kwyjibo1230

If you take charging higher grocery prices for richer people to its furthest point, you could end up with a system where every item costs Y% of their assets and the utility of a dollar is reduced the more you have. In effect, this would eliminate the relative value of having more money. For example, eggs could be priced at 0.02% of total assets, which means a poorer person with $2000 pays 40 cents, and a richer person with $1M pays $200.

Now, would this go to its furthest point? Probably not, but it has the same, but smaller, effect of reducing the utility of money for richer people.

In some scenarios, this actually might make sense. For example, in Finland, they use the day fine system where traffic ticket fines are based on the violator's daily disposable income. It's useful because this is a scenario where you want the punishment to feel equivalent to all income levels.

For groceries, I don't think this should apply, because I think we would not want the act of purchasing food to equally punish all levels of wealth.

This really becomes a philosophical discussion of defining price gouging and immoral market techniques. Some are clearly gouging, such as charging 2x plane fares for someone who has to fly to a funeral, or tripling the price of supplies after a natural disaster. Some are less clear.

Agree, it's a little grating on the ears, but, language change is part of life! There are examples out there of modern nouns that used to be something else, but because the change happened so long ago, we're no longer pained to hear it changing.

For example, "Flirt" used to be a verb that meant to make a brisk, jerky motion. Now it is either a verb, to playfully act attracted to someone one, or a noun, a person who flirts.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/flirt

Hard to put this succinctly but it has a sense of the sad and exhausted feeling one gets when they're mildly sick and must stay home, and likely stay in bed, to recover but you don't really want to do so.

In other words, Sunday is our only true day to rest, the weekday was busy with work and scattered after-work commitments, and Saturday was devoted to a combination of chores and using every last bit of energy you had in the week to enjoy life and friends. So we may try to mentally force ourselves to take a day of rest and limited exertion, which in turn makes it not restful or fulfilling.

It's sort of like when you know you need to go to bed on time so that you can have full energy for a busy tomorrow, it somehow makes your sleep worse knowing that.

Wow, so Widdershins is not just a made-up word from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series!

Gracias Madre may be the restaurant you're thinking of. I unfortunately heard it has closed recently

I visited both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland the other week, and it was exactly like this. I was worried at first about delays from going through customs, etc. on the trip between the two. But, I took a train from Dublin to Belfast, and it felt like nothing changed apart from the currency and signage. It was great to see such an open connection between the two countries!

Cannot +1 this enough. I learned so much more when I took lessons from an improvisational jazz bass teacher who focused on

(1) Learning as many songs and standards as is reasonable each week

(2) Focusing on improvising along to my teacher playing the melody on piano. He wouldn't stop unless I asked, so I needed to keep time with him. If I made a mistake, and lost my place, he would keep playing and I'd listen to where he was and jump back in when I found it again

Your comment sounds almost Seuss-like somehow. Partly that description and assertion is a slant rhyme, but it also feels like there's some kind of (un)intentional pentameter going on

Thanks for this. It makes clear the series of cyclical complications that follows "I don't have an ID and need one, but I don't have a smartphone or credit card"

1) Don't have an ID, just provide your birth certificate. Oh wait... that wasn't issued to me

2) Well I can try to order my birth certificate mailed to me. Oh wait... I don't have easy internet access, no smartphone or internet at my house.

3) I got online at the library, time to order my birth certificate. Oh wait... I don't have a credit card to pay. Maybe my birth county lets me mail cash (risky), or maybe they require me to show up in person, and potentially spend $100s on travel, in addition to missing work.

4) Okay, I go to apply for a credit card or open a bank account to pay. Oh wait... I need an ID.

Rinse and repeat

Whenever a reading list gets to the front page of HN, I always find the most interesting books to add from the comments!

I did add Roadside Picnic from the link to my list, but thanks commenters for helping me find:

- We (very excited about this one given the possible influence to 1984 and Brave New World)

- Red Star

- Monday Starts on Saturday

Thanks for sharing these! this is actually very appropo to a conversation at my work now. Any other great guides like this you can share?

Same! I just got an emulator working this weekend for my PC and realized I can run the game directly from my original Ape Escape disc and use an Xbox controller. It's really bringing me back.

I try to remove common enhancing adverbs when writing emails at work. Removing "very," "definitely," "absolutely," etc. makes professional communication come across more authoritatively and clearly. I still use adverbs to be clear, but they need to communicate something specific that is otherwise hard to articulate.

Definitely tracks with the human tendency to judge yourself by intentions, and others by actions

The wiki covers that scenario. The rescuer uses their role to say they "tried" and then justify negative feelings to the victim. Essentially becoming the persecutor

Interesting wiki article, very insightful! As a manager myself, I think it's very important to be aware of whether you are playing the "rescuer" and perpetuating dysfunction, or acting as a "coach" and helping others to actually change and learn.

Heinlein wrote in Stranger in a Strange Land that "Man is the [only] animal who laughs." Who's laughing now? (Rats and cows apparently).

All jokes aside, interesting research. We find ourselves more similar than dissimilar to our less sentient counterparts each year.

Fair points. This is going to be especially unfair to people who do not speak English or have familiarity with US laws.

It seems to me like there's two main kinds of lies that interrogators use:

1. Lies about the process / promissary lies. e.g. "If you just confess, you can go home." 2. Lies about evidence. e.g. "We talked to {Friend|Family|Co-conspirator} and they said you did it and they have the {item} to prove it. It's not going to look good if you continue to lie to me."

#1 seems obviously bad to me. Too high of a risk of tricking innocent people into thinking they can end the stress by falsely confessing.

#2 seems less bad, possibly beneficial. There are other comments about how this can speed up interrogations by getting people who are guilty to think they've been caught and confess. I could be convinced otherwise.

In my opinion, sounds like 1 and 2 should be illegal for minors. But 1 should be illegal in general, for adults too.

Agreed. I think the intent of the previous commenters was more along the lines of "How do we determine which employees are working earnestly and effectively vs working without motivation or ineffectively?"

Its important to take time out of the question, because time spent, after a very small minimum, isn't a strong indicator of performance.

I agree with the sentiments about mob rule on social media being extremely negative.

The thing that always amuses me about any sites with ratings is that most people (the site owners, the reviewees, the reviewers) often assume that everyone has the same barometer for 1-5 stars. That's very likely not the case.

Take Goodreads as an example. My Personal barometer is

* 5 star = I would re-read this multiples because it was so interesting/engaging/life changing.

* 4 star = I really liked this book. I probably wouldn't re-read it but it was memorable.

* 3 star = Pretty good book.

* 2 star = Book had some flaws or it didn't appeal to me for specific reasons. I didn't like it.

* 1 star = I did not like this book at all, and I would tell people not to read it.

I think there are probably a lot of people that disagree with my barometer :) Maybe their 5 star is anything "pretty good" or above, and their 1 star is "this author should be banned from authorship, that's how much I disliked this book."

Curious to see what other folks' barometers are.

I work in an interesting tech career that does need to assess this: Pre-sales Engineering.

At my current job, we have our candidates do a short take-home assignment to assess coding skill, but we also have them do a live presentation to assess their pre-sales skills and ability to present under pressure.

We try to separate the two tests to get a better read on the two skill sets we're looking for. So far we've hired strong candidates. We prioritize avoiding false positives over false negatives; in other words, we prioritize turning candidates away over hiring someone we're unsure about.

Forcing you to "drop off" social media seems like the exact chilling effect you describe (assuming you are a moderate), rather than being a stance.

It's happening!

Just a thought about this. I wonder if the improved creative thinking has anything to do with increased heart bpm and blood flow to the brain that is stimulated by walking or other exercise. I noticed the article said "creative juices continued to flow even when a person sat back down shortly after a walk." Perhaps this could be because after a short while a person's heart rate will go back to resting bpm, and the brain blood flow will return to resting state levels. No hard evidence on my part to back this up, just a thought.

He also mentions health as a concern but light to moderate drinkers (1-3 drinks per day) are generally healthier than teetotalers, who are then generally healthier than heavy drinkers (>3 drinks per day). A drink of alcohol per day is shown to reduce the risk of heart disease significantly. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0216/026.html