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I read the first 5 Vampire series books and enjoyed them all. I feel the world she creates is very unique. I remember the characters being rather flawed individuals from very different backgrounds, and powers and immortality didn't do very much to actually help them. Most of the real moments I still remember are ones dealing with what felt like embracing what was still there of their humanity.

I'll share my experience regarding to a few choices quotes from the article.

Working as a senior quality and performance officer in a local council in the UK involved ‘pretending things are great to senior managers, and generally “feeding the beast” with meaningless numbers that give the illusion of control,’

My most recent job involved a bunch of auditing, mainly inventory. When you are tasked with finding errors and flaws, but are treated negatively when you present your findings, how does that make you value your work?

Management was relatively good at this job, but in my former one, I was treated poorly for sitting how we were operating wasnt working either as accurately or efficiently at it could. We were doing more work to deliver an inferior product. How to I feel I'm doing my best there?

Employed by a digital consultancy for a pharmaceutical company’s marketing department, he called his work ‘pure, unadulterated bullshit’, which ‘serves no purpose’.

I've been in various roles supporting pharma research for near 20 years now with a few companies in the data side of things. I mainly email results to people who only talk to me when there's a problem. That's somewhat fine, because I'm an introvert, but it doesn't build a bond between me and the people I'm supporting, and if we only speak when you're annoyed at me for sending you bad news when I'm just the messenger, or even more so if I find something more qualified people missed, it makes me feel like crap.

In my previous role, I would compile test results for lab inspections and get calls 6 or 12 months or more after sending the results from angry lab managers demanding I speak to their auditor about why they failed it to explain things they didn't understand. Way to prove my work want even important enough to flip through when you got it.

Empirical data suggested that, in fact, relatively few people appear to consider their jobs as useless – leading to pushback against the real-life applicability of Graeber’s concept.

None of my jobs, from the one I have, well, had, my job lost the bid to renew our contract, to the ones I had as a kid were useless. People generally don't pay for things they don't need. But some people definitely made me feel useless about the work I did for them. When I was a teen in food service, people needed to eat, both quickly and safely, and I wanted them to have a nice night out. But most people won't make you feel good for having that job. Now I turn stuff in to people I never see it great from it get to learn what happens from things I find, if the company makes changes based on my data, or if it just gets deleted. I'll never know.

‘I was recently able to charge around twelve thousand pounds to write a two-page report for a pharmaceutical client to present during a global strategy meeting,’ he said. ‘The report wasn’t used in the end because they didn’t manage to get to that agenda point.’

Looking at jobs now, I feel the bar is very high in minimum qualifications and mandatory skills for roles that I feel I would have been able to successfully do years ago in my career that I don't even begin to "qualify" to do now.

Jobs way harder than the just few I have are offering less than I made 10 years ago at places that treated me poorly back then.

I've been hired where they demanded I know skills X, Y, and Z, but the only thing they ever asked me to do was some intermediate X, some noob Y, and no Z ever came up because the boss doesn't understand half of it anyway and showing them how actually using Z can save time and money, but switching stuff over to that would take too much time or whatever.

I've always loved my jobs in the sense of what the duties were, or else I wouldn't do it, but seldom have I felt value in my job in the sense of doing that for the people I was doing it for.

Just watched it and did a review in my other comment on this post. It's not my type of movie, none of the Saws really are, but I thought it was alright and felt like a good addition to the Saw-iverse .

Reporting back, just finished watching the movie.

I'll start by saying I like horror movies in general, but not really the torture stuff like Saw or The Collection and things like that, hence why I've seen Saw 1, 2, and maybe 5 and that's it.

I do enjoy the basic premise where he only goes after people that have it coming as far as movie victims go, and that he gives them a bit of a chance to survive, especially if they would just stop being assholes for a minute.

This movie felt like what I remember if the early saw movies. I think watching the TS version may have helped a little, reducing the video quality to make it feel even more vintage, but it was fine for my viewing given my overall interest level.

I could recognize the main cast of characters, but even if I didn't, it fills you in on all you need to know, so it can definitely stand on its own.

The traps did all seem pretty original ish. Since there's nothing new plot wise here, it's still you have X minutes to free yourself painfully or you die. As far as are these things you could make yourself from Home Depot parts, maybe one or 2 of them, but they're still a bit out there, but better than I remember some stuff being in other movies.

Overall, I think if you enjoy this type of movie you should give it a shot. If you don't like them at all, it's not going to win you over. It still made be feel queasy and uncomfortable in a not pleasant way. I feel the traps are still pretty unfair and sadistic and are more revengey than teachy, but that's just me. But if you like the originals and fell off the series somewhere, you can watch this no problem.

Maybe I'll check this out. I've only seen 3 of them, but the back to basics formula makes it sound like it might be ok.

To be fair, the Republicans as a whole are still pretty united, this is just the Freedom Caucus people trying to throw around their brand of extra strength crazy.

McCarthy made a deal with the devil to win them over to get made Speaker, and they are going to taunt him with that every chance they get. He gets what he deserves from that alliance, which is fine by me.

That works too! I'm a BypassPaywalls user so I always forget about archive.

It looks to be a few hours behind though, and misses out on a bunch of important quotes that got added later.

Still, thanks for the additional resource reminder!

Congress Set to Avert Government Shutdown as House Measure Passes

Compromise keeps government funded until mid-November, while omitting Ukraine and border provisions

The House passed a measure Saturday to extend government funding through mid-November. It includes $16 billion in disaster relief.

WASHINGTON—Congress was on the verge of averting a government shutdown Saturday, after the House passed a measure with broad bipartisan support to extend funding through mid-November and sent the matter to the Senate.

White House officials said President Biden supports the measure and will sign it as soon as possible. The surprise breakthrough upended expectations that Congress was too divided to pass anything in time to keep the government from partially shutting down at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. But a delay in the Senate in quickly taking up the measure late Saturday raised the possibility of more twists in the drama.

The House voted 335-91 for the funding measure, which includes $16 billion in disaster relief but omits aid for Ukraine. It also excludes border-security measures sought by Republicans. The margin exceeded the two-thirds majority needed to clear the bill through the House, which considered the legislation under special procedures requiring a supermajority of votes. All but one Democrat voted in favor of the measure, while nearly half of Republicans voted against it.

“It’s easy to be a conservative that wants to do nothing,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said after the House vote. “But I believe America wants to find the conservative that can make government work efficiently, effectively and accountable.”

In reaching for a compromise, Republicans argued that the party had exhausted its options after dissident conservatives derailed an earlier plan, and said that the only choice now was to pass a bill extending funding at 2023’s $1.6 trillion annual rate through Nov. 17. That squares with major components of the approach being taken in the Senate, except that the Senate version includes an emergency $6 billion for Ukraine.

Some Democrats had worked to rally their members against the legislation, arguing against omitting aid for Ukraine and saying that Republicans had pulled a fast one by advancing a bill that they said would enable a pay raise for members of Congress. But Republicans moved to fix the cost-of-living increase matter and questioned why Democrats would be willing to shut down their own government in the name of supporting Ukraine.

The move to advance the legislation marked a major turnabout for McCarthy, who had spent months trying to appease a dissident flank that rejected his every offer. McCarthy advanced spending bills that at a net $1.471 trillion for fiscal 2024 were widely seen by Democrats as breaking his debt deal with President Biden. McCarthy then revised his approach, offering to advance bills with even steeper cuts while also saying that any stopgap measure must simultaneously provide for new restrictions on migrants. They rejected that as well.

“I have tried for eight months,” McCarthy told reporters. “It took me a long time to finally get the appropriations bills on the floor; they were delaying. I tried yesterday with the most conservative stopgap funding bill you could find,” he said. “I couldn’t get 218 Republicans.”

McCarthy dismissed opposition from conservatives who have threatened to oust him as speaker. “If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it. There has to be an adult in the room,” he said after the vote.

White House officials and some Democratic lawmakers cast the vote as a victory, noting that the bill excluded the deep spending cuts that conservative House Republicans were pushing, reductions that would have slashed budgets for a range of domestic programs.

Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois, the lone House Democrat to vote against the short-term measure, said it was because the bill didn’t include funding for Ukraine. “Putin is celebrating,” he told CNN. “We got 45 days to fix it.”

Headed into the possible shutdown Sunday, federal government agencies have been alerting employees and laying out plans to bring nonessential government programs to a halt. Roughly 1.5 million civilian government workers wouldn’t be paid during a shutdown, while 800,000 employees deemed essential would continue working, according to the White House budget office. That number could change if a shutdown dragged on.

Just getting to the vote Saturday contained hours of drama. The House was stuck in a suspended state after House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D., Mass.) made a motion to adjourn, saying that Democrats needed time to read the bill because “we have serious trust issues.”

Republicans said that Democrats were stalling to give the Senate time to clear the last big roadblock to passing its own stopgap measure—a bid to give that version the best chance at being enacted into law.

“If we win this vote, this is the bill that will be signed into law,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) “If they can delay this until after the Senate vote, the Senate vote is going to become law. This is what this is all about. It’s nothing about them wanting to read it.”

In the Senate, Democratic leaders instructed the sergeant at arms to round up absent senators so that they could speed up a pivotal vote. Republicans said that Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) pulled a fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building earlier Saturday, which Republicans said was his attempt to stall the vote in the House. His spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. And Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), moving to delay the vote, stood up on the House floor to speak.

“Strap in because this may take a while,” Jeffries said, taking advantage of a special privilege available only to leaders, known as the “magic minute,” to bust through normal restrictions on lawmaker speeches. Normally, lawmakers would have to stay within their party’s remaining debate time—which for Democrats had been six minutes.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tried to delay the House vote to give the Senate’s stopgap measure an edge.

Critics of a short-term deal said McCarthy gave in too easily.

“Total capitulation,” said Rep. Bob Good (R., Va.), who has indicated he would be open to supporting an effort to oust McCarthy as speaker. “He has failed to do anything that he’s promised to do, including passing a bill that got every Democrat vote. Every Democrat vote!”

President Biden had declined to meet with McCarthy, urging the speaker to stick to the budget deal both parties agreed to earlier this year. The agreement set top-line spending levels for the coming fiscal years. The White House has excoriated House Republicans for bringing the government to the brink of a shutdown, warning of wide-ranging fallout.

Most routine federal food-safety inspections would cease in a shutdown, national parks would close, new small-business loan applications wouldn’t be processed and a supplemental nutrition program for women and children would run out of funding within days. Smithsonian Institution museums could close after Oct. 7. Many essential services—like the mail and the delivery of Social Security checks—would continue.

Federal agencies, with White House guidance, are required to figure out what operations can continue under an 1884 law called the Antideficiency Act that says it is illegal for the U.S. government to spend more money than Congress granted for that fiscal year. That law grants exceptions for safety and property protection. Presidents have taken differing approaches to national parks during prior shutdowns.

WSJ Article

This article seemed to have done better details about the drama going on in all this. Here are some tidbits since it's paywalled. Give me a minute and I'll get the white thing for anyone interested, because to hell with NewsCorp.

The House voted 335-91 for the funding measure, which includes $16 billion in disaster relief but omits aid for Ukraine. It also excludes border-security measures sought by Republicans.

Republicans argued that the party had exhausted its options after dissident conservatives derailed an earlier plan, and said that the only choice now was to pass a bill extending funding at 2023’s $1.6 trillion annual rate through Nov. 17. That squares with major components of the approach being taken in the Senate, except that the Senate version includes an emergency $6 billion for Ukraine.

Some Democrats had worked to rally their members against the legislation, arguing against omitting aid for Ukraine and saying that Republicans had pulled a fast one by advancing a bill that they said would enable a pay raise for members of Congress. But Republicans moved to fix the cost-of-living increase matter and questioned why Democrats would be willing to shut down their own government in the name of supporting Ukraine.

Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois, the lone House Democrat to vote against the short-term measure, said it was because the bill didn’t include funding for Ukraine. “Putin is celebrating,” he told CNN. “We got 45 days to fix it.”

“If we win this vote, this is the bill that will be signed into law,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) “If they can delay this until after the Senate vote, the Senate vote is going to become law. This is what this is all about. It’s nothing about them wanting to read it.”

Being able to max my HSA contributions was one of my signs that I finally "made it" in my career. The advantages of HSAs are great for those that don't need to use them. Same with the required high deductible health plan itself.

Now my job is going away next month, and guess what does me no good then? No health plan, and I can't contribute that money to the HSA, not that I'll be getting any money. When I'll need protection most, it's not there. If the solution is to help everyone, universal healthcare is the only way to do it.

Once he started doing collabs with Josh Weissman, I think that took it from a bit into something serious. After that, I started seeing a bunch of YouTube cooking channels start using it.

I prefer using things with high glutamate content instead of straight MSG, but I do keep a jar on hand for when food is lacking that something.

You aren't alone! I got really confused for a second when I saw the community name.