“Don’t regret. Remember.” From the movie “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Changed how I think about a lot of the events in my past. The director said that fans have come up to her and shown her tattoos of that line, so it’s not just me.
I discovered today that my most played game on Steam is Astronner with about 500 hours, and my second most played is Surviving Mars with about 500 hours.
Tabletop Simulator. In 2020 my weekly gaming group couldn’t meet anymore, until we discovered that solution. We still meet in person occasionally but we have been playing every week online. I’m genuinely not sure how I would have gotten through the lockdowns without it.
Brought to you by my discovery that some people think that “the customer is always right” isn’t the slogan of a long-dead department store, but rather it’s an actual call the cops law.
Was just thinking that there should be doctor clubs, where a bunch of people pool their money to hire a dedicated general physician. Or to have a shared tailor, or group cafeteria, or whatever....
Here’s the problem. Let’s say you have a doctor club, where everyone pays the same amount regardless of how often they use the doctor. For people who need the doctor a lot, that’s great. They pay a lot less than they would if they had to pay per visit. For people who just need one checkup a year, they end up paying a lot more than if they just paid for their annual checkup. And they would quickly figure that out, and drop out of the program.
So now the people who are all basically healthy aren’t in your pool anymore. They’re paying for their annual checkup at another doctor. So only the people who need the doctor a lot are paying in. So you have to hire more doctors and increase the cost of the program, because everyone who is in it needs a lot of doctor time.
But then the same thing happens again. People who need more visits a year are getting more out of the program than they are paying in, and people who need fewer visits a year are getting less than they are paying. So the people who need the fewest doctor visits drop out. And so on as the cycle repeats.
You get the idea. There’s a game theory term for this that I am forgetting, but the result is spiraling costs and more dropouts. This is why the ACA (for you non-Americans, that’s the Affordable Care Act, which was attempting to reduce US healthcare costs) had a health insurance mandate. Requiring everyone to be part of the program is the only way to make something like this work.
I feel like the cafeteria is the best scenario, because there isn’t an imbalance of needs like this. Pay a flat fee per year and get a lunch every day, or every work day, or whatever. Economy of scale would mean that it would save the subscribers money.
…huh, this could actually work. The one downside is that people nowadays expect variety in their food and cafeteria food tends to be samey. But if you could solve that, this is a good idea.
A butterfly effect is the phenomeon that a small change in initial conditions that leads to a significantly different result than if the initial conditions haven’t been changed. Have you personally witnessed such phenomeon?...
I was in line to buy tickets to a concert. The tickets didn’t cost much, but I was poor, so as I was in line I was wavering back and forth between the cheapest tickets and the second cheapest. When I got to the front I was on the side of the cheapest.
Another person who bought the cheapest was an incredibly cute girl who I met there and ended up dating for several months, and that relationship, after it ended, gave me the confidence to make a move on another girl who I had long been attracted to, and our relationship made me choose the particular job that I chose because it let me move near where she lived.
So if I had been a couple of spaces further back in line, I probably wouldn’t have lived in that state for two years. True story.
I tend to like the volunteer-read audiobooks on librivox and recently was curious about their Sherlock Holmes books (never read or listened to before), but I’m wondering what else is out there and popular in the community.
I occasionally take the bus from NYC to a town in the Finger Lakes, and this is so true. I have been through so many towns that check off every one of these boxes.
Good on the aunt for recognizing that giving away possessions can be a sign of suicidal ideation. I guess she had been through it herself and understood.
What's a quote that has stuck with you for your whole life?
I always loved browsing such posts on reddit, so thought I should make one on lemmy too...
In which game did you spend the most hours?
I discovered today that my most played game on Steam is Astronner with about 500 hours, and my second most played is Surviving Mars with about 500 hours.
People who work in food service or customer service: What’s the dumbest thing a customer ever insisted was “the law” or “illegal”?
Brought to you by my discovery that some people think that “the customer is always right” isn’t the slogan of a long-dead department store, but rather it’s an actual call the cops law.
How many patients can one doctor take care of per year? How many people can one farmer feed a year?
Was just thinking that there should be doctor clubs, where a bunch of people pool their money to hire a dedicated general physician. Or to have a shared tailor, or group cafeteria, or whatever....
What butterfly effect have you personally witnessed?
A butterfly effect is the phenomeon that a small change in initial conditions that leads to a significantly different result than if the initial conditions haven’t been changed. Have you personally witnessed such phenomeon?...
Hey Lemmy, what are some good public domain books?
I tend to like the volunteer-read audiobooks on librivox and recently was curious about their Sherlock Holmes books (never read or listened to before), but I’m wondering what else is out there and popular in the community.
Shitty old town starter pack (i.imgur.com)
'You're Not Alone': How one suicide survivor spreads the message that help is out there (www.usatoday.com)
An age old problem. (Aug 10, 1921) (startrek.website)