A Phlaming Phoenix @ aphlamingphoenix @lemm.ee

Posts

1

Comments

366

Joined

2 yr. ago

Mine uses SMS 2FA AND had a 16-character password limit. I need to switch banks already. Any suggestions for a decent bank or credit union that uses modern password cryptography and app-based TOTP?

No doubt I'll be voting. My state has turned from red to purple to blue pretty consistently over the past decade or two, so I do feel pretty safe that Biden will swing the electoral college here. Down ballot does matter, and I'll be doing my research on the more local matters before casting my ballot. The ballot I just filed was for the Democratic primary, and there were no other items to vote on. My city passed ranked choice voting for city level elections, and this year I believe will be the first election where we get to use that system. I'm excited to see how it goes and if that will be used to swing our local politics harder to the left.

I understand the wavering. I voted uncommitted in my primary because Biden will win that without my help and it's a small way of officially filing my disappointment. But if (let's be honest, when) I get my presidential ballot and I have a choice between Trump and Biden and probably some third party, I'll hold my nose and cast a vote for Biden. As much as I hate it, it's not even a question.

Right. As a minister performing a marriage, your legal responsibility is just to sign as a witness on a marriage license. To do so, you have to be one of a handful of classes of people who can do it. Religious authorities are one of those. My registration with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster makes me such a person, enabling me to wed folks.

Well the thing is that after the commandment to not kill thing, there come something like three whole books where that same god directly instructs his chosen people to commit one tribal genocide after another after another after another. There's even a cool story in there where he gives such an instruction and his chosen ones are like, "Nah, they have more people and better resources and we're going to all die if we try to genocide them." And that god says, "If you don't go kill them right now, I'll just kill you right here and now." And then within a book or so after that he's all, "Actually it's bad to kill again, starting... NOW!" Can't expect consistency or logic from people who think these are true stories.

And you gotta dump your potential explosives out right in the middle of everyone else bundled up close in the security checkpoint.

Anyone can sign up to be a minister of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and legally perform marriages. I did and have. I don't know why you'd do it if your goal is to just not marry people, though.

This usually means "The Former Guy" in reference to Trump. It's a lot like calling Voldemort "He who shall not be named".

I tip for delivery as well. OP is taking about takeout, where I have to drive to the place and pick it up myself.

Here's what I'm talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox#Comparison

The XBox One came out in 2013, but then starting in 2016, they started releasing a series of other XBoxes with incremental upgrades. The "One S" and "One X" within a year of each other, then the "Series S" and "Series X" in 2020. It looks like the CPU and GPU get upgraded along the way, but none of them is nearly as powerful as the PC I've had through that time period, nor as capable considering I can do more than play games on it.

Didn't they release several different versions of the Xbox in that time? Like technically the same "generation" or whatever but upgrading a few minor things like storage and such?

What if my $1500 PC built 5 years ago has been more capable than multiple generations of consoles that have been released since? My brother has bought like 3 XBoxes in the same amount of time and my PC still outpaces it by a pretty wide margin.

Or that he's not a psychologist or neurologist, did not administer any kind of formal cognitive examination, and is not qualified to make this kind of claim.

I agree that in an effort to be as inclusive as possible we have created a completely unmarketable acronym. That matters because we are still having to defend our very existence to a lot of people whose bigotry is being gathered up and weaponized politically against us.

I use the term "queer" to describe myself because my sexual identity (which is something like bisexual or pansexual) and my neurodivergence have made me something of a cultural outcast throughout most of my life. I don't really "fit in" with most people, and "queer" describes that experience pretty succinctly.

To the person you are responding to, I am cautious about using this word too broadly because some people have specific trauma around this word. Bigots often wield the word like a weapon, so people who are subjected to that and don't have adequate supports to deal with that trauma can get offended by it. I don't think we should so flippantly dismiss that. It works for me. It doesn't work for others.

The largest I've passed was about 4mm. It's the most painful thing I've ever felt, and it took weeks to work its way through, even with the Flomax. Crying, moaning, writhing on the bed in pain, pissing blood. Malicious looking little thing. Looked like the ball on the end of a morning star. I passed two of those at once one time.

It's always a consideration, but the question is where would we move to (and how much am I willing to uproot my family)? Canada is a nice place with a better healthcare system, so maybe there? But that's expensive all on its own, and I have to consider that I have two autistic kiddos who are currently receiving their education at the best school in the state for special ed kiddos. Is it worth it? Maybe not. For now, I think we should stay where we are. I love it here, except for the high cost of my own care. Think I'd rather stick it out and fight for a better system here. Maybe we can improve things for everyone instead of jumping ship.

Because insurance pays for a portion of your treatment, rarely 100% of it, and the moment you start racking up bigger bills, insurance starts looking for ways to not pay your claims. They'll put a hold on payment until you call them and broker a deal or they go back and forth with your doctor demanding that you receive some treatment other than what that doctor recommends.

I have Crohn's Disease, an autoimmune disorder that is often treated with immunosuppressants. First, they did not want to pay for my initial "loading dose" because it has to be done by infusion. That's a ~$25,000 procedure (3-4 hours on an IV). I talked them into it by telling them that only the first dose would be by infusion and the rest by self injection.

But when my company decided to pay for a less expensive insurance plan that started at the beginning of the year, they suddenly didn't want to pay for the injections either. Now I owe 30% of the cost of my injections. That's almost $4,000 a dose that I take every 8 weeks, about $25,000/year.

So now I use a coupon program through a separate company, and they bill the remainder of the balance to the company who produces the medicine who give me a $21,000 annual credit toward paying the remainder. So now to get my medicine I must coordinate between my doctor, a specialty pharmacy, my insurance provider, a company that runs the coupon program, and the company that produces the medicine... Just to get a syringe delivered to me on a schedule. And the credit probably won't last until the end of the year; I'll probably end up shelling out a few thousand for my meds around Christmas time this year.

If any of the complicated web of companies that collectively get me these meds doesn't have everything lined up in their system, I don't get my meds. My last dose was almost three weeks late to me because of all the calling around I had to do. Because we don't have a central health care authority, that means each company maintains their own system of record. Each phone call involves working through a phone tree to get to a human agent, working through the same set of identity verification steps with them, explaining the situation over again to a different person every time...

It's a real pain in the ass, and they do it on purpose to get you to give up. Having insurance doesn't mean your health care is paid for, and you pay a premium (hundreds of dollars) on every paycheck to keep the insurance that still doesn't pay for your medical costs. Having health insurance does not mean you don't still pay through the teeth for your health care. Having health insurance does not mean that health care is accessible to you. Having insurance that makes health care accessible today does not mean they won't change the rules behind your back, and that you will still have access to health care tomorrow.

We should hang out sometime.

Yeah it's alpha software. Even fully developed AAA titles ship with bugs. My point is they haven't decreased my enjoyment of the game at all, and that's a counterpoint to the meme.