cneurotic

My bad, about the Epstein thing. Ungenerous assumption on my part. Sorry!

Lived in China for a while. Us (admittedly, extremely white) American ex-pats had a very fratty attitude toward "the baij."

Maybe it's because we could only afford the cheap stuff — but any baijiu we got our hands on was really, really nasty. Only palatable with a 1:25 Sprite solution.

One advantage of paper maps, for me, is that they're much better at installing a 'model' for a city in your head.

With digital maps, I can navigate from place to place to place pretty easily. But then I retain virtually no information. I end up with no 'nose' for how to find my own way home.

But if I study a map on paper, laboriously plan my route in advance, and then follow it IRL — it's like magic. That route is installed there forever.

Do that enough times, and navigating even really crazy big cities starts to become instinctual. No GPS required.

Oh, people on such plans incur massive bills all the time.

Suppose you're in a bicycling accident, you're knocked unconscious, and an ambulance takes you to a hospital that isn't in your insurance network.

Boom. Out-of-network charges.

If your bicycling accident was so bad that you need surgery, a five figure bill is a certainty. A six figure one is rarer -- but absolutely possible.

What's really messed up is that, even if you end up at an in-network HOSPITAL, you might get care from an out-of-network provider.

In this bicycle surgery hypothetical, for instance, your hospital and your surgeon might be in your network - but the anesthesiologist isn't.

Boom. Another out-of-network charge.

(Thats called Surprise Billing, btw)

At median income levels, there's no amount of HSA savings money that can insulate you from costs like that.

The current US insurance system asks consumers to walk an insane tightrope of cost controls.

It's no wonder a lot of us fall.

Jazz is so cool.

"Look. Look where your hands are. Now."

Very good point! Envy has layers! Hard to keep that in mind in the throes of it — but certainly a smart approach.

Really resonated with me. "Seeing the kid more often" is the hardest hitting observation.

"Its just a fucking job" indeed!

Wow. Lived there for years, studied Chinese, and never noticed these little variations of thickness / weight / line height.

What a cool peek into the obscure subculture of sign-crafting!

For me, what's missing from the 'smartphone' // 'religion' analogy is — passion.

The emotional tenor of my relationship with my phone looks — and, I'm sure — very different from the way people relate to their faiths.

Facebook, YouTube, etc don't feel like 'movements' to me, like the article's author said. At least, I don't have the passion that a 'movement' seems to imply.

For me, smartphoning is an emotional gray zone. Most of the time I feel close to nothing. I use it to blot out my worries and deal with the mundanity of my life.

Which makes it more like actual opium, IMO.

Wish more people talked about / knew this!

How a big part of the reason the US healthcare system sucks is just a weird fluke of history!