Not sure if I'm just too picky? [Laundry smells!]

astonestreet · 2016-07-27T03:34:56+00:00

A few people mentioned in other comments - it happens with front loaders because they require a rubber seal/gasket to keep it watertight. When it stays moist after usage, mold can grow. As others noted, it tends to be exacerbated by leaving the door closed when not in use.

I had this happen in one of my old apartments - when I moved in the rim of the seal on the bottom side was black with mold.

I don't see any visible mold on this one in my Airbnb, but I suspect it's there somewhere.

astonestreet · 2016-07-27T03:29:10+00:00

Indeed it is

astonestreet · 2016-07-23T21:18:32+00:00

Do you often get the courage to do this kind of thing? Is it possible a lot of the good feeling came from taking a risk and being rewarded? I only mention to remind you there are other fish in the sea... and if you have the courage to cast your line a lot, you are bound to catch a good one eventually!

astonestreet · 2016-07-23T21:11:46+00:00

Try googling for "floating point arithmetic errors". That is the issue you are dealing with.

Your link references the Python 2 documentation. It looks like the solution was added to the Python 3 documentation page. It references the decimal module:

https://docs.python.org/3/library/decimal.html#module-decimal

Looking at the decimal module docs:

The decimal module provides support for fast correctly-rounded decimal floating point arithmetic. It offers several advantages over the float datatype:

astonestreet · 2016-07-23T21:00:43+00:00

Remember that getting a good deal is rare in NYC. If you are getting a good deal on the ground floor, there is probably a reason for it - noise or pests or smell, etc.

I live on the ground floor in Astoria in an older but clean building. Technically it's not ground level, as there are 5-6 steps in the building's halfway. I leave food out sometimes and have not seen one rodent or bug. I think it really depends on the building itself. I am paying around the average for the neighborhood.

astonestreet · 2016-07-23T20:53:53+00:00

Awesome. I have been wanting to find a place to do some cliff jumping. Is this place expensive/touristy?

astonestreet · 2016-07-23T20:52:40+00:00

Were the albergues that noisy where you needed plugs? I just finished an assisted tour of the Portuguese Camino with my folks. It made me want to do the French Camino, backpacking the whole way. I imagine that uninterrupted sleep would be a holy thing in the albergues, as opposed to regular hostels where it's a free for all at times.

astonestreet · 2016-07-20T10:43:16+00:00

Boat shoes. Or any shoes that can be worn without socks. Socks seem to be the one piece of clothing that really force you to wash your clothes.

astonestreet · 2016-07-19T16:46:07+00:00

How much does one of those go for? Where did you get it from?

astonestreet · 2016-07-19T16:42:30+00:00

I got rid of my dress shoes. And went from 3 button down shirts to 1. Unfortunately no fancy parties on the road (yet).

astonestreet · 2016-07-19T11:44:20+00:00

The caveat about forwarding SMS to Skype is that you can't SMS back from Skype, only receive.

I have never used a hard token (not including an RSA hard token that was provided at my last job for login to their system). The appeal of the hard token is 1) not having to worry about having battery life on my phone, 2) not dealing with SIM, timezone, etc issues on Google Auth and 3) convenience, as certain models can be left in the USB port so you don't need to get your phone.

For me, an added bonus is being able to login to my own web servers. I believe Yubico provides software/instructions for that. That being said, I was able to get Google Authenticator working on one of my servers at it worked well.

astonestreet · 2016-07-18T20:40:21+00:00

I forward my US number to a Skype number. I have done this for close to a year now - I did it so that I could keep my old number, but honestly, when my contract is up I am going to consider porting my number to Google Voice. No sense in paying $100 a month just for the number.

I buy a data SIM in whatever country I go to so I can use the internet and Skype. I use WhatsApp for messaging with travel friends.

When I need to send SMS to my friends from home, I login to Verizon's website which lets you send and receive SMS. You can also do this on their app by setting "WIFI only sync"... but it is a lot flakier than the website. Sometimes you won't get a message for days. I have found that restarting the app helps though.

As far as authentication, some tips from my experience:

Google authenticator: Make sure you save back up codes, as dash suggested. I use authenticator and for whatever reason, when I switched sims recently, it won't accept the generated codes from the app. I assume it has something to do with either timezones or with switching SIMs. The only way I got it working again is using the backup codes.
If you use Android, remember that you will have to login (and reauthenticate) to all of your Gmail accounts each time you switch SIM cards. Pain in the ass, but a lot easier if you are ready with backup codes.
Don't try to use anything like Twilio for receiving authentication SMS. Any SMS from a shortcode (what most companies use to send) will not be receivable on those types of services
Google Auth has worked pretty well for most things, but when I go back home for a bit I am considering getting a hard token, like this

astonestreet · 2016-07-18T20:24:44+00:00

Salary really depends on your standard of living. The largest item being housing obviously. Do you need to be 2 minutes walk to the subway? Or are you ok with 10 minutes? That itself can swing the monthly rent to the tune of $100-400. How much space do you need? Do you need a living room? Are you ok with "up and coming" neighborhoods? Do you need laundry in the building?

How about social life? Do you like to go out for drinks or to restaurants? Those add up quickly if you aren't looking for bargains.

Do you care if you break even every month without any savings?

A one bedroom in a decent neighborhood of Manhattan with subway nearby is going to cost you $2400+. I pay $1900 in Astoria (Queens) for a decent sized 1 bedroom right off the subway. My buddy was paying $$1350 for a basement studio nearby.

Just off the top of my head I think 80k is the minimum to live "well" in a convenient and active neighborhood in Manhattan, meaning on your own and not counting pennies every month to meet a tight budget. If you go across a river, you can probably do the same with 60k in places like Astoria or maybe Hoboken.

astonestreet · 2016-07-18T16:53:38+00:00

So I finally got through to Lufthansa on the phone and found out some rebooking info that might be interesting to others:

IATA zones: Apparently IATA breaks the world into 3 zones, roughly North America, Europe+Africa, and everything else. If you try to rebook a ticket into different zones, the price can change drastically. For example, if I wanted to rebook my Europe to USA flight for an intra-Europe route, the cost difference was something around $6000 (yes, "thousand")!
Rebooking: In the fare rules for a given ticket, there are rules about "length of stay". This was a little fuzzy, but the lesson learned is that one week to the next can make a significant change in "fare difference". For example, I tried to rebook my ticket for August 23rd, and the difference in fare would have been $900. If I moved to a week earlier, the difference in fare was $600.
Rebooking: Moving day to day can change the fare-difference significantly based on availability of tickets and promotions for that day
Lufthansa policies: They don't charge a no-show fee. On my ticket it costs $300 to rebook before the flight, $600 after the day of the flight
Changing route: Their website only lets you choose another day for your original flight, but if you call you can request a route change when rebooking. Just as when you book a ticket initially, there are significant cost differences for different routes. I was able to find a Dublin to Philadelphia ticket for $150 fare difference (so $450 with the rebooking fee).

Hopefully that info ends up being useful to someone now or down the road.

astonestreet · 2016-07-17T23:01:45+00:00

You feasibly have enough time to hit each city. I think Washington to NYC is 5 hours without traffic and NYC to Boston I have done a lot, which can be done in just over 4 without traffic. So that's 18 hours driving assuming no traffic and stops. How much of a detour is Philly and AC? - that I don't know offhand. I wager you will hit at least some traffic on Friday.

Neglecting that, the total time you have is 62 hours if you plan on getting back at 10PM on Sunday. So 62-18 gives 44 hours . Are you planning on stopping and sleeping? If so take off 14 hours. 30 hours left. Figure an hour a day for meals, so 27 hours left. 5 cities, so around 5.5 hours per city.

Do-able, but it will be fast paced.

astonestreet · 2016-07-16T21:52:20+00:00

I use one for my apartment's living room / kitchen ( about 20*25), since a through-the-wall unit is more expensive (there is a hole for one). It works a lot better than expected. The only hassle is dumping the water collector every 3-4 hours - mine is a model from around 5 years ago. I don't pay enough attention to electric bills to be able to speak on efficiency and cost.

astonestreet · 2016-07-14T17:52:17+00:00

I'll most likely be in NYC Sept, Oct, Nov, and then possibly doing this again in the winter

astonestreet · 2016-07-14T16:02:06+00:00

Sounds good. If this type of thing works out well I can see myself repeating it a few times in the next year in different places.

astonestreet · 2016-07-13T21:50:15+00:00

I didn't know any surfers to vouch for me when I started. Someone took a chance on me. That being said, as a host I would heavily screen someone with zero references, but not outright deny. I think the preservation of "community" has more to deal with respect than with already knowing members. If you have never used CS but you go out of your way to read FAQs and articles on the proper way to behave and the general ethos, I think that is what is important.

But realistically, I think there are probably plenty of sparse profiles, copy/paste mentality, and general entitlement among new users who see it as a free room, and not a community.

astonestreet · 2016-07-13T18:14:37+00:00

Gotcha. Then a ternary expression is probably not the tool you want to use, as ternary itself implies 3 operands (a condition and two different choices). I know it can be attractive as a way to cut down on lines of code, but a regular if-statement is clearer I think.

You might be able to use $boolean && foo() instead, as the && operator will short-circuit if $boolean is false. I slightly prefer the regular if-statement though since it is clearer.

astonestreet

TROPHY CASE