wharvle

38 ms·

421.
by wharvle 3y ago
It's got nothing on medical billing. Seemingly random bills from entities you may never have heard of showing up months later even when you paid a shitload (thousands) up-front. [EDIT] Oh and they may not put enough info on the bill
422.
by wharvle 3y ago
One wonders, at times, how much modern "efficiency" is just shifting costs to places they're less well-observed.
423.
by wharvle 3y ago
In the age of Megabloks, Lego still had the moat of their pieces actually being fit for purpose . Megabloks were ass, and even a kid could instantly tell. And their directions were always a ton better, for sets—though they used to be more
424.
by wharvle 3y ago
Every now and then I see a set that looks like it’s actually for kids to play with. More exposed nubs, spaces big enough for kid fingers to fit into (so many feature only tiny spaces now, even for a kid!) and builds that don’t look so fid
425.
by wharvle 3y ago
Yep. The single thing they all seem to do that the US doesn’t isn’t eliminate private health insurance, but institute price controls—one way or another. Some with literal price sheets (Japan), others by creating a government-controlled mono
426.
by wharvle 3y ago
I gather it was a trendy view in certain sectors of academia for some time, and possibly in parts of pop culture. In about '04 or '05 one of my poli sci classes assigned War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage (
427.
by wharvle 3y ago
There's long been a grey area for downloading new program logic as e.g. Javascript—the distinction between content and program can be rather fuzzy—and IIRC they made an explicit exception years back for certain categories.
428.
by wharvle 3y ago
> That made me actually laugh. Internet access is ubiquitous, parental digital literacy is often low, none of those are actually helpful suggestions that would help address the symptom. And tools for enforcing any kind of rules on your o
429.
by wharvle 3y ago
> Android has convenient cross platform emulators. Apple insists you give them tons of money every time they release a new iDevice :-) I've worked in places that do dual platform development, and Android has always been the one that
430.
by wharvle 3y ago
Piling on with more social proof for anyone browsing this thread for recommendations: I’ve seen 50ish non-comedy silent films, all reputedly-very-good ones, and this might be my favorite. Top 5, no question, likely top 3, and I’d have to
431.
by wharvle 3y ago
1) Common law versus civil law. We rely a lot more on private lawsuits than on regulator action. This is probably a mistake, given that it sure looks like it adds costs to common law countries with little to no benefit (and, arguably, har
432.
by wharvle 3y ago
You know how it’s like impossible to get anything done in companies from about Dec 1 through Jan 15th? Because everyone’s taking time off, winding things down before taking time off, or ramping back up after coming back? Now consider what t
433.
by wharvle 3y ago
Operating out of Israel would be an international relations nightmare for both the US and Israel. We’d not do it if we had any other options (and we’ve always had several, for relevant values of “always”) We give them aid to prevent another
434.
by wharvle 3y ago
Totally. I’ve known credit card companies to pull the same shit—deceased was the only one on the account, call and try to get relatives to assume the debt, implying that they have to, and trying to shame them into it if that doesn’t work. I
435.
by wharvle 3y ago
> I distinctly remember stories on NPR during the crisis that browbeat homeowners who did this or thinking about doing this, claiming it was “unethical”. Whatever one thinks of the rest of the book, everyone should internalize the part o
436.
by wharvle 3y ago
Seems tough. Guess they should stop operating that kind of business if they can’t figure out how to do it without scamming people.
437.
by wharvle 3y ago
There’s precedent: they already run a protection racket on search. “Gee, it’d sure be a shame if your competitors showed up at the top of a search for your exact company or product . But if you pay us for ads on those keywords…”
438.
by wharvle 3y ago
Well, yeah, to some extent most (not all) “shortages” are just things becoming more expensive than one wishes to pay. Unfortunately, teacher pay’s being stagnant (plus it took a huge hit, in relative terms, over the pandemic) and working co
439.
by wharvle 3y ago
There’s no contradiction here. It may or may not be bad policy, but it’s not a contradiction. Nobody’s a victim when a kid falls and breaks an arm while skateboarding, but we have programs like CHIP to help kids have access to healthcare to
440.
by wharvle 3y ago
No, I mean as an sms app. It’s fine for that. Group sms can get kinda rough but I’ve also never had a phone that did it better, including pre-iPhone phones, and a few Android phones. Of course it’s better if you can stay in iMessage, to avo
441.
by wharvle 3y ago
If they’re this upset, HR 1525 must be pretty good. Background on the bizarre and kinda scary institution that is the office of “sheriff”, in the US: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gt5I3V5hWkU “Some More News — Maybe We Don’
442.
by wharvle 3y ago
> From everything I've read on the matter, I believe that the UX nightmare when you include a non-apple user is an intentional design choice, rather than an engineering problem that hasn't been solved. I'd be sure this was
443.
by wharvle 3y ago
> It really isn’t any better than SMS anyway, so I put the value at $0. Depends on what you do with it. You can send much higher-quality photos and videos over iMessage than SMS/MMS. You can also do things like play games (chess, fo
444.
by wharvle 3y ago
People exist who basically can’t think in writing, on their own. They need someone actively working with them, in conversation, to put their thoughts together coherently—and, sometimes, for them to be able to understand others, as no amou
445.
by wharvle 3y ago
The recent increase in the number of schools going 4-day is mostly a teacher attraction and retention strategy. There’s an ongoing severe teacher shortage, and poor rural districts in states with low average teacher pay are catching the wor
446.
by wharvle 3y ago
You missed the part about why the stats are that way. Obviously you don’t live in St. Louis, you live in the other 90% of the metro area that’s merely “St. Louis”.
447.
by wharvle 3y ago
Learn something from illegal/inadmissible/secret source, use that info to find other evidence you can actually present in a public court, that you otherwise might not have found.
448.
by wharvle 3y ago
You can get entire PCs way more powerful than any generation of Pi, with more connectivity/port options, for roughly the price of a pi + case, on eBay. It’s long been true that if you don’t need or want some of the particular character
449.
by wharvle 3y ago
I dunno, for some reason I found the first 30 minutes or so excruciatingly dull and just didn’t care about where it was going. I really enjoyed Nanook, so was surprised. Possibly I just wasn’t in the right mood for it. [edit] and The Last
450.
by wharvle 3y ago
Oh wow, yeah, it’s changed since I made my original post. Haha, nice!

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