The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread 36

[Birdjaguar]

I thought a spade was a shovel and the club was a scepter for beating people.

Anyway my question needs a little backstory. We switched health insurance administrators at work this year. We're self funded so nothing in the plan changed, only the company that does the paper work and payments and network stuff. We always get incentive rewards, which is kind of bull crap, it's really more hoops we have to jump through to get the same benefits as before. For example the company used to put 2000 in my family hsa account but then they reduced it to 1800 but there's up to 200 in incentives I can earn. Last year it was easy though, get a physical, get a flu shot and fill out a health questionnaire and I got the 200.

This year it's different. I have to accomplish online goals through the new insurance website. The goals are ridiculous though. I signed up for manage stress, eat better, exercise and mental health. What I have to do is for the next four weeks I need to login and click little icons to say my stress level, mood, whether I ate on track and exercised. To complete my goal I need to record low stress, eating on track and happy or ok mood 21/28 days. Exercise I need 20 or more minutes 9/28 days. You self report so there's no way for them to tell.

My question is, why would any company think this is beneficial? Is it like some kind of subconscious psychological warfare that making you aware of eating healthy makes you more likely to eat healthy? They don't even define what on track eating is lol. You just log on track, mostly on track or not on track. Thing is I've been on a diet and exercising anyway so I'm not lying when I log 20+ minutes of exercise every day, but you totally could. It just seems rather pointless but I'll get $100 for doing this crap for four weeks.

I think they have two goals. the first is to get you to interact with their website on a regular basis. They collect data to "prove" things and maybe improve ad clicks for revenue. Second, they probably knew in advance if the change would increase or decrease participation and chose the path that gave them the participation response they wanted.

 

[Samson]

How does getting into the Australian senate work? I just read this about quite objectionable comments by Fraser Anning, and it says "Mr Anning entered parliament in 2017 as a replacement for a disqualified senator, despite receiving just 19 votes in the 2016 election." How on earth did that happen? Surely there must have been another candidate that got more than 19 votes?

 

[Camikaze]

It's an oversimplification. To provide an equally oversimplified explanation, parties submit a list of candidates, and you can either vote for the party, or vote for individual candidates. Fraser Anning was third on his party's list in Queensland, and his party received enough votes to have 2 senators elected in that state. However, subsequently the second placed senator was declared ineligible (because of dual citizenship), which meant that the spot went to the next candidate on the list - Anning. The party received 250k votes in Queensland, or 9.19%. The vast, vast majority of those were for the party, not the individual candidates of the party.

By comparison, the party with the biggest vote share in Queensland was the Liberal National Party, which secured about 960k votes, or 35%. However, the lead candidate for the LNP, George Brandis (who was the Attorney-General at the time), only received 27,299 votes personally. This was the highest number of personal votes for any candidate in that race. The #2 on the LNP list, Matt Canavan, received 2,255 votes personally.

However, preference flows can result in very minor candidates getting elected. In 2013, Ricky Muir of the Motoring Enthusiast Party picked up the 6th and final Victorian Senate seat despite his party only receiving 17,122 votes (even though a 'quota' for a seat was 483,076), because as candidates were eliminated, their preferences flowed disproportionately to the MEP.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

A ballpoint pen broke apart and spilled blue ink everywhere. I managed to get it off my clothes but now my hands are blue and using soap and warm water's not working. Any idea what to do now?

 

[BenitoChavez]

A ballpoint pen broke apart and spilled blue ink everywhere. I managed to get it off my clothes but now my hands are blue and using soap and warm water's not working. Any idea what to do now?

https://www.wikihow.com/Get-Pen-off-Your-Skin

Apparently hand sanitizer, white vinegar, nail polish remover, rubbing alcohol, or even hair spray can remove ink from skin. I usually just wait a while and as dead skin cells rub off the ink goes away.

 

[rah]

Speed it up using sand paper.

 

[Kyriakos]

H2So4 would remove ink from skin - along with the skin.

Moderator Action: Please do not suggest self-harming practices, even in jest. ~ Arakhor
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Lexicus]

If you're like me your hands frequently get sweaty enough that the ink comes off pretty fast.

 

[Silurian]

Speed it up using sand paper.

After getting spray paint on my hands I have used soft sand and water to clean with when there is no soap and brush, but do not rub too hard. It will get most of the paint off but not all. After that if you leave it for a few hours as @Lexicus sweat will loosen it up apart for your nails.

 

[rah]

Been there, done that.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I used dish soap and that got rid of a lot of the blue. Now my hands smell like lemons.

 

[rah]

There are way too many worse alternatives.

 

[Snerk]

Make up a badass story concerning an octopus attack!

 

[Lexicus]

Now my hands smell like lemons.

Tragic

 

[Synobun]

I'm sure @Lemon Merchant smells just fine, you guys.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I used dish soap and that got rid of a lot of the blue. Now my hands smell like lemons.

Well, at least now you won't have to worry about being harassed by Rodney Mckay

 

[Michkov]

A ballpoint pen broke apart and spilled blue ink everywhere. I managed to get it off my clothes but now my hands are blue and using soap and warm water's not working. Any idea what to do now?

Smurf cosplay

 

[civvver]

Using regular bigelow green tea bags what's the ideal method for steeping? How long? And do you need to dip it up and down with the string or just let it sit in the hot water?

 

[civvver]

How much do you trust social security's solvency for someone under 40? When I include my social security benefit in any retirement calculator I blow my goals out of the water, but social security makes up about a third of my projected retirement income. Not sure if I should be leaning on it that much or if that's fine.

 

[Birdjaguar]

How much do you trust social security's solvency for someone under 40? When I include my social security benefit in any retirement calculator I blow my goals out of the water, but social security makes up about a third of my projected retirement income. Not sure if I should be leaning on it that much or if that's fine.

Eliminating SS would be a significant change and most people and most of Congress don't want to go there. When Congress has made changes in the past they generally don't touch those currently getting benefits, only future benefits. If the past is an indicator, you can expect a later retirement age to get full benefits and perhaps lower benefits overall. SS income is already taxed. When I added my wife's SS amount for 2018 ($13,000+), our taxes went up about $1,000. That is about a 7.5% rate.

What are you using as your monthly amount from SS? Do SS tables give you a number for your current age projected into the future? SS is like a shadow portfolio that throws off X dollars a month and one that you have no access to the principle.