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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2024

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  • There are multiple issues with this method, though.

    First of all, United Way takes a great deal of money of the donated funds off the top for themselves and only 7 cents of every dollar actually make it to the chosen organization. So it would be much better for you to donate directly to the organization so they receive 100% of your donation.

    Secondly, when you donate money through your paycheck (or at the register when shopping), this is added to the the pool of money that the company claims as being donated as a “corporate donation” which comes off of their taxes at the end of the year and to make it seem like good PR for them (ie, “Publix gave X amount of dollars to charity this year”), all the while none of it actually coming out of their own account book.

    Absolutely no one should know if you did or didn’t contribute through your paycheck, and if that is being used as a reason to limit your promotion potential please speak to HR (I know you are no longer there, but others may need to hear this, or you may have a future employer that uses a similar system).



  • Exactly what ArchRecord said. The main things for federal are Medicare, Social Security, and some disability (other disability is state). Other than that, there are so many federal programs that are such small percentages. Why do you think Congress takes over a year to approve the budget every year? NPR and PBS combined cost less than $7 per taxpayer per year, whereas military spending costs on average over $5000 per taxpayer per year (depending on income, and spread out over each paycheck). National forests cost the average tax payer $28 per year.

    Do you know how many programs there are in the federal system? And then also in each individual state system? That paystub would be impossible, and as ArchRecord pointed out, out, it would be listed as 0.0000x% $0.000x for each stub, not yearly. But you can look up the federal budget and state budget and see what each of these programs cost and what they are for each tax bracket.



  • Do you have a balcony?

    I freeze my scraps until I have enough to make vegetable or chicken broth/stock, and then after the broth I have a vermipost bin (worm bin) on my balcony. Since I’m in an apartment by myself, this is the easiest way. I give the worm tea and castings to my sister if I’ll be visiting her or to the community garden since there’s not enough light on my balcony to grow anything. This is my first time living somewhere with winter (I previously lived in warmer climates), so I did need to bring my worms in for the winter so they didn’t freeze (of you have extra space in a utility closet that could be a spot), and there was no smell as other had mentioned, as long as you don’t overwhelm them the worms do a good job of processing everything in a timely manner. Giving them crushed eggshells and coffee grounds really helps with this as well.

    I’ve known friends that made a countertop sized worm bin with less worms and had no problem with it right in the kitchen of their small apartment.


  • The wind developers are private companies that have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars purchasing the leasing rights to the wind energy areas and associated costs.

    The parts of the projects under federal control are a) reviewing the proposed leasing areas and projects, b) putting the leasing areas up for auction, c) reviewing the environmental impacts, and d) ensuring the developers remain in environmental compliance throughout construction and operation. That’s all the federal government can control, and other than that the private business can do what it wants. A, b, and c has pretty much already happened on a huge swath of all wind energy areas, and the only thing he be able to stop now is compliance of already leased areas and leasing additional areas.

    That means if he stops up from maintaining compliance, the developers will have no reason (other than personal moral compass) to not harm the environment (including harming severely endangered right whales) and not report it. He can’t stop the current projects from happening, at least not without huge legal battles costing the federal government a massive amount of money to pay back the developers. Not to mention the tens of thousands of jobs he’d be costing of he put them out of work when they’ve already been contracted for years at a time.


  • I find this to be a breakdown of training, because the training was pretty clear years ago when I had clearance with the navy that we were never to use apps like this that could disclose location, not just while on-duty or on base, but at any time that our location could be given away. We were specifically not allowed to have Fitbits or other smart watches (Fitbit was the big one at the time) that could share location and any apps that wanted to know our location (yes, on our personal phones) needed to be cleared by IT because we were people that had been granted clearance and therefore could not give away critical location information.

    The big scandal that got a lot of people into trouble was Pokemon Go, because not only did it use location, but I guess it used camera too? I didn’t know, I didn’t play it, but using cameras on base was a HUGE no-no, so using an app that shared location AND picture during your lunch break broke the brains of the COs.

    It seems so weird to me that this is something that is so widespread right now. I didn’t work for the navy anymore and haven’t in a while, but I still follow the basic safety protocols about not sharing sensitive information.



  • I have this exact same clock. Are you positive it’s not going off? You may have it set to be quiet in the beginning and ramp up to being loud over 15-30 minutes which is supposed to wake you up gradually. So perhaps you only noticed it going off at 10:46.

    For instance, I want to be awake at 7, so I set mine for 6:30 with a 30min gradual wake up (sounds and light gradually go up for 30 min).

    That setting is not required and you can have it just wake you up, but then it defeats the point of a sunlight alarm in my opinion.


  • There was a big push a few months ago, a year ago, who knows, Internet time is weird, when McDonald’s updated their terms of service on their app and added a clause like this. There were a lot of posts on social media, Reddit, fedi, etc to make sure people didn’t agree to the new terms or download the app if they never had it.

    There are people that pay attention to it, and even research papers done on it. A lot of the common apps started doing it at the same time. Venmo has it, Pinterest, Facebook, etc. things you wouldn’t think of that would have cases like this. But certain ones stick out because of the seemingly more real world complications (I mean, venmo could have fraud, Facebook could have cyber bullying, etc), but McDonald’s could have health issues, Disney clearly this is the case.


  • Lucky for you that you’ve never been in that position. You don’t get to decide “I’ll just remove it later if it doesn’t work out”. That’s considered an elective amputation and a cause to send someone to the psych ward - yes, even if there’s pain resulting from a severe injury and subsequent surgery. When given the option of restorative surgery that may repair it or may leave you with no function and lifelong unbearable nerve pain, or the option to amputate which will remove functionality but at least have predictable results, you need to make your decision at that point. Once you have one of them done, you can’t go back and say “ya know what, this isn’t working, I want you to go the other way instead”. I have lived with the unbearable nerve pain and zero functionally after reconstructive hand surgery and have begged for decades to go back and do the amputation instead. Enough nerve pain that I have threatened to self-amputate, that I have attempted to take my life. None of that matters, the pain is dealt with medically, not surgically, no matter how much you tell them the medical options don’t help.

    When this athlete says he made an informed decision - I know that means he found out what the potential was and that he asked if he would be able to make a new decision if he first tried to repair it.

    I’ve known many people that had similar surgeries that it worked just fine, and many others that live in constant pain. There’s no formula to know which way it will go, and we still know so little about how the brain interprets pain, especially nerve pain, that there is so little we can do for it.


  • Completely disagree. If this had happened at any other time other than two weeks before the games and he made the same decision, would you also be saying there needs to be an investigation?

    This was such a severe injury that looking at it caused him to pass out. It’s not like it was a simple fracture and the time to heal would have caused him to miss the game so he strong armed someone into amputation. This was such a severe injury that amputation was a viable option, and that’s what he chose.


  • Please read my other comment, as someone with actual first hand experience in hand injuries that result in the choice between restorative surgery or amputation.

    You make that choice when deciding which way to go initially. It’s not a painting that you can decide "ya know what, this isn’t working out, let’s go back to the other way we thought ". Once you go down the restorative surgery route, that’s your route. And any pain you experience gets dealt with medically. Believe me, I’ve tried telling every doctor I know that the nerve pain I experience is to much to much to bear and to please go back and amputate instead, but at this point it’s considered an elective amputation.

    Just because he’s explaining that a benefit of this choice is that he can play doesn’t mean it was the complete reason for his choice


  • Completely disagree. I had a hand injury as an infant that resulted in my parents being given the same decision to make - repair the fingers and hope for functionality or amputate. They chose to repair, of course they did. It has lead to 20+ surgeries, unbelievable nerve pain my entire life, and zero functionality. I have consistently asked for the fingers to be amputated, but at this point it’s considered elective amputation and worthy of a call to a psych to have me checked out, despite the pain. I would give anything to go back to that time and have my parents choose amputation. But of course, not knowing the pain, I would probably be upset with them for choosing that option as well

    It may seem like this player is “choosing” to forego restorative surgery just so he can play in the Olympics, but this article is probably not presenting all of the information that he was given by his doctors, and his choice may have nothing to do with playing right now, but rather the longer outcome of his health. Just because he’s explaining that a benefit of this choice is that he can play right now doesn’t mean that is the complete reason he chose it.





  • Sure you have some aspect of faith (I wasn’t there, can’t 100% confirm the authenticity of the footage myself), but it’s clearly based on quite a solid piece of evidence.

    Except that you don’t need to have “faith” that this happened, you are able to verify it yourself!! There were reflectors left on the moon that you can shine a significantly strong laser to and have it reflected back if you have a sensor that can pick it back up.

    THAT is the point of peer review. To prove that the results in the experiments are reproducible by those using the same equipment, and that faith isn’t a requirement - that anyone can verify it and reproduce it.

    How would those man-made reflectors have gotten there if not for man going to the moon and placing them there?