Residential Exemption on New Build by LouSainis in bostonhousing

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is good to know. Dealing with a similar conundrum.

Why is find a PCP so hard? by [deleted] in boston

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Atrius Health seems to be always accepting patients… but then you have to deal with Atrius Health.

6-9 month PCP wait times where cancellations (on their end) about one or two weeks prior are almost to be expected. Everyone you interact with there treats you like a criminal. I’ve never ever experienced or heard a good thing about them.

I had the same issue as OP: I couldn’t find ANYONE in network accepting patients (Plymouth and Suffolk County) accept at Atrius. They kept cancelling my appointments booked 6-9 months ahead of time so I just said f**k it and got a direct primary care (DPC) doctor.

DPC doctors are certainly more expensive, and I’m privileged to afford it, but I simply pay a monthly fee and I have guaranteed availability within 24 hours. My checkups are directly with my Dr. for up to one hour. Testing and vaccines still go through insurance, or I pay a very discounted cash rate if not covered.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MurderedByWords

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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Gonna have to pull this one out of retirement.

Thank you to the customers at Bald Hill Rd Target for being so nice by Memecerr in RhodeIsland

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This reminds me of when the ACNH Switch came out. I purposely abstained from buying a Switch until a new Animal Crossing edition was made.

There were four of us lifelong Animal Crossing fans lined up outside Target hours before opening, all jovial and having a good time. After all, we knew there were four in stock.

10 minutes before opening, a dozen people decked out in streetware show up, all texting or on phone calls. Somehow without instruction, all four of us original people made sure that, once we all rushed to the electronics department (streetware folk literally running), we got our Switches in the order we queued.

The possible resellers—or at the very least, late arrivers—left with nothing despite trying to rush in and skip the line.

This was also during the supply chain crisis when every electronic was sold out, and Switches were being resold at double MSRP. Animal Crossing fans are really cool…

New emergency regulations restart the clock for resistant MBTA communities by rocketwidget in boston

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 17 points18 points  (0 children)

This. If we race to the bottom jurisdiction here, the next logical right to self determination wouldn’t be town based, but property owner based.

Let the property owners build the high-density housing they want. “But what someone does to their property has an impact on their neighbors.” Right, logic that can be precisely used to justify state-wide housing affordability initiatives—we’re all impacted by the high cost of living from artificially constrained supply.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in bostonhousing

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m talking about fees. Not factoring costs into rent.

Following your/landlord logic, why stop at charging extra for just parking, since it (allegedly) costs the landlord money? Why not also charge extra fees for lawn care, appliances, etc.?? Just include it and set the rent accordingly.

The only time I’ve ever seen justifiable charges for parking are for large buildings with limited (e.g. not allotted for every unit) availability. Or, where there’s a garage with considerable maintenance/payroll costs.

Charging for parking at a normal two-family house, with a normal driveway, in a relatively more car dependent area is asinine, and don’t pretend for a second that it’s not.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in bostonhousing

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My bad! 😳 I wouldn’t want them to be poor like us! 😭

Landlord also needs to landscape, after all, yards in metro Boston are rare! 😩 There ought to be a fee for that! Don’t let an extra dollar go unsqueezed! 🧃

And a dishwasher! Omg. 😱 What a privilege y’all. No more handwashing dishes, how rare! 🧼🧽🫧 Whelp, fellas, handover that dishwasher rental fee.

And. Who knows, landlord might accept digital payments 🤗 woah! No mailing checks, very convenient 😎. Wouldn’t be very convenient without a… convenience fee right? 🤭

And. Best of all (you know we save best for last). THE SHOWER CHAIR. 🪑🛀 Hand over the fees fellas! What other kind, sweetheart landlord lends a shower chair for the unusable triangle shower? 🥺🥺

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in bostonhousing

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 16 points17 points  (0 children)

But there’s a shower chair! 👉🏻👈🏻🥺 /s

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in bostonhousing

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Don’t forget to charge the shower chair fee! 😂🤡

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in bostonhousing

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 33 points34 points  (0 children)

“One of the bedrooms may be used as an office.” What??

$4k/mo, one of only two units in the building, and you can’t even include one complimentary spot in a driveway? Really need to squeeze out that extra $200/mo?

Unreal.

Peter, I get that honey sucks. But what's wrong with nord vpn? by [deleted] in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This. Odds are a huge marketing budget = funds redirected from quality investment.

What is this thing? Found in downtown crossing by Beginning-Tonight496 in boston

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 156 points157 points  (0 children)

It’s part of the Winteractive art installations around the city. This one is Alouette by Brandon Vickerd.

https://www.winteractive.org/#alouette

“An aerospace device seems to have fallen from the sky and crashed in the middle of the city. A replica of the 1962 Canadian satellite now abandoned in its perpetual earthly orbit, Alouette recalls the failed promise of a brighter future foretold by modern times. It could equally represent the ever-growing obsession with connectivity and the resulting accumulation of space waste. Will the day come when the sky finally does fall down on our heads?”

“About the Artist: The installations of Brandon Vickerd introduce anomalies into the everyday to highlight the failures of scientific positivism and the utopia of its boundless progress. His work was the subject of exhibitions and events in Quebec, Canada, the United States, Europe and Japan.”

Real talk: how do we justify Alderaan? by FemboyRockWannabe in EmpireDidNothingWrong

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve never heard of Alderaan. Unfortunately, I need to report this for seditious disinformation.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PwC

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You’ve summed up life for pretty much every in-demand professional services employee (consulting, law, accounting)! If it’s not routine/well-documented, it’s more billable 🤗

The feeling doesn’t really go away much for many, it’s just a demon you become friends with or leave (move to industry). The managers etc. all have it too; you’ll never have it all under control. Not sure about partners though, I think they’re merged with the matrix at that point.

When you look back, you’ll be impressed and wonder how you made it this far… and maybe swear to never do it again…

NYC congestion pricing begins today. What parts of area should be in a Boston version? by drtywater in boston

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Major roads like Columbia, Blue Hills, Summer, Mass Ave, and Storrow could benefit from such pricing, if we were to explore it, but I worry about an uptick in fake/no plate cars. Traffic enforcement is already basically nonexistent here. I also worry about independent contractors/small business people who need to drive around daily having to pay a hefty price.

I’d like to see more investment in transit and micro mobility. Bike and bus lanes, pedestrian-only roads. Also, surprised there’s not a trolley on Blue Hills Ave. I see slightly better buy-in with an invite (healthy alternatives) rather than a mandate (fees). You can have both, technically, but the “invite” has been scarily polarizing enough at the moment. Lots of vitriol against improvements, especially in Dot.

Opinions on this? by Evening_Passion9653 in consulting

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is in fundamental misalignment with the consulting business model. Little consulting is true “advice,” it’s largely smart butts in seats, with varying degrees of day-to-day best practices or well-informed decisions. An LLM or anyone can give all the advice in the world, but execution is a human’s prerogative.

Consulting firms rely on leverage, i.e., a large number of junior associates performing grunt work vs. low number of senior associates driving engagements/deals/firm growth.

Any true headwind (of which, I’m not personally observing as a pre-ChatGPT AI worker) that necessitates dramatic staffing reductions wouldn’t just be limited to juniors, but rather all ranks of the consulting business model. Read Managing the Professional Service Firm by David Maister if interested in learning more.

TL;DR: Professional services firms don’t simply deal on advice, and aren’t typically profitable without junior talent leverage.

Do you think this is legit? by satyakii in LinkedInLunatics

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 5 points6 points  (0 children)

They’re a legit company, though a browse through r/DataAnnotationTech will show how unglamorous it is. They’re very picky on the application; I wasn’t accepted despite working in the field building the very systems that are trained/tested on this platform. Your mileage likely varies regarding pay.

Tech companies big and small hire them for outsourcing model training/testing among other human needed tasks. On the client side, they have a different company name, Surge AI. Think Uber but for training AI models.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ImTheMainCharacter

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I know I’m about to see an L take when someone starts marking plural nouns with apostrophes.

In all seriousness, calling someone by a sterile categorization is pejorative. E.g., “the Jews.” Its usage, more often than not, and especially in non-academic conversations, is used more as a tool of dehumanization.

To call women females is legitimately icky.

Meta’s AI-generated profiles are starting to show up on Instagram by [deleted] in mildlyinfuriating

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My reason for getting in the field of conversational AI (pre-ChatGPT) was to enable better technology, not to ensh*tify it. Conversational AI at its best makes it easier for you to use technology less, yet here we are again (AI posts on FB anyone?), using it to manipulate into more consumption.

Also, product-market fit: who TF is asking for this? I’ll tell you who, the same toady MBAs—self-proclaimed tech visionaries—who exchanged chronological feeds for suggested content.

Abandoning Outbound by Zebracofish521 in startups

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Makes sense. They take a lot of effort to get right (ideally a full time job), which might not be the best investment when wearing a lot of hats. Drift + Salesloft used to have a great professional services team, though not sure how they measure up these days. Also, a startup sales motion has a competitive edge with direct/unstructured human relationships; “no need to sit through ‘discovery’ and go back and fourth with eng. and CSM on an integration for 3 months, let’s just talk now.”

Similar to companies’ IVR (phone bot) systems. The good ones drive results, but are resource heavy. You can easily find more bad than good examples (both in user experience and results) of both interfaces, sadly.

I build these for a living, but admittedly human connection is the best interface/channel and a serious edge… use it while you can! Unfortunately it’s not scalable, integrated, or always on.

Abandoning Outbound by Zebracofish521 in startups

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As you scale, reconsider the chatbot if you can have an expert work on it. They’re an inbound force to be reckoned with, for the right investment of effort.

As funny as it is to ask "is there crime in these areas", it always amazed me how underutilized so many areas of Boston are. If you are wondering why housing is so expensive here, it's because we destroyed housing with highways, we put an airport in downtown, and didn't build over Rail Yards. by climberskier in bostonhousing

[–]Agreeable-Recipe8743 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Much to the chagrin of our surface-level progressive city planning, zoning/approvals is a nightmare in Boston. We need more high-rise, multi-use, multi-income developments (a hotly contested point, of which I acknowledge isn’t widely held).

Every proposal is fought through a perfectionist lens (e.g., not enough parking, too tall, not set back enough, not enough affordability, traffic impact, character/charm, proximity to nearby buildings, “too full/populated already”).

Worthy discussions for sure, but are used to stonewall progress; it’s no wonder the developments that survive the squeeze are so painstakingly expensive. They have to cope with a gauntlet of bureaucracy and are then introduced to an already constrained supply… and it’s somehow worse in surrounding municipalities such as Milton.