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.

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