122 karma · joined July 23, 2025
I should have turned to RoR 3 years ago.
But now, I'm seriously considering something better than that.
I have spent more than two and a half years filing forms and preparing paperwork for the U.S. government. I handled everything myself, without any “special” help or legal advice. I simply downloaded the forms from USCIS, filled them out using the required information, and submitted them.
What I can tell you is this: there is a massive market in the United States built on gray-area schemes, semi-legal shortcuts, and so-called expert advice. For example, there are companies charging $30,000 to submit a form that costs only $745 to file. Many “helpers” sell visa “upgrades.” The idea is that you arrive on a tourist visa and then follow a specific sequence of steps to convert it into a green card - something packaged and sold as a premium service for an extraordinary price.
This is a very large and lucrative slice of the pie that most people know little about. Both the U.S. visa process and tax filing system are riddled with gray practices and questionable “solutions.” Too often, the end result is that people are told to outright lie about their visa status or their taxes because they were instructed to do so.
From what I have observed, I would not call these practices outright foolish. Overblown at times? Yes, perhaps. But unnecessary? Not really.
Again, there is no reason we use 10-base, but the amount of fingers, which is a completely arbitrary number. We could as easily create a base-π numbering system where π equals 10 in this case.
The idea of dividing time runs into Plank's constant. Time itself can be captured only on the basis of observing some sort of motion. Thus, when you divide the time to the minimum quant of time, which is to say, the time that takes light to pass the Plank's constant length, you have it. There isn't any more "divisibility" of time.
And again, we are here just because we have math. There is a minimum quant of time, yet math allows us to continue dividing it beyond that constant.
Thus far, pretty much the only "Unknown" we have is a singularity, but give it some time, I'm sure when we inspect it much more, we'll figure it out.
The text was not in fact written by GPT. Yet, I've used GPT to check grammar and other errors.
I can't tell 100% that the text was machine-generated. I won't be too amazed to find out that it was.
But there is no technology explaining how this thing works.
Triggered on a safari on mac.
People who are "Fixing the inflation and lowering prices" are not doing the right thing. It's like as if I would have been electrocuted and they would be feeding me some amazing medication to help me to heal while I was still connected to that cable!
We are saying that with time prices go higher. And that's expected. Not exactly super-cool, but we don't want there to be no inflation at all. It should be moderate, 1-2% is an awesome amount. But it's quite beyond a lot of people’s speaking.
The problem is that not a single person has told Joe Smith from the 5th Ave that he should be demanding a 7% raise this year. Why? Well, his boss has just produced 7% more due to inflation. Joe was working hard and he should have deserved something.
Instead of teaching Joe to be responsible for his income by asking raises we don't talk to Joe about it. He is not proactive in his business so he could ask for said raises. We explain poor Joe that he is totally at the disposal of some "Banks" or "Corporations" and stuff like that. We tell Joe that the only thing he could potentially do about the entire situation is to go to Walmart and clip a coupon, because they do have discounts.
A simple example: Let's look at the lumber prices [1] in around 1975. Not a best year to buy lumber. It was $150.
Now, let's plug this value into an inflation calculator. [2] $150 in 1975 is $900 today.
Let's look at the price of lumber in 2025 [1]. Currently the price of lumber is around $600.
That's good. It looks like the lumber has become cheaper. One would expect with 500% inflation since 1975 the lumber to cost $900, but it's only $600. So our Joe Smith is happy!
Yet he is not. He is not that concerned about the lumber. Yet in 2025 he looks at the price of an iPhone or a new computer or a car. Or a house. And he knows that he can't afford said house.
The issue is that in the past 30 years, Joe Smith has been content to get a 5-10% bonus at the end of the year and thought that that was a good deal. Those 7% raises looked like a stupid thing to do, and he was always content with just being able to get his one-time payout.
Let's be honest, at this day and age, the poverty guideline of $15k per year seems ridiculous. $120k per year per person should have been a new norm, providing $20k will go to taxes and at least $20k more to cover living expenses. Out of the remaining $80k, you'll get $20k more for food and car and $60k at your disposal. $60k will give you plenty of leeway for handling your medical, savings, and some nifty things one would like to have from time to time.
Instead of instilling this new norm and demanding money to be paid, we are quite content with $60k per year and the necessity to clip every coupon to make the ends meet.
This is definitely not easy, but the US is a country where $120k per year is not something unbelievable. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of the people reading this post already surpassed $120k per year. The issue is that your Uber driver or a guy working in a shop is getting $40k.
And the biggest issue is that we have a society where the guy with a $40k salary does not have an idea that he should be getting at least 80k, but has the idea that he should be running after sales and clipping coupons.
[1]https://www.macrotrends.net/2637/lumber-prices-historical-ch... [2]https://www.usinflationcalculator.com
The last hurricane I survived, I had to spend time in my office building. It is made of concrete and real brick and mortar. There is no need whatsoever to “hurricane-proof it", save for the special shatterproof windows. Big, 4 by 6 shatterproof windows.
The shoebox I live in currently features the same shatterproof windows. 2x1 feet, small windows. I had to re-install all the light fixtures in the rented house because despite featuring white walls, it’s darker than a necromancer’s cave.
The former was built in the 70s. The latter - in 2023. The latter does boast an impressive array of anti-hurricane features. For example, it is bolted down to the foundation so it can't be torn by a wind gust. And the frame was re-inforced so it won't lean under the wind.
Shall I mention the fact that none of those features are necessary for a brick building?
To top it off, the AC has leaked in 2024, so I had to deal with that already. It was less than 1 year old at that moment.
Recently I've visited a rental property to find shallow, not sound-proofed walls, askew doors made of something that looks like paper and not a single straight corner. And this is a 2023 build! It's brand new. And still looks awful.
I have an article about that. https://medium.com/@ifcllc/qualification-f33ec8fcb736 but man, it's getting worse and worse.
Just to have a 2-room apartment that I used to live in 30 years ago would cost over 1.5 mil today. Adjusted for that inflation of quality.