RE: From Plankton to Redfish to Minnow to Dolphin to Minnow to Redfish... a Fishy Tale!
My sons have both done their taxes, while I'm still waiting to see my wife's tax statement so I can do ours. I'm not expecting to owe a whole lot, but who knows. Things change from year to year with tax laws, which means one year with a similar income you're not paying, while the next you are.
If things go the way they normally do, we will be paying Oregon state taxes, while getting a federal return. The latter will probably go to help pay the last installment of property taxes.
The not so easy come, very easy to go, in our case. :)
Congratulations on being around for a couple years here, and coming in with tarazkp. Also, thank you for the way you've approached things here. As one attempting to do the same, I greatly appreciate it.
Reaching dolphin twice with a full power down in between is a pretty major feat, considering conditions the second time around have changed from those earlier days. The closest I've come to doing what you're talking about is through musing, but that was very short lived and doesn't appear to be happening from here on out.
Good luck with the coming year. I wish you all the best. :)
Thanks for the kind words, Glen! I find your efforts here to be an excellent example that people can still build something in the world of Steem through persistence and consistency.
I think we've been slowed a little in our progress by the pervasiveness of vote bots as a "stardard" for many... whereas I am not directly against them, they do serve as "limits" on the "social build" here.
But there are some good "movements" afoot here. The recent "delegation contest" held by @theycallmedan really showed how many humans are active and engaged here... and if we can swing more attention back to the human factor, and away from the automation, I think it will serve the long-term "thrival" of the community well.
As I said in my reply to Taraz, I'm here on a sort of "selfishly altruistic" mission: If I can help this place succeed in the LONG term, I am helping MYSELF succeed, in the long term.
The challenge is to get people to think beyond the attention span of a 300-character tweet, and towards where they will be — and what they will have — five or even ten years from now.
Well, excellent example or not, I'm here, @denmarkguy, and I'm in agreement that the more human interaction the better.
I find the whole idea of the bots somewhat exasperating (when I think about it for longer than two seconds), but I don't have the answer. I know we keep being told that they're a fact of life, on the one hand, but on the other, they're a detriment to the long term whatever of the platform.
Well, if we can see that coming, and it's true, then at some point, they need to be gone, or we lose the platform, right? I know there's all kinds of layers there, and in reality, vote bots are actually using the platform for what it was made to do—commerce—but I guess that's a bit like merchants paying the mob to protect them from the mob. Or maybe not, but I liked the imagery. :)
As far as the challenge and attention spans—never before in the history of the world have so many people had so much say over anything, including their own lives. It's all thanks to the internet, social media, etc. But while that's amazing and awesome to contemplate, it has a downside. That being, not everyone who offers an opinion is going to know what the heck they're talking about. Not every idea is valid in every circumstance. And frankly, because such a grand part of the noise that rises up through it all comes from youth, I am becoming more and more sure that a little more maturity is in order to guide this thing through.
I know. Maturity isn't always age related, but in good measure it is. And for those who are mature beyond their years, well, they can certainly be a stabilizing force. Maybe it's time that those of us who have been around the block several times step it up a little. Provide some value to the idea of long term, and actually discussing things as opposed to what amounts to flinging inane tweets, signifying nothing, back and forth.