geekagirl

I had my (very boxy and boring) 1800 sq ft house reroofed with 30 year asphalt shingles for ~$7k, including tearing off both previous layers of shingles.

I looked at getting a metal roof, and standing seam was going to cost about $16k.

Edited to add: The cost of living is cheap where I am.

There's a tool for grooming horses called a "sweat scrapper" for a reason. :)

If you ever watch a horse race or any other time a horse is working hard and fast, you'll see white foam near where the reins touch the horse's neck and and anywhere else there's friction. That's frothed up sweat.

I'm wondering about the weight issue too.

I also wonder about the preparation of the horses. Marathon runners are, in general, fantastically and specifically well trained for their sport. Are the horses involved specifically trained for endurance racing or just generally fit horses? Are they elite endurance racers? If the horses are specifically trained, does the fact that most equine endurance races are 50 or 100 miles effect the training of the horses?

Interesting! I'm also a woman, so there's some social pressure to shave.

I've got pretty sensitive skin and anti-persperant caused it to crack and even bleed. So I tried the rock salt/crystal kind of deodorant. My local supermarket carries it, should I ever run out, but I've had the same one for seven or eight years now. It works pretty well for me.

I also shave my underarms, which probably helps -- less surface area for bacteria to grow and sweat dries faster. If I'm wearing a tight shirt, I'll sometimes use baby powder in case I sweat, but in general it hasn't been a problem.

I bike to work occasionally, but usually change my shirt and wipe the sweat off with an alcohol wet-wipe. That helps as well.

Also, natural fibers are your friend! I will get stinky if I wear a polyester or rayon shirt all day, but that happens even if I wear normal deodorant.

Because medical gauze, usually being sterile, is more expensive than napkins.

You sound like me two years ago -- just replace "people on HN" with "classmates". I had clinical depression.

It had very little to do with my ability and everything to do with stress levels, brain chemistry and horrible feedback loops.

My advise for you: You need to stop beating yourself up. You're not worthless. You're not inadequate. Stop saying you'll "never" get there. Don't let that inner voice tell you anything you wouldn't tell your wife/child/best friend. I'm not saying it's an easy thing to do, but it's worth the trouble.

"It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists." -- Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash

Gender is between your ears. Sex is between your legs.

There's more than two genders -- hijra in Indian culture, for example.

"After all, when you introduce yourself in the real world, its apparent from either the looks or voice whether you're male or female."

Apparently, it's really not. I get called 'sir' all the time, and I'm a tall skinny chick with long hair. One memorable week, it happened four times. On another memorable occasion, I was wearing a bright pink coat.

"it paints things as being really bad for women in america; I doubt it's really that bad."

Let me tell you my experiences as a woman in America.

Online, we get to deal with turds like these: fatuglyorslutty.com. You know what else? 50-year-old men private messaging you pictures of their penises. It's happened three times. o_O

Maybe it's the anonymity, as one poster suggested, and clearly face to face interaction isn't that bad? I had a classmate tell me that I only got into college because of my gender. Never mind that my GPA nearly two points (out of four) higher than theirs.

Ever been flashed trying to work a drive thru? I have.

"having the gender by default will make it easier to make a better interface"

If your developers are worth their paychecks, they can probably figure out to handle 'decline to answer' and 'other' as the same case.