PSA: New York subway/bus fare

Read addenda before buying

The MTA is raising fares as of March 2. If you usually use a 30-day unlimited Metrocard, it's worth buying your next card today or tomorrow, even if you won't need it until mid-March: they get your money a few days early, but five or six dollars less* of it. Similarly, I spent $20 on a new pay-per-ride card yesterday, and it will get me 12 rides; the same money next week would buy me 11.5. (They've also set this up to practically guarantee money left on expiring cards a year from now, with extra hassle for riders and staff.) The same logic applies to seven-day cards as to 30-day, though I suspect fewer of the people who use those have the extra cash handy. But if you use those because there are some weeks you ride a lot, and some very little, grab a couple.

Railroad passengers, your monthly fares are calendar months, so this won't work. (The ten-ride ticket might be worth buying in advance, if you use those regularly.)

*There are posters in stations now, about the fare increase, which say to go to the MTA website for more information. The MTA website will tell me about the current fares; it tells me the rules for using an unlimited card; it says nothing whatsoever about the fare increase unless you do a search, which brings up press releases from December boasting about having raised it less than they threatened. The current monthly fare is $76; I think the new is $81, but it might be $83.

ETA: cattitude informs me that the MTA says that unlimited-ride cards bought at the old rate must be started by March 10; it's not clear whether that means "no later than midnight on March 10" or "no later than midnight on March 9." Charming of them to publicize this even more poorly than the fare increase, and only at the last minute. (My current card expires March 8, so I won't be losing anything by this.)

Or at least, they may not work if started after March 10; it appears to depend on how many such cards are out there.

Unlimited-ride MetroCards purchased before Sunday will work for their fully allotted time periods - one, seven or 30 days.But those cards will first have to be swiped, starting the clock ticking, within a finite grace period. The MTA says the grace period will extend at least through March 10.

PSA: New York subway/bus fare

Read addenda before buying

The MTA is raising fares as of March 2. If you usually use a 30-day unlimited Metrocard, it's worth buying your next card today or tomorrow, even if you won't need it until mid-March: they get your money a few days early, but five or six dollars less* of it. Similarly, I spent $20 on a new pay-per-ride card yesterday, and it will get me 12 rides; the same money next week would buy me 11.5. (They've also set this up to practically guarantee money left on expiring cards a year from now, with extra hassle for riders and staff.) The same logic applies to seven-day cards as to 30-day, though I suspect fewer of the people who use those have the extra cash handy. But if you use those because there are some weeks you ride a lot, and some very little, grab a couple.

Railroad passengers, your monthly fares are calendar months, so this won't work. (The ten-ride ticket might be worth buying in advance, if you use those regularly.)

*There are posters in stations now, about the fare increase, which say to go to the MTA website for more information. The MTA website will tell me about the current fares; it tells me the rules for using an unlimited card; it says nothing whatsoever about the fare increase unless you do a search, which brings up press releases from December boasting about having raised it less than they threatened. The current monthly fare is $76; I think the new is $81, but it might be $83.

ETA: cattitude informs me that the MTA says that unlimited-ride cards bought at the old rate must be started by March 10; it's not clear whether that means "no later than midnight on March 10" or "no later than midnight on March 9." Charming of them to publicize this even more poorly than the fare increase, and only at the last minute. (My current card expires March 8, so I won't be losing anything by this.)

Or at least, they may not work if started after March 10; it appears to depend on how many such cards are out there.

Unlimited-ride MetroCards purchased before Sunday will work for their fully allotted time periods - one, seven or 30 days.But those cards will first have to be swiped, starting the clock ticking, within a finite grace period. The MTA says the grace period will extend at least through March 10.

Math question--hello, fivemack

This is, I think, more technicality/terminology than anything. One of my fellow editors ran into this:

Is y-0 [equivalently, f(x)=0] a function that is symmetric with respect to the x-axis?

It seems to me and her that it is, but a site she often finds reliable claims that there are no such functions.

[Note: this is a technical point, not that she and I have forgotten how to graph simple curves: y=x² is a function, but x=y² is not a function but a relation.]

ETA: Thank you all. Within a couple of hours, I was able to go back to Marta and tell her that I'd had responses from people I trusted, including a Ph.D. mathematician, and she and I were right and the web site was wrong. When she first asked me, after lunch, she wasn't going to consult her usual source because the manuscript is due Monday.

Math question--hello, fivemack

This is, I think, more technicality/terminology than anything. One of my fellow editors ran into this:

Is y-0 [equivalently, f(x)=0] a function that is symmetric with respect to the x-axis?

It seems to me and her that it is, but a site she often finds reliable claims that there are no such functions.

[Note: this is a technical point, not that she and I have forgotten how to graph simple curves: y=x² is a function, but x=y² is not a function but a relation.]

ETA: Thank you all. Within a couple of hours, I was able to go back to Marta and tell her that I'd had responses from people I trusted, including a Ph.D. mathematician, and she and I were right and the web site was wrong. When she first asked me, after lunch, she wasn't going to consult her usual source because the manuscript is due Monday.

Pleasant surprise

I walked into work this morning, put my breakfast down on my desk, thought "Vista enabled WTF?!" and made a surprised sound as I started to turn my computer on, and then registered the size of the thing that sticker was on.

I now have a 24-inch monitor on my desk.

This makes a practical difference in my work--I'm doing a lot of work with InCopy, and it helps for me to be able to see a two-page book spread all at once, large enough to read the text. I had thought, a few times, that a larger monitor would be good. I hadn't actually said anything about it, because there seemed no point. But my boss arranged to get a few of these monitors, and handed them to some of us who she thinks need them most. She doesn't have one. Marilyn and I do a lot more with InCopy than she does.

I like my boss.

Oh, and two hours later there was email to the entire editorial department, from the head of IT, telling us that he didn't decide who got the new monitors.

[I could have a larger monitor than I do here at home, but I'm not sure it would improve my at-home computer experience--I don't do layout-related stuff here--and I'm short on desk space as it is. I'm short on desk space at work, too, but the tradeoffs are different.]

Pleasant surprise

I walked into work this morning, put my breakfast down on my desk, thought "Vista enabled WTF?!" and made a surprised sound as I started to turn my computer on, and then registered the size of the thing that sticker was on.

I now have a 24-inch monitor on my desk.

This makes a practical difference in my work--I'm doing a lot of work with InCopy, and it helps for me to be able to see a two-page book spread all at once, large enough to read the text. I had thought, a few times, that a larger monitor would be good. I hadn't actually said anything about it, because there seemed no point. But my boss arranged to get a few of these monitors, and handed them to some of us who she thinks need them most. She doesn't have one. Marilyn and I do a lot more with InCopy than she does.

I like my boss.

Oh, and two hours later there was email to the entire editorial department, from the head of IT, telling us that he didn't decide who got the new monitors.

[I could have a larger monitor than I do here at home, but I'm not sure it would improve my at-home computer experience--I don't do layout-related stuff here--and I'm short on desk space as it is. I'm short on desk space at work, too, but the tradeoffs are different.]