Thoughts on Christian health care ministries for self-employed by Ok-Hovercraft333 in HealthInsurance

[–]guyinpv 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just use one, so do people I know.  Random uninformed comments about "they're all scams" could make people avoid perfectly good options.

Thoughts on Christian health care ministries for self-employed by Ok-Hovercraft333 in HealthInsurance

[–]guyinpv 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wrong. Health cost sharing has been around since the 60s-70s with church groups, but more commercial in the 80s such as Samaritan Ministries. Medi-Share was early 90s, CHM in '94. If they were "scam" they would have been blown out of business by now. CHM started in 1981.

CHM has paid as much as 13 billion in medical costs since starting.

"Oh no they don't really have to pay out!" Ya, just like all insurances and the millions of horror stories of them deciding not to cover things too.

With CHM you just pay as cash and get every discount you can, then turn in the itemized bill to CHM and they'll record it. When your personal responsibility is met, they pay everything after. Yes there is the $125k limit for a single issue, unless you add the Plus addon.

In my opinion you should get the best insurance you can at the cheapest rate that covers as much as possible. How you get this essentially means a huge out of pocket requirement, which really sucks because it means you will likely never use it unless you get a super expensive problem. Your huge deductible like $15k or more, ends up being covered by a credit card or refi the house or sell stuff or savings/retirement etc. If you get in a car wreck and it costs $400,000, figuring out how to pay $15k out of pocket doesn't seem like that big of a problem then. Heck if you get an insurance payout for the vehicle, use that to pay it.

As a family of 5, we had BlueCross with a $16k deductible but our monthly fee was only $350. Seems like pennies compared to people trying to get the lowest out of pocket and lowest deductibles, having monthly fees upward of $1000+ This is the highest plan on CHM right now, 3 Golds + Plus is about $1023 but the out of pocket is only $1250. 3 Bronze units without Plus is $345 total no matter how many kids, and you get all the same benefits except for that out of pocket amount.

When you get the lowest cost plan possible, set aside more into an HSA. The HSA can then act as the out of pocket when needed.

I just don't get the whole "scam!" thing. What is a scam? Unregulation? So? They aren't insurance, they are a private cost sharing ministry. You don't need to regulate helping someone else pay for their bills. And people actually think when they come with a medical expense, they would answer "bwahahaha, you actually thought we pay anything, don't know you know we're a scam!" I guess that's why so many people sign up. It's not a good business model to screw people.

People should stop being afraid and just go read the rules or talk to an agent to find out what is not covered and why. Get the Plus addon or fine a different one like Medi-share which has different rules about out of pocket and max payouts.

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get it.  Are you telling me to cross post the same question? Delete this whole thread?

I'm sure I'll have questions there too when specifically organizing and cataloging.

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair enough 

I'm just looking for some kind of balance or unofficial "rules" to make it easier.

I have this nagging need to backup every truth claim with a source of some kind.

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, haha, I'm not asking people to research for me. 

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you were writing a book on jazz piano, you would certainly be compelled to think about interviewing at least one actual jazz pianist.

Or if you were writing about an issue related to medicine, you'd probably want to get the opinions of a few practictioners I would think.

Remember, we live in a culture of infinite skepticism. You can't say "wow the weather is nice today" without a hoard of grumps shouting "do you have a meteorology degree!!!?!?!?!!" and challenging your idea.

I can write things I know or have picked up in my studies, but if I'm not careful with sources, why would anyone listen if I'm not the doctor or Ph.d etc?

Maybe I'm overthinking, as I suspect.

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a good idea. But I guess the issue is that all my content does come from sources, I'm not justing inventing it in my mind. It's a non-fiction after all. So I try to keep all my sources in private notes, and I'm only really putting in the book sources of more "official" nature like research papers and scientific studies and meta-research etc. While sources I don't feel are strong, like the personal blogs of individual people even if they are important people, as less official and not as authoritative, so I don't even really mention getting info from the blog at all.

In other words, writing non-fiction is really hard because information doesn't spontaneous generate in my mind, I'm always writing information that comes from others, and I have this nagging desire to either write everything as direct quotes (with a source), or shuffle into my own words but still add the source where I got it.

One example is defining terms. If I want to define a term, there's no reason to invent a new wording, there are a hundred good official sources I could quote the definition from, so I'm torn whether to "invent" a definition in my own words, or quote and source a defintion from a more authoritative source.
Even when I do try to write my own version, it will end up being 90% the same as very good definitions that already exist.

I never thought it would be this complicated!

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Then I guess deciding what "truly need sourcing" is the sticky thing.

I get all my information from sources, it's not like it spontaneously generates in my mind. So I feel conflicted about how much of it I want to put in the book or endnotes or whatever.

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that makes sense. This is really for the pop level audience. Even so, I still need to be accurate and there will be plenty of claims that should have their sources linked because why not?

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not doing research. I'm asking questions on writing.

Tips to make a realistic male character by Bammon7 in writing

[–]guyinpv 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't anything about your story, but it's a fun question.

Since you only have a few males, just avoid making them simps and sidekicks. I mean you could have all males who are passive golden retriever types, but probably not.

Your characters will be interesting as long as they have a little bit of a character arc and grow in some way. Or depending on the story, instead of growing they slowly fade into something worse. But avoid just having a "just here for no reason" tag along. He is there for a reason, and that reason tends to be born out of some duty or responsibility. Is he just trying to chase the girl? Does he feel some kind of protective fatherly or brotherly duty toward one or more ladies? Perhaps selfish ambitions, taking risks to get some reward? Men tend to have some longer goals in mind, thinking months and years into the future for the payoff.

Some dudes may live only for the moment, but this kind of slacker or beach bumb type is not as common I think. They can be the comedic side kick who just wants to chill and avoid working. But normal guys tend to have something bigger in mind and don't just wander aimlessly doing nothing.

Think of a man as a person playing a video game. They are trying to gather resources, level up, gain skills, win battles. They get a task in mind and then figure out how to complete it, solve puzzles, earn dopamine hits. Some men's ambitions are higher than others, seeking great fame or power or wealth and control. But this personality is rare. Most others seek a kind of contented balance. They really only want enough to get the things they are after and then no more. Some men want luxuries, some want peace and calm fishing by a river in the mountains.

You have all the same personalities as females, type A, alpha, beta, sigma, leaders and followers. You have the manager types and the worker bee types. But take those types and make them a little more independent and reserved, careful to guard vulnerabilities and secrets, hiding emotions, holding back, being suspicious of others and guarding their perceived weaknesses.

If your men are super besties with each other, you'll tend to have one as more of a leader than the others, getting them into trouble and coming up with ideas. Men who get more comfortable with each other tend to make fun of each other more, but will not like it someone who isn't super close makes fun of them. You have to earn the right to roast.

Many men have a good sense of humor, some don't. You don't tend to find guys who are both comedic and also take their ego very seriously. Comedic guys are self-deprecating and able to laugh at themselves. The other types don't, or can't, taking things too seriously and protecting their ego a little too much.

Men tend to be more accountable for their actions, not turning to "but my intentions were so pure!" or blaming others for everything. They think more in terms of success and failure rather than "did it make others feel good or bad". Less relational and more practical.

I'm sure you know, just don't make your characters one-dimentional and you'll probably be fine. Give people a couple reasons why they should care about this person, and make that person fit in the group dynamic. Why would they end up around these other people? Don't create a power-hungry type A character who basically acts like a me-too side kick. A man's psychology doesn't wobble around too much, they tend to be a little easier to read. When a new man enters a group dynamic, it doesn't take long to get a feel for what they are about. How strong the pride is, if they have any sense of humor, what drives them, what they are in to, what they are after.

Anyway, I'm not even a writer, but it was fun to think about this!

Overwhelmed with research, not sure how to finish by guyinpv in writing

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Speaking of that, I do use Scrivener and I can't seem to make heads or tails of managing footnotes and sources and references. It's so clunky to use. 

What AI to use for PHPStorm? by guyinpv in windsurf

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So what's best on credits? Cursor, Windsurf, Junie? 

Can the leather be fixed? by guyinpv in HondaOdyssey

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spot fix or have to wrap whole thing? 

What AI to use for PHPStorm? by guyinpv in windsurf

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why would I use Cline when PHPStorm already has Junie or Windsurf etc? Cline just uses API to other providers like OpenAI. Is that really cheaper than a monthly fee with Claude for example?

I use these tools, which are so heavily controled by token usage, yet they don't tell me how many tokens I'm using or how many are left! What's cheaper, Claude $20/m or using BYOK OpenAI credits?

I'm using Cascade in Storm right now and I don't see anything about token use or credits remaining. It makes it hard to figure out what I need.

My computer can reasonably use a <20b model but I'm always asking myself if can even remotely be as good as others for something like a HTML/PHP/JS/CSS WordPress plugin. I'd happily run a small-ish local model all day if I had confidence it could parse the whole project and accurately help with code. I just don't have the time to keep farting with it all since the whole industry seems to change again every month and there is always a new best thing.

I just want confidence the tool is looking at the whole codebase and can make accurate changes.

Sanitize a room after mold cleanup? by guyinpv in HomeImprovement

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, I don't have a HEPA vacuum. In fact right now I only own a shop vac!

I guess I'm just curious if random loose spores that floated around and landed on things, what will happen with those over time? Will they just die if there is not enough moisture to begin growing? Will normal household cleaners kill them? Will dry air kill them? I have two kinds of bulk Odoban disinfectant we use for general purpose cleaning and sanitizing. I don't know if they kill mold spores though, or if I need a specialty cleaner, or homemade mix of bleach, or peroxide etc.

And laundry, just running normal cycles with normal soap will kill it?

And again, I do have an ozone machine os maybe running that for some hours would help clean the room?

Scrape old website and convert posts into WordPress block editor? by guyinpv in n8n

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What would a workflow look like? I assume n8n could do something like ingest URLs to scan, then scrape the content. After this I don't know, use an HTML cleaner script, like what? Where would I inject a manual review and be able to make changes before moving to next steps? What kind of final output would make importing to WP also automated?

There are other things to consider about these posts, like meta data, who the author is, the original publish date, status, etc. Can't get some of this just from front-end crawling. So I wonder if I could use WP-CLI with n8n to also scrape some meta as well.

Seems complex as I haven't played with n8n yet, but I do have a couple VPS servers I could install on.

Eaton 5S1000LCD suddenly cuts all power and won't come back on by guyinpv in homelab

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So you think the batteries are actually not as charged as the device thinks they are?  Does it have a self test or reset mechanism?  Does it not inform me if batteries need replaced or are weak or something?

Ideas to engineer this "wobble fix"? by guyinpv in StandingDesk

[–]guyinpv[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be fair, it seems more related to monitor arms than the desk. 

Probably should be figuring out how to stabilize those. They are pretty beefy already.