ciwchris

I've often seen FreeTaxUSA (TaxHawk) as the recommended service for filing taxes, to avoid the shadier practices of other tax services.

I was recently notified that FreeTaxUSA's default position will be binding arbitration, which seems to be the direction a lot of companies are taking, for legitimate reasons, but at the cost of reducing consumer rights.

I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on the topic, on FreeTaxUSA's position specifically, and any recommendations for other tax filing strategies.

I had the same experience and feeling.

I've also experienced this elsewhere. TIAA was essentially sending me marketing emails I couldn't unsubscribe from. My financial manager with sympathetic and communicated my frustration to the business, but I don't believe it lead to any changes. As a result I have marked my emails from TIAA as spam, which now means email is not a reliable source of information from them, and so I unsubscribed from all email communication and instead receive paper mail. Sad.

I can name others using this pattern. Very frustrating. It's a lot of work to sever these relationships. I guess they know this and so think they can get away with it.

I recently came across the idea of Universal Basic Capital (UBC): "granting every person a meaningful ownership stake in productive assets from birth." UBC would be enormously difficult to implement, as well as have its own weaknesses. It doesn't seem realistic, but introduces a new idea into the conversation.

https://www.digitalistpapers.com/vol2/autorthompson#:~:text=...

Using the Gemini CLI the first thing I tried to do was "Create GEMINI.md files to customize your interactions with Gemini." The command ran for about a minute before receiving a too many requests error.

> You exceeded your current quota, please check your plan and billing details. For more information on this error, head to: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/rate-limits.

Discouraging

"Inspired by recent cellular neurobiological evidence linking neocortical pyramidal cells to distinct mental states, this work shows how models (e.g., transformers) can emulate high-level perceptual processing and awake thought (imagination) states to pre-select relevant information before applying attention."

"This model works by pre-selecting relevant information and identifying the most salient parts of it before applying its full attention to it."

There's a link for Linux at the bottom of the download page, which directs to the releases in GitHub

This question came up on Soft Skills Engineering[1]. To cut through the noise it's more important to have a blog or a project you contribute to which you can point to. And then yes, whiteboard type of questions which unfortunately are not reflective of day to day work.

[1]: https://softskills.audio/2025/02/03/episode-446-wading-throu...

I can't help but wonder whether the problem is subjective, to each person and what they need to accomplish at the time. What is cognitive load and indirection to one at one time is a simple abstraction to another at another time.

And so I wonder if a solution to this is for editors to be able to represent the code differently, depending on what the person's needs are at the time.

One of my favorite pieces I've read. I keep revisiting it throughout the years. I feel it deserves to be shared again. It is perhaps even more moving and relevant today.

I also looked into this topic for several years due to my insomnia issues. Ultimately it took forming a new relationship with sleep for me. To let go. Easier said than done. An online CBT-I class helped me make this shift. I later read the book Hello Sleep [1]. It shared information similar to what I learned on my journey. I recommend the book.

1: https://drjadewu.com/

I was a paying user to both Standard Notes and Proton. I, however, moved away from Standard Notes and my subscription renewed without notice. I contacted them and they reversed the transaction without hassle. I continue to pay for Proton. Depending on how the products are incorporated I can see myself moving back to Standard Notes.

Good to know. I'd like to learn about the process you had set up and the number of moving pieces it required. Have you written about this process? Can I read about it somewhere?

When we focus on our differences does that lead us to feeling lonely? Is that a reason for the trend in depression? If so does it mean we need a more balanced view, one that also reveals to us what we have in common with others?

I struggled with the same. I tried all sorts of practices, "sleep hygiene", supplements and devices. What I eventually learned is that frequently what's need is changing your relationship with sleep. I couldn't find a CBT-I[1] psychologist in my area. So I ended up taking the sleepio.com[2] coaching class as a trial candidate. It walked me through the steps of CBT-I and got my sleep back on track. The recent book Hello Sleep[3] by Dr Jade Wu also does a good job re-framing your perspective on sleep and walking your through CBT-I. You do need to commit to the CBT-I process. It could take several months to complete and one of the initial sleeps often leads to sleep deprivation, so it may feel worse before getting better. But after following the process my sleep improved dramatically. I still keep in mind what I learned when I have the occasional bad night of sleep.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy_f... 2: https://onboarding.sleepio.com/sleepio/onboarding-sleep-test... 3: https://drjadewu.com/

I've never successfully established a journaling habit. I'm giving it another try with your app. Maybe if I don't have the motivation to write I'll at least take a photo to keep the habit going. I really like the discreet mood. Having the Gap Fund is impressive. Well done. Good luck!

The personality archetype practice is intriguing. That will be fun to experiment with. Thanks for sharing.

That sounds similar to the idea of 1 Second Everyday, https://1se.co/

I found the same thing when I went to renew my US passport on state.gov

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