gbear605 (u/gbear605)

gbear605 commented on Mail Carriers Pause US Deliveries as Tariff Shift Sows Confusion bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/voxadam

susiecambria · 5 days ago

> Washington’s long-standing de minimis policy had allowed parcels packed with cheap items to flow into the US from around the world with little interruption or oversight, fueled by consumer demand for bargains and immediacy. Trump’s White House claims it’s a loophole used to evade tariffs and funnel illegal drugs.

> Now, postal services, online sellers, consumers and shipping companies are attempting to sort through the costly and complicated process to comply with US rules with little guidance from federal agencies.

I wonder what consideration individuals are giving this. . . The article says very little about consumer behavior save for the above two grafs. I very rarely buy directly from abroad and that is by design, with nothing to do re: de minimis. What bargains are people buying?! Especially in this economy.

gbear605 · 5 days ago

For a book series that I’m a fan of, the biggest merch seller (eg. embroidered hoodies, shirts) is based in Canada and ships directly. With these changes, she’s just having to shut the store down entirely because she’d have to have prices triple or quadruple.

gbear605 commented on Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale derwiki.medium.com/do-thi... · Posted by u/derwiki

easton · 12 days ago

> It would grab the photo, grab the caption, and send it through a direct mail API to my mom.

Anyone know what API they are talking about? If I could quickly email a photo somewhere and have it appear as a 4x6 in my mailbox in a few days i would have a much cooler fridge.

gbear605 · 11 days ago

If you search “physical mail API”, I see several options. The first one that I saw charged $1 per letter.

gbear605 commented on Wind Knitting Factory merelkarhof.nl/work/wind-... · Posted by u/bschne

charcircuit · 2 months ago

By that logic any instructions is programming and everyone on earth are programmers.

gbear605 · 2 months ago

I’m not sure that I’d say that it’s programming, but it is a pretty neat DSL

gbear605 commented on SourceHut moves business operations from US to Europe lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sr.... · Posted by u/DyslexicAtheist

the-anarchist · 2 months ago

From the limited information that appears to be available I would assume that the reasons to move operations from the US to NL were largely personal. Reading through the other comments in this thread and some of the content on the founder's own website gives some clues.

My theory is that they are eyeing to get rid of their US citizenship and naturalize in the Netherlands, which is possible after 5 years when certain criteria is met. Having economic ties to the country you're trying to get citizenship in helps immensely. The logical next step for them would be to open a physical location and employ Dutch citizens to further solidify their case.

You have to remember: As long as the founder is still citizen of the United States, they will inevitably support the country and its policy with the taxes on their world income. After all, the US is one of only three countries in the world that taxes based on citizenship rather than residency.

Having that said, there have been various attempts across Europe to change from residency-based taxation to citizenship-based taxation in the past decades. All of which have been unsuccessful so far.

gbear605 · 2 months ago

> After all, the US is one of only three countries in the world that taxes based on citizenship rather than residency.

This is true, but only on taxable income over $130,000. Drew is probably not making over that from Sourcehut, so he’s not going to be paying any taxes to the US anyway.

gbear605 commented on Open source can't coordinate? matklad.github.io/2025/05... · Posted by u/LorenDB

mystraline · 2 months ago

The trend of 'savant but antisocial asshole' is not just a software thing.

Gordon Ramsay - "this food is fucking raw!" /throws food

We have sitcom dramas like House glorifying the same thing.

gbear605 · 2 months ago

Notably, Ramsay is mostly doing that as an act, so it’s really just the same thing as House. If you watch his UK shows, or see some of the other stuff he’s put out, he doesn’t bother with that whole antisocial performance.

gbear605 commented on IRS Direct File on GitHub chrisgiven.com/2025/05/di... · Posted by u/nickthegreek

nulbyte · 3 months ago

It took me about that long to do both fed and state with Free File Fillable Forms. I was so surprised, I wondered why I didn't check it out sooner. I think most Americans can do this just as easily.

I know folks outside the U.S. like to riff on us for our complicated taxes and the pay-for filing lobbies, and yes, they have reason to. But, I really think the issue is that we folk in the U.S. are just too scared to try what really is a simpler method.

gbear605 · 3 months ago

I do Free File Fillable Forms, and I’m something of an amateur tax expert - friends and family come to me for advice. But yet every year there’s some weird edge case that I have to figure out by digging through the Schedule D instructions or the 1040 instructions or… Sometimes I’ll go through one of the paid systems up until the submission step where you have to pay, to make sure that my numbers line up.

The system is just really complicated if you have anything weird, and “anything weird” happens a lot.

gbear605 commented on AI's energy footprint technologyreview.com/2025... · Posted by u/pseudolus

mulmen · 3 months ago

While I agree in principle how does this work for fossil fuels? Is the idea that we should make extraction prohibitively expensive?

Scaling up battery production makes EVs more appealing on the demand side. How do you disincentivize fossil fuel production?

gbear605 · 3 months ago

Making it illegal is always an option, and one that many countries are considering

gbear605 commented on Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge yle.fi/a/74-20161606... · Posted by u/axelfontaine

phkahler · 3 months ago

And if you're Russia wanting to invade Europe, it's better to do the Gauge switching right near your own border rather than on the far side of Finland. So while this may make it harder to invade Finland, it makes it easier to invade Europe as a whole.

gbear605 · 3 months ago

The far side of Finland? That’s the Baltic Sea. Sure, there’s a little bit of Sweden, but it’s so far north that there isn’t much rail infrastructure there - certainly little enough that it could quickly be destroyed at the beginning of a war.