thetruthseeker1's comments

thetruthseeker1 | 6 years ago | on: TurboTax to charge more lower-income customers

If you disagree with this view that is not a reason to down vote. If you think the point I am making is irrelevant or insulting or a bunch of other reasons which are not addressing the topic at hand, then that is a reason to down vote. I will continue to argue that it's ok that a tax firm like Intuit can operate with profit being it's main motive

thetruthseeker1 | 6 years ago | on: TurboTax to charge more lower-income customers

Enterprises like these are free to make whatever decisions they want and I don't think it's fair to evaluate them with morals that seem to imply they are evil. What I mean is : this enterprise is not a monopoly, and there is competition, and it is free to fail ( unlike some banks lets say). If some other tax website provides better value, people are free to move to that.

thetruthseeker1 | 6 years ago | on: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

That is great. However did you guys have a debate about US poverty after every Apollo mission? What about after you buy every F35? The cost of this Indian mission is about the cost of 1 F35. BTW, many decades back Indians also deliberated, and only then established ISRO.

Also, frankly, that's a question for Indians to debate and not a big fan of NY times casually questioning the judgement of that spending without giving it an elaborate treatment. I have seen this multiple times. India launched Mars craft, but there is poverty. India launches 100+ satellites in one mission, but there is poverty. Its irrelevant at that instant and seems only to diminish India's aspirations.

May be some of this journalists can take a look at Indian Budget, study it deeply, and find where the government can spend more wisely. I bet they will find more wasteful spending than the investment in ISRO and that may be helpful for the public to know.

thetruthseeker1 | 6 years ago | on: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

When US was spending billions on Minuteman and Apollo missions, there were many problems in America, including poverty. Not sure? ask the African Americans in the south from that time. However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do.

If developing countries spend a miniscule of their budget ( ISRO budget less than 2%), there is cynicism. I think what India is doing is great and is great for improving India's technical abilities and India doesn't need to answer what it chooses to do with its money.

thetruthseeker1 | 6 years ago | on: Sikh drivers are transforming U.S. trucking

I think Sikhs are great, they are hard-working people. But, how are they transforming the trucking industry though? It seems to me that the ethnicity of labor force in this industry has changed like how it has happened in multiple other industries at least in the USA. Earlier in the west coast, the east Asians did construction, now it's Mexicans. It seems like that is what happened in trucking- Sikhs form the labor force now for many reasons, and that is not a new trend.

The real transformation is coming soon I think and that will be with self driving trucks.

thetruthseeker1 | 6 years ago | on: I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

I think this guy wrote a great article. However I don’t know if I agree with his conclusion of him not being a good web developer.

I would bet that most great developers have googled often enough. In their defense googling is a more efficient tool than pouring through manpages all the time that have poor search indexes.

Also, in this developer’s blog, there is no reference to the fact that his code is buggy or less maintainable, or plethora of other reasons that categorically make him a bad developer.

I think it’s ok, to use help from google or stack overflow to do a good job at your task and that doesn’t make you a bad programmer.

thetruthseeker1 | 7 years ago | on: Public protest against Amazon

While Amazon’s work culture doesn’t surprise me(similar experiences from multiple sources), while I feel sympathetic to the author’s struggles, I do feel the author went a bit too far with his invectives against his previous manager. The reason I say that is, we don’t know the manager’s side of the story and may be it wasn’t exactly like how this guy characterizes it.

While people working on visas don’t have as much freedom as people who don’t need sponsorship, I don’t think this problem is present in every company that has lot of immigrants. Part of the problem is Amazon’s culture and I think this problem is trickled top down.

It seems like people at the top management of amazon work hard and there is probably better than linear returns for their extra efforts. But it seems like they push that even on the lower rungs where it seems like it is not justified.

thetruthseeker1 | 7 years ago | on: What It's Like to Be a Black Mathematician

I think subtle racism is a big problem. It can be felt without being verbally communicated to you, the actions from the perpetrators are frustrating and you feel helpless. The perpetrators would not be corrected because they said nothing wrong. Worst of all is that you don’t get a fair shake, and you might be dismissed at the slightest hint of incoherence and sometimes you feel like the perpetrators are waiting for you to fail.

thetruthseeker1 | 7 years ago | on: Letter from Tim Cook to Apple Investors

I think the additional value the newer iphone provides i.e face id and better screens doesn’t warrant the increased price tag. Ideally the price should also be falling like it did for PCs in the 90s.

thetruthseeker1 | 7 years ago | on: California to become first U.S. state mandating solar on new homes

My view is also that it would be better policy if the california government taxed all homes and generated a certain amount of revenue which they could use to generate certain percentage GW of solar power( A goal they should set for themselves). That way it is fair to all, the problem is also solved at scale which is important as opposed to mandating new home owners only which I am not sure is that efficient

thetruthseeker1 | 7 years ago | on: Subscription Hell

I think the problem is the pricing model. If I watch one Netflix movie a month, it’s not really worth 11$ to me. These subscriptions should have tiers starting from few cents - but it may be less a Netflix problem and more a problem of labels and production companies who may not be willing to see it that way and force higher Subscriptions implicitly.

thetruthseeker1 | 7 years ago | on: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

Fines are usually multiple times more than the value they cheated which seems to be the case here( ~100M$ ) - so it is fair in some sense. Just because they are still profitable doesn’t mean the fine was unfair. There might be other divisions were people worked honestly, let’s not paint everybody with a broad brush or sound despondent.
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