acjacobson

They had 60 Senate seats but not 60 votes. For every vote you still need 60 votes to prevent a filibuster regardless of whether your party has the majority of seats. This is why the public option (and single payer) was killed in the ACA. They didn't have the 60 votes to override a filibuster (Lieberman was, I believe, the main holdout)

My family kind of prides itself on driving manual cars even though you have to go to extra effort to buy them new in the U.S. these days. Once my Dad brought one of them into a mechanic for an oil change and the guy asked 'How do you like your anti-theft device?' My Dad was a bit puzzled because there was no extra alarm or device he could think of, but the mechanic meant the stick shift. Apparently manual cars are now so uncommon that your average car thief doesn't know how to drive one away - so it's kind of a surprising that someone got this 914 as far down the road as he did.

Free trials are most useful / valid in my opinion when the product or service is novel and your potential customers aren't sure yet if you'll solve their problem. It makes perfect sense for a project management SaaS because everyone works in different ways. However, you're offering managed services which should already be well understood by your real customers. Managed Postgres is something they need or not - you're not in the business of selling them on Postgres itself. Thus I don't think offering a free trial does anything to attract a real willing customer.

As an alternative you could offer free credits if you really want to test this, but this will always be a trade off and there will be a lots of people who use the free credit and never convert.

Most companies shouldn't be storing CC numbers in this day and age but using tokenized cards instead. Let Stripe worry about PCI compliance, and OP can simply advertise which processor they're using so customers feel secure.

The debate over what qualifies as 'real' art is a long and ever-evolving. When photography first emerged people said it could never be real art because it was just a snapshot of the world. Why should I care for an image captured by a machine?

Even so the trend now is to have a few intermediaries who are native German speakers manage the near-shore team. You don't need the full engineering team to speak German - just a few key coordinating managers - and it's nearly as efficient and productive.

Thanks you for sharing - these are interesting ideas.

At the moment we're focused on how we can tie together shared events and memories of your personal story (hence the name) into one place. Currently this is primarily from photos, but as you've suggested there is a lot one can do with how those photos are connected to time, location, each other, and other possible connections. This is what I see missing in most photo backup tools, since they're primarily archival and aren't designed to tie ephemera together into a permanent catalog of your experiences.

While it won't yet solve all your backup needs (still early days), a few friends and I have been working on a privacy focused competitor of sorts for Google Photos, but a bit easier to share your albums with friends and family. It is free for the time being, but it will be a paid solution as you're not paying with your data. It's also E2E encrypted. While all photos are currently hosted by us, we're also exploring letting you to connect the app to your own cloud or storage solution for those that want full control. If you're interested it's called StoryArk https://storyark.eu/

I would say it was too chaotic to be introspective (I realize I cited an example of my train if thought but this was not the norm).

I see your point about preparation and it’s valid however hearing someone else talk about what it’s like really can’t prepare you. I knew bad trips were possible and had read extensively about set and setting. But in the moment there was no reason or logic. I forgot everything I knew about managing the experience. It was completely overwhelming and in that situation there is very little you can do.

In many ways it’s like the psychedelic experience overall. You can read about and be as prepared as possible but the experience is so otherworldly there is no way to fully understand that it’s like unless you go through the experience.

You raise an interesting point and perhaps it is both. I think it’s possible to experience negative or awful things and still grow - silver linings and all that. Does that make it good though? A much more serious example could be someone that survives cancer and now has a new found appreciation for life. I’m not sure that makes it “good” even though there were some positive outcomes. The difference of course is that I was never in any danger - though in the experience I certainly didn’t know that.

I am unsure about persistent long term negative outcomes from psychedelics - you bough I know several people that tried them once, had a rough experience and never touched them again.

Maybe I can give an anecdotal example that is less ambiguous. I have a fair amount of experience with psychedelics. I have had both uncomfortable trips and once what I would characterize as an actual bad trip. In the case of the bad trip it was a normal dosage, less than 2 grams of mushrooms (cubensis), and wasn't mixed with anything else. In terms of effects I would describe it as feeling like you are losing your mind, and you will never be yourself again. I imagined, in an extremely vivid and negative way, how I would be judged - by my friends, parents, society for what was happening in my head. How I would be pitied. For lack of a better word, I understood what it was to be "insane" and I knew I would never be sane again. I was unable to answer basic questions - completely unable to function (I could still speak but was highly confused). Fortunately I had friends who took care of me, changed my setting, and I came out of it after an hour or two finishing the trip feeling fine.

Psychedelics amplify your current emotions. If you feel love for the world you'll feel that 10x or 100x. If you have a panic attack, then it's the same amplification. You are correct that mixing and overdoing it are great ways to cause panic and bring on a bad trip - but bad trips really can happen if your set and setting is off. This is why people talk so much about being careful with set and setting - it is the most effective way to not play Russian roulette as you say. This is why in therapy there is always a guide - it is always in a calm place, and a therapist isn't going to recommend it for you if they see you're in the wrong mindset. But even then its not as if set and setting can somehow be measured to ensure the trip is good.

As negative as the experience was, in some ways I am glad I had it, because it gave me a much deeper understanding of where my mind could go - both positive and negative.

I would be interested in learning more - this sounds completely novel to any way I have worked before.

As others have said you could do this in many places - including countries that are generally more expensive like Germany (350-450€ for a small flat in Leipzig). In practice the main challenge might be finding a short-term rental for as low as people staying a year or more, so factor that in to your search.

Depends on the country. It won't work in the Schengen because the visa waiver is 90 days within a 180 day stretch.

It's not in Germany. I can buy it at my local Asian grocery.

I would argue he already does. The entire point of "fuck you" money is that you are no longer beholden to someone else - it is not so much defined by the overall amount, but by the freedom it can buy you. He gets to work on what he loves doing every day doing it exactly the way he wants.

I have done both and I currently work in a consulting company like the one you describe, but in product as opposed to engineering. Like all jobs it has pros and cons. The big advantages to consulting are the opportunities to work on a lot of different projects and in different fields. You'll get much more exposure than working for a product company where you'll have a singular focus for years. I've been in consulting for two and a half years and have worked with insurance, automotive, grocery, and retail marketplace companies doing web, mobile, b2b and b2c products. That's a lot of variety for that time period. And as others have mentioned your network grows much faster as every new project means a whole new set of people to meet. Consulting can be a great way to 'trial' certain sectors without taking a dedicated job there. I now know much more about where I don't want to work in the future as much as I do because of that experience.

As for disadvantages there are several. Your main concern is the first one and it is real. You can only spend so much time on a project, and that means you may never get to take it to the depth and maturity that you want. In most cases you're there to start something or fix something. Once it is started the client will take over, and if it is fixed, it's fixed. So if you want to go deep into a subject, I would pick a different path. It can be a bit sad to put your heart into something for a year and then not be able to see it all the way through. The other disadvantage is around the politics of the kind of work. This is a three party system - there are your goals, the goals of your company and it's consulting business, and the goals of the client. Those don't always align and it can be complicated to navigate. You can also find yourself in situations that are uncomfortable - like dropped into a project timeline that you weren't part of estimating. It can be a bit sink or swim in my experience. The most important factor in being successful is communication / stakeholder management and making sure expectations are clear to everyone.

It's given me a lot of experience quickly, but it's a real challenge. It is fast-paced and intense and thus it is not for everyone - but if you're thinking about it it is probably worth doing for a few years to get the experience and see how you like it.

It is rent control - which basically exists throughout Germany. Even in SF rent controlled apartments can increase some % per year, it is just controlled how much. In Germany this is often done by looking at the region's average price for similar properties and then fixing some limited increase against that. This is distinct from the rent cap that was overturned, which stated no rise in rent at all for five years.

There are certain things that you can outright be fired for - such as stealing, I believe. I think that showing up drunk for work might also be one of them?

I think the 20% is the fee for Shopify as a whole, not the payment processing fee. Since payment processing is a small portion of what they offer at Shopify its not an apples to apples comparison with Stripe.

Forgive me if this is a naive question, but how is this different from Patreon, but dolled out in smaller ad hoc amounts? Is the legal distinction because with Patreon each user chooses the distribution ahead of time? Couldn't this be worked around by creating a white list of publishers you are willing to support that approves some set limit or transaction amount ahead of time? So as an example I whitelist a newspaper, and agree to pay $.005 per article view?

Kind of? Doesn't Flattr have you choose up front how you want to distribute your subscription? I was imagining a system where you don't have an upfront choice to make, but that as you consume content the subscription is drawn down.

The answer to this, which I am a little surprised no one has tried to implement (maybe someone has tried?), is to charge the end customer in some larger amount - say $5 or $10, and then draw down the micro transaction amount as you go. So if you could pay $5 a month (or at a time) but gain access to every article, site, video, piece of content etc, and it auto deducts from your balance then you don't have the transaction cost to manage with the CC, and you don't have the friction of purchasing. The challenge here is like any two sided marketplace - you need consumers to pay, and then you need content providers to sign on to get enough on offer for it to be worth it for both sides.

Most people that I see discussing salaries (in Germany or in the US) use gross as the default. In rare cases I hear people use net, but mostly this is those starting out / student workers. I assume the OP means 100k gross. 100k gross in Berlin is above average.

The former, I believe. Many companies are incorporated in Delaware, but if they have offices in CA are still subject to CA employment law for jobs located there.

Yes, in English we fully adopted the formal which is "You" for both formal / informal speech. The familiar / informal was "Thou" - which is a bit weird because now we think of "Thou" as being a bit formal because it is so old-fashioned.

Prices are in Canadian dollars, but I didn't know this until I looked up the restaurant. $11 felt kinda high for a döner, even a really good one. But that works out to ~7€ which is a little high for Germany, but not that much higher.

I find also 'Excuse me / Pardon me' is extremely useful in the local language.

I would use schwierig for difficult - but I am not a native speaker, so take it with a grain of salt. I tend to use schwer to mean hard (or heavy in other contexts)

Well, the theory says that the judge can only apply the current law as is written. And as written his interpretation is that the FDA has regulatory jurisdiction (and therefore obligation) over E-Cigarettes. But the judge doesn't create the law. If Congress wants to change the law they can. There is nothing legally that prevents Congress from passing a law that specifically exempts E-Cigarettes from FDA approval. I am not saying that politically this is feasible - the point is only that one judge is not the only party capable of making a decision.