I just had the odd experience of using a manufacturer’s discount card to pick up a medication for my wife. The medication is relatively expensive and seldom covered by insurance.

According to the information on the card, if you have private insurance which covers the medication, the discount card covers the co-pay, so you pay nothing. However, if your insurance doesn’t cover the medication, the discount card covers the cost, and you still pay nothing.

Our insurance didn’t cover the cost, and we didn’t pay anything for the medication.

I don’t understand how that works.

I think it’s important to remember that the USA isn’t a single culture. Things vary dramatically even within a single state to say nothing of differences between states.

In some areas prom is very important. In others, not so much.

Only one of my three kids went to prom (Eastern PA).

Prom in my high school was a relatively big deal. You rented a tux or bought a dress. Some people would rent a limo. The prom was held in some kind of banquet hall with a fairly fancy meal. There’d be a DJ and dancing.

My wife was one year behind me in high school, and we attended FOUR proms (my junior prom, then the next year her junior prom and my senior prom, then the next year I came back for her senior prom).

I think for most people it’s just an opportunity to get dressed up, have a good meal, and dance. If you’re already dating someone, it obviously has more significance, but I had plenty of friends who just took another friend as a date for the prom and others who didn’t go with anyone. However, there was a lot of pressure to be a “couple”, even if you weren’t actually romantically involved with your “date”.

Typically the parents take pictures of the kids in their dresses and tuxedos. From the parents’ point of view, it’s a moment to sort of take note of how your kids are maturing and think about what the future holds for them. Lots of thinking about how old you are ;-)

Often there’s an after party that goes on late into the morning, and for many kids the after party is more important than the prom.

I think social media has had an effect on what prom is, but it also has the effect of distorting what it is to people who only experience it remotely. When you’re seeing the crazy YouTube videos and Instagram posts, you’re not seeing what prom is. You’re seeing a snapshot of what those particular proms are.

the 1950s. This was a high water mark for conservatism in the U.S., and in order to go on any date at least one parent, usually the girl’s dad, had to be present.

Perhaps this was a regional thing.

I was born in 1970, but from what my parents have described, dates were not chaperoned in the 50s unless you happened to have particularly strict parents. Like maybe if you were Amish or something.

Here’s the only thing I was able to find online about dating in the 50’s

https://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/projects/sombat.html

Came here looking for this.

How?

The nice thing about Linux is, he can’t buy it and fuck it up.

https://www.stroke.org/en/about-stroke/stroke-symptoms

I’m kind of fond of my okidata c332dn. It’s my daily driver.

I have Brother multifunction printer. However, it’s run out of toner, and I don’t have the funds right now to purchase new cartridges.

On the 90’s TV show Wings, there was a character, Roy Biggens, whose birthday was on Feb 29th, and his parents were dicks, so they only let him celebrate on Feb 29th. So, in the show when he was turning 40 years old he had a 10th birthday party with all the shit a 10-year-old would want.

I’m aware of one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Change

but there are certainly others.

Holy shit!

I never knew anything about Thom Yorke, but I just googled him, and there’s one where I work too!

“Ooo… This is neat. I want it.”

“Ooo… That one is neat too. I want it.”

Bam! Now you’re a collector.

Way back in the olde tymes, I was having trouble with the NIC driver in my Linux install. I posted a question about it on USENET, and got a reply from the guy who wrote the drivers. He asked for some info about the card, then updated the driver to support it.

I’ve been living in my house for 26 years and we still occasionally get mail for previous residents.

I was under the impression that you prick the skin to make it easier for the moisture to exit the potato so it gets drier and therefore fluffier.

But my wife just said she had a potato explode when she didn’t poke it enough.

I have an electric lighter that we use for lighting candles. It charges via USB and generates a short spark between two contacts to light the candle.

I am also aware of a manager at my job who got fired for playing those games. Fired and security-escorted out.

Knowing the department director and how she felt about the employees, she was probably enraged when she found out what the manager under her was doing.

Here it’s very difficult to fire an employee after the probationary period, but managers are relatively easy to fire. There’s a three strikes rule for managers. Whenever a PIA manager starts being extra nice to everyone, you know they just got reported to HR for a second time.

Screwing with time cards in the U.S. is extra double bad because of federal law.

If the employee can prove the manager has done it, they’ve proven that their employer is both guilty of wage theft, and also that they’ve destroyed the records showing how much time you actually worked. So usually the employees get to say how much they are owed, and the employer has no way to argue against it.

If I recall correctly, if it was an honest mistake, the employer has to pay back two times what was owed. If it was intentional, then they have to pay back three times what was owed.

There aren’t many worker protections in the U.S., but that particular set of laws is ok. Of course, there could be additional protections in state or local laws.

Edit: clarification and typo.

A headset might be illegal to use in a car. Check your local laws.

Looks like it would be legal in PA as long as it’s only one ear and it doesn’t block other sounds.

Is there no one in his life that can tell Elon to shave that shit off?

They are kind of stuck. They have to find companions who don’t have children or responsibilities. The best majority of the people who land in those categories are younger folks.