I was about to argue and then read “legality doesn’t matter”. You’re right.

It’s important to remember that Powell himself does not set the rates, it’s decided by a committee which he is currently the chair of. I feel like this fact is absent from much of the news I read/hear surrounding Powell & Fed interest rates.

From MSN:

Powell chairs the central bank’s eight annual meetings. But the other 11 voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, get an equal say on each Fed rate decision via a majority vote.

Also important:

the Fed’s four no-cut calls so far this year have been unanimous.

I realize that the chair is an important role, but am I missing something that replacing 1 person would change the interest rate voting outcome?

I was asked this while traveling in another country. I didn’t have a good answer. FWIW, I don’t own any clothing with any flags on them.

I’ve found this only to be true in white collar professions. Hanging out with blue collar people, your job rarely comes up, but it’s one of the first questions with white collar people.

…but I have nothing to hide.

I’m so tired of hearing this and when you bring up that a Jewish person did not feel that they needed to hide their religion in 1933, they’ll say, "“that’s different.”

Apps and web sites can also apply custom pricing based on the individual’s ability to pay. Payday? The parking spot costs more.

A totally not serious answer. Today, I was sitting across from a Starbucks and staring at the logo. It is really weird. I started thinking that if something were to happen to civilization, all these cups, sleeves, merchandise and plastic stir sticks emblazoned with the Starbucks logo may cause future archaeologists to think that we worshipped some half fish woman thing (or whatever the logo is supposed to be).

Alternatively, this xkcd could be fun to do.

States have argued successfully to tax cross state commerce. That’s why you get charged local sales tax even when ordering from a company that does not have a presence in your state. I don’t see this as any different, but someone will need to go first to set the precedent.

This is the FTC’s rule, but nothing prevents each and every state from implementing a law to do the exact same thing, except slightly differently than every other state, making it extremely costly for the companies to implement.

I’ve tried several times to shoot fireworks. What settings yielded the best results?

I’ve tried some long exposures and they look interesting, but smeary.

Wxterior lights turn on and off with sunrise and set. It’s been running on a raspberry pi b for ages with Misterhouse. I’d like to change it over to something newer, but I automated it because I have other things to do.

I used to download school menus and expose it to my phone as an ical feed, but no longer need that. It still runs. I should shut it off some day…

I have an old one, maybe they were manufactured differently. The main part is a hard plastic. I never noticed a plastic taste, but it could also be the rubber/silicone plunger stopper that imparts a taste. They do now sell a glass one, but I’ve heard that it’s overpriced.

I know people who also swear by their French press. From what I know, regardless of the brew method, the grind is the most important factor, followed by the water quality and temperature.

An Aeropress. I bought it when work removed the free coffee and was super surprised at how good it tasted vs what they were serving. Later, I found a bean hand grinder that fits right inside the Aeropress plunger and now I take it on work trips, vacation and camping.

It’s not fully inclusive for $20 because you need a cup, some way to procure and heat water and beans but still, it’s served me well.

I keep my seedbox in the planter at the coffee shop down the road with free WiFi.

I couldn’t afford one of those fancy 2-cassette boomboxes, so I had my friend bring his tape deck and we put them real close together in the quietest room of the house and recorded that way. Having several siblings meant that there were no quiet places, so we used the empty garage when my parents were at work. The audio was autrocious, tons of echo and static, but I played that tape thin until it snapped.

Several countries require proof of ID to purchase a SIM card.

This worked well for me when I could see the screw and it’s orientation was the same as me viewing it. If I was turning it and it was rotated 90° away from me, I’d get it wrong. In physics class, we studied electromagnetic forces and I learned about the right hand rule which for some odd reason works better for me than righy-tighty. The Wikipedia article is long and the TL;DR is that if you use your right hand and turn in the direction of your fingers, the screw will move in the direction of your thumb.

Of course lefties are SOL as are folks without thumbs.

I use OSMAnd+. The searching is the biggest problem, so I will contribute to StreetComplete in an effort to improve the areas in which I travel.

When I do need a location that isn’t found in OSM, I’ll grab the coords from LatLong.net and copy/paste them into OSM. When I get to the destination, I’ll pop open street complete and fill in details in the hopes that next time will be better.

Not MENSA, but came to the unfortunate realization that I’m on the skinny side of the intelligence bell curve late in life. For me, I was frustrated that I could not easily relate my thoughts and ideas to others. I’d just get a blank stare or worse. I figured that I was dumb and everybody else knew something that I didn’t. So I kept quiet and kept all my thoughts to myself.

Many years later, I tried again to voice my thoughts and ideas, but would use lots of examples and references to areas where my listener may be familiar. That seemed to work.

It was only when I started talking about my feelings to others when I realized that things in my head work differently. I’m able to absorb information faster and deeper but also extrapolate those learnings to other unrelated areas.

My mantra is “plan to be hacked”. Whether this is a good backup strategy, a read-only VM, good monitoring or serious firewall rules.