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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 22nd, 2023

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  • I used Studio Tax for a few years and found it to be adequate. Last year I tried GenuTax and instead and I didn’t like it as much. Instead of presenting you with the forms and you fulling them (which StudioTax does) GenuTax asks you a million yes/no questions one at a time. If you select “yes”, then it shows you appropriate, corresponding form to fill out.

    I guess the good thing about this method is you are presented all the possibilities, the bad thing is you have to yes/no everything, including a million things that probably don’t apply to you.

    Also, its not always immediately clear what form a yes/no will lead to, meaning if you select something wrong, you have to back track to correct it. (The questionnaire is linear, you can’t just jump back and forth.) if you have a very basic return, that’s probably fine. But I had some small self-employed income and international tuition, and going back and forth trying to yes/no my way to the correct forms frustrated me enough to switch back to StudioTax and start again.


  • You know what did it for me? Actually being in a relationship, once upon a time. It was short, it was bad, the rose-coloured glasses came off. Socierty and media portray being in a relationship as a happy conclusion, but more more often than not, it isn’t. How many people have dated more than one boy/girlfriend before they married, and then how many of those marriages end in divorce? How many not-divorced marriages are miserable and unhappy? A lot. Being single is way, way better than being with the wrong person, and there are a lot of wrong people out there.

    Now, wrong person doesn’t mean bad person, it can just mean incompatible because you want different things, have different values, etc. (Of course, there are actually bad people, too.)

    I prefer to live my life embracing the freedoms of singleness. I can come and go whenever I want without having to account to anyone. I only have to consider me when making job and career choices. Finances and obligations are freer. I took a year off work and went away to work on my own self-development; I couldn’t have done that if I had a partner, and certainly not if I had kids. Maybe you would prefer to exchange the freedoms for a partner, and I acknowledge that. But I am saying appreciate and make the best of the situation you’re in now instead of spending the energy wishing for it to be different.

    I’m also absolutely not against relationships or marriage in any way. I’m just being realistic about the fact it’s not all rainbows and roses, and there are rainbows and roses to singleness, to.


  • I know this seems like an unserious response, but it is, and it’s one of the main points of the Barbie movie: you need to learn, perhaps accept, to be enough for yourself.

    Ken was looking for validation from Barbie, but when she didn’t, he became angry and all. But the message at the end is right: people should not look to other people for validation. Why? Because you are enough. You don’t need someone else to tell you that. You can tell yourself that. All people are flawed in some way, so what’s it matter what someone else thinks? They’re no better than your to judge you.

    And the truth is, the other way is off-putting. I don’t want to be with a person who isn’t enough for themself. If they’re not enough for themself, how can they be good enough for me? I don’t want someone who wants or needs me to be responsible for their emotional management. I want a whole person who is secure in themselves.

    One of the problems in society, I think, is the idea that people need to pair up. Women, as a whole, have learned much more quickly than men that romantic relationships may be nice, but they are not essential. We (and maybe our cats) are enough for ourselves. I don’t know how to get men on that same page, too.



  • You might possibly be interested in checking out the YouTube channel MyDeepGuide. Guy does in-depth reviews ofbmostly e-ink writing tablets, which perhaps is more functionality than you’re looking for, but some of those manufacturers also do standalone “just” readers. Or maybe you’ll be convinced to get a writing tablet :p



  • A little over a year ago, a guy tried to ask me out and I’m the process said a few dumb things in an attempt to impress me. The dumbest of them all was that he was planning to buy a Cybertruck as his next vehicle. By the time he’d said this, I’d already long made up my mind about this guy. Mind, this was the period of time when Elon was just an asshole and hadn’t gone full Nazi yet, but even then, this dude’s choice of vehicle told me I’d made the right choice.

    Theseadays I wonder if that guy ever got his idiot truck, and, whether he did or not, if he’s changed his mind about it.


  • I don’t believe nothing will change. I do believe Musk will capture communications and use it to monitor people he believes are his biggest enemies, then use it to best-case blackmail them, worst-case have them arrested in trumped-up (no pun intended) charges.

    Random unknown people are being kidnapped, tortured, and sold internationally as slaves by the government. These are the cases we know about because they are getting to the media. How many are not getting through the Right-supporting media? Do we really think actual opponents aren’t just waiting targets?




  • In general, I prefer using cash because of less information being generated, but I agree that we shouldn’t pretend that CCs don’t also have advantages (if you’re not one to rack up debt). Smaller purchases where carrying cash is reasonable? Absolutely. Larger purchases where you need some insurance? CC.

    The other day I made a purchase at a store and noticed I was charged for something I didn’t buy (not that something was charged twice, it was an entirely foreign item that wasn’t even physically there). The transaction had to be voided and then re-done. The cashier and the manager (who was needed to void the tx) both said it was good I had paid by credit instead of debit because it’s a lot harder even for them to return money via debit. I have no idea why, and neither did they.

    Some years ago, Air Canada’s system said I didn’t pay for my flight when I tried to check in. But I was already on the manifest and had already been assigned a seat. How could I possibly have an assigned seat if I hadn’t paid? The desk agent was sympathetic but could not overrule the system, so I had to pay again for the seat that was already assigned to me. Air Canada could not refund the original payment because I supposedly had never paid it in the first place. I had to use a chargeback to get my money back. If not for CC chargeback, I would have lost that money entirely.



  • There are very many normal human sounds that are not speech, including, but not limited to: laughter, crying, yelling/screaming/yelping (in surprise, pain, fear), groaning, moaning, yawning, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, singing, whistling.

    What constitutes human speech? There are languages that have sounds that don’t exist in other languages (said as someone still trying to get a hold on rolling my Rs).

    In any case, we should all learn some sign language. Seriously, it’s useful to be able to communicate silently or just visually (e.g. Across a noisy room), plus it makes life way more inclusive for Deaf people.


  • DEI can still be achieved without using that terminology directly.

    I agree that not longer having a policy or metrics around diversity doesn’t mean that the people in a company won’t still value it. I’m a part-time student and the school’s director recently did an AMA. He said an upcoming event was renamed to avoid the threats that are being directed at “DEI”, but the event itself is still about cultural diversity. I forget what the new name was, something about the stories of our people or something like that.


  • I understand your point generally, and would agree with you under most circumstances. However, you’re talking about the guy who came out swinging from Tariff Town before he was even inaugurated, which has already made for negative economic movement. Under his watch (if you would even be so generous to say he’s “watching” at all), there’s already been all kinds of administrative chaos for the USA by wanton firings and other cuts and more EOs than you’ve ever seen in your lifetime.

    So, yes, absolutely the country can blame Trump, at the very least for putting all his attention to causing chaos and not on the things he campaigned on. (Not that I ever believed he had any intention to ever pay attention to them.)


  • To be slightly more specific, we accumulate PFAS, carcinogenic “forever” chemicals, in our blood, and our bodies have no way to process or rid ourselves of it. Emerging research suggests that blood donations reduce the amount of PFAS in our blood because, well, we’re basically bloodletting it out.

    PFAS is in both everyday things from Teflon cookware to fire storeroom foam and its worked is way everywhere in the environment due to human activity, of course. Everyone has PFAS in their blood, even newborn infants.

    Search “PFAS blood” or “PFAS newborn” to be disappointed in life 🙁