I'm afraid this might disqualify me from consideration, but I can't seem to figure out how to send a PM in Slashdot. I don't suppose someone might either give me a nudge, or you'd do me the favor of using my contact info? Thanks.

Yeah, that would be a hilarious conversation. Ding-dong! "Hello, have you accepted rationality and the lack of superstition as your lord and savior?"

Typical evening at home: the wife is watching television, while also telling me things about the day about every three minutes, as she thinks of them. I'm trying to ignore the TV by wearing headphones, except I have to take them off to listen to the real conversation. Every twenty minutes the toddler wants water, or to go potty, or any excuse she can think of to stay up a little longer. And what I'm really trying to do is work on the novel. It's amazing I make any progress at all.

I can't speak for anyone else, but generally one of the most immediate benefits of sitting to think is you remember things. Like: oh, boy, my electric bill is due. And then you want to get up and take care of it. Or if you're deep in planning mode (thinking hard about a program, working out a scene in your novel, etc.) and come up with something good, it's difficult not to want to write it down. I've lost more good ideas than I'd like to count, due entirely to my inability to remember. You say it'll resurface, but in my experience that just isn't always true. Particularly if you don't get as many opportunities to sit and think as you'd like.

Honestly, it confirms a dark suspicion I've had for years, that most people are desperate to fill a little quiet/void with anything at all. It's something I struggle to understand, but maybe this gives me a little sympathy if the urge for distraction is that terrible.

The ear buds are pretty nice just because the plane is so loud, honestly. I wore them once to listen to music, and it was so refreshing cutting out the engine noise I wear them all the time now, regardless of whether I'm even playing music.

My government forces me to pay for many things I am morally against. Why should religion be a valid excuse to get out of it, when nothing else is?

Also, is paying for insurance which allows patients to choose the morally objectionable action really "paying for" that action? How is that all that much different from the fact that when insurance doesn't cover it, and the employee pays out of pocket instead, it's with money earned from the job at the same company? Both of those are one step removed - isn't the company either paying or not paying in either scenario?

Listening to this piece on NPR today I was reminded of the 90's, and all the crazy abusive things phone companies did then. Before cellular really hit it big, long-distance calling was contracted separately from but billed through your local phone company. There was a huge competition between long-distance companies. They would not only call you constantly trying to get you to switch, but nefarious activities were common. Once a year at least I'd open up my phone bill and discover I'd been switched to a new long-distance company without my authorization (they called it "slamming" back then), usually with some terrible rate or unintuitive "evenings and weekends" hours, so that what should have been a $20 charge for a few calls was now $50. It was almost impossible to prove you didn't authorize the change, and since the billing went through another company disputing the charges was incredibly difficult. That plus hard to read bills, fishy and/or vaguely labeled charges, and some surprise or another nearly every single month.

Today's news just reminded me that even if it's twenty years later and there's been a huge transition from landline to cellular, in the background nothing has really changed.

I can't recall the last time I saw these words on Slashdot. You must be new aroun-- ... oh, nevermind.

If every week's homily is a discussion of a philosophical paradox, you can count me in.

The university I used to work for offered three insurance plans and on top of that allowed anyone to opt out, take 75% of the money the university would have contributed to the plan, and purchase your own insurance.

I suspect this is a rare case, but they do exist.

Ah, they're not shafted. They can 1) purchase add-ons to their insurance plan, 2) pay out of pocket for things that insurance doesn't cover. It's less convenient and more expensive, yes, but their employer is preventing none of these things. It should also be noted that 3) several forms of birth control *are* still included in the existing insurance, just not ones considered abortifacient by this group.

I don't particularly like this decision, but the consequences are not at all as you're laying them out.

Yeah, I don't get the opposition, either. Considering nearly every writer I know loves books stores of all kinds, including used book stores, it seems absurd to object to reselling a digital one in exactly the same way physical ones have been resold in the past. I tend to assume most of it boils down to the fear if someone can resell once they'll resell a bunch of times.

Assuming it's just one night of drinking, the alcohol will have left the mother's system before the fertilized egg is implanted, possibly even before the egg is actually fertilized.

Funny aside: I knew a gal named after a wine varietal, because a bottle of that type of wine had led to her conception.

Apparently I stand corrected, but that's still a crazy number. Going back to the famous quote, "Nobody went broke underestimating the stupidity of the average person," I am astounded that there are that many unwanted pregnancies. Are people really that completely incapable of managing birth control?