Haven't seen RTFM casually dropped in conversation online in... um... a while...

You've been hanging out on the intartoobz at least as long as I have. Circa the paleolithic era, or so...

Yes, but it's much easier to claim 'rigged' after the fact when done electronically. Mail-in ballots are harder to push back on. This isn't about voting, it's about covertly excluding votes from certain groups of people. They just can't say that part yet out loud.

You and me both.

Not too many years after that nightmare, I was perfectly capable of enjoying thru-hiking, carrrying exactly same weight anyone else would have been, moving at same speed on rough terrain, etc. Still couldn't run a mile - or much shorter distances - in my wildest dreams. Didn't matter, I was in exactly the shape I wanted to be in, for the things I cared about.

Can't do it anymore, my body widely conspired against me in various ways, but glad I was capable of it and have the memories. If I had been able to run a mile, but not hike any distance with weight, I'd be alot less happy about what I had achieved at that point.

Entirely valid question, that as a USian, I might just be qual to answer. The ratio between them varies by individual, but it boils down to a core American exceptionalism that’s taught actively from very young; some ridiculous blather about how having founding docs / written constitution makes our rights safer even in context of significant social change; and my personal least fave, the idea that if one didn’t directly and proximately earn something through capital or wage slavery, they just aren’t working hard enough and therefore shouldn’t have it.

Those things are at the core of a very large group of American voters’ opinions, and all are fatally flawed.

Of course, as a child of the very early eighties, growing up it was still (at least conceptually) possible to buy a house and a car on one income, within relatively recent history. As it absolutely should be.

Kicking that exceptionalism thought process is quite the struggle (as is the rest), even for those motivated to do it.

Civilised world has mostly lower paid docs (relative to us) but also mostly some sort of universal care. I’d gladly accept NHS-level wait times, if it meant that I could take the $2k a month that my emp and I together now pay for insurance (just 2 adults) - even if taxed to support that sort of system, that is real money.

Things are bettter than they were in my lifetime, even though ObamaCare was basically a typical American “personal responsibility” solution, just with subsidies to avoid actively excluding only the less financially well off.

Used to be that you had to have continuous coverage in order to get a new cost, or pre existing conditions weren’t covered under a newer policy even if one could buy one privately (you really couldn’t, practically).

Healthcare before ACA was a sanctioned and mostly very profitable betting operation for large carriers because the risk pool for each individual policy was large, and there were max amounts and sometimes lifetime total limits that could be paid.

By comparison, what we have is pretty great for folks who lived thru that era, but… Hot garbage compared to many other developed nations.

We’re a nation full of people literally trained to think our system is the best in the world. Helluva barrier to overcome, all the more so when the ACA did actually make things better.

Mild sidetrack but the only reason to assume by default our system might be better is the education (indoctrination) we receive early and often, and consistently.

Always appreciate a comment that makes me question why/how I made some assumption.

Cap One 360 checking - free, and offers single use cards. Think they regen on each usage,and can get the number etc easily in app.

Edit:missed “credit” card. Believe Cap One does same for their credit cards, not entirely sure tho. It’s becoming more common on credit, but def not “most” cards doing that yet

Thought they charged something to put $ on temp card, via EFT though I may well be wrong.

Don’t recall the org name I conflated w them anymore u fortunately.

And from where I sit, yeah they pay me to some degree - the acct costs me nothing, and it’s got a handful of the usual “edge case” insurance benefits and such most debit cards don’t.

Not real useful to me, admittedly, but I do receive something.

That, and they reliably post direct deposit exactly 48h early, plus or minus fifteen minutes. Ability to plan my life around when exactly my check will show up has value. Seems to be very much a “best effort” basis to post early w/ most banks.

Lots of that stuff is useful because of my individual habits and patterns of spending I’m sure, might well not be for you.

Will check out privacy, now I’m kind of curious if there is something even more friction free for my scenario.

Shame I stopped believing that BS from them circa winME…

sed harbors no demon beasts, in my experience.

On the other hand, by default using sed -i is where the demons come in.

No, sed, NOT in place. Not the first time. Show me what you want to do based on the instructions I gave you, and then we'll talk about letting you play with the real data.

Revolut does that, but far cheaper.

Digging my Mirage. Low-key cheap, simple display that integrates well w/ phone, and 40+ MPG.

Also easy to paddle shift into “oh fuck” mode, which burns more gas but gets me out of some hairy situations when AC is running.

Would prefer a hybrid, but this is the car the numbers worked out on in a sane way. I tried hypermiling in a Prius 1G (99, I think) on both a KY parkway and I24, and it sorta worked but was a huge PITA as well. Context, US 41 thru Evansville, Parkway, 24. Not terrible for the time at all, but a bit stressful here and there.

With ya. I smoke an odd brand that’s hard to get, in a state that (rightfully) taxes the shit out of them.

Still costs me an even C-note every two weeks, same as always. Have I cut back, probably. But mostly because I’ve started to face my own bullshit instead of expecting smoking to fix it for me.

I straight up enjoy my Kamel Reds, and while I don’t want to model that to the next generation, I’m the better part of thirty pack-years in.

I can either take the risk, or downright break all the other mental health progress I’ve made. Since I have a wife and some folks I care deeply about in my life, imma go with the mental health.

For unrelated reasons, I once was an unmitigated SOB in any interaction. On the rare chances I’ve been in hospital, I’ve been miserable.

Right or wrong, I prefer to communicate with people rather than attack them, and quitting now would not help that.

RJR can have my money, they won’t get the next genration’s money. We have dispensaries, video gaming, and casinos on every corner in my state. My choice of vice could be far worse, and I’m kind of grateful that I settled on smokes, and not gambling.

Things are no better stateside. To get social security disability takes years, and a lawyer who will take a portion of your back pay settlement when finally awarded.

And of course one can’t be earning money during the process.

Even with private short term disability coverage through employer, while it was more efficient than that, I still barely had the strength to get through it just to get partially paid for 10 hrs a week for a few months, in hopes that I can regroup, get things back together, and be able to make it through forty hour weeks.

Since that’s an external company, and our HR and payroll is a different external company, now I have to stay on the latter to make sure a) they get the memo and b) I actually get the pay in question.

This is fucking horrifying.

Or, try limiting one's actions such that they match the average American's level of criminality, and just don't be a fascist dictator asshole aiming to deport the people who produce food and... Yeah.

I met someone I thought I'd marry there in the exact same way around '99.

That feature was powerful, and now we just can't be bothered because scammers and blah blah.

Are you seeing a family doctor, or a sleep specialist? You want the latter, and a sleep study.

The classes of drugs that might help are imperfect at best, I'd be partial to a benzo before e.g., Ambien or related, given the inherent risks of sleepwalking and worse with those drugs.

That's pretty much exactly it.

Sweatpants, and old t-shirts or polo shirts if there's a video call planned for a given day. I WFH for a company you've heard of, and all the video calls in question are internal.

As part of a much larger project that was all-in on Java to begin with, I've used Tomcat to serve pages and PDFs/office doc formats rendered based on a postgres backend and FreeMarker templates.

For these purposes, you don't want that level of complexity (or Java) but the general premise and template libs should be available in nearly any sane web programming language.

I still can't cook, but my wife definitely taught me that I'm allowed to have feelings; And most everything I know about expressing those feelings without being a complete asshole and without going straight from calm to rant-y.