Western Union had, hands-down, the best rates and the least hassle for me sending money to my home country. The old reputation of WU just doesn't hold ground any more.
Exactly the same for me. I had a bunch of goals; I fulfilled most of them, and the ones I didn't/couldn't I god much better alternatives for. I have not created any new goals; a lot of changes have happened recently, and fulfillment of my previous ambitions is just keeping me in some sort of skewed confidence that I just need to react to whatever life throws at me now.
Although, I'm thoroughly fed up of what I liked to do earlier; now I'm looking for a new career path. Let's see how it goes.
> There are a lot of jaded people here who refuse to accept the way the world is working.
This is HN. Quite a few people here know how the world is working in favor of these things because there's a good chance they built it themselves, or at least know a few people who have.
Of course these products are not for me, and I very much understand that there's a market for the things they sell. Music might be a private matter for me, but it is definitely part of the social lives of a lot of people I know; they derive a lot of enjoyment from comparing different bands/partying/recommending new things. But looking at what the past years (and even before that!) have taught us about the so-called social aspects of technology, it is very difficult for me to believe that communities aren't being pumped for money. Every facebook action (for pure profit motives with no heed to possible harmful consequences of their actions), political agendas festering on social networks, and attempts and successes of being able to manipulate minds of people using such platforms has definitely left a sour taste in the minds of most tech people.
What angered me specifically was the tone-deafness of the article; it didn't mention any of these issues at all, but talked about the topic in a way that it was the best, unbeatable thing ever, and any company not following the mandate would be doomed to irrelevance, which is completely false as quite a few replies here have pointed out.
> Spotify is great, but it’s primarily a single-player experience. Music, on the other hand, is an inherently social experience.
NO.
For me, music is an intensely private experience. I do not want people around me when I'm listening to music. I don't share my music tastes with others. Music is part of my me-time.
I get where the author is coming from, but music is not social all the time. I agree with another comment here, this article just clashes with me in such a way that I want to throw my laptop in anger after reading it.
It's the same thing with games right now, they just pester me to keep connecting. I'd rather prefer playing with random people and then not see them again. The "social+ money" part is so scary that I hope that I am actively going to stay as far from it as I can.
Now I've essentially realized the value of subscriptions over free things powered by ads and "social" wizardry. I'll pay for the good stuff on subscription/donations if the good stuff keeps on being what it is and not some ad-infestation/"social+" injection which keeps ruining the experience.
Personally I have a very simple rule. I don't drink alcohol, and I don't need to have a reason for it. I tend not to give any single reason if anyone asks me about it; just any excuse on top of my head. Most of the time it suffices. The times it doesn't, I give up and let them think whatever they deem fit.
I have no issues against alcohol and people who drink. If people want to judge me on my teetotalism, it's up to them, but their judgement is not going to have any effect on my choice. I made mine and I'm going to stick to it.
I've found that Stoicism helps a lot in dealing with this. The choice to drink is in your hands. Other people's thoughts are theirs, and different people will think differently. You can only control whether you drink or not, so leave the judgement (if any) to others and don't think too much about it.
Not OP, but my story is I was living in a Middle Eastern country for a few years - although you could get alcohol at hotels it was expensive and there was basically no selection (usually only Carlsberg on tap, and similar beers in bottles). So I didn't bother drinking when I was there. It made me realise that I could have fun and socialise without alcohol.
When I came back to Europe I tried drinking a few times, but I didn't really like it. As I hadn't been drinking, even one beer would make me feel so bad and dehydrated the next day (certain non-alcoholic beers do the same, so I don't think it is necessarily the alcohol). My wife was in the same situation, and then got pregnant so she also wasn't drinking. In the end I drifted away from my old friends who I would drink with, and made new friends who were happy to do things other than drinking.
Admittedly it does make certain social situations a bit awkward (my co-working space has a weekly beer night, although I'm usually not the only one who doesn't drink), but overall I don't miss drinking. Looking back the only reason I drank before was due to peer pressure; I never felt having a cold beer after work was a very effective relaxation technique.
For me personally, I do not like the idea of impairing my cognitive functions. And I have done very cringy things while drunk. I regret it every time the following day. Bad sleep, anxiety, depression afterwards. Unproductive following day. Unnecessary calories. Setbacks in gym. So many reasons, honestly.
Not OP, but I have (virtually) the same rule. I’m averaging about 3 beers a year, and only when I really, _really_ feel like it.
I don’t have a specific reason for it. The one reason most people seem to accept is when I say “I don’t like the feeling of losing control”, although that’s only partially it. Another one that comes up is “I don’t need that to have fun”. Although I grew up in France and Belgium, I don’t like the taste of either wine or beer.
I completely agree with OP though: I don’t frankly care when people judge me for not drinking.
Drinking helps people bond which is why people like it. You don't have to drink all the time to get that benefit, just a small bit sometimes to break the ice. Beer is pretty good once you get used to it, the taste completely transforms.
I find it interesting that you think this is noteworthy. On a global scale half of the adults don't drink alcohol. In the US around a quarter of all men and a third of women don't drink.
Narrow it down to 21-50 year old men with no serious existing health conditions, no Asian heritage and no religious alcohol restriction and I bet it looks more like 90% rather than 75%.
Born in one of the highest consumption countries way above the US. My dad never drank, I never drank, hardly ever seen my mom or grandparents drink (though they're not strictly against it).
I assume drinkers just tend to go to places where people drink like pubs, clubs which I've never been to. I'm sure non-drinkers tend to be rare there.
Also assuming that drinking might correlate with sociability there could be a friendship paradox style thing going on where people you know are much more likely to be drinkers.
Not a direct answer, but my original account has been broken into, the password has been changed, and the poster is making bad comments. Not sure how to handle that.
When I feel good my body and heart has a slight euphoric feeling and alcohol moves me further away from that. I used to drink but sort of just gradually reduced it over time after meeting friends who didn't drink, it wasn't really a conscious decision though, just going by what makes me feel good
If someone asks me I'll answer fully and honestly. I don't like all recreational drug use, think it's a waste of time and potentially dangerous to yourself and others. Then I'll share a bunch of statistics about how alcohol is responsible for 3.5% of all cancer deaths. And how even small levels of consumption increase the risk.
I'm not going to stop anyone from doing this, but if they're asking my opinion already then I'll let them know I think it's a bad idea.
Personally, I have not chosen not to drink alcohol. But I have made a couple of different life choices. Equally arbitrary from others' perspective. And equally alienating. (Less than 10% of peers).
I hadn't known about Stoicism, but had discovered this concept for myself.
Perhaps some of those who are asking why you made this choice are missing the point. It's arbitrary and doesn't require justification to them. No more than their (and my) converse decision to drink alcohol needs to be justified to you.
I don’t know if this would work on iOS (or if it’s already implemented), but any idea if I can make the app pop up directly every time I unlock the phone? This would mean that I don’t need open the app manually myself /keep the app on top before I lock the screen.
It's not possible to overlay apps after unlocking on iOS.
But I found a way how to change UX to fulfil that. All intentions should be marked as failed or successful after finishing, so the user should back to the app before phone lock. So by locking your phone in the app, you will not forget about filling intention next time.
That's the only allowed way I found for iOS. There is a way how to show your app immediately after unlock, but it requires using private API that is not allowed by the App Store.
This so much. It felt so weird that this person was talking about poverty and blogging/reading on the internet at the same time.
Few poor people in the third world would know what blogging even is, forget about even wasting precious resources like time, money for a smartphone and an internet connection just to read/write some ideas which few are ever going to read and you won’t be making anything out of.
This feels like being written by a person who knows that she’s writing for people who like to think about the idea of poverty living, but haven’t experienced it much first or even second-hand, only knowing about it from the news or glossy donation pamphlets.
While I don't disagree the 'real' poor can choose the alternative and agree with GP, I think you also have a very fatalistic view of 3rd world poor. I have family living in the '3rd world' and even there the poor have phones. Sure they are 20 dollars, 10 year old models running android 5.0 or something, but they still check facebook and whatever. They aren't probably blogging but they also read websites/blogs
I do agree with you on that aspect; in fact the proliferation of cheap smartphones and providers like Jio means that a lot of people are able to get their hands on actually decent hardware and a good internet connection if it is in their reach. Which is a great thing! In fact most of the tips mentioned is pretty much what a lot of people do in 3wc too, just replace Reddit with WhatsApp groups.
The issue here is that this is being given as advice, when a lot of this is standard operating procedure which comes semi-automatically for most people in this situation (this I do know, because you need hustle to even survive poverty in a third world country). Most people have multiple jobs by default; it’s not a discussion of if you can leave your day job here, it’s about how many jobs you can cram in a day, and that too without even the possibility of “maneuverability”. A mobile phone and an internet connection in such a situation is a rather significant investment even if it is widely available; it’s not something you can just get without thinking too much, which is what I feel the post reads like. While yes, the internet connections have become so good that you can watch YouTube videos for entertainment, few will be doing that without checking their daily limit caps first, and do it only when there’s nothing else to do. If you’re thinking of blogging/videos, you’re already thinking of it as an investment, if at all you reach that point. And this comes only when a person has escaped poverty, and has at least some sense of stability.
Add to it the plugs of Hacker News and Patreon at the bottom, and things start feeling very dissonant. Which is why I wrote about the potential target audience of the post.
Have you been to Africa? Or even rural India? The fact that you have access to HN means that:
1. You are able to afford to connect to HN
2. Are privileged enough to be able to read it
3. Your family also has the ability to do 1 if not 2
And let's assume for a minute they do have phones and an internet connection, which in itself is an egregious assumption(the real poor are the ones who don't even have phones). What are they going to do with their phones if they are unable to read half if not most of the internet?
Not rural india but africa yes. Family there. Not all countries are bad, but I saw some that are quite horrible. Saw people 'bathing' in puddles in the street as to not pay for water. Saw slums where 6-7 live to a zero-bedroom 'house' (I wouldn't call that a house in most parts of the world). Family works with local schools and institutions to make sure kids have food.
But I can say, even in those situations, most has a cheap-ass phone with internet. Sure, not 5g to watch HD movies or whatnot, but they could talk with people and go to facebook
I fail to see the point you're trying to make. This post was written by a homeless person in a "first world" country so the target audience is people in those countries. Nobody is obligating whomsoever you consider "third world" to read or follow her advice...
It doesn't feel that weird to me, but there's a reason her blog would resonate with me in particular.
I was homeless myself, briefly, half a lifetime ago. I ended up dedicating my life to coding free and open-source audio DSP software, which I do to this day under the name 'airwindows'.
Part of my motivation for this choice is a determination to give functional tools to a community that may have artistic ability and the ability to learn audio production skills, but can't come up with the money to do this using cutting-edge hardware. CPU cycles are impossibly cheap, ESPECIALLY if you are able to do functional work on 'last year's' computers, which is why I take pains to code stuff that doesn't require current computer systems (particularly significant on Mac OSX, which deprecates stuff like mad to render older systems nonfunctional).
In my opinion, you should be able to not only blog, but do a professional grade mix on a digital audio workstation using only a cast-off semi-working laptop from years ago that somebody no longer needed. Your bottleneck would be monitoring: professional quality speakers and amplification are harder to come by that way, but even then modern advances in class D amplification and a bit of ingenuity go a long way (I run a subwoofer where the speaker part was insanely cheap, because I used cardboard builders tubes for enclosures, capped on both ends by inexpensive woofers, and doubled for more cone area)
With intelligence and effort it is more than possible to break the link between access to capital, and potential performance. You can compete on the grounds of ability and quality and increasingly remove access to capital as a gatekeeping mechanism.
If you don't do that, one might conclude that poor people are lower quality and not capable of worthwhile things.
One resource that my work does NOT address is mental attitude: I can make a person think, 'I now have the tools to pursue audio production' by giving the tools, but I can't make a person think, 'I can step back and think about life and the world I'm in, outside the narrow lens of capitalist status seeking'. It's nice that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Google employees and trust fund kids can view life outside the immediate struggle to not die: I think that's very civilized and laudable, in a way it's the whole point of being human. This blog about 'FU, Money' is an alternate path to the same goal.
All I know about him is that he was the one who created Geoff the Robot in Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show. That robot was AMAZING, it enabled a lot of good sketches!
