#just added my experiences which will hopefully be helpful ir relatable for others
Note
hey, I just wanted to say, especially re: college, if I can offer some unsolicited advice. Take your time. Try some stuff and see what you like. Took me way too long to realise I like one-on-one training and hands on work! Which is essentially the trades, but like, never ever would have envisioned myself there fresh outta hs. Keep trying, but don't force it. Times are tough right now & jokes about 2022 being 2008 are accurate, and that was bonkers enough the first time around without the Panini. Be gentle with yourself whenever possible and keep your head up. Take longer to do things and don't be afraid to try. Rest when you need it. You've got this. It'll come with time.
Yeah fsfs. I actually just got my first job and have been having a lot of fun, and i haven't felt this good since probably sophomore year in high school (~2018 oofie). I like the coworkers I've been on shift w a lot so far. It's a difficult start, but having a job has forced me into a routine so I'm regularly taking my antidepressants again and I'm seeing a therapist regularly and everything. (Luckily, i got a combo of visual and hands-on training for my job, but my first day of training was sitting w an ipad for 2.5 hours of training vids and i gained nothing but memorizable info w/o doing it myself)
Anyone else reading this too, really listen to this advice. It's so hard to be kind to ourselves when we're struggling, especially when we see others (at least seemingly) managing well and especially with the trauma the Panorama has caused for everyone. High school left me super burnt out and i barely had enough credits to graduate (not to mention wanting to drop out for the longest time), but i let the fear of letting the people in my life that i respect down (referencing starting college right away/staying in high school even though it was physically and emotionally draining) come before my well-being and let me tell you, that never ends well.
If you're struggling as a student, know that i had an older woman in my biology lab that had to put the master's degree she wanted on hold to care for her family, but she's at a place now that she can achieve that goal. Everyone reaches their different 'milestones' at different times, and maybe yours comes later than your peers'; it's not something you can reasonably force on yourself.
I may never return to college, and I've finally made my peace with that. It just wasn't the right time for me. I'm making my health and happiness my priority for the first time in a really long time and I'm so proud of where I am now. I attended classes from September-October 2021 and have spent the rest of the time recovering.
If someone is upset that you're not 'where you need to be', they don't have your best interests in mind. You need to protect your health and happiness before anyone else's. It's astronomically difficult to come to terms with (at least for me), but you can't sustainably keep the peace and put yourself second. It's just not possible.
Thank you so much for this ask, honestly. I feel fortunate to have heard similar reassurances and encouragement from my family, but i don't think people are told that it's okay to not be ready for things instead of hurting themselves in the process of 'keeping up' and making others happy, and especially not from family or friends.
In summary: be kind to yourself and take your time; cliché as it sounds, life is a marathon, not a race. Your health and wellbeing are more important than anything else, so protect them. If you need help doing so, reach out, whether it's directly to support or to someone who will help you find support.
#long post#medication#antidepressants#college#really take this to heart#personal#personal experience#this got a little out of hand length wise#maybe overshared a little but hey who hasnt on here#once again i really really appreciate this ask#stuff may be out of order#it's the adhd and i don't feel like editing this rn bc its 2am for me#i think it reads easy enough as is#scatterbrained as it may be#love how i was receiving advice and turned it into giving advice thats basically just restating the initial advice#just added my experiences which will hopefully be helpful ir relatable for others
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New for 2019 taxes: revised 1040 & only 3 schedules
Taxpayers got their first experience with new filing forms with last year's 2018 returns. There are more changes to the 1040 for 2019 taxes, too, but the revisions actually could be helpful.
Tax season is about to start in a less than two weeks. Jan. 27, in case you forgot.
Many of us are already working on our 2019 returns, either by working with a tax preparer or filling out our forms on our own.
Doing taxes has never been a fun job for most folks. But filing under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has made that job a bit simpler in one regard.
Now there's just one tax return, Form 1040, instead of the three — 1040EZ, 1040A and the long 1040 — in pre-tax reform days.
One form, but six schedules: True, the TCJA wasn't quite able to get the return down to the promised postcard size. The first 1040 under the new tax laws did, however, cut 56 lines from the old long tax return, ending up with 23 lines.
But they still were spread over two pages (front and back).
And to account for the shortening, the info that used to go on the long 1040 was parceled out over six new schedules. Depending on your tax situation, you had to fill in one or all of the new pieces of paper with the lone Form 1040.
Even though tax software or a paid preparer walked taxpayers through the new paperwork, it still didn't go over well.
So the Internal Revenue Service reworked the Form 1040 for the 2019 tax year.
TCJA 1040 take 2: The 1040 now is a bit longer (yeah, that postcard idea definitely is dead). But the idea is that the form should be easier to understand.
The reason for the added length? Some of the info that had been shifted to some of the new schedules now can be found back directly on the 1040.
So this first Tax Form Tuesday, a new feature this year on the ol' blog, looks at the new, and hopefully from a filer's perspective, improved Form 1040 we'll be filing this year.
Back to the 1040 future: The biggest change upon first glance is that the revised 1040 now looks more like the old 1040 that had been in use for decades before the TCJA overhaul that took effect with the filing 2018's taxes.
You still enter your personal information, along with that of your spouse and any dependents, the same as last year and pre-tax reform.
But now the bottom half of the 2019 Form 1040 has income information instead of last year's signature blocks, which seemed weird to me as it gave the impression of signing something before filling in the form.
Information that was on the back (page 2) of the 1040 last year now is on the front page, including how much you made from:
wages, salaries, tips and other sources;
tax-exempt and taxable interest;
ordinary and qualified dividend earnings; and
IRA, pension, annuity and Social Security distributions and any taxable portions of those retirement funds.
Back on Form 1040 is how much you received in capital gains (or losses). Last year, you reported this on Schedule 1. This filing season it's on line 6 of the 2019 Form 1040.
The most noticeable thing about this latest 1040, however, is that you get a look at the TCJA's expanded standard deduction amounts on the new first page of the tax return.
And while adjusted gross income still isn't the last line on the first page of the post-TCJA 1040, the 2019 revision does give us an even more important figure as page 1's last entry: our taxable income.
I don't know about you, but with this reworking I feel like at this stage of completing the 1040 I've accomplished something.
But wait, there's more: Page 2 of the form again is reminiscent of earlier 1040s.
The top section of this on 2018 returns lumped together income reporting, your withholding (and other tax payments, like estimated ones), your deduction (standard or itemized) choice and some tax credit claims.
That's still there in the 2019 tax year version, but it's got a cleaner look, thanks in large part to fewer boxes, inserted Swiss cheese style in last year's 1040, awaiting info transfer from other forms and schedules.
You'll also notice that the Additional Child and American Opportunity tax credits now get specific mentions (lines 18b and 18c, respectively), along with last year's holdovers of the child tax credit and/or credit for other dependents and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
The amount of your refund and direct deposit info is that's what you choose, along with any amount you owe are still on page 2. There is, though, one noticeable change here. The tax owed section title is back to a pre-tax reform larger font, reinforcing one of the IRS' main jobs.
The signature section of Form 1040, as noted earlier, is back on the second page. But there is one interesting addition.
As the IRS continues its digital shift, there's also a block where, if you choose, you can give Uncle Sam your email address.
The IRS elaborates on this electronic communication entry — and the possibility that it could cause some confusion since the long-standing IRS rule is that generally doesn't reach out to taxpayers via email — in the 1040 instructions:
You have the option of entering your phone number and email address in the spaces provided. There will be no effect on the processing of your return if you choose not to enter this information. Note that the IRS initiates most contacts through regular mail delivered by the United States Postal Service.
You can report a phone scam to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting or the FTC using the FTC Complaint Assistant at FTC.gov. Add "IRS Telephone Scam" in the notes. You can report an unsolicited email claiming to be from the IRS, or an IRS-related component like Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, to the IRS at [email protected].
For more information, go to IRS.gov/Phishing and IRS.gov/newsroom/how-to-know-its-really-the-irs-calling-or-knocking-on-your-door.
I'm interested to see future statistics as to how many of us hand over our email address to the IRS.
Finally, while the 2019 tax year version technically is just one more line longer than the 2018 form (now 24 instead of 23), the layout makes it look longer, with the information filling around two-thirds of page instead of just half.
Now about those lost schedules: The IRS has made its Form 1040 schedule system, to borrow from the Jackson Five, "A-B-C, Easy as 1-2-3."
All the additions/returns to Form 1040 mean that in filing your 2019 taxes you'll have to deal with just three numbered schedules instead of six.
Schedule 1, Additional Income and Adjustments to Gross Income, is still around.
Basically, you report in part 1 of Schedule 1 any additional income, such as business or farm income or loss, unemployment compensation, prize or award money or gambling winnings.
The schedule's part 2 wants to know if you have any deductions to claim, such as student loan interest deduction, self-employment tax, or educator expenses. These adjustments, based on the layout of the old pre-TCJA 1040 were called above-the-line deductions.
Schedule 1 also now seeks some new info.
There's a line reflecting the IRS' increasing focus on cryptocurrency. If you engaged last year in a transaction involving virtual currency (bitcoin and the like), the tax collector wants details on Schedule 1.
The 2019 Schedule 1 also wants to know about alimony payments, since these amounts are no longer deductible to the payer or reportable income to the receiving ex-spouse for divorces or marital settlement agreements entered into as of Jan. 1, 2019.
Schedule 2, Additional Taxes, remains, but now is a combination of last year's Schedules 2 and 4. As its title notes, it's where you report any additional taxes you may owe.
This could be, in part 1 of this schedule, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) or any excess advance premium tax credit you got to help pay for health insurance purchased from the Marketplace.
Part 2 of Schedule 2 wants to know about any claims you can make for a nonrefundable credit other than the child tax credit or the credit for other dependents. These tax credits include the foreign tax credit, education credits or the general business credit.
Schedule 3, Additional Credits and Payments, also was consolidated with info that previously went on the now defunct Schedule 5.
Part 1 of Schedule 3 is where you claim nonrefundable tax credits that aren't on Form 1040. This includes such tax breaks as foreign taxes you paid, child and dependent care expenses, contributions to retirement savings, residential energy improvements and the Lifetime Learning credit.
Schedule 3's part 2 wants details on other payments and refundable credits.
Take note of this schedule if you paid estimated taxes or had any of your prior year's tax refund applied to your future tax liability. Those amounts go on line 8 of Schedule 3.
Form for older filers, too: These schedules also are to be used by older taxpayers who opt to file the new Form 1040-SR.
As I noted in my earlier post on the 1040-SR when it was released last year, the appended two letters standing for seniors, as in older taxpayers. In the tax world, that those at least age 65.
If you're like me, getting closer to that birthday than you'd like, don't comment, email or lash out on social media. I agree with you. Mid-60s are the new mid-50s (or younger!). But that's Capitol Hill's and the IRS' evaluation of who counts as a senior citizen.
Eligible 1040-SR filers aren't required to use the form. But if they find it's a good tax fit, then it's available.
Of course, older taxpayers are like the rest of the taxpaying community. They tend to use tax software, too.
So, you're asking, why did I go into such a long post about a form that most of us won't ever actually see as we enter our info by computer or let our tax preparer do the same?
Because, as a wise tax pro told me many years ago when I started writing about taxes, the best way to understand the tax law is to look not at any legislation, but at the tax forms needed to comply with the law.
And thus was born the new Tax Form Tuesday blog feature. I hope this inaugural item and future forms posts help.
You also might find these items of interest:
6 reasons to file your taxes early
IRS Free File now open for the 2020 tax season
2019 tax return filing checklist, including documents itemizers need to complete Schedule A
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Should We Employ Our Own Kids? (and How Much to Pay Them)
My Brother Wax Mannequin, training the next generation of workforce last summer.
Way back in 2015, I had a nine year old boy. Even back then, I could see him showing some early flashes of adulthood and maturity, and it got me wondering about his future as it relates to money and freedom.
So I wrote a post called What I’m Teaching My Son About Money, which shared some ideas about how we can raise our next generation of kids to be happy masters of money rather than the stressed-out slaves that most people (even those with high incomes) are today. And now, four years later, some of my predictions and questions from that article are starting to come true, and I’m wondering what to do about it.
To me, the biggest question is this:
Where is the balance between giving your kids a helpful boost, and “helping” them so much that you distort their view of the world and create a generation of Whining Complainypants Adults?
Opinions on this subject can vary widely, and in fact even you and I might have rather different views. But hopefully we can at least agree that the whole thing sits on a spectrum, and that even that spectrum itself is slippery because every child and every upbringing is unique.
So let’s get onto the same page with an attractive and scientific-looking diagram.
Almost any parent would agree that the left side of the spectrum is a bad place for kids to be born. Because it affects not just their childhoods, but their entire lives. So we strive to provide a life that is further to the right, keeping our kids fueled with food, love, and opportunities.
But as with all human pursuits, we have a tendency to go too far and get into the “Too Easy” end of the spectrum. We may be smothering our kids with too much “help”, or perhaps compensating for being so busy with our fancypants careers that we don’t have much time to spend with them.
While this all feels like common sense, there’s also some biology behind it. Babies and young kids who experience a harsh environment during this critical part of development will tend to grow up more optimized for survival and street smarts, with lower levels of trust and a harder time blending in with a peaceful society*.
And on the more fortunate side of the divide, children raised in peace and security will optimize more for “book smarts” intelligence as well as being more trusting and less prone to violence. The entire apparatus of our brain will end up wired differently, based on the experiences we have in early childhood.
The problem for wealthy people is that the human brain is not wired to stop at “enough”, because enough has not been a big part of our shared history.
So we tend to overdo it when creating a comfortable life for our own kids, often justifying it with this exact sentence:
“We work hard, so we can give our kids some of the opportunities and the nice things that we didn’t have in our own childhood.”
It sounds noble and honorable on the surface, but be careful, because we can ratchet that same justification up far beyond any reasonable lifestyles without realizing we are just stoking our own egos or compensating for our own fears (and perhaps battling our peers/competitors in the Who’s-the-Best-Parent Competition on Facebook).
And then these kids respond by developing in a different way that can have its own downsides. Not understanding what it means to be poor. A lack of life’s most valuable skill – the skill of efficiency, optimization and reducing waste. And even a lack of life satisfaction and balance in later adulthood, because of a focus on easy consumption rather than the joy of creation.
So with such a slippery slope and those two pointy arrowheads to navigate, what’s the ideal strategy for us parents?
I don’t have all the answers, but one idea I have been interested in for years seems to have a lot of advantages: Hiring your children to work in your own small business.
Just think about it. You get to do all of these things and more:
help your kids earn their own money
teach them the value of hard work
have more excuses to spend time together solving problems – maybe even as they grow into adults
potentially cut the family’s total tax bill by transferring income from the high tax bracket of the parents, to the low (or zero) bracket of the kids.
Of course, there are also a few traps to watch out for in running a family business:
the job you give them might be better (or worse) than what they could get elsewhere, leading to a distorted view of what it really means to work for a living
if you don’t get along particularly well, tying your fates together even closer in a company will magnify any problems in your relationship
your kids might miss out on other, broader life experiences they could have had out there in the real world (like my own formative jobs in the gas stations and convenience stores of my small town, which are still the source of stories and laughs to this day.)
Still, the potential benefits clearly outweigh the risks to me, so the idea remains an exciting one in my mind.
Little MM and the Budding YouTube Project
I have been dabbling with this with my own son for several years – he helped me with the arduous task of mailing out over 1200 MMM T-shirts a few years ago and occasionally helps his mother in her soap production enterprises. His earnings have typically been on a per-shirt or per-soap basis
But things really took a step up this past January when he talked me into dusting off the neglected MMM YouTube Channel and actually starting to produce some shows together. Because we started with the good luck of a partially established audience and we have put some real effort into it (13 episodes over these first six months), it has taken off a little bit and we now have over 27,000 subscribers and the channel has earned about $1600 in YouTube ad revenue so far.
As a fun incentive, I offered at the beginning to pay him a flat (low) fee for editing and producing each episode, then split the income from this venture equally beyond that. So now, the little dude has made $800 on top of his base fees for the work.
If this continues, it could grow into a real income, which is quite exciting but also brings up some interesting tax questions. After all, right now he is a dependent for tax purposes, which means at least one of his parents get a tax deduction for raising him. But if he earns his own money, he might rise out of this dependence and even start owing taxes on his own. So is it worth it?
Hey, Let’s Ask my Accountant!
Outsourcing my taxes to someone younger and more enthusiastic about it than me has worked wonders.
To get better advice, I decided to run this by my own business and personal tax accountant, Chris Care who runs his own firm called Care CPA. We talked over the ideas of family businesses and employing a child in greater detail.
In summary, the results are better than I expected, which explains why people are so keen to hire their children.
Here’s my brief Q&A with him. Thanks for your help Chris!
MMM – So the first question is, what are the basic rules about employing one’s own child in a family business. My first instinct is that it sounds smart, because you are shifting income from parents in a potentially high tax bracket, to kids in a low tax bracket. So overall as a family, your tax bill falls.
But Is it a good idea? How old do they have to be? Any things to watch out for?
Chris Care: The biggest thing to watch out for is making sure the children are old enough to actually work. A lot of business owners want to pay their 1-year-old $15,000 a year for “modeling” by putting their picture on the company website. To me, this is a stretch.
You also want to make sure you’re paying them in accordance with the tasks they’re doing. If they are 12 years old and filing paperwork for you, or cleaning your office, or other administrative tasks, you probably can’t justify paying them $50 an hour. You should make sure there is a clear job description, and keep an accurate record of the number of hours worked and the tasks performed, just like any other employee does at their job
MMM – What is the current child tax credit amount, and how would it phase out if he started making his own money? And does this scale up and down with the parents income as well?
Chris Care – Currently, the child tax credit is up to $2,000 per child, with up to $1,400 being refundable if the credit exceeds your tax amount.
In general, as long as you can claim the child as a dependent, and your income is below $400k if married filing jointly ($200k otherwise), you can claim the child tax credit no matter how much money your child makes. Above this income, the child tax credit phases out, but it is still not related to the child’s own income.
MMM – Oh wow, I didn’t realize that. And at what level would he need to start incurring his own income taxes? And as an employer, would I be on the hook for stuff like quarterly tax payments, unemployment insurance, worker compensation, and so on? Could he be more like a contractor and avoid these complexities?
Chris Care – It’s unlikely you could classify your own son as a contractor. The IRS used to have a 20-factor test, but recently they have been narrowing and cracking down on this issue – more details here: Behavior, Financial, and Type of Relationship
Aside from that, you’d have to handle things in the standard employee way:
tax withholding from every paycheck, submitted to the government as part of a standard payroll process. (MMM Note – even I have to do this as an employee of my own LLC, I use a provider called ADP and am evaluating a newer one called Gusto).
quarterly payroll taxes for social security and medicare
State unemployment insurance if applicable in your state
FUTA (A form of Federal Unemployment Tax)
Just like any other taxpayer, the child will need to file a federal tax return if their earned income is above the standard deduction ($12,000 for 2018, and $12,200 for 2019). Note that state filing thresholds are often much lower than federal thresholds – check with your own accountant!
MMM – If a kid is living at home with no expenses, he might be wise to put as much of this into retirement accounts and otherwise defer taxes. If my company offered an employee 401k plan, could he put away the full $19,000 per year, or is there an even better option? Maybe his own tax-deferred college savings plan?
Chris Care – As with any other employee, the child can participate in the company’s retirement plan, as long as the plan is written to allow minors to participate. The contribution limits will depend on the type of retirement plan. In your example of a 401k, the child could defer the full employee amount ($19,000 in 2019) as long as wages were at least that amount. He would also get the employer match if your company established one.
College savings plans are an option, though whether or not he can open his own would be a question for your specific provider. Financial service firms tend to get a little hesitant opening accounts for minors. You could always open one, and he could contribute to it.
MMM Summary: Wow, this is much better than I had even hoped. In rough terms terms, it sounds like if I can pay my son $30k from my company’s income, I might save about $10k in marginal income taxes, while his resulting tax bill would be quite minimal.
Thus, it makes sense for me to start paying him as a real employee, rather than just paying all the taxes at my own marginal rate and keeping it in our own family spreadsheet, as I do now.
Chris Care – Yes, there are some good opportunities for tax optimization by hiring kids.
In general, if you can justifiably pay your child a wage from the family business, it is an excellent way to lower the family’s tax burden, and give them a massive boost in retirement savings (since 401k contributions add up way faster than IRA contributions).
Also, by owning the business, you can administer your own 401k plan – which means you don’t have to wonder if your employer’s plan will allow for a mega backdoor Roth, since you can design it that way! Just keep in mind, that 401k plan is for all employees, so any attributes you establish for family members would also be there for non-family members that you may hire.
Another optimization: if you were a sole proprietorship, or a partnership where both partners are parents of the child being employed, the child’s wages would not even be subject to SS/Medicare taxes.
This means you could pay them the $12,000 standard deduction plus $19,000 401k deferral, with zero income tax, zero SS/Medicare taxes, and zero Federal Unemployment tax. They may still be subject to state income tax and state unemployment tax, but those would be relatively minor.
You can essentially shove $31k into a zero tax situation, from potentially a ~35% situation.
This means it may be worth operating the youtube channel as a separate company, and employing your son as a real employee…
MMM – hmmm, lots to consider! For now, YouTube is still only a few hundred bucks per month so we are not there yet. But it sounds like little MM’s future is bright, as long as he remains motivated to work hard and be creative and keep producing.
Which is a good general philosophy for any of us: keep some good hard work as part of every day, whether you’re ten or one hundred years old. Doing good work and producing good things tends to lead to a good life.
A Few More Thoughts and Disclaimers from Mr. Care:
In all of these answers, I have assumed the child is a true employee, where he receives a regular paycheck and a W-2 at the end of the year, and the company is a C Corp or S Corp.
As with all tax planning, tax credits, and personal situations, there are exceptions and limitations. So we’ve made some broad assumptions to answer these questions. For me to post an exhaustive list of these would take an entire blog post of its own. Always check with your tax professional, or make sure you understand the IRS guidance.
generational wealth / inequality / dynasties / buffett
effective altruism
A Final Thought from MMM:
If all this sounds like wishful thinking to you because you don’t own your own business yet, I strongly encourage to start one! For the great majority of early retirees, having a small entrepreneurial pursuit is both a reassuring security blanket and a fascinating and fun way to explore life after the cubicles and commuting stage is over. The Joy Of Self Employment.
* This one of many interesting and sometimes untintuitive insights I got into Human nature when reading the rather excellent book Sapiens.
from Money 101 http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/07/20/estate-planning/
via http://www.rssmix.com/
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Should We Employ Our Own Kids? (and How Much to Pay Them)
My Brother Wax Mannequin, training the next generation of workforce last summer.
Way back in 2015, I had a nine year old boy. Even back then, I could see him showing some early flashes of adulthood and maturity, and it got me wondering about his future as it relates to money and freedom.
So I wrote a post called What I’m Teaching My Son About Money, which shared some ideas about how we can raise our next generation of kids to be happy masters of money rather than the stressed-out slaves that most people (even those with high incomes) are today. And now, four years later, some of my predictions and questions from that article are starting to come true, and I’m wondering what to do about it.
To me, the biggest question is this:
Where is the balance between giving your kids a helpful boost, and “helping” them so much that you distort their view of the world and create a generation of Whining Complainypants Adults?
Opinions on this subject can vary widely, and in fact even you and I might have rather different views. But hopefully we can at least agree that the whole thing sits on a spectrum, and that even that spectrum itself is slippery because every child and every upbringing is unique.
So let’s get onto the same page with an attractive and scientific-looking diagram.
Almost any parent would agree that the left side of the spectrum is a bad place for kids to be born. Because it affects not just their childhoods, but their entire lives. So we strive to provide a life that is further to the right, keeping our kids fueled with food, love, and opportunities.
But as with all human pursuits, we have a tendency to go too far and get into the “Too Easy” end of the spectrum. We may be smothering our kids with too much “help”, or perhaps compensating for being so busy with our fancypants careers that we don’t have much time to spend with them.
While this all feels like common sense, there’s also some biology behind it. Babies and young kids who experience a harsh environment during this critical part of development will tend to grow up more optimized for survival and street smarts, with lower levels of trust and a harder time blending in with a peaceful society*.
And on the more fortunate side of the divide, children raised in peace and security will optimize more for “book smarts” intelligence as well as being more trusting and less prone to violence. The entire apparatus of our brain will end up wired differently, based on the experiences we have in early childhood.
The problem for wealthy people is that the human brain is not wired to stop at “enough”, because enough has not been a big part of our shared history.
So we tend to overdo it when creating a comfortable life for our own kids, often justifying it with this exact sentence:
“We work hard, so we can give our kids some of the opportunities and the nice things that we didn’t have in our own childhood.”
It sounds noble and honorable on the surface, but be careful, because we can ratchet that same justification up far beyond any reasonable lifestyles without realizing we are just stoking our own egos or compensating for our own fears (and perhaps battling our peers/competitors in the Who’s-the-Best-Parent Competition on Facebook).
And then these kids respond by developing in a different way that can have its own downsides. Not understanding what it means to be poor. A lack of life’s most valuable skill – the skill of efficiency, optimization and reducing waste. And even a lack of life satisfaction and balance in later adulthood, because of a focus on easy consumption rather than the joy of creation.
So with such a slippery slope and those two pointy arrowheads to navigate, what’s the ideal strategy for us parents?
I don’t have all the answers, but one idea I have been interested in for years seems to have a lot of advantages: Hiring your children to work in your own small business.
Just think about it. You get to do all of these things and more:
help your kids earn their own money
teach them the value of hard work
have more excuses to spend time together solving problems – maybe even as they grow into adults
potentially cut the family’s total tax bill by transferring income from the high tax bracket of the parents, to the low (or zero) bracket of the kids.
Of course, there are also a few traps to watch out for in running a family business:
the job you give them might be better (or worse) than what they could get elsewhere, leading to a distorted view of what it really means to work for a living
if you don’t get along particularly well, tying your fates together even closer in a company will magnify any problems in your relationship
your kids might miss out on other, broader life experiences they could have had out there in the real world (like my own formative jobs in the gas stations and convenience stores of my small town, which are still the source of stories and laughs to this day.)
Still, the potential benefits clearly outweigh the risks to me, so the idea remains an exciting one in my mind.
Little MM and the Budding YouTube Project
I have been dabbling with this with my own son for several years – he helped me with the arduous task of mailing out over 1200 MMM T-shirts a few years ago and occasionally helps his mother in her soap production enterprises. His earnings have typically been on a per-shirt or per-soap basis
But things really took a step up this past January when he talked me into dusting off the neglected MMM YouTube Channel and actually starting to produce some shows together. Because we started with the good luck of a partially established audience and we have put some real effort into it (13 episodes over these first six months), it has taken off a little bit and we now have over 27,000 subscribers and the channel has earned about $1600 in YouTube ad revenue so far.
As a fun incentive, I offered at the beginning to pay him a flat (low) fee for editing and producing each episode, then split the income from this venture equally beyond that. So now, the little dude has made $800 on top of his base fees for the work.
If this continues, it could grow into a real income, which is quite exciting but also brings up some interesting tax questions. After all, right now he is a dependent for tax purposes, which means at least one of his parents get a tax deduction for raising him. But if he earns his own money, he might rise out of this dependence and even start owing taxes on his own. So is it worth it?
Hey, Let’s Ask my Accountant!
Outsourcing my taxes to someone younger and more enthusiastic about it than me has worked wonders.
To get better advice, I decided to run this by my own business and personal tax accountant, Chris Care who runs his own firm called Care CPA. We talked over the ideas of family businesses and employing a child in greater detail.
In summary, the results are better than I expected, which explains why people are so keen to hire their children.
Here’s my brief Q&A with him. Thanks for your help Chris!
MMM – So the first question is, what are the basic rules about employing one’s own child in a family business. My first instinct is that it sounds smart, because you are shifting income from parents in a potentially high tax bracket, to kids in a low tax bracket. So overall as a family, your tax bill falls.
But Is it a good idea? How old do they have to be? Any things to watch out for?
Chris Care: The biggest thing to watch out for is making sure the children are old enough to actually work. A lot of business owners want to pay their 1-year-old $15,000 a year for “modeling” by putting their picture on the company website. To me, this is a stretch.
You also want to make sure you’re paying them in accordance with the tasks they’re doing. If they are 12 years old and filing paperwork for you, or cleaning your office, or other administrative tasks, you probably can’t justify paying them $50 an hour. You should make sure there is a clear job description, and keep an accurate record of the number of hours worked and the tasks performed, just like any other employee does at their job
MMM – What is the current child tax credit amount, and how would it phase out if he started making his own money? And does this scale up and down with the parents income as well?
Chris Care – Currently, the child tax credit is up to $2,000 per child, with up to $1,400 being refundable if the credit exceeds your tax amount.
In general, as long as you can claim the child as a dependent, and your income is below $400k if married filing jointly ($200k otherwise), you can claim the child tax credit no matter how much money your child makes. Above this income, the child tax credit phases out, but it is still not related to the child’s own income.
MMM – Oh wow, I didn’t realize that. And at what level would he need to start incurring his own income taxes? And as an employer, would I be on the hook for stuff like quarterly tax payments, unemployment insurance, worker compensation, and so on? Could he be more like a contractor and avoid these complexities?
Chris Care – It’s unlikely you could classify your own son as a contractor. The IRS used to have a 20-factor test, but recently they have been narrowing and cracking down on this issue – more details here: Behavior, Financial, and Type of Relationship
Aside from that, you’d have to handle things in the standard employee way:
tax withholding from every paycheck, submitted to the government as part of a standard payroll process. (MMM Note – even I have to do this as an employee of my own LLC, I use a provider called ADP and am evaluating a newer one called Gusto).
quarterly payroll taxes for social security and medicare
State unemployment insurance if applicable in your state
FUTA (A form of Federal Unemployment Tax)
Just like any other taxpayer, the child will need to file a federal tax return if their earned income is above the standard deduction ($12,000 for 2018, and $12,200 for 2019). Note that state filing thresholds are often much lower than federal thresholds – check with your own accountant!
MMM – If a kid is living at home with no expenses, he might be wise to put as much of this into retirement accounts and otherwise defer taxes. If my company offered an employee 401k plan, could he put away the full $19,000 per year, or is there an even better option? Maybe his own tax-deferred college savings plan?
Chris Care – As with any other employee, the child can participate in the company’s retirement plan, as long as the plan is written to allow minors to participate. The contribution limits will depend on the type of retirement plan. In your example of a 401k, the child could defer the full employee amount ($19,000 in 2019) as long as wages were at least that amount. He would also get the employer match if your company established one.
College savings plans are an option, though whether or not he can open his own would be a question for your specific provider. Financial service firms tend to get a little hesitant opening accounts for minors. You could always open one, and he could contribute to it.
MMM Summary: Wow, this is much better than I had even hoped. In rough terms terms, it sounds like if I can pay my son $30k from my company’s income, I might save about $10k in marginal income taxes, while his resulting tax bill would be quite minimal.
Thus, it makes sense for me to start paying him as a real employee, rather than just paying all the taxes at my own marginal rate and keeping it in our own family spreadsheet, as I do now.
Chris Care – Yes, there are some good opportunities for tax optimization by hiring kids.
In general, if you can justifiably pay your child a wage from the family business, it is an excellent way to lower the family’s tax burden, and give them a massive boost in retirement savings (since 401k contributions add up way faster than IRA contributions).
Also, by owning the business, you can administer your own 401k plan – which means you don’t have to wonder if your employer’s plan will allow for a mega backdoor Roth, since you can design it that way! Just keep in mind, that 401k plan is for all employees, so any attributes you establish for family members would also be there for non-family members that you may hire.
Another optimization: if you were a sole proprietorship, or a partnership where both partners are parents of the child being employed, the child’s wages would not even be subject to SS/Medicare taxes.
This means you could pay them the $12,000 standard deduction plus $19,000 401k deferral, with zero income tax, zero SS/Medicare taxes, and zero Federal Unemployment tax. They may still be subject to state income tax and state unemployment tax, but those would be relatively minor.
You can essentially shove $31k into a zero tax situation, from potentially a ~35% situation.
This means it may be worth operating the youtube channel as a separate company, and employing your son as a real employee…
MMM – hmmm, lots to consider! For now, YouTube is still only a few hundred bucks per month so we are not there yet. But it sounds like little MM’s future is bright, as long as he remains motivated to work hard and be creative and keep producing.
Which is a good general philosophy for any of us: keep some good hard work as part of every day, whether you’re ten or one hundred years old. Doing good work and producing good things tends to lead to a good life.
A Few More Thoughts and Disclaimers from Mr. Care:
In all of these answers, I have assumed the child is a true employee, where he receives a regular paycheck and a W-2 at the end of the year, and the company is a C Corp or S Corp.
As with all tax planning, tax credits, and personal situations, there are exceptions and limitations. So we’ve made some broad assumptions to answer these questions. For me to post an exhaustive list of these would take an entire blog post of its own. Always check with your tax professional, or make sure you understand the IRS guidance.
generational wealth / inequality / dynasties / buffett
effective altruism
A Final Thought from MMM:
If all this sounds like wishful thinking to you because you don’t own your own business yet, I strongly encourage to start one! For the great majority of early retirees, having a small entrepreneurial pursuit is both a reassuring security blanket and a fascinating and fun way to explore life after the cubicles and commuting stage is over. The Joy Of Self Employment.
* This one of many interesting and sometimes untintuitive insights I got into Human nature when reading the rather excellent book Sapiens.
from Finance http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/07/20/estate-planning/
via http://www.rssmix.com/
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2018 Staff Favorites
Last year, the team here at CSS-Tricks compiled a list of our favorite posts, trends, topics, and resources from around the world of front-end development. We had a blast doing it and found it to be a nice recap of the industry as we saw it over the course of the year. Well, we're doing it again this year!
With that, here's everything that Sarah, Robin, Chris and I saw and enjoyed over the past year.
Sarah
Good code review
There are a few themes that cross languages, and one of them is good code review. Even though Nina Zakharenko gives talks and makes resources about Python, her talk about code review skills is especially notable because it applies across many disciplines. She’s got a great arc to this talk and I think her deck is an excellent resource, but you can take this a step even further and think critically about your own team, what works for it, and what practices might need to be reconsidered.
I also enjoyed this sarcastic tweet that brings up a good point:
When reviewing a PR, it’s essential that you leave a comment. Any comment. Even the PR looks great and you have no substantial feedback, find something trivial to nitpick or question. This communicates intelligence and mastery, and is widely appreciated by your colleagues.
— Andrew Clark (@acdlite) May 19, 2018
I've been guilty myself of commenting on a really clean pull request just to say something, and it’s healthy for us as a community to revisit why we do things like this.
Sophie Alpert, manager of the React core team, also wrote a great post along these lines right at the end of the year called Why Review Code. It’s a good resource to turn to when you'd like to explain the need for code reviews in the development process.
The year of (creative) code
So many wonderful creative coding resources were made this year. Creative coding projects might seem frivolous but you can actually learn a ton from making and playing with them. Matt DesLauriers recently taught a course called Creative Coding with Canvas & WebGL for Frontend Masters that serves as a good example.
CodePen is always one of my favorite places to check out creative work because it provides a way to reverse-engineer the work of other people and learn from their source code. CodePen has also started coding challenges adding yet another way to motivate creative experiments and collective learning opportunities. Marie Mosley did a lot of work to make that happen and her work on CodePen's great newsletter is equally awesome.
You should also consider checking out Monica Dinculescu's work because she has been sharing some amazing work. There's not one, not two, but three (!) that use machine learning alone. Go see all of her Glitch projects. And, for what it's worth, Glitch is a great place to explore creative code and remix your own as well.
GitHub Actions
I think hands-down one of the most game-changing developments this year is GitHub Actions. The fact that you can manage all of your testing, deployments, and project issues as containers chained in a unified workflow is quite amazing.
Containers are a great for actions because of their flexibility — you’re not limited to a single kind of compute and so much is possible! I did a writeup about GitHub Actions covering the feature in full. And, if you're digging into containers, you might find the dive repo helpful because it provides a way to explore a docker image and layer contents.
Actions are still in beta but you can request access — they’re slowly rolling out now.
UI property generators
I really like that we’re automating some of the code that we need to make beautiful front-end experiences these days. In terms of color there’s color by Adobe, coolors, and uiGradients. There are even generators for other things, like gradients, clip-path, font pairings, and box-shadow. I am very much here for all for this. These are the kind of tools that speed up development and allow us to use advanced effects, no matter the skill level.
Robin
Ire Aderinokun’s blog
Ire has been writing a near constant stream of wondrous articles about front-end development on her blog, Bits of Code, over the past year, and it’s been super exciting to keep up with her work. It seems like she's posting something I find useful almost every day, from basic stuff like when hover, focus and active states apply to accessibility tips like the aria-live attribute.
"The All Powerful Front-end Developer"
Chris gave a talk this year about the ways the role of front-end development are changing... and for the better. It was perhaps the most inspiring talk I saw this year. Talks about front-end stuff are sometimes pretty dry, but Chris does something else here. He covers a host of new tools we can use today to do things that previously required a ton of back-end skills. Chris even made a website all about these new tools which are often categorized as "Serverless."
Even if none of these tools excite you, I would recommend checking out the talk – Chris’s enthusiasm is electric and made me want to pull up my sleeves and get to work on something fun, weird and exciting.
youtube
Future Fonts
The Future Fonts marketplace turned out to be a great place to find new and experimental typefaces this year. Obviously is a good example of that. But the difference between Future Fonts and other marketplaces is that you can buy fonts that are in beta and still currently under development. If you get in on the ground floor and buy a font for $10, then that shows the developer the interest in a particular font which may spur more features for it, like new weights, widths or even OpenType features.
It’s a great way to support type designers while getting a ton of neat and experimental typefaces at the same time.
React Conf 2018
The talks from React Conf 2018 will get you up to speed with the latest React news. It’s interesting to see how React Hooks let you "use state and other React features without writing a class."
youtube
It's also worth calling out that a lot of folks really improved our Guide to React here on CSS-Tricks so that it now contains a ton of advice about how to get started and how to level up on both basic and advanced practices.
The Victorian Internet
This is a weird recommendation because The Victorian Internet is a book and it wasn’t published this year. But! It’s certainly the best book I've read this year, even if it’s only tangentially related to web stuff. It made me realize that the internet we’re building today is one that’s much older than I first expected. The book focuses on the laying of the Transatlantic submarine cables, the design of codes and the codebreakers, fraudsters that used the telegraph to find their marks, and those that used it to find the person they’d marry. I really can’t recommend this book enough.
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Figma
The browser-based design tool Figma continued to release a wave of new features that makes building design systems and UI kits easier than ever before. I’ve been doing a ton of experiments with it to see how it helps designers communicate, as well as how to build more resilient components. It’s super impressive to see how much the tools have improved over the past year and I’m excited to see it improve in the new year, too.
Geoff
Buzz about third party scripts
It seems there was a lot of chatter this year about the impact of third party scripts. Whether it’s the growing ubiquity of all-things-JavaScript or whatever, this topic covers a wide and interesting ground, including performance, security and even hard costs, to name a few.
My personal favorite post about this was Paulo Mioni’s deep dive into the anatomy of a malicious script. Sure, the technical bits are a great learning opportunity, but what really makes this piece is the way it reads like a true crime novel.
Gutenberg, Gutenberg and more Gutenberg
There was so much noise leading up to the new WordPress editor that the release of WordPress 5.0 containing it felt anti-climactic. No one was hurt or injured amid plenty of concerns, though there is indeed room for improvement.
Lara Schneck and Andy Bell teamed up for a hefty seven-party series aimed at getting developers like us primed for the changes and it’s incredible. No stone is left unturned and it perfectly suitable for beginners and experts alike.
Solving real life issues with UX
I like to think that I care a lot about users in the work I do and that I do my best to empathize so that I can anticipate needs or feelings as they interact with the site or app. That said, my mind was blown away by a study Lucas Chae did on the search engine experience of people looking for a way to kill themselves. I mean, depression and suicide are topics that are near and dear to my heart, but I never thought about finding a practical solution for handling it in an online experience.
So, thanks for that, Lucas. It inspired me to piggyback on his recommendations with a few of my own. Hopefully, this is a conversation that goes well beyond 2018 and sparks meaningful change in this department.
The growing gig economy
Freelancing is one of my favorite things to talk about at great length with anyone and everyone who is willing to talk shop and that’s largely because I’ve learned a lot about it in the five years I’ve been in it.
But if you take my experience and quadruple it, then you get a treasure trove of wisdom like Adam Coti shared in his collection of freelancing lessons learned over 20 years of service.
Freelancing isn’t for everyone. Neither is remote work. Adam’s advice is what I wish I had going into this five years ago.
Browser ecology
I absolutely love the way Rachel Nabors likens web browsers to a biological ecosystem. It’s a stellar analogy and leads into the long and winding history of browser evolution.
Speaking of history, Jason Hoffman’s telling of the history about browsers and web standards is equally interesting and a good chunk of context to carry in your back pocket.
These posts were timely because this year saw a lot of movement in the browser landscape. Microsoft is dropping EdgeHTML for Blink and Google ramped up its AMP product. 2018 felt like a dizzying year of significant changes for industry giants!
Chris
All the best buzzwords: JAMstack, Serverless, & Headless
"Don’t tell me how to build a front end!" we, front-end developers, cry out. We are very powerful now. We like to bring our own front-end stack, then use your back-end data and APIs. As this is happening, we’re seeing healthy things happen like content management systems evolving to headless frameworks and focus on what they are best at: content management. We’re seeing performance and security improvements through the power of static and CDN-backed hosting. We’re seeing hosting and server usage cost reductions.
But we’re also seeing unhealthy things we need to work through, like front-end developers being spread too thin. We have JavaScript-focused engineers failing to write clean, extensible, performant, accessible markup and styles, and, on the flip side, we have UX-focused engineers feeling left out, left behind, or asked to do development work suddenly quite far away from their current expertise.
GraphQL
Speaking of powerful front-end developers, giving us front-end developers a well-oiled GraphQL setup is extremely empowering. No longer do we need to be roadblocked by waiting for an API to be finished or data to be massaged into some needed format. All the data you want is available at your fingertips, so go get and use it as you will. This makes building and iterating on the front end faster, easier, and more fun, which will lead us to building better products. Apollo GraphQL is the thing to look at here.
While front-end is having a massive love affair with JavaScript, there are plenty of front-end developers happily focused elsewhere
This is what I was getting at in my first section. There is a divide happening. It’s always been there, but with JavaScript being absolutely enormous right now and showing no signs of slowing down, people are starting to fall through the schism. Can I still be a front-end developer if I’m not deep into JavaScript? Of course. I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t learn JavaScript, because it’s pretty cool and powerful and you just might love it, but if you’re focused on UX, UI, animation, accessibility, semantics, layout, architecture, design patterns, illustration, copywriting, and any combination of that and whatever else, you’re still awesome and useful and always will be. Hugs. 🤗
Just look at the book Refactoring UI or the course Learn UI Design as proof there is lots to know about UI design and being great at it requires a lot of training, practice, and skill just like any other aspect of front-end development.
Shamelessly using grid and custom properties everywhere
I remember when I first learned flexbox, it was all I reached for to make layouts. I still love flexbox, but now that we have grid and the browser support is nearly just as good, I find myself reaching for grid even more. Not that it’s a competition; they are different tools useful in different situations. But admittedly, there were things I would have used flexbox for a year ago that I use grid for now and grid feels more intuitive and more like the right tool.
I'm still swooning over the amazing illustrations Lynn Fisher did for both our grid and flexbox guides.
Massive discussions around CSS-in-JS and approaches, like Tailwind
These discussions can get quite heated, but there is no ignoring the fact that the landscape of CSS-in-JS is huge, has a lot of fans, and seems to be hitting the right notes for a lot of folks. But it’s far from settled down. Libraries like Vue and Angular have their own framework-prescribed way of handling it, whereas React has literally dozens of options and a fast-moving landscape with libraries popping up and popular ones spinning down in favor of others. It does seem like the feature set is starting to settle down a little, so this next year will be interesting to watch.
Then there is the concept of atomic CSS on the other side of the spectrum, and interesting in that doesn’t seem to have slowed down at all either. Tailwind CSS is perhaps the hottest framework out there, gaining enough traction that Adam is going full time on it.
What could really shake this up is if the web platform itself decides to get into solving some of the problems that gave rise to these solutions. The shadow DOM already exists in Web Components Land, so perhaps there are answers there? Maybe the return of <style scoped>? Maybe new best practices will evolve that employ a single-stylesheet-per-component? Who knows.
Design systems becoming a core deliverable
There are whole conferences around them now!
youtube
I’ve heard of multiple agencies where design systems are literally what they make for their clients. Not websites, design systems. I get it. If you give a team a really powerful and flexible toolbox to build their own site with, they will do just that. Giving them some finished pages, as polished as they might be, leaves them needing to dissect those themselves and figure out how to extend and build upon them when that need inevitably arrives. I think it makes sense for agencies, or special teams, to focus on extensible component-driven libraries that are used to build sites.
Machine Learning
Stuff like this blows me away:
I made a music sequencer! In JavaScript! It even uses Machine Learning to try to match drums to a synth melody you create!
✨🎧 https://t.co/FGlCxF3W9p pic.twitter.com/TTdPk8PAwP
— Monica Dinculescu (@notwaldorf) June 28, 2018
Having open source libraries that help with machine learning and that are actually accessible for regular ol’ developers to use is a big deal.
Stuff like this will have real world-bettering implications:
🔥 I think I used machine learning to be nice to people! In this proof of concept, I’m creating dynamic alt text for screenreaders with Azure’s Computer Vision API. 💫https://t.co/Y21AHbRT4Y pic.twitter.com/KDfPZ4Sue0
— Sarah Drasner (@sarah_edo) November 13, 2017
And this!
Well that's impressive and dang useful. https://t.co/99tspvk4lo Cool URL too.
(Remove Image Background 100% automatically – in 5 seconds – without a single click) pic.twitter.com/k9JTHK91ff
— CSS-Tricks (@css) December 17, 2018
OK, OK. One more
You gotta check out the Unicode Pattern work (more) that Yuan Chuan does. He even shared some of his work and how he does it right here on CSS-Tricks. And follow that name link to CodePen for even more. This <css-doodle> thing they have created is fantastic.
See the Pen Seeding by yuanchuan (@yuanchuan) on CodePen.
The post 2018 Staff Favorites appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
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2018 Staff Favorites
Last year, the team here at CSS-Tricks compiled a list of our favorite posts, trends, topics, and resources from around the world of front-end development. We had a blast doing it and found it to be a nice recap of the industry as we saw it over the course of the year. Well, we're doing it again this year!
With that, here's everything that Sarah, Robin, Chris and I saw and enjoyed over the past year.
Sarah
Good code review
There are a few themes that cross languages, and one of them is good code review. Even though Nina Zakharenko gives talks and makes resources about Python, her talk about code review skills is especially notable because it applies across many disciplines. She’s got a great arc to this talk and I think her deck is an excellent resource, but you can take this a step even further and think critically about your own team, what works for it, and what practices might need to be reconsidered.
I also enjoyed this sarcastic tweet that brings up a good point:
When reviewing a PR, it’s essential that you leave a comment. Any comment. Even the PR looks great and you have no substantial feedback, find something trivial to nitpick or question. This communicates intelligence and mastery, and is widely appreciated by your colleagues.
— Andrew Clark (@acdlite) May 19, 2018
I've been guilty myself of commenting on a really clean pull request just to say something, and it’s healthy for us as a community to revisit why we do things like this.
Sophie Alpert, manager of the React core team, also wrote a great post along these lines right at the end of the year called Why Review Code. It’s a good resource to turn to when you'd like to explain the need for code reviews in the development process.
The year of (creative) code
So many wonderful creative coding resources were made this year. Creative coding projects might seem frivolous but you can actually learn a ton from making and playing with them. Matt DesLauriers recently taught a course called Creative Coding with Canvas & WebGL for Frontend Masters that serves as a good example.
CodePen is always one of my favorite places to check out creative work because it provides a way to reverse-engineer the work of other people and learn from their source code. CodePen has also started coding challenges adding yet another way to motivate creative experiments and collective learning opportunities. Marie Mosley did a lot of work to make that happen and her work on CodePen's great newsletter is equally awesome.
You should also consider checking out Monica Dinculescu's work because she has been sharing some amazing work. There's not one, not two, but three (!) that use machine learning alone. Go see all of her Glitch projects. And, for what it's worth, Glitch is a great place to explore creative code and remix your own as well.
GitHub Actions
I think hands-down one of the most game-changing developments this year is GitHub Actions. The fact that you can manage all of your testing, deployments, and project issues as containers chained in a unified workflow is quite amazing.
Containers are a great for actions because of their flexibility — you’re not limited to a single kind of compute and so much is possible! I did a writeup about GitHub Actions covering the feature in full. And, if you're digging into containers, you might find the dive repo helpful because it provides a way to explore a docker image and layer contents.
Actions are still in beta but you can request access — they’re slowly rolling out now.
UI property generators
I really like that we’re automating some of the code that we need to make beautiful front-end experiences these days. In terms of color there’s color by Adobe, coolors, and uiGradients. There are even generators for other things, like gradients, clip-path, font pairings, and box-shadow. I am very much all for this. These are the kind of tools that speed up development and allow us to use advanced effects, no matter the skill level.
Robin
Ire Aderinokun’s blog
Ire has been writing a near constant stream of wondrous articles about front-end development on her blog, Bits of Code, over the past year, and it’s been super exciting to keep up with her work. It seems like she's posting something I find useful almost every day, from basic stuff like when hover, focus and active states apply to accessibility tips like the aria-live attribute.
"The All Powerful Front-end Developer"
Chris gave a talk this year about the ways the role of front-end development are changing... and for the better. It was perhaps the most inspiring talk I saw this year. Talks about front-end stuff are sometimes pretty dry, but Chris does something else here. He covers a host of new tools we can use today to do things that previously required a ton of back-end skills. Chris even made a website all about these new tools which are often categorized as "Serverless."
Even if none of these tools excite you, I would recommend checking out the talk – Chris’s enthusiasm is electric and made me want to pull up my sleeves and get to work on something fun, weird and exciting.
youtube
Future Fonts
The Future Fonts marketplace turned out to be a great place to find new and experimental typefaces this year. Obviously is a good example of that. But the difference between Future Fonts and other marketplaces is that you can buy fonts that are in beta and still currently under development. If you get in on the ground floor and buy a font for $10, then that shows the developer the interest in a particular font which may spur more features for it, like new weights, widths or even OpenType features.
It’s a great way to support type designers while getting a ton of neat and experimental typefaces at the same time.
React Conf 2018
The talks from React Conf 2018 will get you up to speed with the latest React news. It’s interesting to see how React Hooks let you "use state and other React features without writing a class."
youtube
It's also worth calling out that a lot of folks really improved our Guide to React here on CSS-Tricks so that it now contains a ton of advice about how to get started and how to level up on both basic and advanced practices.
The Victorian Internet
This is a weird recommendation because The Victorian Internet is a book and it wasn’t published this year. But! It’s certainly the best book I've read this year, even if it’s only tangentially related to web stuff. It made me realize that the internet we’re building today is one that’s much older than I first expected. The book focuses on the laying of the Transatlantic submarine cables, the design of codes and the codebreakers, fraudsters that used the telegraph to find their marks, and those that used it to find the person they’d marry. I really can’t recommend this book enough.
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Figma
The browser-based design tool Figma continued to release a wave of new features that makes building design systems and UI kits easier than ever before. I’ve been doing a ton of experiments with it to see how it helps designers communicate, as well as how to build more resilient components. It’s super impressive to see how much the tools have improved over the past year and I’m excited to see it improve in the new year, too.
Geoff
Buzz about third party scripts
It seems there was a lot of chatter this year about the impact of third party scripts. Whether it’s the growing ubiquity of all-things-JavaScript or whatever, this topic covers a wide and interesting ground, including performance, security and even hard costs, to name a few.
My personal favorite post about this was Paulo Mioni’s deep dive into the anatomy of a malicious script. Sure, the technical bits are a great learning opportunity, but what really makes this piece is the way it reads like a true crime novel.
Gutenberg, Gutenberg and more Gutenberg
There was so much noise leading up to the new WordPress editor that the release of WordPress 5.0 containing it felt anti-climactic. No one was hurt or injured amid plenty of concerns, though there is indeed room for improvement.
Lara Schneck and Andy Bell teamed up for a hefty seven-party series aimed at getting developers like us primed for the changes and it’s incredible. No stone is left unturned and it perfectly suitable for beginners and experts alike.
Solving real life issues with UX
I like to think that I care a lot about users in the work I do and that I do my best to empathize so that I can anticipate needs or feelings as they interact with the site or app. That said, my mind was blown away by a study Lucas Chae did on the search engine experience of people looking for a way to kill themselves. I mean, depression and suicide are topics that are near and dear to my heart, but I never thought about finding a practical solution for handling it in an online experience.
So, thanks for that, Lucas. It inspired me to piggyback on his recommendations with a few of my own. Hopefully, this is a conversation that goes well beyond 2018 and sparks meaningful change in this department.
The growing gig economy
Freelancing is one of my favorite things to talk about at great length with anyone and everyone who is willing to talk shop and that’s largely because I’ve learned a lot about it in the five years I’ve been in it.
But if you take my experience and quadruple it, then you get a treasure trove of wisdom like Adam Coti shared in his collection of freelancing lessons learned over 20 years of service.
Freelancing isn’t for everyone. Neither is remote work. Adam’s advice is what I wish I had going into this five years ago.
Browser ecology
I absolutely love the way Rachel Nabors likens web browsers to a biological ecosystem. It’s a stellar analogy and leads into the long and winding history of browser evolution.
Speaking of history, Jason Hoffman’s telling of the history about browsers and web standards is equally interesting and a good chunk of context to carry in your back pocket.
These posts were timely because this year saw a lot of movement in the browser landscape. Microsoft is dropping EdgeHTML for Blink and Google ramped up its AMP product. 2018 felt like a dizzying year of significant changes for industry giants!
Chris
All the best buzzwords: JAMstack, Serverless, & Headless
"Don’t tell me how to build a front end!" we, front-end developers, cry out. We are very powerful now. We like to bring our own front-end stack, then use your back-end data and APIs. As this is happening, we’re seeing healthy things happen like content management systems evolving to headless frameworks and focus on what they are best at: content management. We’re seeing performance and security improvements through the power of static and CDN-backed hosting. We’re seeing hosting and server usage cost reductions.
But we’re also seeing unhealthy things we need to work through, like front-end developers being spread too thin. We have JavaScript-focused engineers failing to write clean, extensible, performant, accessible markup and styles, and, on the flip side, we have UX-focused engineers feeling left out, left behind, or asked to do development work suddenly quite far away from their current expertise.
GraphQL
Speaking of powerful front-end developers, giving us front-end developers a well-oiled GraphQL setup is extremely empowering. No longer do we need to be roadblocked by waiting for an API to be finished or data to be massaged into some needed format. All the data you want is available at your fingertips, so go get and use it as you will. This makes building and iterating on the front end faster, easier, and more fun, which will lead us to building better products. Apollo GraphQL is the thing to look at here.
While front-end is having a massive love affair with JavaScript, there are plenty of front-end developers happily focused elsewhere
This is what I was getting at in my first section. There is a divide happening. It’s always been there, but with JavaScript being absolutely enormous right now and showing no signs of slowing down, people are starting to fall through the schism. Can I still be a front-end developer if I’m not deep into JavaScript? Of course. I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t learn JavaScript, because it’s pretty cool and powerful and you just might love it, but if you’re focused on UX, UI, animation, accessibility, semantics, layout, architecture, design patterns, illustration, copywriting, and any combination of that and whatever else, you’re still awesome and useful and always will be. Hugs. 🤗
Just look at the book Refactoring UI or the course Learn UI Design as proof there is lots to know about UI design and being great at it requires a lot of training, practice, and skill just like any other aspect of front-end development.
Shamelessly using grid and custom properties everywhere
I remember when I first learned flexbox, it was all I reached for to make layouts. I still love flexbox, but now that we have grid and the browser support is nearly just as good, I find myself reaching for grid even more. Not that it’s a competition; they are different tools useful in different situations. But admittedly, there were things I would have used flexbox for a year ago that I use grid for now and grid feels more intuitive and more like the right tool.
I'm still swooning over the amazing illustrations Lynn Fisher did for both our grid and flexbox guides.
Massive discussions around CSS-in-JS and approaches, like Tailwind
These discussions can get quite heated, but there is no ignoring the fact that the landscape of CSS-in-JS is huge, has a lot of fans, and seems to be hitting the right notes for a lot of folks. But it’s far from settled down. Libraries like Vue and Angular have their own framework-prescribed way of handling it, whereas React has literally dozens of options and a fast-moving landscape with libraries popping up and popular ones spinning down in favor of others. It does seem like the feature set is starting to settle down a little, so this next year will be interesting to watch.
Then there is the concept of atomic CSS on the other side of the spectrum, and interesting in that doesn’t seem to have slowed down at all either. Tailwind CSS is perhaps the hottest framework out there, gaining enough traction that Adam is going full time on it.
What could really shake this up is if the web platform itself decides to get into solving some of the problems that gave rise to these solutions. The shadow DOM already exists in Web Components Land, so perhaps there are answers there? Maybe the return of <style scoped>? Maybe new best practices will evolve that employ a single-stylesheet-per-component? Who knows.
Design systems becoming a core deliverable
There are whole conferences around them now!
youtube
I’ve heard of multiple agencies where design systems are literally what they make for their clients. Not websites, design systems. I get it. If you give a team a really powerful and flexible toolbox to build their own site with, they will do just that. Giving them some finished pages, as polished as they might be, leaves them needing to dissect those themselves and figure out how to extend and build upon them when that need inevitably arrives. I think it makes sense for agencies, or special teams, to focus on extensible component-driven libraries that are used to build sites.
Machine Learning
Stuff like this blows me away:
I made a music sequencer! In JavaScript! It even uses Machine Learning to try to match drums to a synth melody you create!
✨🎧 https://t.co/FGlCxF3W9p pic.twitter.com/TTdPk8PAwP
— Monica Dinculescu (@notwaldorf) June 28, 2018
Having open source libraries that help with machine learning and that are actually accessible for regular ol’ developers to use is a big deal.
Stuff like this will have real world-bettering implications:
🔥 I think I used machine learning to be nice to people! In this proof of concept, I’m creating dynamic alt text for screenreaders with Azure’s Computer Vision API. 💫https://t.co/Y21AHbRT4Y pic.twitter.com/KDfPZ4Sue0
— Sarah Drasner (@sarah_edo) November 13, 2017
And this!
Well that's impressive and dang useful. https://t.co/99tspvk4lo Cool URL too.
(Remove Image Background 100% automatically – in 5 seconds – without a single click) pic.twitter.com/k9JTHK91ff
— CSS-Tricks (@css) December 17, 2018
OK, OK. One more
You gotta check out the Unicode Pattern work (more) that Yuan Chuan does. He even shared some of his work and how he does it right here on CSS-Tricks. And follow that name link to CodePen for even more. This <css-doodle> thing they have created is fantastic.
See the Pen Seeding by yuanchuan (@yuanchuan) on CodePen.
The post 2018 Staff Favorites appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
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Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
"Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
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Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
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I would like to drive my car all over the Europe, but were I can obtail insurance ( green card ) for EU""
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How much is car insurance for 25 year old female?
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Car insurance? opinions needed/welcome :)?
So i recently got a 00' nissan frontier, and my parents paid it completely with cash. I was wondering what the average cost it'd be, or what you think it'd be. info: -texas -16 Female -paid off completely -3.0+ gpa ( i know some insurance companys offer discounts for this) thanks :)""
Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
What exactly is affordable health care premium?
To me that means everyone pays $100.00 per month Is that what it means?
The Best Health Insurance ..?
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HEALTH INSURANCE PAYMENTS?
I went to the doctor. The cost was $164. My insurance was expected to pay $115. I paid $49. Later i found out that my insurance actually paid $131. I had no prior balance, what is the balance after my insurance payment was received?""
Whats the best and cheaper insurance auto company in England?
Whats the best and cheaper insurance auto company in England?
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I'm using blue cross and blue shield and it covers NOTHING!
Is marriage really that important?
Is marriage really that important?
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My car insurance is renewing March 25th If i switch insurance companies March 1st?
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Affordable dental insurance for my two year old?
I am trying to find a good dental insurance online for my son. I have came across a company called careington, but heard their discounts are never to be seen after you get things done. Does Metlife cover children? Anything helps! I'm trying to find something that isn't tricare related, he has regular tricare insurance, but takes forever for paperwork to go through, needing somethign fast and cheap...thanks.""
What is the cheapest auto insurance for young drivers?
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How much does it cost to start an insurance office in california?
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Will my insurance go up a lot?
I got into a fender bender in the parking lot at the mall yesterday I reverse parked and i was pulling out and I couldn't really see because a huge hummer was parked next to me I drove up a little bit to see, and a big van that was driving fast just hit me I don't exactly know whose fault it was, but I'm only 16 and I got my license a week ago And I drive a 2012 Honda civic Will my insurance go up a lot? I didn't get a ticket but I have a huge dent that's the size of a basketball on the front corner of my car And my hood is bent a little""
How to get Public Liability Insurance?
Hi, so my friends and I are having a party in a month and we're considering holding it at a local school hall. I called the person in charge of organizing the hall hire and they said that I need public liability insurance to hire it out for the night. How do I go about getting the insurance and roughly how much will it cost? We wanted to hire the room for about four hours and use it to accommodate about 15 people. Simple answers would be best since I don't know all the fancy words describing finances and Insurance. Thank you!""
Dental program for low income families?
Are there any programs that provide low cost/free assistance wit dental? my son needs a badly infected tooth pulled and we dont have dental insurance. its urgent! can someone help?!
US health insurance - question?
We are Canadians moving to the US in couple of weeks and we have just applied for medical insurance in the US, filled out all the papers and we'd like to know whether the insurance company will call our Canadian doctor to get our medical records? We want to make our doctor aware of this and at the same time, to be honest, we did not know exactly the dates when we've been at the doctor's office, we put down approximate dates on the insurance applic form and we do not want to be denied because of misrepresentation or something like that. At the same time, here in Canada, just because healthcare is universal, you don't get any medical papers or records to keep track on when you've been at the doctor's office. Thanks a lot.""
What is a good and cheap insurance for a Acura Rsx 2002?
I just recently got my license and want to know of good and cheap insurance for my car.
Can you get real auto insurance without a license ?
I dont have a license or a California ID i am a teen 18 years old have my passport and birth certification but that's it so can i get auto insurance and how much would it be if yes
How much should I expect from the insurance company for these damages to my car?
I have a 99 oldsmobile intrigue, my car was hit on the drivers side between the front and back doors. The front door is really damaged and the rear door has some""
Question about car insurance?
Passed my test today!! :D Was wondering what kind of insurance prices people started paying. I want either a ford ka (Been quoted like 2,000) or a Peugeot 207 or something like that. Just wanted to know what other people pay for there car when they first passed?""
Can someone add me to their car insurance policy without me knowing?
my husband, kids and I live in a split house with my in-laws and their car insurance policy was going to add us to their policy without us even knowing. is that illegal. my aunt works for state farm and she's never heard of it in her 25 yrs of working for them. i own my own car insurance through state farm and i don't need two.""
Are there any affordable insurance companies out there for carpenters?
i need to obtain general liability and workers comp. to start my business. looking for affordable insurance in louisiana, (preferrably in baton rouge).""
Do all auto insurance companies check with your DMV for your driving record?
I got some minor accident on my record, something like bumping into someone and leaving a dent, I don't even really remember it was like 4 years ago. Anyway, this car was a rental that I dented and a very expensive one at that, ended up being 2500 to fix even though I could have popped the dent out for free. But because of this incident, state farm and geico are charging me out the wazo because I'm a 20 year old male with speeding tickets and this accident thing that happened a long *** time ago. The difference without the accident on there is amazing, so I'm trying to find a place that will ignore this thing that happened in SEP of 04. Anyone know of a place? Thank you.""
How much is a car and everything for a 17yo?
How much is a car, insurance, lessons, test, tax etc.... Everything! For a 17 year old Guy. Just for a cheap second hand car ie. Peugeot 106 (second hand) But how much will it all come to? Thanks""
Why are so many insurance companies hiring agents?
Is it because of the government trying to force coverage on people?
Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
Where can i get car insurance for under 2000 for my 17 year old son?
just passed his test
How much does it cost for insurance on a scooter in europe?
I don't need an exact number, just give me a range.""
How will a $135 speeding ticket show up on my car insurance?
Will the insurance notice show how fast I was going/how much I had to pay for the ticket?
What is the cheapest auto insurance company?
What is the cheapest auto insurance company?
Term Life Insurances-Nicotine and insurance testing?
I am about to take a blood test for a term life insurance policy. I smoked a cigar about 10 days ago, and about 4 dips of snuff per week (for the past several months). Do they test for nicotine or some other chemical in tobacco to verify if I am a smoker or not? A friend of mine tested positive for smoking and he had smoked a cigar about two months previous...can they test that far back on a blood test??? Thanks""
Will this help save on car insurance?
My husband and I need a second car because I got a job way across town and with school coming up, we have completely different schedules... So I was thinking of only putting my name on the title and the insurance for the new car because my husband has an accident on record and our rates went up. Secondly, would it be beneficial to take my name off our current car and insurance so that it will be only in his name? Could this help save money with our insurance? Sorry if this is a gay question, just trying to save us a little extra money to put away in savings""
Michigan Auto Insurance Premium almost twice as much as quote!?
I'll do my best to summarize my situation, and am using estimates for days and amounts... I received a quote for auto insurance for $590 for a 6 month period from an independent auto agent. When I received my insurance policy and premium price it way nearly double (over $1,100). I cancelled the policy within a week after receiving the huge increase in premiums. Because of the time it took for me to receive my new premium and the 5-7 days for me to cancel, I received a bill for an amount due of roughly $40.00. I previously had auto insurance through the company/agent but it was for a different vehicle and paid a month in advance. My question is, why am I responsible, and how am I responsible for the premium that is so much higher than what I was quoted? I didn't sign any paperwork, I called over the phone and had the agent switch the policy based on the new quote. Auto insurance played a huge factor in budgeting for the vehicle and I feel that I was ripped off. I should be getting a credit for the 10 days that I did not use, not having to pay more for the days I did use. Thanks for any advice you're able to provide!""
How much does car insurance cost for teenagers?
how much would it cost to get car insurance. and dont you dare go telling me to go get a quote, i'll kick you in the nuts.""
""Hi there, Any one can tell me ``how can I get cheap car insurance in london?``?
I`m 28 years old. I got uk full licence in 11/2012 I have Toyota starlet 1.3 car It`s 1999. plz any one can tell me how can i get cheapest insurance. cheers.
Reasonable and Reputable Auto Insurance Companies?
What are some names of reasonable and reputable Insurance Companies in Canada for Auto Insurance?
My mums taking out insurance but i want to be added as a driver.?
well i have recently passed and my mum is taking out insurance on a car but i will be added as a driver, now when i went to get a quote i was told that they cannot do this due to reasons of me only doing it to get cheaper car insurance, he also said that this could get me points on my license??? is this true ?""
What other types of insurance should I get?
So far I'm going to get family health insurance, life insurance, and Car insurance. I'm going to have kids. Anything else I should have? We rarely have natural disasters where I'm from.""
Insurance needed to instruct/run archery?
Hi, If I want to run an archery activity for a school at an outdoor adventurous activity site, what insurance do I need? Cheers""
Cheapest auto insurance for teen drivers in South Carolina?
I'm about to start driving in a year or two, and I want to know what the price range for me would be?""
How much is insurance for a mustang in florida?
I'm a new driver but my insurance is going in my brother's name who is an experiance driver, how much would insurance cost""
""In the uk, i am 18, new driver, and want cheap car insurance. The cheapest i have found is 2500. any ideas?""
In the uk, i am 18, new driver, and want cheap car insurance. The cheapest i have found is 2500. any ideas?""
Can auto insurance carrier deny claim due to their insured simply ignoring request for signed affidavit ?
Hi Have a question. My rear bumper was lightly tapped by 17 year old new driver. Damage is minor and cosmetic at $425. My car is only three years old and in perfect condition. The insured provided me all his insurance information and said to file a claim through his dad's insurance carrier. I called local police department 911 line to report minor collision. Officer responded and insured admitted to police officer that he tapped rear bumper. Police officer looked at my rear bumper and refused to make a police report as he said cannot issue a report unless damage is over $1500. I begged the officer repeatedly to please provide me even an incident report or something official like an affidavit as the teenager admitted to officer that he hit my rear bumper. Police Officer simply drove off and left me on the side of the road with a stranger. Of course now four weeks later, the insured and his father have simply ignored phone calls, emails and registered mail attempts by his insurance carrier to verify version. (not sure what version would be needed as my black paint is on his front bumper) I called the insured and his dad hung up on me twice. The insurance carrier told me they are denying and closing out the claim due to insured not responding. They said this is totally legal under Illinois State laws. (basically too bad, so sad) By the way this insurance company has unacceptable rating with state insurance board and BBB. I paid a body shop $425 in cash to fix car yesterday. Do I have recourse as I see my options would be to file a complaint with Illinois Banking and Insurance or file a small claims lawsuit against insured and insurance carrier (but that is an additional $119 court filing fee) Any ideas would be appreciated.""
I can't get insurance because I'm not a full time college student what can I do to get insurance?
Ok I'll try to explain this as best I can...so I'm a part time college student and I can't get insurance because I'm only a part time student and I have to be a full time student taking 12 credits to get insurance. I think my doctor is talking about health insurance. I don't know anything about insurance because my dad takes care of that. I can't afford to go to school full time and I don't know what to do.
Can I insure a vehicle I don't legally own? ?
Can I insure a vehicle I don't legally own? ?
Who does the cheapest car insurance?
Who does the cheapest car insurance?
How much is a motor insurance?
I have no idea of how much my motor insurance cost if I buy a car in UK. I have a driving license for 10+ years and have no background accidents.... any sample quote are welcome.
What would be the average price of car insurance for a 18 yearold driving a scion tc in Florida?
Thinking about buying one, trying to see what the price of insurance would be like.""
How to get insurance without licence?
can i get insurance if i dont have a licence
I'm 21 years old and i work full time&i live at home with my parents&im pregnant what benefits do i get?
I'm 21 years old and i work full time&i live at home with my parents&im pregnant what benefits do i get?
How much do you pay for car insurance and does it cover both you and the other driver in an accident?
Now before you answer the question please make sure and find out if your really covered.............because if your paying something less than $140 a month than most likely your only covering the other car in an accident. If possible answer my previous question. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Asd8meepYLHdCri7Gn6VxzXsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090607110936AARsYEy
Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
Dobson North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 27017
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/health-insurance-family-plan-quotes-hayden-collier/"
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Preparing an asylum application: Some thoughts regarding method
Jeffrey S. Chase is an immigration lawyer in New York City. He is a former Immigration Judge, senior legal advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals, and volunteer staff attorney at Human Rights First. The following piece was originally published on his blog on 6 July. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission.
The following comments are the result of my combined experience representing asylum applicants in private practice (and as a pro bono staff attorney), hearing asylum claims as an immigration judge, and reviewing transcripts of asylum hearings as an attorney at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). My suggestions address the methods employed in preparing an asylum application, as opposed to a strict legal analysis.
Before preparing the asylum application:
I believe that there are three essential steps to be taken before putting pen to paper. First, the preparer must establish a relationship of trust with the client. In doing so, keep in mind that many asylum applicants have no prior experience with lawyers, judges, courts or legal systems. I was told early in my career that some asylum seekers suspect private attorneys of having ties to the government; I was further instructed that shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries with one’s government counterpart when arriving in court further enforces such belief. It is therefore necessary to spend some time explaining the attorney-client relationship and the duties it imposes on the attorney in hopes of earning the client’s trust.
Secondly, there is a need to address and correct misinformation. Realise that every client will have received all sorts of advice from non-attorneys before meeting you. Some of that advice will have come from well-meaning individuals (such as friends and relatives), but will nevertheless be wrong. Other advice may have come from more nefarious sources. If the client was smuggled into this country, the smuggler will invariably have instructed your client on what to say, and not to say, upon arrival. Of course, the smuggler’s motives are self-serving. The client may also have consulted a non-attorney preparer. As many charge exorbitant fees to prepare asylum applications, it is in their self-interest to embellish or fabricate the client’s story, as their ability to convince the clients that their enhancements turned the claim from a sure loser to a grant will assure them of future referrals. The attorney must therefore take the time to undo whatever misinformation the client previously received.
Lastly, the attorney needs to explain to the client what asylum is, and what it is not. Clients may only be aware that asylum is a means to legal status or employment authorisation, without really understanding the true nature of the relief. In some communities, asylum claims are so prevalent that preparers are only familiar with that one form of relief. Of course, there are other higher-percentage routes to legal status. The attorney therefore needs to question the client to determine if asylum is in fact the best strategy for the client to pursue, or if there are other, better possibilities based on family or employment.
Preparing the application:
The first factor to consider is whether an interpreter is needed. In my experience, it is ideal when the asylum applicant and attorney can communicate directly in either English or another language. But of course, it is often necessary to communicate through an interpreter, who may be a friend or relative of the client.
My first-ever case in immigration court involved a detained asylum seeker whose U.S. citizen uncle served as her interpreter. It being my first case, I was careful to question the client in detail, and review and review the application. All was fine when we reviewed it one final time shortly before the merits hearing. I was therefore quite surprised when, a few questions into direct examination, it became obvious that my client was unaware of the contents of her own application. The removal hearing was the first time we had communicated through an interpreter other than the uncle. I unfortunately realised too late that the uncle hadn’t been interpreting; he himself had put forth the claim, and unfortunately, it was a narrative that his niece was unfamiliar with. I thus learned that one has to be very cautious when using an unknown interpreter. When you don’t understand the language, you cannot be certain as to accuracy. However, you should carefully explain to the interpreter that a neutral court interpreter will provide translation at the court hearing, and that it is therefore imperative that the information actually reflect the client’s own words. You should also look for certain telltale signs, such as a seemingly short response by the client followed by a lengthy, detailed translation by the interpreter, or vice-versa.
Next, there is the question of how much detail to include in the written application. I discussed this issue as it relates to specific dates in a prior blog post. Just as with dates, be careful not to include more detail than your client can remember. While we attorneys naturally believe that an abundance of detail helps an applicant meet her burden of proof, too much detail can trip up a client. Also, the statement accompanying the I-589 should be written in a style reflecting the applicant’s own level of sophistication. The likelihood of a positive credibility determination is not helped where the immigration judge (IR) read a statement seemingly written by someone with a PhD in Political Science, only to then hear far less knowledgeable and sophisticated testimony in court from the same applicant.
You will also have to perform the tricky task of probing and cross-examining your own client. Remember, as discussed earlier, your client may have entered into the attorney-client relationship wary of how much to trust or confide in you. The relationship of trust that you hopefully have established by now risks being undone when you begin probing some of the weaker parts of the claim. It is important to explain to the client that you are not asking such questions because you doubt his or her veracity. Explain that these questions will be asked in court, by the Department of Homeland Security trial attorney on cross-examination, and possibly by the immigration judge. In order to provide effective representation, you need to know the answers to these questions in advance. Furthermore, if there are problems with the claim, it is much better for the client that they come out in the attorney’s office than at the hearing on cross-examination, at which point it may be too late for you to control the damage.
Lastly, you of course need to review and edit the application. When I lecture, I often remember the next day a point that I forgot to mention. Also, I have sometimes recounted an event with certainty, only to have my wife point out some flaw in my retelling. In other words, even under the best of circumstances, we omit details or make factual errors. Therefore, review the application as many times as it takes until you feel confident that you have elicited the complete and correct facts.
After completing the application:
Documentation is crucial to an asylum claim. Case law has long recognised that those fleeing persecution generally don’t have time to first stop and compile documentation, and that hostile governments aren’t likely to document their intent to persecute an individual seeking asylum abroad. In therefore allowing one to meet his or her burden of proof through testimony alone, the courts stressed the need for flexibility by the trier of fact in light of the barriers faced by asylum seekers in documenting their claims. The passage of the REAL ID Act reaffirmed that an asylum seeker may meet his burden through testimony alone. But it also emphasised that the filing of documentation is not optional, stating that “[w]here the trier of fact determines that the applicant should provide evidence that corroborates otherwise credible testimony, such evidence must be provided” unless the asylum applicant does not have and cannot reasonably obtain the requested evidence. Section 208(b)(1)(B)(ii), I&N Act (emphasis added).
In other words, under the REAL ID Act, the absence of corroborating evidence can be fatal to a claim, even where the applicant’s testimony is credible. However, the need to submit evidence is not obvious to most asylum seekers. I have reviewed numerous transcripts in which the respondent was asked why a seemingly available document or witness was not presented. Often, the reply was that the respondent had not realised it was necessary. Given the overcrowded immigration court dockets, and the fact that hearings are being scheduled two or more years in advance, continuances to provide the requested evidence may not be granted. It is therefore important to identify the following three types of evidence.
Potential witnesses: Is there anyone in this country who can verify some part of your client’s claim? This could include relatives or friends with personal knowledge of the applicant’s activities, arrests, or beatings in their home country. If the claim is based on, e.g., the client’s religion or political opinion, are there clergy or fellow parishioners, or political party leaders or members, that can testify as to your client’s activities in this country? Of course, if the applicant suffered physical or psychological harm in the form of persecution, a physician or psychologist’s testimony should be offered at the removal hearing.
My luckiest witness experience ever occurred over 25 years ago. When my client and I entered the courtroom at the detention facility for the merits hearing, the court interpreter immediately recognised him, as they had been classmates in their home country. The interpreter told me: “I thought he was dead!” I asked what he meant by that, and the interpreter said that he had been visiting family back home and had read in the newspaper that my client had been detained and was presumed dead. I immediately notified the immigration judge that I wished to call his court interpreter as a witness. We just heard his testimony that day, and then obviously had to continue the case for a new interpreter. The client’s asylum claim was granted. While that is obviously not something that can be planned, I suppose the lesson in that story is that potential witnesses can reveal themselves unexpectedly, and attorneys should keep their eyes open and be prepared to act quickly.
Documentary evidence: The most obvious types of documents include arrest warrants, photos of the asylum seeker participating in e.g. political demonstrations or religious ceremonies; medical records, newspaper articles, or membership cards and letters from organisations in the home country. I offer two observations from my time with Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). First, when primary evidence isn’t available, the asylum seeker doesn’t always think to then pursue secondary evidence. For example, if an arrest warrant isn’t available, the IJ might ask “but did you at least get a statement from your wife as to the fact that you were arrested?” Often, the asylum seeker simply didn’t realise the need, but under the REAL ID Act, the failure to offer such evidence which was not shown to be unavailable can lead to an IJ concluding that the respondent did not meet his or her burden of proof. Secondly, sometimes it seems that the asylum applicant is focused on obtaining a particular document, but less focused on what the document actually says. For example, where a claim is based on the applicant being beaten or arrested or threatened due to his activities with a particular political party, a letter from a party official is often offered in court. However, such letter often leaves out key details of the claim. An IJ might find the omission to support an adverse credibility finding. It is therefore imperative that the attorney review and address such omissions with the client before filing the document with the immigration court.
Country condition evidence: I believe that asylum seekers are so familiar with conditions in their own country that it doesn’t occur to them that to educate the IJ on the subject. While Department of State Country Reports are often made part of the record, such reports may lack sufficient detail to corroborate aspects of your client’s claim. The State Department no longer issues Country Profiles. You should therefore look to other sources, including country experts. I will also take the opportunity to plug a country condition database that I helped create, which is found on EOIR’s public website in the Virtual Law Library, which was designed to be user-friendly, and includes a topical index and search function.
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2018 Staff Favorites
Last year, the team here at CSS-Tricks compiled a list of our favorite posts, trends, topics, and resources from around the world of front-end development. We had a blast doing it and found it to be a nice recap of the industry as we saw it over the course of the year. Well, we're doing it again this year!
With that, here's everything that Sarah, Robin, Chris and I saw and enjoyed over the past year.
Sarah
Good code review
There are a few themes that cross languages, and one of them is good code review. Even though Nina Zakharenko gives talks and makes resources about Python, her talk about code review skills is especially notable because it applies across many disciplines. She’s got a great arc to this talk and I think her deck is an excellent resource, but you can take this a step even further and think critically about your own team, what works for it, and what practices might need to be reconsidered.
I also enjoyed this sarcastic tweet that brings up a good point:
When reviewing a PR, it’s essential that you leave a comment. Any comment. Even the PR looks great and you have no substantial feedback, find something trivial to nitpick or question. This communicates intelligence and mastery, and is widely appreciated by your colleagues.
— Andrew Clark (@acdlite) May 19, 2018
I've been guilty myself of commenting on a really clean pull request just to say something, and it’s healthy for us as a community to revisit why we do things like this.
Sophie Alpert, manager of the React core team, also wrote a great post along these lines right at the end of the year called Why Review Code. It’s a good resource to turn to when you'd like to explain the need for code reviews in the development process.
The year of (creative) code
So many wonderful creative coding resources were made this year. Creative coding projects might seem frivolous but you can actually learn a ton from making and playing with them. Matt DesLauriers recently taught a course called Creative Coding with Canvas & WebGL for Frontend Masters that serves as a good example.
CodePen is always one of my favorite places to check out creative work because it provides a way to reverse-engineer the work of other people and learn from their source code. CodePen has also started coding challenges adding yet another way to motivate creative experiments and collective learning opportunities. Marie Mosley did a lot of work to make that happen and her work on CodePen's great newsletter is equally awesome.
You should also consider checking out Monica Dinculescu's work because she has been sharing some amazing work. There's not one, not two, but three (!) that use machine learning alone. Go see all of her Glitch projects. And, for what it's worth, Glitch is a great place to explore creative code and remix your own as well.
GitHub Actions
I think hands-down one of the most game-changing developments this year is GitHub Actions. The fact that you can manage all of your testing, deployments, and project issues as containers chained in a unified workflow is quite amazing.
Containers are a great for actions because of their flexibility — you’re not limited to a single kind of compute and so much is possible! I did a writeup about GitHub Actions covering the feature in full. And, if you're digging into containers, you might find the dive repo helpful because it provides a way to explore a docker image and layer contents.
Actions are still in beta but you can request access — they’re slowly rolling out now.
UI property generators
I really like that we’re automating some of the code that we need to make beautiful front-end experiences these days. In terms of color there’s color by Adobe, coolors, and uiGradients. There are even generators for other things, like gradients, clip-path, font pairings, and box-shadow. I am very much all for this. These are the kind of tools that speed up development and allow us to use advanced effects, no matter the skill level.
Robin
Ire Aderinokun’s blog
Ire has been writing a near constant stream of wondrous articles about front-end development on her blog, Bits of Code, over the past year, and it’s been super exciting to keep up with her work. It seems like she's posting something I find useful almost every day, from basic stuff like when hover, focus and active states apply to accessibility tips like the aria-live attribute.
"The All Powerful Front-end Developer"
Chris gave a talk this year about the ways the role of front-end development are changing... and for the better. It was perhaps the most inspiring talk I saw this year. Talks about front-end stuff are sometimes pretty dry, but Chris does something else here. He covers a host of new tools we can use today to do things that previously required a ton of back-end skills. Chris even made a website all about these new tools which are often categorized as "Serverless."
Even if none of these tools excite you, I would recommend checking out the talk – Chris’s enthusiasm is electric and made me want to pull up my sleeves and get to work on something fun, weird and exciting.
youtube
Future Fonts
The Future Fonts marketplace turned out to be a great place to find new and experimental typefaces this year. Obviously is a good example of that. But the difference between Future Fonts and other marketplaces is that you can buy fonts that are in beta and still currently under development. If you get in on the ground floor and buy a font for $10, then that shows the developer the interest in a particular font which may spur more features for it, like new weights, widths or even OpenType features.
It’s a great way to support type designers while getting a ton of neat and experimental typefaces at the same time.
React Conf 2018
The talks from React Conf 2018 will get you up to speed with the latest React news. It’s interesting to see how React Hooks let you "use state and other React features without writing a class."
youtube
It's also worth calling out that a lot of folks really improved our Guide to React here on CSS-Tricks so that it now contains a ton of advice about how to get started and how to level up on both basic and advanced practices.
The Victorian Internet
This is a weird recommendation because The Victorian Internet is a book and it wasn’t published this year. But! It’s certainly the best book I've read this year, even if it’s only tangentially related to web stuff. It made me realize that the internet we’re building today is one that’s much older than I first expected. The book focuses on the laying of the Transatlantic submarine cables, the design of codes and the codebreakers, fraudsters that used the telegraph to find their marks, and those that used it to find the person they’d marry. I really can’t recommend this book enough.
amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "csstricks-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_design = "enhanced_links"; amzn_assoc_asins = "B07JW5WQSR"; amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "162040592X";
Figma
The browser-based design tool Figma continued to release a wave of new features that makes building design systems and UI kits easier than ever before. I’ve been doing a ton of experiments with it to see how it helps designers communicate, as well as how to build more resilient components. It’s super impressive to see how much the tools have improved over the past year and I’m excited to see it improve in the new year, too.
Geoff
Buzz about third party scripts
It seems there was a lot of chatter this year about the impact of third party scripts. Whether it’s the growing ubiquity of all-things-JavaScript or whatever, this topic covers a wide and interesting ground, including performance, security and even hard costs, to name a few.
My personal favorite post about this was Paulo Mioni’s deep dive into the anatomy of a malicious script. Sure, the technical bits are a great learning opportunity, but what really makes this piece is the way it reads like a true crime novel.
Gutenberg, Gutenberg and more Gutenberg
There was so much noise leading up to the new WordPress editor that the release of WordPress 5.0 containing it felt anti-climactic. No one was hurt or injured amid plenty of concerns, though there is indeed room for improvement.
Lara Schneck and Andy Bell teamed up for a hefty seven-party series aimed at getting developers like us primed for the changes and it’s incredible. No stone is left unturned and it perfectly suitable for beginners and experts alike.
Solving real life issues with UX
I like to think that I care a lot about users in the work I do and that I do my best to empathize so that I can anticipate needs or feelings as they interact with the site or app. That said, my mind was blown away by a study Lucas Chae did on the search engine experience of people looking for a way to kill themselves. I mean, depression and suicide are topics that are near and dear to my heart, but I never thought about finding a practical solution for handling it in an online experience.
So, thanks for that, Lucas. It inspired me to piggyback on his recommendations with a few of my own. Hopefully, this is a conversation that goes well beyond 2018 and sparks meaningful change in this department.
The growing gig economy
Freelancing is one of my favorite things to talk about at great length with anyone and everyone who is willing to talk shop and that’s largely because I’ve learned a lot about it in the five years I’ve been in it.
But if you take my experience and quadruple it, then you get a treasure trove of wisdom like Adam Coti shared in his collection of freelancing lessons learned over 20 years of service.
Freelancing isn’t for everyone. Neither is remote work. Adam’s advice is what I wish I had going into this five years ago.
Browser ecology
I absolutely love the way Rachel Nabors likens web browsers to a biological ecosystem. It’s a stellar analogy and leads into the long and winding history of browser evolution.
Speaking of history, Jason Hoffman’s telling of the history about browsers and web standards is equally interesting and a good chunk of context to carry in your back pocket.
These posts were timely because this year saw a lot of movement in the browser landscape. Microsoft is dropping EdgeHTML for Blink and Google ramped up its AMP product. 2018 felt like a dizzying year of significant changes for industry giants!
Chris
All the best buzzwords: JAMstack, Serverless, & Headless
"Don’t tell me how to build a front end!" we, front-end developers, cry out. We are very powerful now. We like to bring our own front-end stack, then use your back-end data and APIs. As this is happening, we’re seeing healthy things happen like content management systems evolving to headless frameworks and focus on what they are best at: content management. We’re seeing performance and security improvements through the power of static and CDN-backed hosting. We’re seeing hosting and server usage cost reductions.
But we’re also seeing unhealthy things we need to work through, like front-end developers being spread too thin. We have JavaScript-focused engineers failing to write clean, extensible, performant, accessible markup and styles, and, on the flip side, we have UX-focused engineers feeling left out, left behind, or asked to do development work suddenly quite far away from their current expertise.
GraphQL
Speaking of powerful front-end developers, giving us front-end developers a well-oiled GraphQL setup is extremely empowering. No longer do we need to be roadblocked by waiting for an API to be finished or data to be massaged into some needed format. All the data you want is available at your fingertips, so go get and use it as you will. This makes building and iterating on the front end faster, easier, and more fun, which will lead us to building better products. Apollo GraphQL is the thing to look at here.
While front-end is having a massive love affair with JavaScript, there are plenty of front-end developers happily focused elsewhere
This is what I was getting at in my first section. There is a divide happening. It’s always been there, but with JavaScript being absolutely enormous right now and showing no signs of slowing down, people are starting to fall through the schism. Can I still be a front-end developer if I’m not deep into JavaScript? Of course. I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t learn JavaScript, because it’s pretty cool and powerful and you just might love it, but if you’re focused on UX, UI, animation, accessibility, semantics, layout, architecture, design patterns, illustration, copywriting, and any combination of that and whatever else, you’re still awesome and useful and always will be. Hugs. 🤗
Just look at the book Refactoring UI or the course Learn UI Design as proof there is lots to know about UI design and being great at it requires a lot of training, practice, and skill just like any other aspect of front-end development.
Shamelessly using grid and custom properties everywhere
I remember when I first learned flexbox, it was all I reached for to make layouts. I still love flexbox, but now that we have grid and the browser support is nearly just as good, I find myself reaching for grid even more. Not that it’s a competition; they are different tools useful in different situations. But admittedly, there were things I would have used flexbox for a year ago that I use grid for now and grid feels more intuitive and more like the right tool.
I'm still swooning over the amazing illustrations Lynn Fisher did for both our grid and flexbox guides.
Massive discussions around CSS-in-JS and approaches, like Tailwind
These discussions can get quite heated, but there is no ignoring the fact that the landscape of CSS-in-JS is huge, has a lot of fans, and seems to be hitting the right notes for a lot of folks. But it’s far from settled down. Libraries like Vue and Angular have their own framework-prescribed way of handling it, whereas React has literally dozens of options and a fast-moving landscape with libraries popping up and popular ones spinning down in favor of others. It does seem like the feature set is starting to settle down a little, so this next year will be interesting to watch.
Then there is the concept of atomic CSS on the other side of the spectrum, and interesting in that doesn’t seem to have slowed down at all either. Tailwind CSS is perhaps the hottest framework out there, gaining enough traction that Adam is going full time on it.
What could really shake this up is if the web platform itself decides to get into solving some of the problems that gave rise to these solutions. The shadow DOM already exists in Web Components Land, so perhaps there are answers there? Maybe the return of <style scoped>? Maybe new best practices will evolve that employ a single-stylesheet-per-component? Who knows.
Design systems becoming a core deliverable
There are whole conferences around them now!
youtube
I’ve heard of multiple agencies where design systems are literally what they make for their clients. Not websites, design systems. I get it. If you give a team a really powerful and flexible toolbox to build their own site with, they will do just that. Giving them some finished pages, as polished as they might be, leaves them needing to dissect those themselves and figure out how to extend and build upon them when that need inevitably arrives. I think it makes sense for agencies, or special teams, to focus on extensible component-driven libraries that are used to build sites.
Machine Learning
Stuff like this blows me away:
I made a music sequencer! In JavaScript! It even uses Machine Learning to try to match drums to a synth melody you create!
✨🎧 https://t.co/FGlCxF3W9p pic.twitter.com/TTdPk8PAwP
— Monica Dinculescu (@notwaldorf) June 28, 2018
Having open source libraries that help with machine learning and that are actually accessible for regular ol’ developers to use is a big deal.
Stuff like this will have real world-bettering implications:
🔥 I think I used machine learning to be nice to people! In this proof of concept, I’m creating dynamic alt text for screenreaders with Azure’s Computer Vision API. 💫https://t.co/Y21AHbRT4Y pic.twitter.com/KDfPZ4Sue0
— Sarah Drasner (@sarah_edo) November 13, 2017
And this!
Well that's impressive and dang useful. https://t.co/99tspvk4lo Cool URL too.
(Remove Image Background 100% automatically – in 5 seconds – without a single click) pic.twitter.com/k9JTHK91ff
— CSS-Tricks (@css) December 17, 2018
OK, OK. One more
You gotta check out the Unicode Pattern work (more) that Yuan Chuan does. He even shared some of his work and how he does it right here on CSS-Tricks. And follow that name link to CodePen for even more. This <css-doodle> thing they have created is fantastic.
See the Pen Seeding by yuanchuan (@yuanchuan) on CodePen.
The post 2018 Staff Favorites appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
2018 Staff Favorites published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/
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