Is there any PayPal account available?
Looks like it's being done here, there is some discussion of it upthread: https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/w704/beating-cancer-o...
What Dreams May Come
291–300 of 399 posts
Re: What Dreams May Come
#292This set of comics seems apt.
Re: What Dreams May Come
#29320k for burial? is that below or above average?
Re: What Dreams May Come
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just got $500K life insurance for $30 a month. That's less than we usually spend on pizza.
How does that work? Considering you would have to live for 1,389 years for them to make a profit, do they make money on... interest?
It works because when you die it costs them way less than $500k to dispute the situation and avoid paying you anything.
Re: What Dreams May Come
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does that work? Considering you would have to live for 1,389 years for them to make a profit, do they make money on... interest?
Because the odds of a healthy 30 year old dying in the next 20 years are slim, they can collect $30/mo from lots of guys like me and pay out to the very few who die in that term. And, yes, they likely make money on that money while it's not being paid out. Here is an actuarial table that lays out the likelihood of dying and how long you're expected to live at every age. http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html So,…
I guess I was assuming it went from 30-Death instead of 30-50. Do the rates start to rise once you reach 50? Or do you have to buy a new plan, because you only buy them in 20 year increments?
Re: What Dreams May Come
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are over 7 billion people on the planet. A day doesn't go by without a story like this. We just don't hear about most of them. Someday a person like this will simply go to his doctor, get a prescription, and go on to live a normal life. Rather than dwelling on sadness, maybe we should ask if there isn't something we can do, as a group, to make that day arrive sooner. What would it take to cure, or at least trea…
2 years ago, my diagnosis would have meant death within a matter of months as the treatment I am getting didn't exist. I look forward to the day when no one has to go through this. For now, I am not dwelling on the sadness but I am trying to leave my wife and children with as few worries as possible and with as many happy memories as possible. It breaks my heart to know that I might not live to see my 6 year old's bi…
Best of wishes to you. I hope you find peace and can really get the most out of what time you have left... And even more so, I hope your treatment is effective beyond belief and you beat this altogether.
Re: What Dreams May Come
#297It's sad that when we find out something this devastating (you're dying), that we have to spend our last weeks/months/years worrying about, of all things, money. Nobody deserves this sort of thing happening to them, and when it does happen, it hurts me to think they can't spend their last months on earth focused on enjoying time with their loved ones and instead have to live in fear that their family is going to be a…
Where's your sympathy for the people who don't have cancer but have to go in to work every day because they don't want their family to starve? Should they not enjoy any time with their loved ones? Your viewpoint seems incoherent to me; we can't just support everyone out of common brotherly love.
I'm not saying there's a fix for it... Or that it's even a broken system. I just, out of the kindness of my heart, wish a guy down on his luck could at least have some worry lifted off of him when his life is literally ending. Do I feel for everyone else struggling in the world? In some cases, yes, in others, no. Circumstance dictates my feelings. Tell me another sob story and I'll likely feel for that person as well.
Re: What Dreams May Come
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone who owns a computer can start contributing its power right away. http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/research/mcm1/overview.do
Where are the details on this project? I'd like to know if they've published anything or if the datasets they are using are available. From what I can find, it seems like the method they are using is incredibly inefficient.
I'm sorry, I didn't do any other research other than the info on the project website.
I recently got into BOINC again because of my frustration with so many people having their computers churning away just to generate a few $ worth of cryptocoins each day.
I was looking for some interesting projects to grind, and found WCG.
I find it really sucky that it hardly gets any traction anymore. Our combined computing powers are vastly growing every day, yet these efforts are not reaching mainstream. Bigger companies who'd love to show they are involved with the world, would rather post donations.
Maybe donations are more effective, who knows. I have a feeling we are missing out. I've been thinking of ways to have the system get more traction, or something that would stimulate development/improvements of a distributed computing grid for world problems, but can't figure it out.
If anything I would love to contribute my time and efforts to promote such a thing. I think being able to prolong the live expectancy of many patients, cheaper cures, or right-out curing some types of cancer is a very viable platform that could get some traction down these lines, and a very important one at that.
I can see why the idea of looking for ET or analyzing gamma ray bursts to map neutron stars is a bit distant for people.
I think this proves once again that scientists suck at marketing. Maybe we can help out, start a combined collaboration project to improve the efficiency of distributed workloads in this specific field to start with.
As I'm writing this, more and more I want to do this. But I'm just a webdev with the powers of Google at my disposal.
Re: What Dreams May Come
#299Jonathan here. Being woke up by my wife crying because the donations just aren't stopping is both heart-breaking and comforting. For those of you who haven't seen the 'Bucket List' post, here's what it says at the very top: As I try to deal with the reality that is my impending death I can't help but wonder how many things I might have been able to accomplish given just a little more time. When I was diagnosed, I had…
I was happy to make a donation. This hits close to home because my wife was diagnosed with Stage 0 Melanoma-in-situ when she was 35 years old. We have three kids of our own and imagining them growing up without their mother is terrifying. Fortunately, we caught it at Stage 0 though which has a 100% cure rate. So let me stand up on the soapbox for a minute: Everyone should go to a dermatologist every year for an all-o…
Great points all around, thank you for making them! Please don't help perpetuate this myth about whole life being a "rip off" though. Your statement is semi-accurate, but a bit misleading.
Don't get whole life - it's generally a rip off
Yes, if purchased from a non-mutual, financially shaky insurance company, it's quite likely a bad idea.
However, when purchased from a financially strong mutual insurance company (Northwestern Mutual, Guardian Life, etc.), it can make a great complement to term life insurance (and can be beneficial to the overall financial plan for a number of reasons).
One wouldn't want to "fully" insure themselves with whole life (that'd be cost prohibitive and inappropriate from an asset allocation perspective), but again, as a small piece it can make a lot of sense.
Anyway, didn't mean to detract from your overall points. It's hard to put a specific number on peoples' insurance needs without knowing their situation, but the spirit of your points was spot on. Especially about "own occupation" disability coverage - which I think is especially relevant for programmers.
TL;DR on insurance: Talk to a professional that you trust, figure out what amount of protection makes sense, and get protected. Term life insurance is an affordable way to get a lot of financial protection for your family. Your ability to earn an income is perhaps your greatest financial asset (edit: assuming you have many working years ahead of you), so treat it as such. Think about protecting it with disability income insurance.
I'm heartbroken every time I read one of these deeply personal stories. The situation is already stressful enough - one shouldn't have to worry about how the family will keep the lights on.
[Source: I once worked in financial services]
Re: What Dreams May Come
#300Changing the headline on this article REALLY REALLY SUCKS.