https://fortune.com/2016/09/08/unbanked-americans-fdic/ "last year" being 2015.But the survey also looked at “underbanked” households, which have a bank account but still elect to use services like check cashing, money transfers, payday loans, and pawnshops. Little has changed in those numbers, as the percentage of the underbanked was 19.9% last year compared to 20% in 2013, a modest 0.1% change.
It has been setting in an anthology on my "books to by" list for a while. I'm trying (failing) to read down what I already have before I aquire too much more though.
Welp, you've inspired a volume of some of Muir's writings to start winging its way through the postal system. Should be here today or tomorrow. I'm between books, so I'll probably start it as soon as it arrives. Thanks! Don't think I would have found him on my own.
Steinbeck I've read The Pastures of Heaven, To a God Unknown, Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle, and Of Mice and Men. I'd guess I actually started these before the last book thread was posted, but I didn't finish this volume of works until recently. To a God Unknown was my favorite of that batch, followed by The Pastures of Heaven. I could read Steinbeck describe land all day. In Dubious Battle was the only one that I really wished were longer. Felt abridged. Henry David Thoreau Natural History of Massachusetts, A Walk to Wachusett, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Didn't bother to find out which version of Sir Walter Raleigh I read (apparently there are two), but A Walk to Wachusett is the only one I'd read again. Basically a hiking trail report. Alice Munro Started a collection of her short stories. I only got three stories in, but I really liked it. Need to rebuy the book so I can finish it. F. Scott Fitzgerald I just finished This Side of Paradise. Not entirely sure what I think of it, yet. A quarter of the way through I was pretty sure I didn't like it at all. Then I was miffed when I realized I was reaching the end.
Mine is gone. Our library is awesome, and I go there more than I went to Ernst & Son, but so many people use it that you're pretty anonymous. They only people I recognize at the library are either staff or people who I know from another context and are at the library to use their meeting rooms. I've never said to myself "Ah, that's _____ from that one time at the library!"
Alas, we've already had our entire unit heat treated once and sprayed twice. The exterminator that did it offers a 6 month "guarantee" so the subsequent callbacks have been free but he hasn't exactly been confidence inspiring to deal with. Our lease has a clause where the tenant is responsible for paying for treatment. And the guy they called out was more than a month's rent. So I wouldn't be too surprised if someone else in the building had them and was staying mum about it. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Hah, just kidding. Found one this afternoon. New project: convincing myself that my remaining objects are worth owning.conquering bedbugs a while back made
We ended up with a 2015 Prius. It's funky inside, but not in a trying to be hip way. Just in a weird functional way. Our commute is low to mid 50s mpg now. I really like it.
Name: my own Location: Kansas Age: 29 Current Preoccupation: Reading through this. About to finish volume 1. Trying to be less bitter about work. Previous Preoccupations: Being bitter about work. What change would you like to see from the users of Hubski? ? I find I lurk more as I become more comfortable with the fact that I'm not comfortable trying to be social for the sake of being social. More book threads would be nice. I need to get a hard copy of Society Of The Spectacle so I can finish it. I read super slow on my phone.
We've started renovating a space in my parent's basement to live in so we can help out around the house/land. The lease here isn't up till January, but I wanna get that shit done. It's been stressing me the fuck out. I ended up mocking up the floor plan and our furniture in CAD so we could get a feel for how the downsizing cookie is gonna crumble. It is gonna be a quarter the space of our current place, but conquering bedbugs a while back made a lot of downsizing decisions for us. Spending a lot of time staring at the layout puzzling out walk paths and public / private spaces. The owners before my parents used the space to run a business, so it is more or less independent of the rest of the house. Figuring out how to get multiple uses of a space is an interesting challenge, but not really one I'm passionate about. Feels more like work.
They've been coming around this week and giving out these So hey, everything is OK I guess. Spared no expense. Less than a year into my working here one of the area supervisors put in a call to pull the wrong trailer. Driver took off right as I was walking in. One of the lifers came up afterwards and said "I hear you almost died." Took a long time to realize he hadn't been joking. I'm sorry about your neighbor.But hey - that pickle they're telling you to pack? They didn't have to do that.
They're the kind of thing that becomes normal and no longer terrifying and then things get harried and you look up and someone's dead.
Yarises? You are absolutely right on the Fit. So, the issue with the Fit is that this is the first time we've been in a financial position that we can be choosy with the car we end up with. The Solaris was sold to us at a heavy discount by a family friend when we were barely making ends meet. Now, I reckon that we can afford a Prius. But it still feels like a lot to spend. So we are inclined to cheap out. The Fit occupies an awkward price point where if we are gonna spend more, we might as well saddle up and get what we'd really like. We've broken into lower middle class purchasing decisions but we haven't really internalized it yet.
Got my first real night of sleep in a week and a half. Beware of apartment leases (full stop) that require the tenant to pay for extermination services. Just because the cost isn't an issue for you doesn't mean that applies to everyone. And if it spreads... ick. Several of my books didn't respond well to heat treatment. Paperbacks all seem fine. My Library of America volumes, though? Less glued together than before (yay for sewn bindings) and some tearing in a few of the hinges. 'Bout to buy a car. Probably a Yaris or Prius. We were holding on to the '99 Solaris for as long as it could. And now that we are slipping in the highest gear, the time is come. Want a hatchback. Need good millage, since we mainly drive highway miles to work. Edit: $800 later and we still have bugs. Oof.
mk They've breached containment 😐
No spam posts on the falafel post. :thumbs up:
Nature, Addresses and Lectures by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Enjoyed reading it. Feel like I recall almost none of it.
Watching Twin Peaks has been an... interesting... ride.
NE Kansas 0F, windchill -12F. Supposed to be near 60F on Sunday. That'll be nice.
Extending booms are amazing when new, and terrifying after years of slipshod repairs.
They're automating my facility at work. It occurred to me today, while I was getting paid to loaf around because the automated system ate shit yet again: I don't recall seeing much investigation of bad automation will affect society. Some of it will be poorly done. That's just life. Even when our system is ostensibly working, I'm suddenly getting paid to walk 5-6 miles a day trying to find places that the system has been able to deliver work at a worthwhile rate. Union walking pace. On a 5 hour shift. Labor controlling, that ain't. I'd wager that looking back on this period, we'll see that automation initiatives won't be anywhere near parity between companies within a single industry. And that further consolidation of employers will result.
has been stuck in my head for days
Post election night confession: I've started using bing. Google's search quality has degraded to the point where I don't really notice a difference between the two. Anyways. Greetings from flyover country. The Dems should have gotten KS-2 too. My county tried to drag Davis across the line, but we couldn't quite de-snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Not exactly a surprise. He ran for Governor in 2014. And lost to Brownback. Brownback. H e l o s t t o B r O w n B a C k That was a state wide race. KS-2 robs him of several bases of support that kinda sorta made him competitive. Doubling down on that was a choice. It isn't even pure gerrymandering. In all the counties I checked he under-delivered what Lara Kelly got by 2-5%. In the long run, though? They're gonna need to do another round of gerrymandering to keep KS-2 and KS-3 from becoming blue. KS-3 is back in democratic hands, and they did it without the eastern portion of Douglas county that Moore had when he got elected in 1998. And now all of Douglas is in KS-2. We had 59% turnout. Almost as many people voted as in 2012. Davis carried us by 71.5% (again, less than Kelly). We're up to a population of 120,000. Doesn't sound like much, but this is Kansas.
New voting machines: the same as the old voting machines. Paper ballots rule.
https://www.davidrevoy.com/article319/krita-brushkit-v8 I tend to use David Revoy's brushes more than the defaults. I think the defaults recently got reworked, tho?
"Biggles"
Work/ Union This week has been... interesting... Friday: Find out new hires' weekly attendance bonus is up to $200/week. Gross pay for a 20 hour week is now $20/hr. Full time union members finally start to take notice of the issue, as this is more than a new driver makes. This isn't super relevant to the drama that unfolds next, but I'm salty about it since the bonus is selectively applied and is exploitative as fuck if you get sick or injured. Friday Night: Rank and file vote down our national contract and various regional supplemental agreements. The union's lead negotiator is grumpy AF on the teleconference while announcing the results. They pushed the yes vote hard. Company puts out a statement accepting results. This is the positive energy high water mark. Late Friday Night: International Union ratifies national contract citing language in our constitution. They'd telegraphed that this would happen, but it still takes most people by surprise. Also: with the contract ratified, the new pay rate for new hires combined with bonuses is now $23/hr in 20 hours. Saturday: All hell breaks loose on social media. What limited news coverage there is notes how this will strain labor relations at the company going into the holiday season. Dissenting local leaderships start publishing open letters demanding the union walk back its position. Company puts out statement that they now consider master contract settled, with regional supplemental agreements outstanding. Can you guess what happens tomorrow? Sunday: Yup. International indicates that they will apply the same language to ratify a large chunk of regional supplements. This language was not applied last contract negotiation. In 2013, rejected supplements were renegotiated and re balloted. This is one of the sore points that get brought up when... Monday: 7 out of 10 of the International Union Vice Presidents write letters in opposition. The gist is that they want an emergency meeting of the General Executive Board, where they will attempt strike the language being used to impose ratification from the constitution. Tuesday: My local, which is aligned with the International and had a seat on the national negotiating committee, realizes they have a problem and publishes a letter stating that "our members" believe that there are issues with the contract that need to be addressed prior to implementation. The list of requested changes, surprisingly, doesn't suck. Looking forward: NLRB complaints. Probably Lawsuits. Probably no actual change on the contract. I doubt the executive board is allowed to meet. Rank and file will remain pissed off. The offending language will be struck from the constitution at our next convention. Recall language might get added. The dissident Teamsters United slate is going to have a cake walk into office in the next elections. I'm actually pretty proud of the rank and file. Our leadership sucks, but our turnout went up by a third. We handily rejected the contract despite the union and the company both pushing a yes vote. And we haven't meekly rolled over and accepted the outcome. Bikes Haven't ridden much since I crashed last year. My Raleigh is too heavy to want to lug up and down stairs, and my Surly I've been actively avoiding as that is what I was riding when I crashed. I've changed the setup on it a lot since then, but I still shy away from riding it. It'll probably set there until I pull the parts off of it and get a new frame-set. The frame is fine, I just don't want to ride it anymore.
and there we go Relevant language: The best part is that the company was caught off guard by this. Had to walk back their initial statement about the contract failing.And as we saw in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, winning the popular vote does not necessarily win the election when the Constitution requires you to win the Electoral College vote. As Teamsters, we too must abide by the rules in our Constitution. Thus, the National Master UPS Agreement has been ratified.
2) If less than half of the eligible members cast valid ballots, then a two-thirds (2/3) vote of those voting shall be required to reject such final offer and to authorize a strike. The failure of such membership to reject the final offer and to authorize a strike as herein provided shall require the negotiating committee to accept such final offer or such additional provisions as can be negotiated by it.