Messages

Dear ponch I hate you for getting the lifetime award that I never got. Barn runner is obviously inferior to the Princess Marian saga!

Also, congratulations.

Nevermind, found you via the blog

Anyone out there also play Real Racing 3? If you have more friends playing then you get more for winning races, so let me know if you're interested in forming an AGS RR3 network! By the way, I'm playing it on android, so can't use gamecenter for friending: Google+ or Facebook required...

My phone app needs are similar!

I'd recommend:

Games: Gem Miner, Battle of Colors, Landrule: all small, but fun to pass 15 mins
Apps: Aldiko ebook reader, 1Page BBC Newsreader, Wifi Analyzer, Strava (to keep you fit, man!) ColorNote, GPS Status (almost useless, but fascinating)

Essential: Zoner Antivirus (or other equivalent)

And finally, on my tablet, the following game is freemium, but you don't need to buy the options and I think its cool. But it eats up space like nothing else: Real Racing 3

That's the point.  I'm a fairly healthy individual, and I typically only need to visit a doctor once every year or two for relatively minor things (this year I had strep throat), so I don't really need insurance.

If a doctor visit normally costs $100, and if my deductible is higher than that, then I'm stuck not only paying for the $100 doctor visit, but also the monthly insurance charge.  I'm pretty poor as it is, so adding another monthly expense is not going to help matters, especially if it's not going to cover the $100 I'll end up spending out of my own pocket.  If I'm still going to have to pay deductibles and copays, insurance isn't really helping me very much as a relatively young and healthy individual.  Taxing me because I can't afford health care is essentially a poverty tax as well (and I find that to be unethical).

I understand that the ACA is already helping many, but so would alternative plans (like the "Medicaid for All" plan I mentioned above).  There is a better way, and it would be nice if the government would work towards it, or at least strike the individual mandate from the ACA.

I'll have to look into it a bit more, but I don't like the prospect of forcing me to pay any more than I'm already paying (which is the cost of visiting a doctor whenever I'm too sick for over the counter medicine).  I also think that more medication should be made available over the counter.

Well, insurance doesn't work if healthy people only pay for what they need. How can you balance risk if all the low-risks aren't in the scheme? In any system that basically doesn't punish people for being sick then healthy people have to subsidize the unhealthy.

You know that a single-payer system would have to be funded via taxes, right? So, it wouldn't necessarily be cheaper than the ACA, and you would be forced to pay for it!

Well, a deductible is the first X you pay each year... so with a 3000 deductible, and costs of 2000, you pay 2000. With a 3000 deductible and costs of 200000 (e.g. cancer, brain surgery, etc) you pay 3000 + some percentage of the rest. Not sure what typical percentages are for ACA plans.

Of course, 3000 sucks as a deductible. I'm lucky enough that my employer "gives" me a good plan, but I still hate having to pay the first $400 when I'm already paying so much as a premium.

One example of crazy US costs: my doctor visit copay is $15, Insurance pays the other $400 or whatever it is. In Singapore, $15 was THE ENTIRE COST of a doctor visit.

Things like being aware that getting too drunk to take care of yourself makes you extremely vulnerable to sexual assault

Of course, no-one has ever had their moderate amount of drinks spiked...

That's a completely separate issue.  But, one way to handle this would be to not leave your drinks unattended.

So women are supposed to take their drinks with them to the toilet?

Snarky, I just think that none of the advice is particularly valuable, since all of them can be gamed or bypassed by the perp, often by gaining the trust of the victim so they think it isn't necessary.

I think the main point to get across to men is that "No means no". And if people want to play games where that rule doesn't apply, it needs to be clearly agreed beforehand. Unfortunately all kinds of movies propagate "no means yes" as a default.

I assume you're in one of the states that didn't accept the Medicaid expansion, then? And that you CAN find a plan that costs less than 8 percent of your income, which would stop you being exempt from the requirement to purchase health insurance.

Things like being aware that getting too drunk to take care of yourself makes you extremely vulnerable to sexual assault

Of course, no-one has ever had their moderate amount of drinks spiked...

There's also the possibility that this close friend could be taken to court for defamation of character and convicted based on their lack of evidence of the rape, which in turn does harm to them.

Of course, civil cases have a lower burden of proof than criminal. So the whole "innocent until proven guilty" can be replaced by "on the balance of probabilities".

This page looks helpful: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/about/taxforms.html

Also, you may be able to get an ITIN faster from the US embassy/consulate in London: http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Obtaining-an-ITIN-from-Abroad

I've had to do these in the past when I worked for a company that gave me US stock. Of course, now I'm a resident of US, I do W-9  form instead.

I think, if you want the income to be paid without US tax then you need to get a TIN. Otherwise, you could get it paid with 30% tax withheld and then try and claim that of your UK taxes, if you do a UK tax return.

Of course, if you do get it without the US taxes, then you need to declare it on a UK tax return instead and pay tax in the UK.

Hey that's where I live!! I hope I'll be able to go!

Neat! Unfortunately, it's about a ten hour drive or so from El Paso, so I won't be attending. Good luck, Nikolas! Be sure to pick up a cowboy hat and six shooter while you're here.

Hey, I'm only a 9 hour drive from El Paso, so come and visit me!

I'd just like to say that I've personally found it much harder to remain a Christian when surrounded by the gun-lovin, Obama-hating,  Fox-watchin, Young-earth folks in this part of Colorado than I did surrounded by the relatively enlightened Scots...

That is all. I've done my share of internet religious debate. http://xkcd.com/386/

Despite Arizona's best attempts, it is possible for people from one country to live in another country, you know

Although you can't get proper haggis here, that is true. For some reason, the FDA refuses to classify some of its ingredients as fit for human consumption (e.g. Sheep Lungs). But then you can't get Shreddies or proper bacon here either.

The weather we get here in Colorado we get means we get wildfires, flash floods and tornadoes... sometimes all in the same week:

http://gazette.com/black-forest-residents-return-to-scenes-of-destruction/article/1502460
http://gazette.com/flash-flood-watch-issued-for-waldo-burn-area-first-winter-storm-watch-issued/article/501690
http://gazette.com/radar-shows-tornado-touched-down-at-denver-airport/article/feed/14911

A nice and happy birthday, SSH- surely you wrote your own CakeModule by now!

Belated thanks for the birthday wishes... I don't think I've read this thread for 4 years...

By the way, I tried to do the tags thing myself, SSH, but didn't seem to be able.  I do still have the option to create new posts though.  Is it because the post was written by someone other than myself that I couldn't edit it?  Not that it matters either way, I'm just curious.

Dunno, maybe. I'll make you an admin for future contingencies.

Wierd. Resent the invitations to see if it works this time.

So, thanks to Armageddon, Ghost and Jo DiPerla for volunteerring and thanks to AGA for mentioning the tags... that was your training course, new guys

Feel free to post about anything relevant to AGS. I used to trawl google back in the early days of the blog, or write tutorials, etc. Anything relvant and clean is good.