Wasn’t sure I’d agree when I started reading, but I like the way you think.

The value of my labor, daily.

The nominal “cost” of my healthcare, at every encounter.

Etc.

Thanks - it's a shoulder, so one of those "Either live with bone-on-bone pain for the next 30 years, or get the surgery and hope" kind of deals.

I had an unexpected... medical detour that delayed getting the shoulder done, and you're 100% right about things being compensated for. The shoulder was planned for a couple of weeks ago, and then some other stuff happened, and I'm noticing simple things like using I can use my other hand to turn a doorknob, but then need a foot to actually push the door open - until I was recovering from something else and cognizant of additional pain, I had no idea I'd even been doing that sort of thing.

All other things being equal, after surgery and PT, I'd be happy with getting back to around 80%. At that point, the (relatively weak, apparently) joint will be able to save my tail in a pinch. - right now, I am sworn off of all alcohol and any meaningful activity if I wake up in the middle of the night because if I fall and further damage the shoulder, it gets exponentially worse. Not that I'm planning to be a falling-down-drunk post-recovery, but it's the principle of it. Just walking outside for a smoke before going back to bed requires some thought and risk consideration. It's a whole new world I'd never even considered.

This is incredibly interesting. Gives me a bit of future hope as well. About to have a joint replaced, and the doc was very clear the operation may well need to be “revised” in 10+ years.

I acknowledge and accept that risk, of course. But if we can regenerate cartilage (in that very specific context), revision could look more akin to removing the joint socket liner and replacing it with new cartilage by then.

Or by the 20 year mark - let’s be honest, I’m in my 40s so having a second revision is not out of the question at all, if I’m otherwise in acceptable health.

Even if the (smashed) ball side of the joint has to be straight replaced again at that time, half the surgery is better than all of it.

Knew this was coming at scale sooner or later. Something of a concern to me personally, because my own gait is particularly identifiable to those who know me.

Aside from footwear, and possibly using various inserts to change the way one's foot falls on the ground, I don't have any obvious thoughts for defeating this unfortunately. The problem with any sort of inserts is that they're likely to cause other problems over time for the same reason they could theoretically mask one's gait - unnatural walking tends to be bad for the body on the whole, and to cause more widespread problems over time.

No reason it has to literally live 'at home' - you could just as easily use a VPS via LowEndBox for five or six bucks a month, though of course trust in providers varies widely.

Visible has worked well for me recently - it's wholly owned by VZW as I recall, and exclusively uses their network. In most areas, VZW is objectively the best coverage of any carrier.

$30/mo and I have yet to see throttling, even with heavy use. It "just works".

Yes, I'm effectively handing that data to VZW, but I have no illusions that any MVNO I chose would behave any differently. One way or another, they're all reselling the same 3 carriers, who by definition must have some base level of access to your data.

VPNs go a long way towards mitigating that, but using a carrier is likely to leak some level of data. While I have a great deal of respect for RMS, my own life doesn't really fit within his internet usage model and I'm forced to make choices. (Sacrifices, really, but informed ones.)

See voip.ms for voice. I can't speak for specific non-European languages, but I've been quite happy with LibreTranslate for my on the fly needs. Setup was dead easy too. (And if you see a lack of coverage for particular languages, obviously your contributions to improve that would be welcome)

Seconding @Tazerface@sh.itjust.works 's suggestion of voip.ms.

I throw them a lil cash maybe once per quarter or so, they maintain a bunch of numbers that I may or may not utilize at any moment, but are just too good to give up, and anything I'm not actively using is set up to send inbound SMS to my email - that way I don't lose access to multi-factor codes and such, but I'm not trying to juggle a bunch of numbers in some app or other either.

Dirt cheap, 'just works,' and they even made porting from GV easy.

Also, by the same token, to de-google your email, I'm a big fan of Migadu. Same sort of scenario - I prepay a lil bit once a quarter or so, have catch-alls set up so I don't miss random crap from emails I've forgotten I created/used a decade ago, etc. A nice, simple solution that also plays well with on-the-fly outbound email addressing, Thunderbird for day to day needs, and webmail.

Entirely valid question, that as a USian, I might just be qual to answer. The ratio between them varies by individual, but it boils down to a core American exceptionalism that’s taught actively from very young; some ridiculous blather about how having founding docs / written constitution makes our rights safer even in context of significant social change; and my personal least fave, the idea that if one didn’t directly and proximately earn something through capital or wage slavery, they just aren’t working hard enough and therefore shouldn’t have it.

Those things are at the core of a very large group of American voters’ opinions, and all are fatally flawed.

Of course, as a child of the very early eighties, growing up it was still (at least conceptually) possible to buy a house and a car on one income, within relatively recent history. As it absolutely should be.

Kicking that exceptionalism thought process is quite the struggle (as is the rest), even for those motivated to do it.

Civilised world has mostly lower paid docs (relative to us) but also mostly some sort of universal care. I’d gladly accept NHS-level wait times, if it meant that I could take the $2k a month that my emp and I together now pay for insurance (just 2 adults) - even if taxed to support that sort of system, that is real money.

Things are bettter than they were in my lifetime, even though ObamaCare was basically a typical American “personal responsibility” solution, just with subsidies to avoid actively excluding only the less financially well off.

Used to be that you had to have continuous coverage in order to get a new cost, or pre existing conditions weren’t covered under a newer policy even if one could buy one privately (you really couldn’t, practically).

Healthcare before ACA was a sanctioned and mostly very profitable betting operation for large carriers because the risk pool for each individual policy was large, and there were max amounts and sometimes lifetime total limits that could be paid.

By comparison, what we have is pretty great for folks who lived thru that era, but… Hot garbage compared to many other developed nations.

We’re a nation full of people literally trained to think our system is the best in the world. Helluva barrier to overcome, all the more so when the ACA did actually make things better.

Mild sidetrack but the only reason to assume by default our system might be better is the education (indoctrination) we receive early and often, and consistently.

Always appreciate a comment that makes me question why/how I made some assumption.

Good. Can’t imagine they embraced WFH willingly, sounds like a bullet dodged.

Used to build APIs against software made by RP. Not only was it total trash (UI and “API” both), but they nickel and dimed resi landlords AND resi tenants.

I wasn’t in RE either, not directly. We just found reasons to bill fees to tenants per their leases, and took a cut of what the LL collected.

Now I wonder if maybe we both worked for same company for at least a few months back in ‘21. Odds are very much against it, ofc.

Are you C? Lol

Things are no better stateside. To get social security disability takes years, and a lawyer who will take a portion of your back pay settlement when finally awarded.

And of course one can’t be earning money during the process.

Even with private short term disability coverage through employer, while it was more efficient than that, I still barely had the strength to get through it just to get partially paid for 10 hrs a week for a few months, in hopes that I can regroup, get things back together, and be able to make it through forty hour weeks.

Since that’s an external company, and our HR and payroll is a different external company, now I have to stay on the latter to make sure a) they get the memo and b) I actually get the pay in question.

Sweatpants, and old t-shirts or polo shirts if there's a video call planned for a given day. I WFH for a company you've heard of, and all the video calls in question are internal.

What was said internally is absolutely brutal.

How many others lack the energy, strength, or (bs) “social skills” to work through this?

Might actually result in change.

My own lived experience is that the blind/deaf orgs who pursue these things should be a model for other orgs serving folks w/ other disabilities.

Maybe you are, but I can relate.

If anything, we would have been classed separately pre DSM-V, but neither here nor there.

The nature of speech (and video demonstration) is such that it takes drastically longer to both find, and make use of, the information I need.

That little kerfluffle between MTG and sane lawmakers took me less than a minute to read. But trying to watch it would be literal hell.

MFers, just let me skim and/or Ctrl-F likely keywords for the one nugget of info I need. IDGAF about the rest.

PolicyCancelledByCarrier

If canx notice has been received, processed, blah blah, eventually it’s set to true.

If/when a reinstatement is received, set to false.

Zero ambiguity, something along that line saved my tail when working with devs in different countries with different insurance customs.

Carrier sent letter telling policy holder to get bent because “fuck you, pay me?” Field is true.

Otherwise, or with reinstatement letter, field true.

Probably, see “dementia.”

There’s an SOL on rape in most scenarios.

But no statute of limitations on copyright violations? WTF?

With ANSI graphics? Door games?

Cause that’s what I recall of the old internet.