HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: swetsd@salt.cps.msu.edu (Daniel L Swets)
Newsgroups: misc.taxes
Subject: Rental property
Keywords: taxes, rent
Date: 28 Jan 93 16:49:47 GMT
Organization: Michigan State University, CPS Department
NNTP-Posting-Host: salt.cps.msu.edu


Last August I bought a duplex, made several repairs, moved into
one side of it, and rented the other.   I have the following tax
questions:

1.  Are the repairs fully deductable, even though I'm living in half
the duplex?

2.  Where do I report the rental income (loss) on 1040?

3.  Are my mortgage payments and property tax payments better used
as expenses to offset rental income or as personal interest and
property taxes?

-Dan Swets
 swetsd@pixel.msu.edu
Newsgroups: misc.taxes
From: ask@cbnews.cb.att.com (Arthur S. Kamlet)
Subject: Re: Home offices deduction case
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories,  Columbus, Ohio
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 21:34:38 GMT

In article <C17qxI.GnA@hpfcmdd.fc.hp.com> sandya@hpfcmdd.fc.hp.com (Sandy A) writes:
> - home office discussion deleted for brevity - 
>
>: It only comes into consideration if you spend more than 50% of
>: your time, in your own business, away from your home.
>
>: Let's say you have a carpet cleaning business and you spend 80%
>: of the time on location at the customer site and 20% doing paperwork
>: and preparation at home.  You may not deduct the home office expense.

As I understand the ruling, if you are really rich and have a large
home and a few out buildings on your property, you can set up an
office in one of the out buildings and so long as it isn't in your
"home" you can still deduct.

>: Now let's say that you operate a mail order business and spend
>: 90% of your time at home preparing orders and doing paperwork,
>: 10% spent picking up supplies and shipping items.  Assuming you meet
>: all the other requirements, you may take the deduction.
>
>When we talk about the home office deduction, what are we referring to?
>I'm guessing rent and utilities.  Are other home-based business expenses
>still deductible?  In this case, I assume the cleaning equipment is
>deductible, but what about a computer, desk and chair, paper and pencils,
>etc.?

Rent?  Only if you pay rent and the receiver declares it as income.
If you are a renter, makes sense.

Sure, deduct chairs and paper and pencils.

The biggie however, is depreciation.

If you had a 7 room house and one room was 100% used for a home
office you can deduct 1/7 of the cost of your home (building, not
land) depreciated over 20 (??) years.  That's usually more than the
pencils.
-- 
Art Kamlet  a_s_kamlet@att.com  AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Newsgroups: misc.taxes
From: heflin@rtsg.mot.com (Suzanne Stratton Heflin)
Subject: Seller's points deductible?
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Distribution: misc
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:03:36 GMT

I sold my house this year on a VA loan, and had to pay the seller's points.
Are these points tax deductible?  Thanks!
From: chuq@Apple.COM (I Bleed Teal)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Work in Progress
Date: 27 Jan 93 07:00:28 GMT
Organization: Go Sharks, Inc.

tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:

>Marc Stiegler wrote an SF novel, "David's Sling," largely in
>HyperCard.

A while back, David Gerrold wrote a book (Chess with a Dragon, for those
interested) in More, by doing nothing more than starting with an outline and
filling it in until he had a book.

>And Storyspace is even more of a step
>forward.

Hmm. A Mac program I've never heard of. Who does it? Cost? Details?

I'm waiting for Thoughtpattern 2.0 to wander out, too. Seems similar to
this.

chuq
(I do it the old fashioned way, with Word and a chainsaw)

-- 
 Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX) =+= chuq@apple.com
   Member, SFWA =+= Editor, OtherRealms =+=  GEnie: MAC.BIGOT =+= ALink:CHUQ 
  Minor League fans: minors-request@medraut.apple.com (San Jose Giants: A/1/9)
     San Jose Sharks fans: sharks-request@medraut.apple.com (Seat: MM/D/2)

                   Go Sharks! (it's almost baseball season!)

Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: bobdev@hprpcd.rose.hp.com (Bob Devereaux)
Subject: Re: Being published ...
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 18:15:10 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.3 PL7]

Mark Stavar (marks@iris.mincom.oz.au) wrote:
: --
: 
: Assumimg that one has been successful at have a _book length_ work
: accepted and published:
: 
: How many copies of the work would need to be sold before the book
: might be considered a _commercial_ success, i.e., having covered the 

One response:  At the very least, you want to earn back your advance.  A
case in point:  My first novel, _Deadweight_ was sold last spring to Dell
for their Dell Abyss horror line of paperback novels in the US & Canada.
The advance (against royalties) was $4,000.  I get 8% of the cover price
of $4.99, so say 40 cents per copy sold.  The book, then, had better sell
at least 10,000 copies for Dell not to have lost money on the advance they
paid me (which, by custom, I get to keep, regardless).  Actually, my agent
says that, based on what past performance she knows about regarding this
particular line of horror novels, I can expect roughly a total of $10,000,
i.e. 25,000 copies sold, giving me $6,000 over the $4,000 advance eventually.
At a minimum, then, you want to avoid the case of not earning back the
advancd you've received, as they'll be less inclined--particularly if it 
becomes a two- or three-book pattern--to publish your next one.

_Deadweight_, by the way, is scheduled for publication in March 1994, yes,
1994 (it takes two years for a first novel from their yes to the book's
appearing on the bookshelf), & will be a mass-market paperback available
in the US & (I believe) Canada.
--
Robert Devereaux
bobdev@hprpcd.rose.hp.com
Roseville, CA
(916) 785-5487
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: djd@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (david.j.daulton)
Subject: Rules of Thumb
Organization: AT&T
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 05:20:09 GMT

As a technical writer I have a few of my own rules of thumb.  In no
special order...

1.  Use "for example" a lot.

2.  Use the product.  Writing from engineers' explanations is fiction.
Writing from project requirements is fantasy.

3. When you inherit a new project, "grep" for "that" and "which" and correct
them.

4. Read Strunk and White once a year.

5. Keep returning to your sources until you understand. If you don't understand
something, there is vanishing little chance you can explain it.   

6.  Cut the crap.  Does the reader NEED this word?  No?  Cut it.  Does the
reader NEED this sentence?  No?  Cut it.  This chapter?  This manual?
Cut, slash, chop.  Information buried is information lost.

7.  Think of your reader continually, and talk to him or her through what you
write. 

8.  Use personal pronouns, active voice, and try to rewrite "being" verbs out
of your sentences.

9. End sentences with prepositions, split infinitives, and so on, as needed
in order to sound natural.  This requires you to know grammar well enough so
that when an engineer changes "use" to "utilize", or whatever, you can
politely (and with good humor) explain that he is full of ....

10.  Remember that you are really an ANTI-technical writer.

11. NEVER rewrite.  No, wait, where'd that come from?  Heinlein who?
Xref: sparky misc.writing:4234 misc.kids:33230 rec.arts.books:26070
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: misc.writing,misc.kids,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Question - what's the word for ...
Date: 22 Jan 1993 21:48:15 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Deirdre A. Johnson writes:

	I just have to answer Dave Daulton's question...

	Yes, Dave!  The word is spoonerism.  Named for one Cardinal Spooner, 
	a dean at Oxford in the time of Queen Victoria, who was famous for 
	mixing up initial consonants of adjacent words. ... 

No, Deirdre! You're joshing, right? Dr. Spooner, like many Oxford College 
Fellows of his day, held a minor appointment in the Church of England. He
was also Dean of his College (Christchurch?). What he was not was a Cardinal.
In fact, it was not until sometime after Spooner that Catholics could hold
Fellowships at Oxford, and no Cardinal has ever held office at Oxford. But
you were testing us out. "Ah", you said to yourself, "I'll get that bugger
RABworm, just see if I don't." Well, it worked. Congratulations, and welcome
to the Net. Now say Three Our fathers and Three Hail Maries, and your sins
will be forgiven.

							RABworm
From: lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Why Rewriting isn't bad
Date: 22 Jan 93 19:50:40 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Society for the Appreciation of Janni Lee Simner

Somebody writes:
> 
> I don't write poetry.  If I did, though, I could imagine there being
> times when I wanted to express a thought exactly as it had come to me,
> in the hopes of simply mirroring the thought, and not relating it to
> someone else.

FWIW, I rewrite my poetry a lot heavier than I do my fiction.  

> In almost every other genre of writing, however, a general rule of thumb
> for someone whose purpose is to -relate- the thought would be to
> consider, above all, the audience.  This is most effectively done after
> the thought is written.  Hence, the value of editing.

Bingo.

	Larry "I never get it right the first time" Hammer
--

LNH@physics.arizona.edu   \  For love all love of other sights controls,
GEnie: L.HAMMER2           \ And makes one little room an everywhere -- Donne
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey)
Subject: Re: *** Why is rewriting bad ?/It ain't
Followup-To: misc.writing
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 02:54:52 GMT

I know a very successful, intelligent, popular author who rewrites
everything until it is right.  This is what he does:

1.  Draft with scraps of paper, clippings, pictures, sketches, etc.,
in a notebook which becomes a living, ongoing major resource.

2.  Draft story with computer word-processing program.

3.  Copy and rewrite first draft with typewriter.

4.  Copy and rewrite typewritten draft with word-processor.

5.  Repeat 3 and 4 until satisfied.

His contention is that typing at the computer is great for fast work
and that the more painstaking labor of typing on a Selectric focuses
the writer's attention sharply on each word.  And, when writing, it is
well to remember that each word counts in the building of the story,
no matter how long or short it is.  Spelling and grammatical errors
tend to be corrected in the computer passes; word-choice, character,
descriptions, and plot work in the typewritten.  This seems like a
fine way to work, and the quality of his writing is a testimonial to
the effectiveness of rewriting and improving one's prose until it is
not merely satisfactory, but the best one is capable of producing.

For technical (descriptive) and letter-writing, which are far more
focused and task-driven than fiction writing, it is probably easier to
get it right in the first draft.  Still, the quality of much of the
writing in handbooks and on business correspondence is so bad that
clearly there are very few who can get it right on the first, or even
the second, pass.


Elizabeth Willey

[And for my own practice, I write and rewrite until I come as close to
BEST as I can.  I'd hate to put my name on something I wasn't proud of
having written.]
From: aa794@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Pete Nofel)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Mysteries SIG now open
Date: 25 Jan 1993 12:35:55 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: aa794@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Pete Nofel)
NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.ins.cwru.edu


   For those of you who are able to port into different bulletin board
systems (or if you are able to dail in), I, and my assistant sysops, have
started a SIG for those interested in the mystery genre.
   The SIG offers print and visual media reviews by users, discussion of
different types of mysteries (hardboiled, tea cozy, puzzle, locked room),
news about forthcoming books and films, advice on how to get your writing
into print, and a critique area so authors can post works for what we hope
is constructive criticism.
   We're located on the Cleveland Freenet system. From the main menu, type
"go arts" (w/o the quotes), then select #12.
   For dial-ins, the number is 216/368-3888. Enter as a visitor and follow
the directions in the previous 'graph.

-- 
Pete Nofel, aa794, primary sysop
It's a Mystery - The Mystery Literature Group
Cleveland Freenet, Cleveland Ohio
From: schwarz-marc@cs.yale.edu (Marc Schwarz)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Info Sought on Bulwer-Lyton Fiction Contest
Date: 28 Jan 1993 17:14:54 -0500
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: koala.zoo.cs.yale.edu

Does anyone know if Scott Rice at the San Jose State English
Department still holds this event?

This is the contest where entrants compose and submit
the worst opening line to a novel.  The contest is named
after Bulwer-Lyton, author of The Last Days of Pompeii,
and perhaps most known for the vile opening "It was a
dark and stormy night..."

Marc.
-=-
schwarz@cs.yale.edu
AKA schwarz@spunky.cs.nyu.edu
From: mspencer@apple.com (Mark Spencer)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Mac
Date: 28 Jan 93 21:06:52 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.

In article <1993Jan26.102808.1700@reed.edu> Elizabeth Hudon,
ehudon@reed.edu writes:
>The reason I posted this rather than emailing it was because I assumed
>there might be others interested.

Yes, there are others that are interested. Please post!
From: JTCHEW@lbl.gov (Ad absurdum per aspera)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Here's $10 and 2 weeks, do me some good tech writin'
Followup-To: misc.writing
Date: 22 Jan 1993 01:18:14 GMT
Organization: Honest Ernie's Used Ions
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.252.153

> We have a saying in our technical writing group: We're the people the
> engineers call in when they've only got $10 and two weeks left in the
> project.{All-too-common horror story deleted; you know it by heart anyway}

>    Now I've seen other tech writers on here talking about being valued
> members of the team, involved from day one; they've been put on patent
> applications; they've been given milk and honey; they've been succored in
> their hours of need. I find these claims hard to swallow.
>   Are we the only ones facing this kind of treatment?

The claims are justified.  I've been in exactly the happy situation you 
describe, and I've often seen and occasionally experienced the horror
show.  I'm not really sure about the exact, helpful details that you're
looking for on how to improve your lot.  But I can offer you a bromide:
"Cultivate good relationships!"  

Go shoot the breeze with principal investigators or lead engineers or 
whatever you call 'em at NASA.  Take advantage of formal meetings and 
opportunities for sales pitches, but also just to visit -- get your 
coffee in a technical area instead of in the tech-comm department; let
them get used to your face, then your name, then your profession.  Talk
up your capabilities and your potential for "value-added" contributions
(*not* your gripes) to management.  If you're not invited to team meetings,
have the person whom you'll assign crash them, both to learn and just to
be there.  The entire goal here is acceptance as one of the guys/gals 
rather than as the nameless, faceless clerical serf down in the basement.

THEN, with a relationship -- a human and professional connection -- as a
foundation, you can start talking business:  selling the importance of 
clear communication (and the time and money to accomplish it!) and the
idea of service departments as partners in mutual success.

Plainly, this is easier for those of us who actually work full-time in
the client organizations than for people whose job it is to sit in the
editorial bullpen and take on all comers.  But it is possible.

Obligatory Plug: If you go to the IEEE Professional Communication 
Conference (Oct. 5-8, Philadelphia, PA) or the STC Annual Conference
(in May in Dallas, I think -- look for Binion Amerson's posting),
you'll find plenty of opportunities to buy a beer for colleagues who
have faced and maybe, partially, licked problems like yours.

Courage, sir: in the computer industry it's more like "Here's a laptop --
there's a swivel chair -- can you whip up a user guide while we push you 
and the master disks down the hall to Manufacturing?"   :)

Joe
"Just another personal opinion from the People's Republic of Berkeley"
Newsgroups: misc.writing,misc.kids,rec.arts.books
From: mapd1@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Nigel Ling)
Subject: Re: Question - what's the word for ...
Organization: University of Sussex
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 16:21:07 GMT

In article <1993Jan22.193800.2944@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> daj8m@poe.acc.Virginia.EDU (Deirdre A. Johnson) writes:
>
>1. (During a sermon) "What one of us has not harboured in his heart
>    a half-warmed fish...?"
>
>2. (When Queen Victoria came to visit) "Let's all stand up and give
>    three cheers for the queer old dean!"
>
>3. (Dressing down an un-studious student)  "Sir!  You have tasted two
>    entire worms!  You have hissed all my mystery lectures and attempted
>    to fight a liar in the quad!  You must leave Oxford by the next
>    town drain!"
>
>And those are all the spoonerisms I can think of offhand.  Hope you
>like them!

Thanks for those Deirdre

Here's a matrimonial one I quite like

   Those whom God hath joyfully loined together

Nigel
From: mgcbo@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Charles B. Owen)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: on self-editing and an intro. to fiction writing class
Date: 27 Jan 93 21:25:43 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Educational Computing Network
NNTP-Posting-Host: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu

In article <1993Jan27.193617.13732@eos.arc.nasa.gov> kyrsten@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Kyrsten Swazey) writes:
>When i am critiquing an individual's story, i look for craft ("does this
>story unfold in a typical manner and, if not, are the deviations
>enhancing?" and the ilk).  However, i am also very conscious of word-
>choice, grammar, spelling and all those nasty details.  Our instructor
>has repeatedly stated that any editor (?) can clean these up
>effortlessly.  Most people use word processors and have spell, if not
>also grammar, checks.  

Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!!  Any editor that sees spelling errors will toss
the manuscript.  Grammar is just as bad.  If you are seeing manuscripts
with spelling errors, you should be screaming.  Since most people do use
word processors there is no excuse for this whatsoever.

As far as grammar checkers are concerned, they have limited utility at
best.  They are good at cutting passive voice from your document (or
telling you you wrote that way) and they can find repeated words and
some tense errors, but the language is just too complex for them.

Where word choice is concerned, what is the writers job each time a new
word must be typed?  Imagine:  Refer to me as Ishmael.

>Does this reliance upon a computer or someone else hinder ones actual
>talent as a writer?  I believe it does--what else is a writer but
>someone who can express themself in the most immediate and touching way?
>Are they not supposed to be the best at what they claim to do?
>Am i looking at this in the wrong way?

I think the computer is the best thing that ever happened to writing.  A
writer can now spend more time on his craft and less time doing mundane
physical chores such as retyping manuscripts.  And, spell checking works
very well.  However, it does not change the writing process since the
writer must still choose the words.

Just suggestions!
-- 
| Charles B. Owen                            Internet: mgcbo@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu |
| Western Illinois University                            Phone: 309-837-4292 |
| 1002 E. Murray                                                             |
| Macomb, IL  61455                                                          |
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: saslpo@stevens.unx.sas.com (Len Olszewski)
Subject: Re: *** Why is rewriting bad ?
Originator: saslpo@stevens.unx.sas.com
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 14:25:22 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <1993Jan21.203546.45088@datamark.co.nz>, thomas@datamark.co.nz (Thomas Beagle) writes:
|> In article <77124@apple.apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Crow's Friend Timmy) writes:
|> >
|> >I know, I know. Injecting facts into a USENET argument is worth two demerits.
|>
|> Yes, but you're just as bad as a Nazi. :-)
|>
|> Now this thread has officially reached rock-bottom, perhaps we could
|> move on?

Heh, heh...ok by me.

|> ObWriting : When writing a manual, do you index as you go (and risk
|> all sorts of incompatibilities) or do you index after the bulk of the
|> manual is written?

After its finished. The way we lay it out here, setting the final page 
breaks is an important pre-index requirement. Also, you never know 
what's going to be in or out in some books, really, until the last
minute. You've already mentioned consistency as good reason to wait.
Also, the editors get the book last, and they can introduce all kinds of 
changes.

|>
|> --
|>     Thomas Beagle | thomas@datamark.co.nz           Work: 64 4 233 8186
|>  Technical Writer | thomas@cavebbs.welly.gen.nz     Home: 64 4 499 3832
|>    Wellington, NZ | Yes, I do have long ears, a black nose, and a tail.
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                              |
                                     No, you don't mean it, do you? 8-)
<-------------------------------^------------------------------------->
|Len Olszewski, Technical Writer |"The things you see when don't have |
|saslpo@unx.sas.com|Cary, NC, USA| your gun." - My buddy, Jim McD.    |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Opinions this ludicrous are mine. Reasonable opinions will cost you.|
<-------------------------------v------------------------------------->

Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: ehudon@reed.edu (Elizabeth Hudon)
Subject: Erotica
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 06:11:40 GMT

There's been a tiny flurry of discussion about what constitutes erotica,
essentially all of which has carried an undertone of disdain. I'm not
here to argue about the literary merits of the genre. I do want, however,
to say things.

First, I think the best erotica/pornography (yes, I think the two are
interchangeable) is seamless in that you don't notice a break between
the 'sex part' and the 'literary part'.  Anais Nin would be my recommen-
dation for those wanting proof of this, particularly her diaries.

Second, I think Madonna's book was hardly shocking. Go read
alt.sex.bestiality for proof of this.  

Elizabeth Hudon (ehudon@reed.edu)