From a more informative article[1] linked from TFA:
"The expiration of the enhanced [premium] tax credits is expected to cause ACA enrollees’ out-of-pocket premium payments to increase by over 75% on average, with people in some states seeing their payments more than double on average."
"The enhanced premium tax credits were originally passed by Congress in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and extended under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), but they are set to expire at the end of 2025."
Ditto. I installed CrunchBang++ Linux[1] on a couple of out-of-support 4GB-RAM Chromebooks about 6 months ago, and they (with Firefox (w/shared account) and uBlock Origin) basically continue to fill the Chromebook role (my morning before-work lazy web-surfing guided by Inoreader) with aplomb: occasionally I go a little too tab-crazy (or open one too many YouTube tabs) and it freezes, but simply restarting (holding the power button down until it reboots) gets me going again. I save+close excess tabs to OneTab and life goes on. Extremely utilitarian.
> Technologically simple, was done well on MS-DOS in a few hundred kB of code and data.
Exactly. The outliner feature in Borland's Sidekick Plus was my all-time favorite, but its lifetime was brief (due to the entire product being a TSR), so I used Symantec's Grandview 2.0 sporadically over the decades, even in DOSbox out of desperation (as recently as 5-6 years ago!).
Ebooks and Internet sources of all forms of media have rendered public libraries moot as book providers: every person alive (in the US) has a cell phone, and most have laptops, and can with a modicum of bootstrapping access these sources, without having to travel to a special building (partially) filled with paper books, to obtain a copy of almost any book in existence.
> Today’s dangerous librarians are much more. They are part educator, part tech wizard, part data analyst, and part myth-slayer.
> They host storytimes, teach kids about misinformation, explain how to 3D print a prosthetic hand, and calmly help a grown man named Todd recover his Gmail password for the seventh time. All before lunch.
> [Librarians] are dangerous to: Misinformation, Censorship, Outdated printer settings, Small thinking, apathy, loneliness
Who asked them to play these roles? If the public school system has failed to the extent that people are incapable of using online methods to find books or other resources, or login to their Google account, why is it the role of a librarian to backfill these gaps (and for taxpayers to be forced to fund such a peculiar backfilling approach)?
And some of the touted roles ("dangerous to: Misinformation, Censorship, Small thinking, apathy") are clearly social activist in nature; the meaning of all of these is in the eye of the beholder. So why are taxpayers obligated to (unquestioningly) fund people who clearly perceive their role, at least in part, as activist in nature? IMO you are welcome to engage in activist activities on your own dime, not mine.
So I certainly wonder where the value is in "libraries" since, say, 2010 (and yes, I read the article). If not for "book banning" stories, I doubt librarians would be a topic of conversation. Libraries and librarians are like some weird 20th century anachronism which persists into the 21st century largely because it's part of a (by definition well-established) bureaucracy (and lobby/union).
Interesting and useful information. We've been on an Ambetter ACA plan for the past 1.5 years and have generally been pleased; this info suggests why, and informs our decision to continue with them in 2025 despite receiving random positive anecdata about BCBS.
Among over 1 million men aged 40 or older diagnosed with lower urinary tract symptoms, those treated with tadalafil showed marked reductions in mortality (56%), heart attack (37%), stroke (35%), venous thromboembolism (32%), and dementia (55%) compared to patients who did not receive these medications for lower urinary tract symptoms.
One feature I found rather unique at Fidelity (I too have recently migrated there as my "one stop shop") was free outgoing domestic wires ($100 minimum). Being able to "teleport" money within an hour to another pre-registered account (before 3PM ET on biz days, in my experience) facilitated switching to Fidelity while still keeping old bank/CU accounts minimally active without having to engage in a lot of thinking ahead about balances (and worrying about EFT/ACH hold times) at those now peripheral accounts.
// this may be a mistake! English language is unorthogonal in the extreme!
const char * Add_es( int count ) { return 1 == count ? "" : "es"; }
const char * Add_s( int count ) { return 1 == count ? "" : "s" ; }
(some English words pluralize with "es" suffix, most with "s"). It has proven surprisingly useful:
Msg( "%d file%s updated when you switched back", updates, Add_s( updates ) );
Only difference vs example is mine prints "0" vs "no".
My household of 4 adults independently chooses Visible (cheapest tier, $25/mon which offers unlimited data (and and unlimited hotspot, though capped at 5Mbps)). Due to the slow hotspot speeds I might migrate DW & I to US Mobile which offers high priority high speed hotspot (up to 30GB/month at about the same price when shared across 2 lines) which could be valuable when we're traveling.
A little birdie once told me that mangling the TTL on outbound packets to 65 (either on the connected machine(s), or on a separate intermediate router) may be able to get around that particular hotspot throttle.
"The expiration of the enhanced [premium] tax credits is expected to cause ACA enrollees’ out-of-pocket premium payments to increase by over 75% on average, with people in some states seeing their payments more than double on average."
"The enhanced premium tax credits were originally passed by Congress in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and extended under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), but they are set to expire at the end of 2025."
[1] https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/how-will-the-2025-budget-re...