How dare they

The same thing I’ve said from the beginning?

Not for me though. Using no water at all would not have decreased my payment. Using 10x as much as normal would not have increased my payment. I did not have the option to opt out of or reduce the HOA fee.

Functionally, that’s “free”, so far as it affects usage habits. Kinda like universal healthcare, “free” at point of service.

I don’t think they had any meters on individual units, they had no way of knowing who was using what, so no basis to change the agreement. I’m not saying it’s common, I’m just saying it’s a situation that exists.

I mean it was, just not for me. It was a townhome in a row of connected townhomes with an HOA. Water was paid by the HOA, and an estimate was budgeted into the HOA fee, which was passed on to me through rent. The point is that what I paid was not affected by my usage.

At my last place water was included with rent. Technically not free, but not metered, so using more didn’t cost more.

Y’know, if anywhere was going to have an ATM machine, it would probably be Costco

Maybe not everything, there were a few less-than-greats in his catalogue. It’s been a while, but I can’t imagine The Pebble and the Penguin or A Troll in Central Park being particularly good as an adult.

Better than “dipshit”.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

I like /srs, but /gen is growing on me

This feels, prescriptively, like the correct answer

Based on my experience, yeah at least 11.7%

The invention of gunpowder

Some people are wealthy because they provide a valuable, well-paid skill (neurosurgeons, for example). Some people are in positions of power because they sincerely want to make their communities a better place.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s probably more likely to get there through sociopathic greed. But that doesn’t mean they are all horrible people.

Are you talking about specific wealthy, powerful people?

I will come back to it eventually, when the time is right.

It’s not important enough to bookmark, it’s not urgent enough to get to right now, but it’s too interesting to ignore entirely. When the time is right for a tab, I will return to it. Sometimes I scroll through them to jog my memory. Sometimes I’ll decide it wasn’t as interesting as I thought and delete it.

That was me with black in high school. I looked like a stage hand, but it only took me a minute or two to get dressed.

Who would that be?

Did you just miss the most recent elections?

The difference between persuasion and manipulation is largely subjective.