsh on Tixel, but we’ve got to figure out the law together. As I’ve been reading the current and proposed law this morning, I’ve flip-flopped several times, alternately thinking that the current law says that any reseller is required to charge the excise tax (which is an insane, state mandated double-tax), or maybe not.
It would be great if a Burner legislative lawyer-type could look over this and offer guidance! Here’s a proposed bill that has the text of the current law baked into it: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/83rd2025/Bills/SB/SB431_R1.pdf

It is summer and the wildflowers in my front yard are off the hook!

I’m selling 2 Burning Man tickets (no car pass) at our cost, $870 each. Message me!

In our panic to get tickets, my wife and I both bought tickets to that thing in the desert. Please buy our extras. 2 tickets at the $750 level, selling for what we paid with all the fees, $870.48 each. No car pass, sorry.

Here’s my Tixel listing but don’t buy from those bastards! The listing shows how I listed at $895.68 (I aimed for us to split the Tixel $50 listing fee) but a few clicks later you’ll be paying $1084.81 for the ticket https://tixel.com/u/3693633. Screw those guys!

PM me. We can figure out how to trust one another on the phone to save $200 per ticket.

My GoConfirm code: L72T

GoConfirm is apparently a new way to verify a person’s identity. They are using it on the Burning Man Tickets and Vehicle Pass Exchange FB group.

Last night I played 7 Wonders at Monday night gaming.

It’s very complicated.

I suppose I mostly understood how to play by the end of the game but not really why. It’s 90% me vs. the cards I randomly get. And nothing seemed to “happen” during the game until we tallied the score at the very end.

Scoring is so complicated. I made most of my choices based on “ooh, that’s a pretty card, I’ll choose that one.” and I scored in the middle of the pack at the end of the game. So many of the “strategic” choices come down to whether luck will favor me getting the right cards. There are just so many ways to score victory points that it all evens out in the end.

I’ve also got to admit that I was distracted the entire evening due to some personal issues. So maybe the game is actually better than I experienced.

The night opened with a rousing game of Abducktion. I was too late to get in, but fun was had.

At the end of the night, we played a little round of Liars Dice. Such a simple game, but ultimately rather satisfying!

Last week at Community Games Night, I played Raiders of the North Sea again. Despite learning it just last month, I had mostly forgotten how to play. I ultimately played a bit better than the last time but quickly remembered that I would rather be playing directly with other players (either with or against); I’m playing mostly against my cards and the board. It was fine, the pictures are pretty.

There’s growing evidence that prenatal exposure to nitric oxide increases the incidence of autism in children, maybe 1.4 times. Nitric oxide is found in engine exhaust, natural gas stoves, tobacco smoke, and smog.

In April, RFK Jr. made it a top priority to identify the causes of autism. I wonder how the discussion will go: RFK Jr to Trump, “Fossil fuel exhaust causes autism! To make America Healthy Again, you should encourage renewable energy, electric cars, electric stoves, and discourage smoking!”
Trump, “Since taking office, I made executive orders doing exactly the opposite on each of those fronts.” (which is true) “So here’s what I’m going to do…”

Sources:

• Medscape Article
• Consensus.app review of research
• Info about nitric oxide

Is USDirectory.com legit? No. No it is not.

I first blogged about them 18 years ago. Wow, 18 years?! And just today I got another review reaffirming their scammy spamminess.

Stay away from USDirectory.com.

Pope Francis passed away 2 weeks ago. Would it be strange and deeply offensive if I put on a pope hat, robes, and a cross around my neck and posted a photo here? Well, that is what Donald Trump did. I am loathe to repost it but proof of this offense needed.

What if a week after the pope passed away, I said I thought I should be the next pope? Would that be strange and offensive? That’s what Donald Trump did.

It is disturbing in the extreme that anyone would seriously support such a notion. That is what the “Honorable” Republican senator from South Carolina did with his sycophantic remarks.

This is a followup to my long running work on getting people to understand the proper medical symbol, the Rod of Asclepius. Read.

I finally reached someone at Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Dr. Alfredo Sansone, Executive Publisher at Elsevier and STM Journals.

Right now,  it appears that Dr. Sansone doesn’t appear interested in making sure good and correct articles are published and visible, but to… I don’t know! He responded to my first message having obviously not read it thoughtfully. For example, I made a summative statement and backed it up with a detailed reasoning along with several hundred citations (yes, several hundred). But his response was to attack the summative statement in a sideways manner, ignoring all the rest. His other disagreements with my thesis just don’t make sense. I followed up with a long clarifying letter, hoping to further progress but while he has definitely viewed it, and another message I sent, he hasn’t responded. I’m considering publishing our weird interaction and just giving up on this part of the project.

I had pursued this because when you google “medical symbol” an article on Dr. Sansone’s Mayo Clinic Proceedings (MCP) site came up first. Today I note that the MCP article doesn’t come up first any more! Google still gets the answer wrong in summary, but EVERY article it links to reports that the Rod of Asclepius is the more appropriate symbol.

Donald Trump sent Abrego Garcia from the United States to an El Salvador prison despite a long standing United State’s court order prohibiting his deportation to El Salvador. Trump says that the characters “MS13” tattooed on Mr. Garcia’s fingers are the reason enough to believe he is a gang member. To be clear, Trump doesn’t believe the letters were put onto the image as callouts showing how the image of the marijuana leaf on his finger may represent the letter “M” etc. He believes that the completely obviously “photoshop” applied callouts are tattoos on the man’s hand. What do you think?

(via)

Here is Trump saying, and arguing strongly that he believes the text was plainly written on his hand. Trump, “He had ‘M’ ‘S’ as clear as you can be, not interpreted…”

I also note that Trump wrote on that X (Twitter) post, “…two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13”. While every news report I’ve found says that Abrego Garcia has no criminal record.

Update 4-30-25: I found this news report released today where there was talk by police of him being a gang member in 2021 and having domestic dispute issues. It still stands that the Supreme Court told Trump to get him back from El Salvador and Trump completely refuses. See the the previous 10 minutes or so of the interview above

In brief: I get my news from NPR, The Washington Post, and Fox News Online. Where do you get yours?

A bit more: A few months ago, I decided to get a subscription to a newspaper. I wasn’t sure what to get, but I ended up with the Washington Post.  I was a little worried that since the Post is owned by Bezos is connected to the Trump oligarchy, possibly making the reporting unfair. That doesn’t seem to be the case! Here are today’s headlines in the Washington post, a pretty typical day.