I think they both have their place, for the many reasons people have mentioned. But my neurodivertent self HATES whole conversations over text. I do not know what tone to read anything in. If there’s no punctuation it’s a thousand times worse. Texting is for quick stuff that’s not time sensitive. Phone calls are for anything longer than three sentences or anything time or emotionally sensitive. Drives me nuts because the majority of my friends prefer texting for everything.

I’ve used free tax USA for years. I don’t pay for filing my fed, just my state. But my taxes tend to be pretty simple, so I guess ymmv

My dad was in the Navy (submariner) in the 80s and he loves that movie. He told me they didn’t do the thing with the string like they do in the movie … Instead they strung it up when they were at depth and took bets on when it would break on the way back up.

You couldn’t pay me enough to be that far underwater.

I mean, anecdotally, I do know someone that bought a new build in mid 2008 for about 60k-ish less than what everyone else in the neighborhood bought for (earlier or later). The company building out the subdivision was pretty desperate and he had a solid stable job as a trucker. He managed to get all kinds of perks and stuff too.

I don’t think that’s a terrible idea for politicians. Let’s see who bought them.

I just got started here after days of no reddit as more mainstream media picked up the protests and mentioned the Fediverse. Honestly, I love it for the reasons you outlined. Can’t imagine going back. There’s still some communities I don’t have here, but I imagine they will form up eventually, and if they don’t there’s nothing I’d really miss, or if I did I’d create it myself.

I had eyeballed joining Mastodon when he-who-sucks took over twitter but wasn’t real comfortable with figuring out something new at the time (for personal reasons). Glad I’ve gotten the kick in the butt to join the Fediverse! It’s fun here!!