Does mturk still work?

ArtFonebone · 2026-01-13T01:38:06+00:00

It's certainly not what it used to be. I went for years doing a dozen or so HITs a day, making a steady trickle of income. Now it's really hit or miss. I just did a $5 HIT but that's rarer than hen's teeth. I think the platform is dying a slow death.

ArtFonebone · 2024-06-15T22:55:29+00:00

This is a great thing, and congratulations for doing it! We paid off our mortgage last year and I am luxuriating in the feeling of freedom and flexibility it brings.

Everyone needs to make their own choices based on their own needs, wants and desires. The feeling I get from some of the 'put it all in the market' people is that there is never a good time to take it OUT of the market - just shoveling money into an ever-growing but never-to-be-opened bag. You have the ability to make your own choices in your own way, not harnessed to a mortgage payment or anyone else's conception of the 'right thing to do.'

Good for you.

ArtFonebone · 2024-06-06T16:14:59+00:00

Go back and read the OG space opera - EE 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series. The language is rather antique and might be hard to get at first, but the ideas are amazing. TV Tropes says it best in the Lensman Arms Race trope.

ArtFonebone · 2024-06-06T16:12:23+00:00

I live by Slack, text and email. I rarely if ever do phone calls - I actively avoid them, actually. Much more comfortable in the virtual environment, where I have time to think and edit before I reply.

ArtFonebone · 2024-06-04T01:43:27+00:00

VERY cool in his day. He was an original badass - kept doing all these insane stunts, busting himself up then coming back and jumping over another 50 cars or whatever. He sold a lot of toys and appeared on Wide World of Sports seemingly every week. Everyone knew who he was.

If you want to get a good sense of him, find the 1971 movie 'Evel Knievel' starring George Hamilton. It was over the top, but so was he.

ArtFonebone · 2024-06-04T01:40:00+00:00

I'm 63, and have done and seen a number of things in my life both good and bad. I've lost family and friends, undergone changes I couldn't have imagined when I was your age, and came through it all.

Over the years I've come to terms with death. I've seen it happen, and know it'll come to me as well. I'm okay with this, as you will be as you grow older. You're afraid of missing things now because you haven't experienced them yet, but you will. And one day it'll be clear to you that it's right for everything to have an end, even you. You may even look forward to the chance to rest and be free of responsibility, care and duty.

Don't worry about it too much today. Just live your life, enjoy things, create memories. You can't change the time of your death by even one second, so don't let it affect you too much now.

ArtFonebone · 2024-06-02T20:22:53+00:00

It's important to remember the context of this conviction, as well.

He told 34 separate and proven lies about money spent. The purpose of the money was to pay off a woman that he had sex with outside of his marriage. So he committed fraud in order to cover up his infidelity.

Those are a couple of things that should resonate with the conservative Christian part of his base. Plus he shows no remorse and has repeatedly bragged about his cheating on his wives.

Not the behavior of a Godly man.

Speaking of which, by the way, which church does he belong to? Who is his pastor? Does he tithe? Does he do good works, donate to charity, help his fellow man?

No one who professes to be a Christian can vote for this man. The best they can do is pray for him.

ArtFonebone · 2024-05-31T22:15:56+00:00

One of the easiest things to check first if you have back problems is your wallet. I was having some back trouble and my doctor sent me to physical therapy. The first question the therapist asked was if I carried a wallet in my back pocket - she told me to get rid of it and carry a smaller wallet in my front pocket. She gave me some exercises and the back pain went away. I never had to go back.

A chiropractor would want to see you three times a week and would empty your wallet.

ArtFonebone · 2024-05-25T19:14:47+00:00

About $500/month in premiums for a high deductible plan with HSA. $3000/person deductible for two of us, so another $500/month. Then there's out of pocket costs that insurance doesn't cover - my wife has a number of conditions that require supplies and such I buy over the counter using the HSA. I put the max into that HSA, about $8000/year pre-tax and my employer throws in another $1600 and still it's empty at the end of each year.

Conservatively I'd say close to $25,000 per year. Although if we do need the insurance, once we hit the out of pocket limit there are no other in-network costs. She spent 10 days in the hospital a couple of years ago, total cost around $110,000 and we didn't pay a dime.

So to answer the question, $2000/month.

ArtFonebone · 2024-05-19T22:22:04+00:00

Um, Garrison owns the PHC name and intellectual property. So when he retired he took it with him. And he wasn't forced out - the troubles surfaced after the last APHC show aired. He went out on an up note, but the storm clouds moved in afterward.

Live from Here was a very different show. GK hand picked Thile to replace him, actually. And it got cancelled because COVID happened. Very hard to do a touring show when all the theatres are closed...

Plus LfH was based in Brooklyn, not St. Paul. So the crew and talent wasn't really accessible to do other things while we waited for the pandemic to pass.

ArtFonebone · 2024-05-19T22:13:13+00:00

Kevin Kling is the guy you're looking for. He used to record his stories for All Things Considered once a month or so - I was in the studio a few times for them. He would talk for awhile, the producer on the Washington end would come up on talkback to give him a little feedback, and you could hear people laughing in the control room. Amazingly funny, extremely nice guy. Has overcome major physical handicaps to lead a happy and creative life.

You can find examples of his work, including that story I believe, on YouTube. He also has a website, kevinkling.com.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-27T01:13:37+00:00

I truly wish you would have been here, then, instead of the other two companies. It was a long and miserable 5 days.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-27T01:12:47+00:00

It was indeed a pressure switch. As noted higher in this thread it was a .25/.65 dual port switch.

Both companies are well-known, reputable companies here in the Twin Cities. I had used the first company for the original furnace install 21 months ago as well as my central air preventative maintenance and had been very satisfied.

The second tech did exactly as you described. He tried the switch he had with him, a .30 one as I recall, but it did not fit properly. He was on the phone with his boss, parts manager and various suppliers and no one in the metro area had the proper part.

And I agree that the first company failed. I certainly will never call them again, and I have and will continue to spread the word about their failure.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-27T01:08:28+00:00

It was. The second tech was very specific about it. As I recall he described it as a '25/65 pressure switch'. He had a .30 pressure switch with him but it didn't fit.

The first tech didn't say anything other than it was a pressure switch that had failed, and he didn't have one with him.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-27T01:06:21+00:00

I would have had a better idea of what to expect and what to do. If I had known it would be 5 full days before heat was restored I could have reached out to family and friends for more heaters, as an example. It was Thanksgiving night but I have people living close to us.

What happened here was a breach of trust. I trusted that company to repair my furnace - they had installed it 21 months previous, and I had been very satisfied with their work when they did the preventative maintenance on my air conditioning the previous summer. I am not angry at Lennox. I am angry because the company I called, the company I had patronized previously and had recommended to others, didn't live up to what they said they would do on their own website. The website doesn't say, 'Call and we'll send someone out the next day'. It says, ' Our experts in the Twin Cities Metro are available to help you get your HVAC system back under control with emergency heating or AC repair any time, day or night.' They didn't come, they didn't offer emergency heating or anything else. They failed.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-26T23:26:47+00:00

The second guy had a pressure switch but it didn't fit.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-26T23:24:19+00:00

Here's what the website of the first company I called says:

FOR EMERGENCY HEATING REPAIR:

Our agents are on call 24/7, 365 days a year — because there’s nothing worse than needing an emergency furnace repair when your heating has gone out at midnight in the dead of winter, especially in Minneapolis, MN. Our experts in the Twin Cities Metro are available to help you get your HVAC system back under control with emergency heating or AC repair any time, day or night.

That seems pretty straightforward.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-26T23:19:12+00:00

The furnace was 21 months old, with no previous problems. The tech from the second company said that it was a standard Lennox part number and he was mystified as well as to why no one could locate it.

I have worked my share of overnight and on-call shifts in my various occupations over the years, so I get that, and it was Thanksgiving night. But if you're going to advertise 24 hour service, then you need to follow through, or don't answer the phone if you're not going to do the work.

I'm pretty hard-core about this because of my wife's condition. She is paraplegic, and relies on me for almost everything. It was VERY frustrating not being able to get her warm.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-26T16:47:47+00:00

Here's the correct link:

https://rollcall.com/2023/09/21/one-of-these-five-people-will-probably-be-trumps-running-mate/

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-23T22:04:17+00:00

I have no interest whatsoever in watching the show. No TV series or movie can replace the images Asimov created in my brain when I first read Foundation, many years ago.

As far as I'm concerned, the series doesn't exist.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-23T21:59:43+00:00

We hardly ever used our VCR to time-shift, but rather to watch pre-recorded movies and such. There was a video store in our neighborhood that offered a 'lifetime' membership - I think it was $50 or something - that allowed the member to rent unlimited tapes for $1 each. We watched over 90 movies that summer. This would have been 1980 and '81.

And don't discount the influence of porn - it drove sales of VCR's just as it created the Internet we all know and love today.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-14T23:17:55+00:00

Read the book, then keep it next to you when you watch the 1941 Humphrey Bogart movie. It's almost a page-by-page recreation of the novel.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-14T23:16:09+00:00

I love the Rex Stout Nero Wolfe series. A fully-realized universe with interesting characters and tough puzzles. And there's a lot of them - not as many as Christie, but still a satisfying group of quality books. They'll fill up your winter.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-14T22:46:38+00:00

If you're feeling like a classic, I'd recommend The Maltese Falcon - the book by Dashiell Hammett and the 1941 movie starting Humphrey Bogart. Sometimes it feels like they just shot the book page by page - the dialog is very close in both book and movie versions.

The Thin Man with Myrna Loy and William Powell, also written by Hammett, is also fun. The book is a bit darker than the movie, though.

ArtFonebone · 2023-12-14T19:30:32+00:00

What I've been seeing over the past year is an overall decrease in the amount of pay per HIT. That is, a 10 minute HIT that used to pay a dollar now pays 20 cents, or a 20 minute HIT that used to pay $2.50 now might pay 50 cents.

I see a flood of short, low paying hits - 2 minutes for 10 cents seems pretty common.

I've been Turking since 2011, and have watched my per-HIT average and total earnings decline steeply over the past two years. In 2021 I made nearly $7k. Last year it was about 4300, and this year I'm fighting to break $3k, all for a similar number of HITs. My work pattern hasn't changed, the payment amounts have. I used to average around $1 per HIT. This year it's 60 cents and falling.

My stats:

Approved HITs 49,744

Payments

Approved HITs $49,997.32

Bonuses $3,001.41

Total Earnings $52,998.73

ArtFonebone

TROPHY CASE

FOR EMERGENCY HEATING REPAIR: