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...and then imagine folks that get hit with all this and don't have that.Well, it's like I was telling GothBard -- we had a series of "unexpected income events": Higher-than-expected stock options, canceling the Maui trip, and a 3-payslip month for GothBard. It would have been really nice to put all that extra income into savings for future emergencies. Instead it's all evaporated into current emergencies, but it made it so can pay for all of this idiocy directly out-of-pocket.
Not fun, but glad it's simply do-able.
What really kills me is how much variance there is within the U.S. itself. Shiro just checked his locality, and there are dental clinics that provide free services for everything, including crowns, all government-funded. His brother has never paid for dental care. Since I'm in California, there's an underlying assumption that we CAN pay for everything, so we must.
As I get older, I become more and more a fan of Norway's, "Government services are based on a percentage of your income, not fixed costs," approach to many things.
New York Times article about Albany High School
Oh, we lived through that. Impus Major was at the high school when it all happened.
It's a remarkably good account; virtually everything there aligns with what I heard from the kids as it all played out. Considering the strong tendency towards hyperbole, it's very true to my recollections.
Minor quibble: I've never heard anyone call Albany "Smallbany"
EDIT: As a side note, the school board seems to have learned its lesson about respecting privacy in disciplinary cases. When our beloved choir teacher got ousted in 2021, we never did learn what the accusations were. Just, "She's on administrative leave," and then, "She is no longer with the district."
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New York Times article about Albany High School
Paywalled
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I shaved my head a couple days ago. I used to do it all the time, but hadn't recently, and I'd forgotten one of the big downsides: "Aw, man, bro, you shaved your head? Sick! You look exactly like [insert name of famous person who looks nothing like you aside from having the same haircut]!" Every. Single. Day.
I shaved my head a couple days ago. I used to do it all the time, but hadn't recently, and I'd forgotten one of the big downsides: "Aw, man, bro, you shaved your head? Sick! You look exactly like [insert name of famous person who looks nothing like you aside from having the same haircut]!" Every. Single. Day.
I just got a cologne set with shaving cream. I can't wait to shave my head again.
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New York Times article about Albany High SchoolPaywalled
Ah, so it is! I've been using Firefox with NoScript for so long that I find myself accidentally bypassing paywalls all too frequently.
Which really says volumes about the competence of the people who created the paywall in the first place...
I shaved my head a couple days ago. I used to do it all the time, but hadn't recently, and I'd forgotten one of the big downsides: "Aw, man, bro, you shaved your head? Sick! You look exactly like [insert name of famous person who looks nothing like you aside from having the same haircut]!" Every. Single. Day.Pretend that you don't know who the person is.
"You look like Vin Diesel!"
"Huh? Sorry, I don't watch wrestling."
Interestingly enough, most of the people I've been compared to recently have turned out to be either boxers or UFC fighters (a decent number of the guys I work with are big into watching combat sports), and since I don't follow any sports, I never have any idea who they're talking about.
...and then imagine folks that get hit with all this and don't have that.Well, it's like I was telling GothBard -- we had a series of "unexpected income events": Higher-than-expected stock options, canceling the Maui trip, and a 3-payslip month for GothBard. It would have been really nice to put all that extra income into savings for future emergencies. Instead it's all evaporated into current emergencies, but it made it so can pay for all of this idiocy directly out-of-pocket.
Not fun, but glad it's simply do-able.
What really kills me is how much variance there is within the U.S. itself. Shiro just checked his locality, and there are dental clinics that provide free services for everything, including crowns, all government-funded. His brother has never paid for dental care. Since I'm in California, there's an underlying assumption that we CAN pay for everything, so we must.
As I get older, I become more and more a fan of Norway's, "Government services are based on a percentage of your income, not fixed costs," approach to many things.
Read the other day how only about half of California residents (or less) can actually afford a house in California. Can’t remember where I saw it, but having met a lot of folks moving out of California it makes sense.
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Read the other day how only about half of California residents (or less) can actually afford a house in California. Can’t remember where I saw it, but having met a lot of folks moving out of California it makes sense.
Pretty sure that was me; I linked an article that only 16% of Californians can afford a home. Sounds about right.
New York Times article about Albany High SchoolPaywalledAh, so it is! I've been using Firefox with NoScript for so long that I find myself accidentally bypassing paywalls all too frequently.
Which really says volumes about the competence of the people who created the paywall in the first place...
Baseline Firefox doesn't let me see past the paywall...
I hope NoScript on Firefox works better than on Chrome (it gets clunky at times, though more often than not it's likely the fault of unreasonable use of cookies and scripts by websites).
Is that "NoScript Security Suite" by Giorgo Maone?
New York Times article about Albany High School
I've heard europeans wonder/make fun of the City, State when a movie lists a location. Like.. who doesn't know where that is?
This is why they need to list that. There is both an Albany New york and an orange county new york. I realize nothing of importance happens in Albany new york but still.. it exists!
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Is that "NoScript Security Suite" by Giorgo Maone?
Yep. That's the one.
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New York Times article about Albany High SchoolI've heard europeans wonder/make fun of the City, State when a movie lists a location. Like.. who doesn't know where that is?
This is why they need to list that. There is both an Albany New york and an orange county new york. I realize nothing of importance happens in Albany new york but still.. it exists!
We know of Albanys in California, New York, Georgia, and one other state, but apparently there are a couple of dozen.
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I realize nothing of importance happens in Albany New York but still...
Come on, plenty of important stuff happens in Albany, New York. For example, I would guess that doing heroin is probably important to some people. Also, there's a largely disused capitol building there, so that's a thing. And they have 13--count 'em--13 Stewart's gas stations, which is pretty amazing (I bet a couple of them didn't even get robbed last week).
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There is both an Albany New York and an Orange County New York.
When I was a little kid, I would hear people talking about Orange County, CA, and I would think to myself, "I had no idea there was a beach in Middletown..."
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We know of Albanys in California, New York, Georgia, and one other state, but apparently there are a couple of dozen.
Were there really THAT many places where people showed up, saw an empty field full of rabbits and said "look at alla bunnies! " cause otherwise I'm at a loss to explain why the name is so popular.
Edit: apparently James II was the duke of Albany so they were naming the east coast towns after him.
I still like my answer better.
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Read the other day how only about half of California residents (or less) can actually afford a house in California. Can’t remember where I saw it, but having met a lot of folks moving out of California it makes sense.Pretty sure that was me; I linked an article that only 16% of Californians can afford a home. Sounds about right.
So it was! My apologies for not remembering correctly and my condolences to anyone living in California
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We know of Albanys in California, New York, Georgia, and one other state, but apparently there are a couple of dozen.Were there really THAT many places where people showed up, saw an empty field full of rabbits and said "look at alla bunnies! " cause otherwise I'm at a loss to explain why the name is so popular.
Edit: apparently James II was the duke of Albany so they were naming the east coast towns after him.
I still like my answer better.
Albany is the Anglicised version of Alba, the Gaelic name for Scotland, so far as I can determine.
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Do NOT go to Albany, Wisconsin! Trust me! It's like Albany in New York, except with meth and some seriously f~%!ed up inbreeding.
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On the plus side, if I get approved for the apartment I could move out today without a problem, financially.
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Do NOT go to Albany, Wisconsin! Trust me! It's like Albany in New York, except with meth and some seriously f*+~ed up inbreeding.
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Do NOT go to Albany, Wisconsin! Trust me! It's like Albany in New York, except with meth and some seriously f~*+ed up inbreeding.
I've been using Firefox with NoScript for so long that I find myself accidentally bypassing paywalls all too frequently.
Which really says volumes about the competence of the people who created the paywall in the first place...
Baseline Firefox doesn't let me see past the paywall...
I hope NoScript on Firefox works better than on Chrome (it gets clunky at times, though more often than not it's likely the fault of unreasonable use of cookies and scripts by websites).
My wife sends me links to NY Times Cooking's recipes all the time. But somehow I never stay logged in to NYTimes.com, which means I can't see the recipe because of a paywall. So I've learned that when the page is loading, there's just enough time to hit Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+C (on Windows) before the paywall pops up. Then I can paste the page into Word and see what recipe she's sending me that I probably won't make.
A browser extension does seem easier, though.
So it was! My apologies for not remembering correctly and my condolences to anyone living in CaliforniaRead the other day how only about half of California residents (or less) can actually afford a house in California. Can’t remember where I saw it, but having met a lot of folks moving out of California it makes sense.Pretty sure that was me; I linked an article that only 16% of Californians can afford a home. Sounds about right.
Well, it's all because of .
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New York Times article about Albany High School
Impus Major just finished reading the article and it brought back a lot of memories for him, two of which are interesting:
(1) He stayed in class during the protest. He was one of 5 students in his classroom who actually went to class that day.(2) I now know the history of the supposed "noose" that kicked off all the violence (and yes, I blame Val Williams for pretty much the entire fiasco, since she's the one who broadcast the email about the noose to all students, parents, and anyone else, on the day of the protests, pretty much guaranteeing there would be violence): Some of Impus Major's friends were wandering around Albany at night and found a length of old rope. Being teenagers, they went to the park and tried to make their own swing. Being teenagers, they tried to use a small tree branch as the seat. The branch couldn't take their weight and it broke. One of them scratched up his hand, so they decided it wasn't fun any more and left. Imagine their surprise when the next day someone proclaimed it a "noose". It looked absolutely, positively, nothing like a noose. It was a piece of poorly-tied broken rope hanging from a tree, and yet Val Williams incited a near-riot by declaring it a "possible noose".
Having dealt with her before, I am not surprised by these revelations.
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Whenever we do an excavation anywhere in Polk County, even if we're only digging down ten inches in a random field somewhere, we end up hitting tons of rubble-- mostly bricks, with pieces of old concrete and terracotta pipe. Starting to wonder if Des Moines is built on top of some sort of lost civilization...
Addendum: you know what else I find all the time on job sites? Silverware. Actual metal silverware-- forks, knives, spoons. Probably half of the silverware I own, I literally pulled out of the ground.
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I shaved my head a couple days ago. I used to do it all the time, but hadn't recently, and I'd forgotten one of the big downsides: "Aw, man, bro, you shaved your head? Sick! You look exactly like [insert name of famous person who looks nothing like you aside from having the same haircut]!" Every. Single. Day.
Someone at work told me that I look like Brad Pit’s brother: Stu Pit.
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Whenever we do an excavation anywhere in Polk County, even if we're only digging down ten inches in a random field somewhere, we end up hitting tons of rubble-- mostly bricks, with pieces of old concrete and terracotta pipe. Starting to wonder if Des Moines is built on top of some sort of lost civilization...Addendum: you know what else I find all the time on job sites? Silverware. Actual metal silverware-- forks, knives, spoons. Probably half of the silverware I own, I literally pulled out of the ground.
Yeah, it's all over the Midwest! I actually whittled a wand for Crookshanks using a root, one of those mtg jewels and a knife all of which I found in the ground. Still holding the jewel firmly!
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The shamelessness of the cell phone industry never ceases to amaze me.
During our road trip, we ended up staying in places that didn't have decent wireless, so we used our phones as mobile hotspots to play games, stream movies, etc. We have unlimited data, so it worked well and we were happy.
Cue the email from Verizon: "Dear Mr. NobodysHome! We've noticed that you can save money by switching to this new plan!"
The new plan is $10 more expensive per phone (so $40/month overall), and its only difference is "premium mobile hotspot streaming", which we are unlikely to use again for at least a year.
So,
(1) See the user doing something unusual,
(2) offer the user a plan that will "save them money" based on that new behavior,
(3) ensure the plan costs significantly more per month than their existing plan.
Yep. Sounds like business as usual.
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$10 more per month?
I spend $10 on phone total... Over approximately two years.
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$10 more per month?
I spend $10 on phone total... Over approximately two years.
Back before the chaperoning fiasco, I was paying $100/year for a pay-as-you-go plan. And that's was as cheap as I could find it in the U.S.; minutes you don't use expire at an alarming rate, so just to ensure I had phone every month I had to spend that much.
And yeah, I know, I know. "In Europe it's illegal for minutes you buy to expire," or whatever. Not in the U.S. If you don't spend a certain amount, they can expire every month.
$10 more per month?
I spend $10 on phone total... Over approximately two years.
Back before the chaperoning fiasco, I was paying $100/year for a pay-as-you-go plan. And that's was as cheap as I could find it in the U.S.; minutes you don't use expire at an alarming rate, so just to ensure I had phone every month I had to spend that much.
And yeah, I know, I know. "In Europe it's illegal for minutes you buy to expire," or whatever. Not in the U.S. If you don't spend a certain amount, they can expire every month.
Not sure if that's actually illegal. The companies are rather pushy with their subscription plans where they offer 'free minutes' each month either way. I took deliberate steps and pains to get a pay as you go plan (in otherwise unremarkably mediocre provider) that can be extended once a year as opposed to older plans that required you to charge the sim with at least $10-15 each quarter.
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And yeah, I know, I know. "In Europe it's illegal for minutes you buy to expire," or whatever. Not in the U.S. If you don't spend a certain amount, they can expire every month.
I had a 10 dollar a month tracphone. Mint mobile is 15 a month. My cel phone use pattern is never leave the house and only call in case of emergency though.
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Why I Love My Kids Reason #238:
Yesterday the kids were going to do a Magic: The Gathering draft at our house. Unfortunately, timeliness was not a feature of the guests: The first guest arrived 67 minutes late, and the last one a couple of hours after that.
So instead, they did what young people do and got into an argument about which kids' shows protagonists could beat up which other kids' show protagonists. The only rule: The protagonist had to be 15 or under.
This wasn't good enough, so they built an S-F tier system with 32 different kids' show protagonists, all displayed on our 75" TV so they could debate the various merits of the positioning and rearrange things accordingly.
A couple of my favorites:
- Between D and F were the bald kids (Caillou and Charlie Brown), who would lose to the non-bald kids (the girls from my My Neighbor Totoro), because apparently baldness is a fatal flaw.
- In the A tier we had Tanjiro (Demon Slayer) and Black*Star (Soul Eater), followed by the girl from The Ring (technically not a protagonist, but GothBard suggested it so they put it in), followed by a few other characters. The kids' explanation? "Either you can kill a ghost or you can't, and that's a big breaker right here."
A quibble:
- They put Bart Simpson a full tier above Lilo. I argued that Lilo's legendary viciousness and clever vindictiveness would win the day, but they argued that the age difference and that fact that Bart wouldn't mind beating up a little girl clearly put him in a class above.
Anyway, it was an amazing afternoon, and they spent a good 6 hours debating the placements and merits of each of their protagonists.
(For the record, Mob (Mob Psycho 100) was in a class by himself above the S-tier, and Madoka from the end of Madoka Magicka was disqualified for spoilered reasons.) At the top of S-tier was Giorno Giovanna (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure). At the bottom below the F tier was Artemis Fowl, for nearly dying while trying to climb a ladder.
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I am delighted to have found the game Age of Barbarian (just the one), an unholy mash-up of an '80s Italian Conan rip-off and 'Mortal Kombat'. Who hasn't wanted to get their bits out, fasten scythes to their arms, then ride around on a dinosaur, after all?
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A couple of my favorites:
- Between D and F were the bald kids (Caillou and Charlie Brown), who would lose to the non-bald kids (the girls from my My Neighbor Totoro), because apparently baldness is a fatal flaw.
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I am delighted to have found the game Age of Barbarian (just the one), an unholy mash-up of an '80s Italian Conan rip-off and 'Mortal Kombat'. Who hasn't wanted to get their bits out, fasten scythes to their arms, then ride around on a dinosaur, after all?
... we're playing Dark Sun?
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Fantasy NPC: Princess Of Fangs And Fur
A wolf-princess. Could be worse, she could be tree, like her father.
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Well, I've finished reading the essential chapters and writing Val's homework assignments (a ten-question quiz in land stewardship for natural sciences, two paragraph-length questions on chapter one of the Iliad), helping him fill out a recipe card and supply list for his home ec assignment on Monday (he's going to make dinner every Monday night), and ordered the first three months of the ALEKS grade 5 mathematics course online. This will take us through the first two days of homeschooling. (Lit and Home Ec on Monday, Natural Sciences and Math on Tuesday). Wednesday will be U.S. History and Civics, but WW is allegedly in charge of that. I can read chapter one of the history book we've chosen Tuesday evening and prepare homework then if necessary. Thursday is composition and study hall (I've already written the instruction for his writing assignment), and Friday is Art and Spanish. (WW is in charge of Spanish.)
So we're as prepared as we're going to be.
What, me, worried?
I am delighted to have found the game Age of Barbarian (just the one), an unholy mash-up of an '80s Italian Conan rip-off and 'Mortal Kombat'. Who hasn't wanted to get their bits out, fasten scythes to their arms, then ride around on a dinosaur, after all?... we're playing Dark Sun?
Si, si, a rrravaged-a world-a, ruled-a by cruel sorceror-kings, where the most-a valuable commodities are uno, steel, and duo, de bouncy boobies!
Si, si, a rrravaged-a world-a, ruled-a by cruel sorceror-kings, where the most-a valuable commodities are uno, steel, and duo, de bouncy boobies!I am delighted to have found the game Age of Barbarian (just the one), an unholy mash-up of an '80s Italian Conan rip-off and 'Mortal Kombat'. Who hasn't wanted to get their bits out, fasten scythes to their arms, then ride around on a dinosaur, after all?... we're playing Dark Sun?
...yes, yes, I am all for this. Let's not forget commodity trois, astonishing levels of brutal stone punk violence.
I read that as commodity trolls and started to wonder if they troll the commodities or troll about commodities...
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Ah, kids!
Impus Major has finally decided on his calling in life: He wants to be a forensic pathologist.
Unfortunately, this involves getting a B.A., getting into med school, surviving med school to get an M.D., and then finding an apprenticeship, so the next decade of his life is already pre-ordained if he's going to pursue this goal. I pointed out that considering his work habits so far, there was no way he was going to get into med school, much less graduate, so he'd have to commit to a major restructuring of how he organizes his time. He agreed, and today is the first day of the "new" Impus Major...
...so of course he forgot his backpack.
*SIGH*
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It also amuses me that Impus Minor has taken to hiking in the Berkeley hills in the wee hours (much cooler, no sun, no other pedestrians) and I have to warn him that the only truly dangerous thing he might run into during his hikes is deer.
Yes, excluding insects they're the #1 killer in the U.S., and I believe that's true even if you exclude, "A driver ran into a deer and got killed." Because if you startle a deer at night, it will sometimes attempt to vault over you to safety. And they're pretty darned clumsy with those sharp, sharp hooves and manage to cleave people's skulls while trying to run away with amazing frequency.
Deer. Don't mess with 'em.