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I mean, I guess it depends on what the truth is. Clearly the two of you have very different perspectives on what the underlying cause of depression or mental illness is. If your view is incorrect, it could also be equally irresponsible, could it not?

Awesome. That is great feedback, already. Thanks!

As a side note, the phone that I snagged during that promotion just barely arrived a week ago. And I ordered it at the end of November. I think you just ran into some unlucky timing, at least in regards to the delays in shipments that you encountered.

Sounds like your phone was so delayed because of a huge black friday promotion they ran that put their pixel stock a month or more behind back orders. My experience with them, outside of this one massive underestimate of how many phones they would sell because of the phenomenal deal that they ran, has been really good. Phones are normally in stock and ship almost immediately. And customer service is very responsive.

I just made the switch off recently. It actually is a lot more seamless than you'd expect. You can still snooze emails, and then "archive" (mark as done) everything that is taken care of/replied to/no longer needs your attention. Those are probably the two biggest pieces of the Inbox workflow that are pretty much identical in Gmail.

It's not quite as integrated, but all of the pieces are still there. For using reminders, you'll have to use google Keep. And for tasks without reminders, you can use Google Tasks.

On the plus side, it feels like Google stopped maintaining Inbox a while ago and it was getting horribly slow for me. The new gmail is amazingly responsive in comparison. I'm actually glad I made the switch for that reason alone (I had to make the switch before march because the Android Inbox App stopped working - it would crash within second after I opened it every time).

Thanks for the insight. Good to know ranges and what goes into those rates. I think I'm liking the convenience of going through an agency at the moment, though if I get an itch for more money, nice to consider the freelance route.

If you go into business as a contractor, is there an easy target to pick for the contracts you'll go after? Known sources of contracts? Or do you typically branch out from opportunities you know of or learned about while in the industry?

Thanks, appreciated.

I definitely agree with this. I'm just exploring the concept because I have problems that occasionally limit how much I can work - and just playing around with cheaper living arrangements that also work with that. Though, if I can find ways to make a lot of money without working a lot, that would also solve the problem.

That's really cool and probably exactly what I was looking for. Sounds about as cheap as you can go.

How expensive was it to get any utilities hooked up to your property, or was that already taken care of when you bought the land?

Just google yurts and see what I find?

Where would you typically park them for an extended period of time? Is that what you mean with zoning problems? Do people usually try to hang out in a large parking lot for long enough? Or perhaps just get outside the city limit in what looks like abandoned land?

Also, how do you deal with the waste water in the long run? Stop by RV parks and empty out your septic tanks?

Thanks, I'll check that out too.

Thanks. I'll give them a look.

Ya, no military service here, so I guess that option is out.

I do like the look of what intrepid is offering, and will have to research them some more. Thanks for the links.

Oh, damn. That interface is almost exactly what I'm looking for, but unfortunately it looks like it's only for European airlines. Do you know if anything like that exists for American airlines?

That's the ticket! Thanks.

I actually have experienced the same depression and listlessness you described, and I imagine a lot of it could be tied to the constant lack of choice and excessive amount of expectations that our current, mill-like educational system forces students through. I definitely agree with you that our system, one that burns so many kids out about caring about anything, needs an antidote. But, along the lines that you said, I don't think that the antidote is necessarily forcing kids to take on full adult responsibilities at age 15. I guess I can see a real-life-buffered educational system that allows for more responsibility and choices without going so far as asking kids to start working full time and living on their own at age 15.

I tend to see this type of article and the associated discontent with a protracted adolescence quite a bit on ycombinator, and I can't understand it as of yet. Is their really that much research suggesting that an extended education and a delayed maturation really is detrimental? Or is it more of a shared experiential resentment? Or is it just a resentment at the lack of flexibility and accommodation in our current system, a system that assumes that one size fits all?

In some ways, I wouldn't have minded earlier exposure to questions that forced me to discover my innate passions as opposed to continuing to be fed prerequisite course after prerequisite course. However, I can't say that this is equivalent to wishing that I had started my adulthood at age 15 (or earlier). Modern society is more complex, as are the roles that adults assume in modern society, and I presume that a protracted adolescence serves to give maturing adults longer to find their place in this increasingly complex society.

Is the resentment founded in the fact that we force everyone to extend their adolescence for so long? Or that such a period provides no usefulness whatsoever?

I'm actually rather disconcerted by this comment. The arguments presented use relativistic reasoning to justify the conditions in factories in China, i.e., "regardless of the dehumanizing conditions in the factory now, ultimately we are redeeming the lives of these people who would otherwise be trapped in poverty-stricken lives as farmers."

This argument fails on a number of grounds, the least of which is that we may or may not be improving there lives by hiring them to work 85 hour work weeks factories that lack any air conditioning. Perhaps some of these people were starving as farmers, perhaps many of them weren't. Do you have sources that point to the extent of the improvement that factory life is bringing?

Furthermore, do you know that this really is the road to improvement for this generation? You talk as if these factories really are gifts from generous westerners, as if these companies should feel justified, if not proud, that they are transforming and saving the lives of these workers. I recently heard a podcast on Radio West titled, "The Cost of a Two Dollar T-shirt." In it, the author took a non-sensationalist approach that the t-shirt factories in Cambodia really were humane, they were even air conditioned. However, he mentioned that these people still lived in shanty towns and barely made enough money after 60 hours of week to afford food. He also mentioned that their 33 cents an hour wages were lagging behind inflation, and, in fact, these workers were becoming, relatively speaking, poorer and poorer as the years went on. So, no, I disagree with your claim that any factory job + time = helping raise another country out of poverty.

(Link to the podcast I mentioned: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuer/news.newsmain/article...

Also, link to the original article by the guest on the podcast: http://harpers.org/archive/2010/01/0082784)

Lastly, you provide no justification for why the conditions need to be so bad. You seem to be saying that, since these workers were previously living in worse conditions and since we're improving that life, it's justified to either treat them inhumanely or exploit them. Their lives have been improved ergo they either have no right to complain or we have no responsibility or motive to do any better. There is no high road in your argument, only defensive argumentation and justification of labor practices that are well below what they should humanly be.

In the article I linked above, the author mentioned that the labor costs of making a t-shirt for a major corporation (Gap, Nike, Walmart, etc.) only made up 4% of the total cost of the product. If that's the case or even close to the case with the Microsoft factory mentioned in the original article, then going even so far as doubling the worker's wages would have a minimal impact on the bottom line of the product. At the very least, fat could be trimmed from the other 96-ish% of the cost of making the product to make room to improve the factory conditions.

Not only could most corporations afford to improve the wages of these workers, but what is lost by improving the conditions? Wouldn't workers who are sweating for an entire 16 hour shift be happier and more productive if the management spent more money on air conditioning? Even if find proof that happier workers aren't always more productive and perhaps sweatshop conditions really induce more productivity, there needs to be a line, a line of basic worker's rights, that prevents the downward price pressures from a competitive market from creating deplorable working conditions for anyone.

Your arguments seem to suggest that everyone goes through these deplorable factory conditions before they move onto a better life. Not only do they not NEED to go through these conditions, as ultimately someone has the power to change and improve the conditions of the factory, but these workers are not necessarily guaranteed that life will improve afterwards. Perhaps these working conditions become de facto and the workers don't make enough money to earn an education or gain the economic mobility to choose better working conditions. The system could just as easily become entrenched, leaving a class of workers trapped in poor working conditions for generations.

At the base of your arguments, I think it's frightening to ever use relativistic arguments to justify inhumane treatment. Take slavery in early American history: "Well, slaves used to live in malaria-ridden Africa in mud dwellings, and now at least they get a stable source of food and, most of the time, a wood shelter over their head." Deplorable conditions always need to be addressed and justified in present and absolute terms. Inhumane treatment is inhumane treatment, and active steps should always be taken to improve such conditions. The improvements should not be left up to the "benevolent" forces of time or ignored because the conditions are a (slight) improvement over previous conditions. If you're going to offer a poor farmer a job, you don't have the right to offer him a job with any such conditions that you choose.

Sure, I'll grant you that the article was sensationalist (maybe the photographs were taken without needing to be "smuggled out", etc), and I don't think any cause can be constructively advanced when such arguments are used. However, the majority of your arguments are morally objectionable and logically unsound.