chrisro

You're welcome! I have friends in college who would've qualified for expanded Medicaid but my state didn't expand either. They were talking about this exemption which is how I learned of it.

There are a whole host of exemptions from the tax, including:

"You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act."

https://www.healthcare.gov/exemptions/

Fashion and beauty are vehicles for self-expression very much like technology is (iOS or Android; power user or not, etc). We identify with the technology we choose every bit as much as we identify with the style we wear and the manner in which we groom ourselves. This is not limited to women (graphic tees, anyone?).

The iPhone is now available in several colors and finishes, there are tech-mirroring trends in beauty (matte finish nail polish, metallic finish makeup, etc), and wearable tech is becoming a thing. I'd say the line between tech and fashion/beauty is pretty well blurred. And technology hasn't been "ultimately utilitarian" in a long while.

So they knew she was in a bad place financially and still terminated her contract? There's not much to their response that changes this story. They didn't dispute her lack of benefits or the amount of her wages and they confirmed that she was in financial distress (so much so that the priests invited her to live in campus housing but still later the university stopped employing her).

If you're looking for a replacement, I really love the Roadtrippers tool: http://roadtrippers.com

It's not a Wikipedia layer, but their data sets are interesting. There's a lot more context than the Wikipedia layer because they've organized things into categories. Their international coverage isn't as good as their US coverage, though.

Women/people certainly CAN choose to educate. Your presumption that she SHOULD or, rather, "The proper way to handle this issue is..." is what I took issue with. There is no "proper way to handle this issue" except the way that makes the violated feel safer. If that means she moves away from the perpetrator, then that is proper way. If it means opening a dialogue about improper behavior, then that is the proper way too. Ultimately, it comes down to the woman/person in question.

It is not logical for a woman (or anyone really) to remain in a situation that makes her uncomfortable and especially not logical to remain in a situation where she fears for her safety. Responsibility was the correct word--the onus on creepers to stop being creepers, not the women who are being creeped on or harassed to explain why that behavior is inappropriate.

Also, awkward isn't synonymous with creepy. See rosser's reply elsewhere in this thread for a better explanation of creepy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5975094

>The proper way to handle this issue is to just be direct when someone is behaving inappropriately and not use ambiguous language

It is not the responsibility of women to educate when they feel uncomfortable or fear for their safety.

>The difference between them tends, in my (male, second-hand) experience, to be one of persistence.

Woman: "If you're not listening to me now when I say no, how can I possibly trust you will listen later?"

I think it's because the men in the ensuing backlash put themselves in the place of the creeper and empathize with a feeling of persecution or believe the behavior to be misinterpreted by the author/experiencer. Most men won't feel intimidated or fear for their safety just by the unwanted presence of a woman, so it may be difficult for some to empathize with the opposite of this experience. Add on to this that, as humans, we judge others for their actions, but ourselves for our intent. Many men are not going to physically hurt women, and commenters that empathize with the creeper come to assessment that since they wouldn't hurt her, then she must have been over-reacting. (This fails to take into account that the woman in the situation doesn't at all know what the man she is intimidated by is going to do or what kind of harm he could cause her.) Add the stereotype of the regular nerd culture participant as being socially awkward and thus unaware of many rules regarding social interaction, and it's easy to paint a caricature of an unaware fool who was just misunderstood and is now being bullied for his awkwardness.

"Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death." -Gavin de Becker

I live somewhere with long yellows and it does encourage people to run the lights. It's a problem, but we are also a very bike-friendly city and long yellows give cyclists time to clear the intersection. Also, there is a delay after the red before the next right-of-way gets their green and this seems to prevent accidents (because the late-yellow/red light runners are clear before the next green).

Nevertheless, we do have some red light cameras here. One day I was stuck at an intersection with a camera, and I was waiting to turn left. I had a red left turn signal, and it suddenly stopped cycling. It was rush hour, and after three cycles with no green arrow, I called the non-emergency dispatch and told them the problem and asked the cop what I should do. She told me to take the safest course of action I thought I could. I told her that was running the red light during a break from oncoming traffic, but that I would be given a ticket for this. She said she couldn't invite me to break the law, but just do the safest thing. The legal move would have been to change lanes to the right and go straight through the intersection on a green, but this was also the most dangerous choice because of the heavy traffic flow. Thankfully the light cycle following my conversation with the cop, I got my green arrow, but it sucked to feel so helpless--knowing the safest and correct action (running the red once oncoming traffic allowed it) and knowing I would be penalized for it.

Yep. I used to call it "waking insomnia" before I learned about segmented sleep. It's likely a remnant of our ancestor's approach to sleep, which was in two parts--first and second sleep.

I'll wake 4-5 hours after first falling asleep with a period of 2-3 hours of wakefulness before I feel sleepy again. Unfortunately I'll begin to feel sleepy again within an hour or about the time I need to wake up for work. Sometimes I can catch an hour or two of sleep, but it's the hardest sleep to wake from and I feel like I'm dragging the rest of the day.

I personally just tough the day out, though sometimes I take a sleep aid (usually one 25mg dose of Benadryl) before going to bed as a preventative.

New York Times about First and Second Sleep: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-...

Wikpedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

Ah. That makes much more sense.

>Ammunition is still pretty hard to do well on your own.

Could you clarify this? Reloading ammo is a very popular past time among many shooting enthusiasts and not difficult at all. You do rely on manufacturers for the powder, of course. You usually buy brass and bullets separately as well. But you can cast your own bullets if you're so inclined and many reloaders use spent brass to reload (making reloaded ammo cheaper than manufactured).

This is terribly off-topic, but you don't have any contact info in your profile. Are you going to AdaCamp in June, by chance? If you are, please email me (it's in my profile), because I'm going and I've love to get to know other attendees. If you're not, you should apply if it's reasonable for you to attend (it's in San Francisco). The application period ends on April 30th. http://sf.adacamp.org/apply/

Um, middle of nowhere is where food is grown and livestock are raised. It'd be disastrous to not have people living there doing these things. As more services move online, it is a public good to ensure all constituencies have access.

Oops! Thanks for the correction. I guess I missed that detail.

$9/home/month or $110/home/year for 5 years is even more manageable, though!

Edit: I see now where militiaman21 requested that the title be updated to "over 5 years" per new information. When I posted my numbers, the title said annually. I thought maybe I had missed something in the text.

Hopefully I haven't messed any of the numbers up:

$11 billion per year for 20 million homes or roughly $550/home/year or $45/home/month

And, for perspective: From 1936 to 1938, the Rural Electrification Administration spent $210 million ($3.37 billion in 2012 dollars) to connect 100,000 rural farms to the electrical grid at a cost $950 each (over $15,000 in 2012 dollars).

Edit: Per the title update from "annually" to "over 5 years" the above, non-historical numbers are off by a factor of 5. The costs would be $110/home/year or $9/home/month over 5 years!

I echo the sentiments here that tablets are media consumption devices, because that really is what they're best at. The most productive use I have for my tablet is using it to view a crochet or knitting pattern while I'm working on it or for following a recipe when cooking. My tablet's primary use is for reading, though.

The compulsion to be a tourist is ever-present in our lives. Social networks just move the reward of validation for tourism up to the near-instant. One of my favorite books has a significant character plot that explores the (sometimes ridiculous) role of being a tourist.

"Twoflower stared raptly at the display overhead. He probably had the best view of anyone on the Disc. Then a terrible thought occurred to him. 'Where's the picture box?' he asked urgently. 'What?' said Rincewind, eyes fixed on the sky. 'The picture box,' said Twoflower. 'I must get a picture of this!'" (Color of Magic, 1983)

Making choices is a part of web development and choosing not to include an audience based on the technology they use is a choice. It's perfectly valid to make that choice--even if it excludes people--but it's a choice (that should be) dependent on the audience you are trying to serve.

For example, I support a few websites aimed at farmers. The sites are simple and degrade gracefully, because farmers tend to use older technology; small, because farmers don't typically have access to broadband internet; and mobile-friendly, because data access via cell phone is often more reliable for them than a consumer internet connection. These sites are not impressive, but they suit their purpose and their audience. So, obviously, the technology choice can go backwards as well.

Side-note: one of my favorite games is "breaking" websites by opening them in IE8 and reloading them with "Compatibility Mode" turned on.

One thing precludes the other, though. How can Android users be early adopters if apps are consistently released on iOS first?

I bought an ebook today from Amazon and it had the option to "rent" it. Wow. I can't even believe how quickly I was right. The paperback copy of this book was $28, the ebook was $15, and the cost to rent started at $8. I assume rental cost increases based on the length of time (shortest period of rent being 30 days), but I was in a hurry and didn't have a chance to mess with the options.

As others have said, it's not so much that UPS knows this, but that they subscribe to a service that aggregates this kind of data. Go get your credit report online. You'll be asked similar questions. Do credit reporting agencies know this data? Not necessarily, they subscribe to a service that aggregates it so they can confirm the person trying to get your credit report is you.

UPS has, unfortunately, been quite the unintended accessory of credit card fraud/identity theft. I worked for a company that lost $30,000 to credit card fraud in a single month. Almost exclusively, the perpetrators would order $500+ in merchandise and have it Next Day Delivered to a vacant (but legal) address. Once they got the tracking number, they called UPS and had it rerouted for pickup. UPS says they check driver's licenses for pickup, but obviously this policy is inconsistently applied.

In reaction, the company I worked for modified its UPS contract to disallow reroutes. This caused an amazing number of headaches for the company's customer service staff and for UPS customer service, as many legitimate customers were caught in this net intended to prevent fraud loss. Most of my experience with UPS comes via my former company. As a mere consumer of UPS services nowadays, I've noticed a number of service improvements that I remember my previous company suffering from previously. It's interesting.

Judging by their move to ebooks, the cost will only be marginally scaled down.

I do really look forward to a distribution system that will benefit content creators and be convenient and fair to consumers. I just don't know what it looks like. It's an excellent opportunity for someone with an idea, though.

If the publishers continue down this road, we're closing in on ebooks becoming time-based licenses to view content instead of things you "own."

You're thinking of a login form.

If you were to try to register a new account with an email address already in the database, you should get some variation of "A user account with that email address already exists," verifying the existence of an account with that email.

Google seems to adhere to it as well. Google's founders (reluctantly) embraced text ads as a way to make the company they wanted to lead profitable so that it could continue to exist. I think modern business loses sight of this idea.

I really hate this sentiment. I think Ray Anderson, founder of Interface has it right: "For those who think business exists to make a profit, I suggest they think again. Business makes a profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that."