Taylor TroeshModify

2026-06-29 08:00:00

You can literally hire me (Taylor) via API:

curl -X POST https://looop.ai/api/doodle \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer looop_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "gig_id": 5,
  "input": { "prompt": "write a poem about horses" },
  "deadline": 3600
}'

Yes, I am building a dystopian cyberpunk hellscape. No, I can't provide more details yet. Just know that if I ever achieve my goals, every human will have shoes, blankets, clean drinking water, medical care, leisure, etc.

Create your account at looop.ai if you'd like to work via API too.

2026-06-28 08:00:00

Writings

• Fear in Four Dimensions
• A Review of Grand Theft Auto XXIIV
• ★ You cannot grow a pumpkin.
• 1099 contractors can earn ~7% more by reporting their expenses.
• USD by the numbers
• Plan Recurring Vacations With Friends
• Freezing Your Cake
• I built a crappy video podcast player
• waves & particles
• ★ Slap: Fun Cat Lang… with a Borrow Checker?
• Dear Aliens
• ★ How To Not Pay Your Taxes
• Mercury Personal Banking: First Impressions
• Explore Chaotic Autonomous Systems In My Game Prototype
• Lil' Fun Langs' Guts
• My Phone Will Spam You If I Fail To Exercise By 3PM
• ★ Math Milestones
• Lil' Fun Langs
• Mysterious NSFW "Grok" Notification from Google App
• ★ Every Conversation is a Backrub and/or a Helicopter in a Puddle
• Neither Fan Nor Frond
• Happy Belated New Year
• REWARD
• Golfing Is Not Rowing
• Affordances are Inconceivable
• ★ A Brief History of Roombas with Fart Spray
• How To Win Titular Metagames
• Emoji Book Synopses
• ★ 210 IQ is not enough
• AI Minus Vagina
• Placebo Emporium: 2025 Annual Shareholder Letter
• Be More Impolite

Projects

Books

2026-06-22 08:00:00

You want to face your fears, but they're hard to find.

Fears feast on uncertainty, and the unknown is slippery. You cannot know the unknowable, nor evade the inevitable. Uncertainty forever lurks in your periphery.

To study a fear is to steal its power. You cannot destroy uncertainties, but you can tame them with labels, measures, and deductions.

One way to tame the unknown: experiment with its knobs. Your natural curiosity will lead you to countless knobs, most of which will be incorrect/incomplete. That's okay -- even wrong knobs can help you navigate the darkness.

So what exactly is fear? Let's start with some plausible knobs:

You can see these dimensions in plain English vocabulary:

These scores are my own. Survey other humans if you want a more representative sample.

In mathematics, knobs are sometimes called dimensions. Independent knobs are orthogonal.

But these D/V/S/P knobs seem cross-contaminated. By definition, inevitable (P) events don't permit agency (V). Don't be discouraged -- even imperfect theories can pierce the darkness.

Numbers with dimensions are called vectors, and linear algebra provides tools like principal component analysis to help untangle correlated dimensions.

Luckily, roughly a third of your cortex processes colors/shapes/movements. Sample the unknown; tie its knobs to charts/diagrams.

A bubble chart plotting example fears

You cannot evict all fears from your mind, but you can turn the volume down as you discover more knobs:

• specific→diffuse: use more concrete language, study the subject
• agent→victim: prep, learn defensive maneuvers, wear armor, rehearse emergencies
• discomfort→death: meditate, hormesis (e.g. ice bath), gratitude, memento mori
• impossible→inevitable: study probability, tally how rarely the dreaded thing lands

Shine your light into that deep unknown and watch your universe unfurl in shadows of shadows of shadows.

2026-06-21 08:00:00

Retro games guide you through nonlinear narratives via carefully-crafted constraints. To play Death Stranding 8 is to live in a Kojima-directed auteur film for 120+ hours.

Classic games may evoke that warm fuzzy nostalgia, but they constantly break immersion. Before narrative engines, game developers forcibly corralled players back onto a pre-determined main main quest. Seriously, try playing any silver-era Nintendo game without narrative mods -- it's exhausting.

Rockstar Games introduced a new narrative engine in GTA23. It does all the basics: synthesizing lore, creating stakes, balancing tension, doling out justice, playing cinematic cut scenes after climactic moments, etc.

Bear with me, but my big gripe with GTA23 is that its new narrative engine is too good.

In a game with helicopters and prostitutes, you can spend five actual months fishing for carp and grilling them on a shopping cart. The game will reward you with varying sizes of small carp and convince you that a legendary megacarp lurks in those waters, waiting for your hook. It will force you upstream when industrial runoff kills all the wildlife in your usual spot. The game will dole out friendship and rivalry and loss and victory in perfect proportions. You will eventually hunt down a shopping cart thief and make him beg for mercy. The call of that river will remain with you for the rest of your life.

Other reviewers became drug kingpins and oil moguls. My playthroughs led me to become a carp fisherman, Wendy's franchisee, youth pastor, and chemistry teacher.

I understand that this is a skill issue. The game does exactly what I want, but apparently I want trite bullshit. Any game that exposes my unfulfillable potential is too damn realistic.

Maybe other people have wilder imaginations, or desire cooler outcomes, or are disciplined enough to invest incremental time/effort toward long-term goals.

GTA23 is fun, but it hurts to see others having more fun than me.

6/10

2026-06-20 08:00:00

You cannot grow a pumpkin.

You can, however, put a pumpkin seed in earth. You can feed it nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. You can moisten it (but please don't drown it). You can erect barriers to prevent folks from walking on it. You can dig a swale to fight erosion.

A sprout appears -- it's so small, so vulnerable. You can drench it in ovicides and larvicides and fungicides. You can shield its hungry new leaves from excessive sunshine. You can take a photo of a pumpkin flower and share it on Instagram. You can watch local pollinators, whose short visits transfer genetic material between lucky pumpkin plants. You can protect a flower as it becomes a fertilized ovary and matures into a fruit -- green, at first, then large and orange. You can remove its innards and carefully follow your aunt's pumpkin pie recipe (which didn't turn out right). You can carve a big smile into the flat surface where it once laid on the earth and place an artificial candle inside it.

But you cannot grow a pumpkin.

Nor can you hiccup, nor sneeze, nor scar. You cannot beat your heart. You cannot rewire your dendrites, nor teach yourself guitar. You cannot change your mind. You can forgive, but you cannot forget. You can purchase a gym membership, you can walk there after work (when you feel like it), but you can't create new muscle fibers. You can lift weight, but you cannot lose weight. You cannot develop a new habit (nor stop an existing one). You cannot make him love you again. You cannot purchase charisma from a grocer, but you can thank an overworked/underpaid cashier for working over a holiday weekend. You can play piano (unless you can't play piano).

You can't grow a pumpkin.

But you can spend time with a pumpkin pie fanatic, and notice yourself skimming plant facts on Wikipedia. You can drive yourself to work, where somebody will hopefully deposit wages into your bank account again. You can exchange that money for seeds and a trowel and chicken wire, and you can purchase whatever chemicals the cute guy at the nursery recommends. You can continue to give your landlord rent and hope that he doesn't notice you burying pumpkin seeds behind the apartment building.

You cannot grow a pumpkin, but you can improve the odds.

2026-06-09 08:00:00

tl;dr: If you earn considerable 1099 income in the US, report your business expenses to the IRS.

Federal Income Tax

Tariffs funded most US government spending until 1913.

The composition of US federal receipts, via census.gov and whitehouse.gov.

After the 16th Amendment legalized federal income tax, Congress levied it via the 1913 Revenue Act: a 1% income tax on high-earners (top ~2% of households).

Share of US households owing no federal income tax, via IRS SOI and Tax Policy Center.

To finance participation in World War I, the US expanded federal income taxation via the 1917 War Revenue Act. The government required entities to report income-like payments (i.e. interest, rent, dividends, wages) to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (which later became the IRS). The form for reporting such payments became known as Form 1099.

It goes like this:

1. Before paying a contractor, the payer collects a Form W-9 (personal information) from the payee.
2. Each tax season, the payer submits Form 1099 (payment history) to the IRS and the payee.
3. The payee reports their 1099 income on Form 1040 (individual income tax return) and sends the IRS a calculated portion of that income.

Effective federal income and payroll tax rate, via CBO, and Tax Policy Center. The average line aggregates the full payroll tax (employer and employee), but the median line only counts the employee share -- the gap reflects payroll incidence, not just progressive taxation.

To finance participation in World War II, the US expanded federal income taxation via the 1943 Current Tax Payment Act. This act required employers to withhold taxes from employee paychecks and send those funds directly to the government. Employers record the wages/withholdings on Form W-2, which employees report to the IRS via Form 1040 (individual income tax return).

All taxes (federal, state & local) as a share of GDP, via usgovernmentrevenue.com and OECD.

Nowadays, income is reported in many different flavors:

Meanwhile, self-employment is trending toward extinction. The modern wage economy swallowed self-governed farmers, artisans, shopkeepers, etc.

Independent vs wage-and-salary workers, via Lebergott/Census/BLS.

Contractors secure freedom at the cost of US employment protections (e.g. minimum wage, overtime pay, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation) and guarantees (e.g. workplace healthcare mandates).

Business Expenses

The original 1913 Revenue Act permitted business expense deductions. The 1918 Revenue Act refined these allowances for individuals:

All the ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business, including a reasonable allowance for salaries or other compensation for personal services actually rendered; and rentals or other payments required to be made as a condition to the continued use or possession, for purposes of the trade or business, of property to which the taxpayer has not taken or is not taking title or in which he has no equity.

The IRS adheres to the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), which codifies legislation (and court rulings) into enforceable statutes. The core of business expense deductions is defined in IRC §162:

There shall be allowed as a deduction all the ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business.

Let's break that sentence down:

• Ordinary: common and accepted in the trade or business, even if not habitual for the particular taxpayer. A once-in-a-lifetime lawsuit defending the business is ordinary; paying off someone else's bankrupt company's debts to burnish your own reputation is not.
• Necessary: "appropriate and helpful" to the business, not strictly indispensable.
• Paid or incurred during the taxable year: distinguishes deductible operating expenses from capital expenditures, which must be capitalized and depreciated over time. A $30 stapler is an operating expense you write off now; a $30,000 cargo van is a capital expenditure you recover over years (though §179 and bonus depreciation often let you expense it immediately anyway).
• Carrying on any trade or business: the activity must be a real, profit-motivated trade or business, not a hobby.

When you buy a long-lived asset (a van, a camera rig, a server rack), the IRS assumes it loses value gradually, so you deduct a slice of its cost each year over an IRS-defined "recovery period" (typically 3–7 years for equipment). In practice, §179 expensing and bonus depreciation let most small businesses skip the schedule and deduct the whole purchase in year one.

Business expenses are "above the line": they reduce your income before the standard deduction is applied. You need not itemize nor optimize -- qualified deductions stack atop the standard deduction that everyone receives.

Common deductions include:

• Home office: Rent/mortgage interest, utilities, insurance, depreciation. Part of the home must be used "regularly and exclusively" as the contractor's principal place of business. Two methods: the actual-expense method (calculated on Form 8829) and the simplified method (flat $5/ft² rate, up to 300 square feet, capped at $1,500 per year).
• Vehicle expenses: Contractors choose between the standard mileage rate (set by the IRS each year) and the actual-expense method (gas, oil, repairs, insurance, depreciation, lease payments × business-use percentage). The choice generally must be made in the vehicle's first year of business use; once actual expenses with accelerated depreciation are claimed, the standard rate is unavailable in later years.
• Equipment, supplies, and software: Computers, phones, tools, software subscriptions; longer-lived assets can often be expensed in full in the year of purchase or as bonus depreciation.
• Self-employment tax deduction: One-half of the contractor's 15.3% self-employment tax is deductible.
• Self-employed health insurance: Premiums for the contractor (and family) are deductible above the line (if not otherwise eligible for an employer plan).
• Retirement plan contributions: SEP-IRAs, Solo 401(k)s, and SIMPLE IRAs allow substantially higher tax-deferred contributions than ordinary IRAs, and the contributions reduce taxable self-employment income.
• Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction: Most pass-through business owners may deduct up to 20% of qualified business income. QBI is your net business profit (1099 income minus expenses) excluding capital gains, interest, dividends, self-paid wages.
• Professional development: Continuing education and licensing fees that maintain or improve skills in the contractor's current trade are deductible; education that qualifies the contractor for a new trade is not.
• De minimis safe harbor: Tangible property up to $2,500 per item may be expensed immediately, no depreciation schedule required.
• Standard meal allowance: Instead of tracking actual meal costs while traveling, deduct the federal per-diem rate, which varies by location.
• Other: Advertising and marketing, professional fees (legal, accounting), bank and merchant-processing fees, business insurance, contract labor paid to subcontractors (may trigger a 1099-NEC filing obligation of your own), business meals (50% deductible), and travel away from home.

Things that are not business expenses:

• Personal expenses: the costs of being a person rather than a business: groceries, everyday clothing, rent on personal living space. Mixed-use items (a phone, a car, an internet plan) must be split by business percentage.
• Commuting from home to a regular place of business (even for contractors). The trip from a home office to a client site, by contrast, is generally deductible because the home office is the business location.
• Entertainment expenses: Client entertainment (sports tickets, concerts, golf outings) can not be deducted, even when business is discussed. Business meals remain 50% deductible.
• Fines and penalties: Parking tickets, speeding tickets, and government penalties are never deductible, even when incurred on business.
• Political contributions and lobbying: Campaign donations and lobbying costs are not deductible, even if the outcome affects your business.
• Capital expenditures: Must be depreciated, not immediately expensed.
• Unreimbursed employee business expenses: W-2 employees cannot deduct out-of-pocket work costs; the deductions in this essay belong to 1099 income on Schedule C.

Bookkeeping

Treasury Regulation §1.6001-1 requires taxpayers to document their tax liability. A complete transaction ledger generally contains (1) amount, (2) date, (3) place, (4) business purpose, and (5) the business relationship. These metadata are naturally recorded by receipts, bank/credit-card statements, invoices, etc.

If records are imperfect but a business expense was clearly incurred, the Cohan rule allows courts to estimate the deduction "bearing heavily, if it chooses, upon the taxpayer whose inexactitude is of his own making."

IRC §274(d) forbids estimation for heavily abused categories: travel, meals, gifts, and "listed property" (chiefly vehicles).

You don't need an LLC or a corporation to deduct expenses. Anyone who earns self-employment income is a sole proprietor by default. The structure only changes which form the income lands on (and how much paperwork you sign up for).

If you'd rather not share your Social Security number with every client, grab a free EIN from the IRS.

Most 1099 contractors are not bookkeepers (and do not want to be). To avoid forensic accounting headaches, isolate your payment methods. For example, you can issue single-purpose debit cards via Mercury.

If your bank does not offer virtual debit card services, you can create isolated debit cards by opening new bank accounts. You can open a business checking account at many banks with just a personal SSN. If business accounts aren't available, personal checking accounts work perfectly fine.

Some people prefer the simplicity of having one true balance; others prefer budgeting against isolated balances. If using multiple accounts, direct business income to your business account and pay yourself regular wages.

Credit cards achieve the same end. If you charge business transactions to one dedicated credit card, your monthly statements will contain only business expenses. Consider enabling autopay to avoid unintended credit card debt.

Remember that taxes are not automatically withheld from 1099 income. To avoid spending money owed to Uncle Sam, some contractors automatically redirect estimated taxes into an isolated high-yield savings account. Many clients are happy to send partial payments to two accounts, especially those who use direct deposit (ACH) services. If separate payments are not available, services like Mercury can be configured to automatically split income between accounts.

If you're looking for something more tailored/integrated, consider one of the many banking platforms for small businesses: Found, Lili, Novo, Relay, Bluevine, NorthOne, etc.

If you want even more control, modern bookkeeping software also connects directly to bank accounts and automatically imports/sorts transactions. Popular picks: QuickBooks Solopreneur, FreshBooks, Wave, Keeper, Xero, Expensify, etc.

In rare cases, you may need to record physical receipts. Digitize them immediately and throw them away. If the receipt-scanners in QuickBooks/FreshBooks/Expensify/etc. are insufficient, try dedicated apps like Dext and Shoeboxed.

Beware: thermal-paper receipts degrade over time. Never leave receipts in the sun.

Mileage is its own beast. If you are willing to share your live GPS location with corporations, consider apps like MileIQ, Stride, and Everlance.

Taxes are easy if you maintain good financial hygiene.

Tax Savings

When you make qualified investments into your business, the IRS will tax you as if you didn't earn that money.

Tax savings should be treated as a modest discount on business spending. Never excuse irresponsible spending because "it's a business expense".

Consider a single contractor with $100,000 of 1099 revenue and $15,000 of legitimate business expenses (tax year 2026, sole proprietor, no state income tax):

In this example, the federal government awards 30 cents for every business dollar; those dollars dodge self-employment tax and income tax and shrink your QBI base. Bookkeeping preserves 7.3% ($4,565) of the contractor's total income.

Spending proportionally more on your business yields larger percentage gains:

State taxes further increase these yields.

Income brackets (and spending habits) change these totals; the math is generally attractive to those who earn ~$60k+ per year. For those who earn (and spend) much more, a few hours of bookkeeping is the highest-paid work they'll do all year.