Hacker News: angmarsbane

New comment by angmarsbane in "Good sleep, good learning, good life (2012)"

angmarsbane — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 03:29:57 +0000

I read an interview once with an American woman who moved to Italy with her Italian husband. They lived in the same apartment building as her in-laws and in the morning her son would walk down to Nonna's for breakfast.

I love the idea of family living within walking distance but in their own domiciles, like townhomes or apartments or condos in the same building. This is another great argument for mixed zoning. A 55+ condo building in the same neighborhood with single family homes for large families and smaller townhomes/apartments for families that are just getting started.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Car Seats as Contraception"

angmarsbane — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:28:29 +0000

This is IF you can find a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment in an American city. The job centers mostly build studios, 1 and 2 bedrooms if they build anything at all.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents"

angmarsbane — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 19:58:18 +0000

They also usually don't want to leave their established doctors. This is actually one of the reasons why we need mixed-housing options within neighborhoods so that elderly people can downsize into more manageable one and two bedroom apartments, condos, or duplexes etc without having to leave the neighborhood. Downsize into housing stock without stairs, without a large yard to upkeep, downsize into something smaller that would be more affordable to adapt for someone aging in place.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

angmarsbane — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:02:58 +0000

Dedicated bus lanes that are physically separated from car traffic specifically, like the BRT system in Mexico City.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

angmarsbane — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:00:18 +0000

What I find interesting is that people have a negative relationship with buses but not with trolley cars, like the old SF trolley cars where you could almost hang off them. If we injected some fun or joy into busses like trolley cars would that improve people's relationships or perspective of them too?

New comment by angmarsbane in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

angmarsbane — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:50:29 +0000

When I was in Mexico City I was blown away and inspired that their bus lanes were actually physically separate from car traffic, sometimes they were even elevated a foot or so alongside car traffic. It made the buses so much faster! I wish bus and bike lanes in the USA were equally separated from car traffic. Different color paint and intermittent bollards don't cut it.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right and physically separate bus lanes is doing it right.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

angmarsbane — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:45:41 +0000

There's an intimidation factor that a lot of Americans won't quickly admit to when it comes to taking the bus. They don't know if they can tap with their phone to pay, if they need cash, if they can use change, if they need exact cash/change, if they need a specific transit card etc. They don't know the etiquette for asking to get off the bus and sometimes it varies by bus design. They don't know the routes or the time schedules and find it confusing and overwhelming and often have a low tolerance for the embarrassment that can come with publicly learning something.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

angmarsbane — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:38:44 +0000

I'm confused, do you mean the bus stops at stops where no one is waiting to get on AND no one has asked to get off the bus?

New comment by angmarsbane in "America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital"

angmarsbane — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:43:58 +0000

What if a degree could be seized? For example, what if bankruptcy courts could require a debtor to stop "representing themselves" as having a degree as a condition for discharging debt. If a court revoked a degree, it would effectively reset the graduate to the status of a dropout removing a significant amount of the degree's value (I know knowledge has its own value, but credentialism is a big part of a degree's value too).Universities already have the infrastructure to flag students. For example, many institutions withhold official transcripts or diplomas for academic fraud, moral infringements etc. Could this create enough of an incentive to pay back loans and not declare bankruptcy?

New comment by angmarsbane in "The bachelor tax – what it costs in taxes to be single"

angmarsbane — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 18:54:18 +0000

Small correction here, its high risk for the higher earner not men specifically.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices"

angmarsbane — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:24:05 +0000

I've been using Gemini or Chat GPT in store to quickly calculate the cost-per when two like items use different measures ex. ounces vs. lbs.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices"

angmarsbane — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:22:39 +0000

We live in an apartment but use Costco to stock our freezer with meat and seafood. We also use it for gas, cat litter, eggs, and cheese (lasts a long time). Basically for perishables that only need to be stored so long.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices"

angmarsbane — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:20:24 +0000

We used to buy raspberries, blackberries, blueberries etc at Dollar Stores. They wouldn't last a week in the fridge which is why they were at the Dollar Store, but we were eating them same-day or next day so spoilage wasn't a concern. Really helped the berry budget with toddlers.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Is Health Insurance Even Worth It Anymore?"

angmarsbane — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 17:16:14 +0000

I feel the constant fighting with insurance isn't spoken to enough. I don't want insurance because I don't want to be both a billing department and a sick person. We went through the same mess when both of my parents were sick. We were already taking in an enormous amount of new information about their illnesses and then we were also having to try and learn how their insurance worked, what was covered, what wasn't, trying to vet what would happen in every appointment, which doctors would show up (bc what if one of the doctors is out-of-network), duking it out with insuance over prior authorizations, trying to tie each bill that came in to something that happened months ago and then vetting if the bill was correctly billed, correctly covered by insurance etc, and on and on and on. I'd rather have 0 insurance and just negotiate each bill as it came in with one single entity, the hospital.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Families say cost of housing means they'll have fewer or no children"

angmarsbane — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:33:05 +0000

My peer set is opting to have babies in apartments even though we all grew up in single family homes because the homes we grew up in are out of sync with our wages and/or too far of a commute. We're running out of time to have kids, so it's now in apartments or never.

My parents home was a 45 min commute to the city when they bought it in '93, now it's 90+ min. Their home is worth $1.2M, which both of us being tech workers we could afford but if one of us lost our jobs the other can't float us for very long. A home, with that commute, is not worth the precariousness. All that money, all that time away from your kid (plus complicated logistics getting to / from day care that closes before our work day ends) it's not worth it.

So, babies in apartments. We actually love it. Everything is walkable, there are parks, playgrounds, pools, elevators for strollers, we walk to the market, the pediatrician, the library, daycare etc. BUT there are NO 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS. They do not exist, whether for small families, young people starting out and splitting rent, couples with remote jobs who want separate offices. 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS DO NOT EXIST so, there will be fewer children.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Tron: Ares Set to Lose $132M+"

angmarsbane — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:16:37 +0000

We saw it but only because our theater has discount movie tickets on Tuesdays, it's our cheap weekly date within walking distance. We were satisfied watching it for $8/per ticket. At that cost per ticket we don't mind taking a chance on a movie with mixed or poor reviews, and we don't mind seeing a movie outside of our core genres.

New comment by angmarsbane in "US cities pay too much for buses"

angmarsbane — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 22:30:17 +0000

If/when we get to self-driving buses I'd like to see them with a security guard on board or someone like the train ticket guy. I wouldn't feel comfortable as a woman getting on driver-less bus with strangers without a bus representative there too. With existing buses, I've had bus drivers stop the bus and kick someone off who was creating a dangerous situation and I feel even just the presence of a bus driver kept some people's behavior in check.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles"

angmarsbane — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 19:07:37 +0000

The closing at 2-3 PM drives me nuts.

New comment by angmarsbane in "Homeowners insurance is pricing people out in disaster-prone cities"

angmarsbane — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:02:03 +0000

This is what is supposed to happen, this is a balancing effect.

New comment by angmarsbane in "New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care"

angmarsbane — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 21:55:53 +0000

Because processing reimbursements and extra record keeping is exhausting and adds to the mental load for Moms. Keep it simple, safe, and reliable.