massivecali (u/massivecali)

massivecali commented on A Common Blood Test Can Cost $11 or Almost $1k nytimes.com/2019/04/30/up... · Posted by u/pseudolus

mnm1 · 6 years ago

What program are you referring to? AFAIK, This is only in states that expanded Medicaid so it's a real situation for millions in states that didn't. Or are you talking about some other program?

massivecali · 6 years ago

California programs, so yes expanded Medicaid. But as the state that consumes the most in welfare, it seems highly relevant when discussing the needs of the 'poor'.

Programs: California Medi-cal (which covered all of my medications, tests, etc), Denti-cal (all dental work thats not cosmetic), my obama phone, calfresh (for ebt food) and calworks (cash monthly stipend) are the only programs I can speak to.

I'm grateful for what I had to fight to receive during a bad period of my life and hate seeing misrepresentations like this being spread without specific context.

Had I not been able to finally get working again, I would have eventually qualified for free housing, utilities and all the other benefits available from programs that are funded from various sources. I made several friends through the course of going to these offices over a long period of time who were admittedly worse off than me (mentally) but somehow knew all the inside information on how to game the system. (Ex: if you are considered impaired you can get free bus/subway/van service card, which they all knew how to easily acquire). I had to ride my bicycle or walk everywhere to get back and forth from these appointments.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-other-state-comes-close...

massivecali commented on A Common Blood Test Can Cost $11 or Almost $1k nytimes.com/2019/04/30/up... · Posted by u/pseudolus

roganartu · 6 years ago

As an Australian living and working in the US with a wife who has a chronic medical condition that costs our insurance company on the order of $100k/yr for her regular treatments, all I can say is "Almost $1k" sounds like a gross underestimate.

An anecdote I like to share with friends back home is related to a routine blood test that she has every few months. The price the provider bills varies significantly, but one time they billed $2900. Our insurance paid them $27 like they usually do and the remainder was written off.

Imagine being sick, having no insurance, maybe no job, and receiving that bill in the mail with absolutely no way for you to know that they would probably accept over 100x less than billed. I can understand why medical expenses are the #1 cause of bankruptcy in this country.

massivecali · 6 years ago

>Imagine being sick, having no insurance, maybe no job...

Sorry no.

Long term unemployed people in the US qualify for free medical care, celphones and basic dental work. The process is arduous, yes, but it is comprehensive. I had entire recurring blood panels, multiple MRIs, neurological impairment tests , every hospital visit and all of my prescriptions provided for free.

Lumping all levels of poor together is just lies that obfuscates larger issues.

massivecali commented on Google Continues Slump After Ad Revenue Growth Slows bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/dredmorbius

reaperducer · 6 years ago

Reporters don't make the charts. It's the Wall Street Journal, not a blog. There's and entire art department for that sort of thing.

Also, charts like that are very common in financial publications. The target audience knows how to read them.

Edit: The original link was WSJ. It's since been changed to Bloomberg, presumably because of the Journal's paywall, but the point still stands.

massivecali · 6 years ago

How is the WSJ's credibility any better than a blog? >The Wall Street Journal is the most trusted news source in the country, according to the index, with 57.7% of Americans trusting it. All polls are biased based on how you ask questions. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonysilber/2018/10/03/the-wall-... I'd say little more than half the poll is about as irrelevant as a blog. Either you trust something because of confirmation bias or you don't. Disregarding blogs as somehow being less credible, holds traditional media to a higher standard which they have chosen to abandon for partisan reporting over the past 10 years. Other random sources for comparison/counterpoints: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/wall-street-journal/https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/writing/using-sources/principl...

massivecali commented on I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017) huffpost.com/entry/standa... · Posted by u/ilamont

foxfired · 6 years ago

I was always afraid to read any classical work because no matter what you think you read, someone will tell you "Actually..."

Then one day I read this beautiful quote about the old man and the sea:

> “Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”

― Ernest Hemingway

massivecali · 6 years ago

I had an art show once.

I walked up to a couple debating what a hand in my painting was holding.

It wasn't holding anything in my creation.

But art, like writing, is subjective.

massivecali commented on WeWork Files for IPO nytimes.com/2019/04/29/bu... · Posted by u/idlewords

ravenstine · 6 years ago

They're a ripoff, and I predict a decline in coworking as it currently exists, not growth. I'm saying this as someone who is currently working out of a coworking space, though not WeWork at the moment. No, WeWork is absurdly overpriced in LA, possibly in general.

Actually, most if not all coworking spaces are a ripoff unless you've got a small team working out of one. For individuals, it's borderline not worth it if they aren't making obscene amounts of money.

I work remotely and use a coworking space because cafes are dreadful environments for getting anything done. As has been mentioned on HN before, restaurants and cafes have been getting louder, meaning headphones must be used 99.9% of the time. Even nicer cafes have flimsy tables, bad Wifi, and lousy parking.

If space for individuals to work at is really in demand, all that cafes and chains like Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf need to do is wise-up and make relatively minor changes to their existing storefronts or possibly build secondary venues for people who want to get work done, and the idea of managing huge office buildings and paying for them with a nominal $300+ per month fee comes crashing down like a house of cards.

I would gladly work out of cafes and buy drinks and food every day if cafes would fix their existing issues. And I suspect I'm not the only one.

As soon as I get a home with a room I can set up an office in, I'll gladly cancel my membership.

massivecali · 6 years ago

I would think hotels would be in a better position to expand their business centers and cater to this market.

massivecali commented on The Life of a Cherry Drying Pilot (2009) aneclecticmind.com/2009/0... · Posted by u/ycombonator

dTal · 6 years ago

A "male language"? What does that mean?

And there was no ambiguity - the author's name, "Maria", was at the top of the article.

massivecali · 6 years ago

I was taking the HN preferred side of giving the poster the benefit of the best possible interpretation, which in this case means in the condition of proper pronoun usage, English defaults to male pronouns for the unknown, or sometimes an ambiguous they. I don't read names in the modern age because I have no clue what foreign names are male or female. Nor would I be so bold as to assume.

massivecali commented on The Life of a Cherry Drying Pilot (2009) aneclecticmind.com/2009/0... · Posted by u/ycombonator

dTal · 6 years ago

Her little Robinson.

I do believe it probably says something about preconceived notions that, of the mere half dozen comments accumulated so far, this mistake has been made twice already.

massivecali · 6 years ago

It says nothing more than English is a male language. And ambiguous titling defaults to he (or they).

massivecali commented on The bible of doing business with the city of New York nytimes.com/2019/04/27/ny... · Posted by u/gregorymichael

massivecali · 6 years ago

Why doesn't the title match the article?

massivecali commented on Aerobic exercise is an effective treatment for depression discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/co... · Posted by u/DanBC

astazangasta · 6 years ago

Look, the evidence is always surprisingly weak. This isn't necessarily because these things don't work, its because the epistemology used is terrible at evaluating these sorts of questions, when someone has bothered to look in the first place. See here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/

Anecdotally my life experience is that exercise is the best possible way to combat depression. The other day I was crushingly depressed and had been for a week. I went and hit my heavy bag for twenty minutes and came out feeling fine. The effect was profound and easily felt. I don't need a study to convince me further; my lived experience is a superior epistemic method here.

massivecali · 6 years ago

Severe depression leads to isolating behaviors. If you're not so depressed that you are able to leave the house and go somewhere, you're ahead of the game and excercise is just icing on the cake.

massivecali commented on Unseen Clockwork Orange 'Follow-Up' by Anthony Burgess Unearthed bbc.com/news/entertainmen... · Posted by u/jonbaer

apo · 6 years ago

> A Clockwork Orange was, however, a box office success in the US and was nominated for the Oscar for best picture in 1972 (losing to The French Connection).

The original release in the US in 1972 was rated X. It's one of only two X-rated films to receive a nomination, the other being "Midnight Cowboy."

Kubrick pulled the film from the UK after receiving threats to himself and wife.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film)

massivecali · 6 years ago

Ratings are imperfect censorship tools that evolve over time. PG-13 was created specifically for Indiana Jones Temple of Doom because there was no rating between PG and R. Content that fits in these boxes is not the same from year to year. Not just with regards to violence or language, but casual topless women that were commonplace in the 70s is no longer PG/PG-13 acceptable.