bamfly

10 ms·

31.
by bamfly 3y ago
I read "preppies" as something very different from what you intended, at first, and was really confused, but also got some really funny mental images out of it. Popped-collar-lacoste-polo madras-shorts-wearing dudes whose only
32.
by bamfly 3y ago
In the US, I think making soda expensive enough that bundling 32oz of it for an extra $0.75 with fast-food combo meals stopped happening, and free refills became uncommon again (they were rare as recently as the early 90s! You paid per cu
33.
by bamfly 3y ago
There's not much to write. I tried it for about two weeks, consistently, approximately no cheating: nothing but candles for lighting, no "screens", period (save, like, double-checking the alarm on my phone for the next day
34.
by bamfly 3y ago
> More annoying to keep clean? Looks shitty if it's even slightly dirty, gets dirty if you so much as look at it, requires very thorough cleaning to make it look good (no smudges or streaks). Means you don't do your own clean
35.
by bamfly 3y ago
I've found it remarkably useful, despite often being a bit tongue-in-cheek. The insight on mirrored surfaces was especially interesting. I remember seeing a staged photo of some Trump kid & spouse with their own kid playing in a
36.
by bamfly 3y ago
Same—though I didn't used to do that back when 1) I had a whole lot less money, and 2) I used cash way more often. Now, if I have cash, it's almost always because I intend to spend it, usually for some purpose or activity or ove
37.
by bamfly 3y ago
Relatedly, I've found my life-long "sleep problems" go away very fast if I stop using electronics or electric lights after sundown. Go figure, you light up rooms with hundreds of candle-power like it's friggin'
38.
by bamfly 3y ago
My pet-hypothesis is that part of the problem isn't the tech per se , but that office workers do parts of jobs that would have been the specialty of several different people before, say, the 1980s. And not only that: they switch bet
39.
by bamfly 3y ago
Popular literature of years past looked more like those trashy-cover, cheaply-made, deteriorating, fits-in-a-suit-jacket-outer-pocket-without-wrecking-the-drape, thin genre novels you sometimes see carefully preserved in bookstores today, t
40.
by bamfly 3y ago
Forster was British and was poking fun at his own national character (if it wasn't him it was... Maugham, I suppose? Definitely British). You'll note how it's not really clear they come of better-seeming, overall, and the &qu
41.
by bamfly 3y ago
I once read something by... someone... EM Forster, maybe? About how a key difference between the British and the French is that, in an emergency, the French may handle it capably enough but will be freaking out the whole time—then carry on
42.
by bamfly 3y ago
So was I :-)
43.
by bamfly 3y ago
I find basically all social media sites too confusing to use, starting with when I first attempted to use Facebook around 2010 and couldn't figure out where the hell anything I posted "went" or where anything I saw was "
44.
by bamfly 3y ago
The initially-too-high offer plus downturn in his stock value right after, meant a deal structure that damn-near doomed the company anyway (tons of debt). Best-case (for him), Twitter as we knew it dies and he manages to turn the burnt-down
45.
by bamfly 3y ago
Seems like you've got a solid math grounding. If you're looking to expand on your history knowledge, I'd recommend taking a look at Creasy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifteen_Decisive_Battles_o...
46.
by bamfly 3y ago
> him on drugs. Hey isn't he still majority owner of SpaceX (Jesus, there's the X again, somehow that hadn't dawned on me yet)? Doesn't a huge proportion of their income come from government contracts? Aren't the
47.
by bamfly 3y ago
I heard some pal of his (owner of the big MMA league or something? IDK, some other Saudi-loving guy I gather, I don't know much about combat sports) interviewed on NPR a couple weeks ago and he was still saying Musk is a business geniu
48.
by bamfly 3y ago
> ("country club membership", really?) Yeah, I know. I wasn't raised part of that class and don't hang out with many people in it, either :-) Books I've read on the topic and the handful of people I know in it,
49.
by bamfly 3y ago
Seeing a lot of $25-45 (USD) used price. Used books are awesome. I have north of 500 books and I doubt more than 50 were purchased new. Only that many because some of my relatives want Christmas and birthday wishlists every year, but won&#x
50.
by bamfly 3y ago
Then we should: 1) Explicitly fund research with public dollars, then, not make people who need drugs that aren't even very new fund it. 2) Stop paying to fund everyone else's research (I think this is about 90% bullshit, seeing a
51.
by bamfly 3y ago
Every other developed country imposes price controls on at least parts of the healthcare industry. Drugs are just about always on the list. Either directly, or through monopsony power.
52.
by bamfly 3y ago
$300k (household) isn't upper-middle, before the term became diluted to mean "middle, but with a little left over every month"—the upper-middle of Fussell's Class and The Official Preppy Handbook - Good private schoo
53.
by bamfly 3y ago
> Your idea of being an expert because you majored in a related topic is amusingly misinformed as well. You are kidding yourself. Never claimed to be an expert. I'm also not "grotesquely misinformed", unless the bar for &q
54.
by bamfly 3y ago
> I get that, but a solution to that problem — on my mind — doesn’t involve people voting less regularly in Federal elections, but rather getting folks to vote more regularly in local elections. Separating the two seems arbitrary — feder
55.
by bamfly 3y ago
A whole lot of people in-fact only turn out for the "big" votes, is the problem.
56.
by bamfly 3y ago
> Every four years, the presidential election is on the same ballot as all the other local elections. Yes—but a lot of people skip most or all other votes, including some more-local ones that usually aren't part of that vote. I&#x
57.
by bamfly 3y ago
> > for most people If you're able to e.g. turn the news into money or other real advantages, or desirable (to you, at least) outcomes that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, you're one of ones who aren't cover
58.
by bamfly 3y ago
> Your idea of "value of a single vote" is grotesquely misinformed. Most of my positions on the relative efficacy of various voter behaviors in the US system of government are heavily informed by my having been a poli-sci major
59.
by bamfly 3y ago
We noticed a correlation between worse treatment and worse behavior, and course-corrected. The trouble was that even going wildly the opposite direction made things better... but just a somewhat-nicer circle of hell, and achieved only at
60.
by bamfly 3y ago
It's not about the scope of the power of the elected official, it's that the effect of a presidential vote may as well be zero—it's about the power of the vote. A vote for, say, school board may also have near-zero power, b

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