Cashmere, can you offer the money in the form of lifeskills/budgetting classes instead? By which I mean, good lord. Bless you and your dealing with family. Am so thankful my family is easy in many many ways.

After I paid to bail my nephew's girlfriend out of jail, my niece just called and asked when Girlfriend pays me back if SHE could borrow that money until they get their stimulus check in July. *sigh*

Didn't you say that you thought that nephew's GF won't pay you back?

Yeah, actually Cash, I'd say yes to that. The chances of you getting the money back at all aren't great - this way the official debt to you is on the shoulders of someone who might feel more of an obligation to do something about it.

Lego Turing machine

b) the memory

The stack is a small hollow tower in which the symbols can fall horizontally. It is therefore a "compact" memory, containing near 10 bytes per 6 inches! Another difficulty is to make sure the symbols will always remain horizontal, which implies equal friction everywhere.

Maybe we should stop calling you "Cash" because I think it is sending the wrong message.

I was just thinking the same thing.

Also, could I borrow some money?

I love the thinking: "If Cash has enough money to bail someone out, then she ought to give it to me."

t throws large bundle of cluesticks at Cash's relatives

So, we could start calling Cash - "Broke" - maybe that would help.

I will admit to having typed the words "Kool-Aid," but only in private and only in reaction to one particular group of people -- there's a thankfully tiny but fairly obnoxious subset of Obama supporters, mostly a handful of commenters on the non-b.org sites I visit and a handful of posters on sites I don't visit anymore, who are... I guess just more Obama supporters than yellow-dog Dems.

Everyone's got their favorite in the primaries, but most folks will, after a suitable mourning period, buckle down and support whichever D comes out of the primaries. Except these guys (and it does seem to be mostly guys) (who are, again, a tiny, tiny subset, they're just a LOUD one) have spent many months both pounding on Obama's main opponent and making it clear that they brooked no criticism whatever of a single Obama word or deed in the entire course of his political life. And some are just freaktastic.

Honestly, after reading and reading and reading about everyone's histories and positions and platforms, ISTM that the Democratic party has been incredibly lucky in having three or four strong candidates, any one of whom would make a great president. Now that it's down to one, I'm totally happy to vote for that one; I'm just not keen on that tiny handful of idiots who insist that he's utterly beyond criticism and that my first choice was pure gut-churning evil.

Folks in general, Buffistas especially? Smart, reasonable, thoughtful and enthusiastic supporters with no trace of Kool-Aid at all.

Cash - you could offer to lend the money when it's repaid (i.e., never). And the least they could do is send coffee before demanding "loans".

sarameg, perhaps you could say that you've lost weight because it MELTED OFF in your un-airconditioned apartment?

New sign - in honor of Kat's tag - "Disgruntled customers will be given a cat. Really disgruntled customers will be given a feral cat."

And, just because.

So, we could start calling Cash - "Broke" - maybe that would help.

Or maybe "Credit Check."

ION, this is depressing for USians....

The End of Summer Vacation

....Forget about two-week vacations in August. Many working people will be lucky to have a day-cation in July.

While cyclical factors like the spiking price of gasoline and the slumping job market have something to do with this, the real culprits are longstanding trends that have altered the structure of our economy. As a result, with each passing year, more Americans view something that used to be an entitlement—paid time off—as an increasingly unaffordable or unavailable luxury.

...

The upshot is that to be competitive, not just managers but employees in general often feel they can't afford to take much time off. A common complaint is that it's not worth going on vacation for more than two or three days because, with work piling up and hundreds of e-mails waiting to be opened, it is so maddeningly difficult to catch up after returning. According to a survey by the Conference Board, a business research organization, the proportion of Americans who said they would take a vacation over the next six months has fallen to a 30-year low of just 39 percent.