m0rose's comments

Since we're being blunt: This is misleading.

We don't use the bomb calorimeter today, but we still use the Atwater system (with a quick tweak for fiber) for those "nutritional components." All that means is instead of burning the food ourselves we're looking at a table that the guy who burned the foods created... with his bomb calorimeter.[1] The only reason we're marginally better now is because we're starting to take into account digestibility (e.g. Carbs have non-digestible fiber subtracted before the calories are calculated).[2]

[1]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-food-manuf...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atwater_system#Modified_system

Uh huh. Because what we know as facts today will never be disproven.

I think this is a matter of preference. Microsoft Teams does threads as first class citizens, and to me it's overly busy. I'd much rather a chat tool work like IRC, and in my mind Slack is simply IRC with more features.

I like Pinterest. I'm bad at decorating, and I'm a bad cook, so having recipes and decorating stuff that I can sift through and save into distinct idea books is nice. However, the website/app is basically glorified bookmarks. Trying to turn this into a Social Networking Empire is just pure greed, and I agree with you: the "Growth Team" concept is wretched. Sure, it's an interesting problem from a CompSci perspective, but the underlying motivations make me ill. Stop trying to manipulate your users. If they like and have a use for it, they'll use it. If they no longer have a use for it, they'll stop. BUT, if it's good enough, then the incoming users should eclipse the outgoing, and you'll float on just fine. Alas, for Social Network Empire wannabes, that's just not good enough!

This. Mr Money Mustache and JCollinsNH (Simple Path to Wealth) all rolled into one comment. Wish this was higher up.

"(as far from the coasts as possible)" piques my interest. Why do you want to be as far from the coasts as possible?

I don't think it's lazy, I think it's intentional. The cleanup efforts have been in the planning phase for 22 years, so perhaps some fear mongering to drum up more public outrage/outcry is what needs to happen to make someone do something.

This is the post I needed to see today, and from Popular Mechanics it makes it that much sweeter.

The Tesla Roadster gave me hope back when I was younger and despairing over the soaring prices of gas. I loved cars, but how could I justify spending so much damn money on fuel each weekend while driving my local canyon roads? Not to mention the nasty effects that gas-powered cars have on the environment and on people's general health. Electric and hybrid cars -- the obvious (to me) evolution of the car -- were dull and pathetic, which meant that owning a fun, fast, well-handling car would be a thing my parents enjoyed but I could not. Wanna be a modern gearhead? Forgetaboutit.

THEN I saw an article about some guy with a company named after a pioneer of electricity supply systems who had an electric car that was designed in part by Lotus and was fast. I was over the moon. Who cares that its price tag was way beyond my reach? The point was that technology would eventually become common place and trickle down to me.

Hope is a precious commodity. Elon Musk and his first Tesla roadster gave me hope, and then sprinkled in some joy, and added a bit of optimism and excitement about the future. Classify me as a fanboy or cultist if you want, and I'll wear that label proudly. I don't see any other billionaires out there trying to solve problems beyond "how do I effectively shelter this income stream from the IRS?" So, quit picking on the guy and let him do his thing. Eventually we'll all benefit.

> I have quit facebook too because I was mentally unstable.

I think this very effectively distills the essence of his blog post, too. His perception is that everyone is fronting. The fact of the matter is, not everyone is. Some people just post the highlights because they understand that the minutia is boring and not what people want to see. That he sees this as "fronting" is more a commentary on his own lack of self confidence. Well, that and the fact that he had to throw out how many followers he had.

Sitting here in the middle of a heatwave, I have to ask: are they really that bad when you can just add warm-weather clothing? Or when even just moving will generate some heat? I've heard in Wisconsin you have to breathe a certain way to warm the air before it gets to your lungs, so maybe that's the problem? I've only lived in hot climates, so I have no concept of true cold. But with how summers have been getting hotter and hotter lately, I'm tempted to make a change.

Agreed. In my own experience, it's much more effective when cooling a room to pull the cool air in than to try to exhaust the hot air from the entire house so that cool air will eventually trickle into the room you're trying to cool. Changing from pushing the air out to pulling it in directly was an epiphany for me when I was younger and lead to many nights of better sleep.

Even better, now that I own my own house, is a high powered fan in one window pushing the air out and another (lower-powered) fan in a different room pulling the air in with an additional window open. You can stand in front of the open window and feel the additional cool air streaming in. It's a beautiful thing.

So it's better for the poor to blame the rich and be relieved of the guilt of being poor? It's not one-sided, and to say it is allows for a victim mentality that is harmful to anyone reading this and not thinking critically. I acknowledge that there are myriad reasons for becoming poor. Some people have one horrible tragedy after another heaped upon them to the point where they are destitute, and to those people we need to lend our aid and sincerest sympathy. There are others, however, who are poor because they spend their money foolishly, often times in a unconscious attempt to assuage feelings of depression, anxiety, or lack of agency. These people also deserve our sympathy, but they will never escape their issues without actually realizing they have a problem and seeking help. I fear that comments like this enable those people by re-enforcing their belief that it's a one-sided issue that they have no control over, and to them you're doing a grave disservice.

Agreed. Also see: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

Just fine? Hold on.

If you're making $50k a year you net $3,350/mo. 10% of that is $335. So each month you're paying $335 against the $1500 in interest that your $250k loan demands. How is this in any way helping? At the end of the 25 years[0] your balance is written off, right? But then it may become _taxable income_[1]. So suddenly you're writing off $1,000,000 plus your salary, and that hits you with a $487,000 tax bill[2]. Hopefully you've been doing a great job with your savings, because if you can't pay that tax bill the IRS charges interest daily on your outstanding tax bill and associated penalties[4], not to mention they'll demand that you sell off any meaningful assets[3]. Then, of course, this causes another economic crises because 25 years from now, we suddenly have a whole slew of people who are 50 and no longer have their life savings, and may not have their house, depending on how the IRS is operating 25 years from now.

It looks to me like PAY-E is _exactly_ like a student loan in the first place -- a great vehicle for pushing your debt responsibilities into the future with the hopes that some other program will save you. And in this scenario, how are you supposed to attract a mate, have a family, a home, or any sort of hope for the future? Sure, you made a screwed-up decision when you were young and you should be punished for it, I totally agree. My question is, does the punishment fit the crime?

[0]https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/understand/plans/in... [1]https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/understand/plans/in... [2]https://pocketsense.com/taxes-1-million-dollars-8063543.html [3]https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/tax-payments/what-is-th... [4]https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

I once heard it said about cycling that "it doesn't get easier, you only go faster." After a decade or so of mountain and road biking, I agree with that sentiment. If it's easy, that just means you're slacking. Which, on a commute I could understand -- who wants to work up a massive sweat before plopping yourself down in a chair for 8 hours?

I lost my dad to cancer when I was 8. I am also the first born. I buried the emotions as best I could and now almost 30 years later I'm finally unpacking all kinds of issues in therapy. You are going to grieve eventually. Trust me on this. You can either do it now, or you can carry it around where it will be a constant dull burn, where any time the word "dad" even comes up your eyes will start to burn a bit and the anxiety will rise in your chest. Believe me, and don't become me. It's better to do your grieving now, because the sooner you do, the sooner you can start to enjoy those memories of your dad instead of running from them because you don't want to start crying at seemingly random times. Not to mention if you suppress those memories (which you have to do to suppress the emotions and be "strong"), you will lose them, and from here on out that's all you have left. Don't do what I did. Being this emotionally fragile is not fun, and losing so many memories is a trauma all its own. If nothing else, take time to write them down somewhere safe right now -- you'll want them eventually, I promise.