Yeah, no. That would involve opening the back door, letting in cold air, to go to the basement. Twice (so, opening the door 4x). (there's still another door between our back door and outside, but it's quite cold and very drafty in the hallway to the basement, so, it's still a waste of energy - it's not like we keep the thermostat set at 50, plus, it'd make *me* cold to go to the basement twice to warm socks. they'll get warm just fine on his feet (really, they're not cold - it's not like I'm asking him to put on 50 degree socks - if he wants, he could hold them in front of the heater before putting them on, but it's the principle - he doesn't want to believe that it works, because he's not complaining about cold feet, so why would socks help?... well, because they do, even if it's another body part that's cold))

Whinging makes me cringe. Why the extra 'g'? (like someone else mentioned, it's probably British or something, but it still makes me cringe). That said, at least I knew what it meant. I bought lights for the xmas tree last night, and an obscene amount lot of groceries.

Broccoli, when told to put on socks, just whines that that'd make him even colder. It's quite annoying.

I read it just now, but I agree with people that one number in one person's house is not the same as the same number in another person's house. Also, I remember some thread one or two years ago about some family who didn't turn on their heater until it was really quite cold out, and who'd make the kids run outside to warm up because it was so cold inside, so, I take the people who post really low numbers with a grain of salt. It's not a contest of who can be the most Spartan, kwim?

I didn't have a real estimate, other than "pretty low risk", and "the risk probably depends on whether you use electrical lights or candles". But, anyhow, thanks for letting us know that the xmas tree should be in the bathroom, bedroom, or basement, from February-November, got it. Maybe I'll put real candles on it, like my grandparents did, so I don't have to worry about electrical fires. (to be clear, I assume the risk is substantially higher for candles, though the one difference is that I wouldn't leave candles on when not in the room, whereas I have left electrical xmas tree lights on overnight, and it'd probably be safer to have something catch on fire while I'm there than while I'm asleep (which, of course, could be solved by not leaving either kind on when not in the room)) ETA: our tree is fake.

One would imagine that there's a WikiHow about that. Yep, there is: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Bed ETA: I don't get the 2 checkings accounts thing... how would that be beneficial? (I get that it's not, I'm just unclear why anyone would think it is)

Waiting. :toetap05:

Legislation would be one option that might be more effective than education. Not that I'm a PhD. But, say, if we create a situation with universal health care, very low cost college, etc, and then ban pay day loans, most credit cards, etc, seriously limit car loans and mortgages, etc, you could reduce consumer debt. Or, if you wanted to reduce govt debt, you could raise taxes (including closing all sorts of loopholes), slash spending, and pay that off. Really, the govt has a lot of tools it can potentially use to reduce consumer and/or govt debt. Now, whether any/all of the above are desirable is another debate, which is not for this forum (there is a rule against discussing politics). To be clear, I'm not taking a political position with this post (i.e. I'm not saying what the govt should do). I'm just saying that legislation is a tool that can be used, just like education (and, you can legislate about education too, including requiring everybody to take algebra 2, statistics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, accounting, and personal finance in order to graduate high school, just to give an example).

I thought that buying stock meant buying part of a company. Which yes, companies become publicly traded in order to get more money, but once they're on the stock market (and plenty already are), we could technically all buy as much stock as we want, which would increase stock prices (unless supply were to increase), which of course would be a bubble if the companies aren't actually worth more (and if we all buy stock instead of spending money, they wouldn't be worth more, as they'd be selling fewer widgets because people are buying stock instead of widgets). So, even if we're all happy to buy into that bubble, the companies would decide to lay off workers because they don't need as many people to make widgets and they like to make as big a profit as possible, so keeping people on payroll who aren't needed is something they don't do, and at some point the unemployed people are going to have to sell their stock in order to survive, and, people being people, the other people will likely panic as stock prices start to drop, and then you've engineered a crash and quite probably a depression. Right?

Right. But suppose there is some imaginary state where the law says that as a homeschooler you have to use these books, give these tests, use these rubrics, for these amounts of time on these days of the week, then would you still be a homeschooler? Legally speaking, yes. But the parent would not have any of the freedoms that some people in this thread mentioned as the things that distinguish homeschoolers from public/private schoolers using an online program.

Exactly: Required courses. For purposes of this subdivision, a unit means 6,480 minutes of instruction per school year. Instruction in the following subjects shall be required: For grades one through six: arithmetic, reading, spelling, writing, the English language, geography, United States history, science, health education, music, visual arts, physical education, bilingual education and/or English as a second language where the need is indicated. For grades seven and eight: English (two units); history and geography (two units); science (two units); mathematics (two units); physical education (on a regular basis); health education (on a regular basis); art (one-half unit); music (one-half unit); practical arts (on a regular basis); and library skills (on a regular basis). The units required herein are cumulative requirements for both grades seven and eight. The following courses shall be taught at least once during the first eight grades: United States history, New York State history, and the Constitutions of the United States and New York State. For grades 9 through 12: English (four units); social studies (four units), which includes one unit of American history, one-half unit in participation in government, and one- half unit of economics; mathematics (two units); science (two units); art and/or music (one unit); health education (one-half unit); physical education (two units); and three units of electives. The units required herein are cumulative requirements for grades 9 through 12. Now, whether I could graduate a kid without any mathematics, for example, maybe. Like, if the kid does 12960 min of math in high school, and gets Fs in all of it, maybe I *can* graduate the kid as a homeschooler... I'm not sure. But I certainly can't choose to just not do any math in high school. Of course, private schools have regulations about what they have to teach too, and they're still private schools as well.

You've obviously never seen a thread about cupcakes. Or grocery carts. There are guys on this forum - not many, but there are some, and most of them are well-liked by most people here. I'm still not sure what you think will happen if we all took your advice and started saving oodles of money, pronto. And if you'd been female, I'd happily have used the word womansplaining, which is not a word, but I've used it before. Netiquette rule number something-or-other: read some posts first to get a 'feel' for the norms of the group before posting stuff yourself (this btw, works irl as well).

The Great Recession? Which caused a bunch of older people to return to college (or go for the first time) because if they were unemployed anyway, they might as well finish a degree or get a second degree for a more employable field or w/e. It could even have made normal college-age students be more cynical towards certain statements about the economy or public policy or w/e. (or, of course any of the other possible reasons that have been mentioned in this thread)

Except that in NYS, you can't just do w/e you want, even as a homeschooler. I'm not there yet, but iirc, at the higher grade levels you have to teach certain subjects for specific numbers of hours per subject, covering specific things (even now, I have to cover specific stuff like "fire safety"). Btw, not saying that homeschoolers in NY aren't homeschoolers... just that the lines of "well, the parent decides graduation criteria etc" get blurred in a high regulation state.

Or, you can look up some places near where you're planning to buy on zillow or w/e - they list lot sizes (sometimes only acreage, sometimes actual dimensions). So, I was right - the house we're currently renting sits on a 30x125 lot.

When we lived in a small town, our lot was about 110 wide by 325 deep. Which was very wide (especially since the house was 1180 sq ft spread out over two stories).

Not suburban, but 30ft. Basically, the width of the house (which is longer and taller than it's wide) + just enough space for a trashcan and the ability to walk past the trashcan on one side - on the other side, there is zero space. Btw, that means it's really narrow. (and, no driveway) As for perspective, you could go to town and look around and measure (like, maybe measure how many paces, and see how long your paces are). Or, look at Google maps on the maximum zoom in (which is how I came up with 30ft - it looked more like 25 on Google, but it's got to be 30 - we're renting, so I never really got lot size dimensions for this place).

Anybody doing college in Germany? Yes: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1264/umfrage/anzahl-der-studenten-nach-hochschulart/ ETA: hm, earlier it didn't put an ad right over the bar graph. Oh well, some of the numbers are still visible in the text on the right.

Which might be another reason why the group project I mentioned in a PP worked - iirc it was a required class, and there was no in-person option, so there was no self-selection bias (other than that it only had people going for their MLS or a bachelor's degree in information science (which is NOT a popular major)).

I've actually seen it work out well at least once. BUT, most of the people in the class were grad students (it was Statistical Methods in Library Science or something along those lines, a 4xxx/5xxx level course), and I think I may have been the only person in my particular group who was undergrad. But, we managed to agree on what to do, took turns going to the public library to count the number of patrons in a certain area at randomly selected times, and we got the results processed - everybody was involved, not to the level of perfection, but it was probably the best functioning group project I've been in. I think most of the other groups in that class did okay too... but, I do get that a class where the vast majority are grad students is not comparable to a CC class.

The Freakonomics movie (I think Netflix still has it) has some about paying high school students for grades. Long story short: it works, if the incentive is big enough and seems attainable to the student (if the student thinks there's no way they can get it, then they're obviously not going to try, no matter how big the incentive is). Also, if you only incentivize getting a C, then the student has no reason to try to get a B. And if you give a bigger incentive for getting a B, then you'd want to make sure that you're not incentivizing the kid to get a B in one thing and an F in something else instead of two Cs. So, anyway, it's complicated. I'm a little unclear on how this came up though - if my kid refused to do work an then told me that he'll only do it if I pay him, I'd be very uninclined to pay. Maybe that's irrational, but while I'm not against paying kids to do stuff, I don't want to be blackmailed into paying. Which is why I hadn't commented on it before you asked about it more in #41. And yes, it can reduce intrinsic motivation... if there is intrinsic motivation. Which there apparently isn't, so, that's not really a concern, imo.

Thanks. I could do it myself, or have my mom do it too. Or, just play it as written... it'd just require me to go slower for a while, but it's not like I *can't* do it. I was just surprised by how many of the pieces were written with 4+ flats (or sharps).

I'm sure they would've happily fixed it for you if they were quacks - fixing stuff is how they make money, telling you it's fine is how they don't make money (I'm not saying it can't happen that they'll miss something that should be fixed, but between you and the OP, that's 3 different mechanics claiming it's nothing). But anyway... yes, it sounds like it's time for drastic action. Whether that's spending big money to fix the van, or buying something new/gently used, is none of my business, but I wouldn't leave the situation as-is.

Yes, they look very neat. The kids however don't seem to be there yet with folding, but they should be able to make stuff like this (I guess they're snowflakes, not stars... oh well): http://www.engagedinart.com/artclasses/countdown-to-christmas-crafts-fun-art-projects/paper-snowflakes/

DW put her spiky tires on her bicycle, and is going to the store to buy stuff for chili. :)