Nobody has a Spotify playlist for this?
1,328 karma · joined January 6, 2012
I'll probably end up moving back to Vancouver, but honestly, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest (Portland, Seattle) is fine by me. I am interested in technology as an aide to build better, stronger cities, though; more of a social impact.
LA is doing things to improve; e.g., improving transit, building smaller communities (i.e., building smaller towns with grocery stores, walking areas/parks, places for entertainment, etc. in a smaller radius), cleaning the air, etc.
But all of this takes a lot of time and money, especially in the States/California. Money the state of California is reticent to invest it seems like. I'm happy that LA is doing things to improve, but it's going at a snail's pace. I'm a runner and have had numerous lung infections because I was so determined to run outside, as I think running should be done. Not even the beach towns are worth it.
Plus, it doesn't help that I don't like beach/"Industry" culture here (sunbathing, suntanning, plastic surgery, charlatans, etc.). This is my personal beef, so I understand there's a lot of varying taste/subjectivity involved.
Luckily, there are major NA cities ready to hire developers (not just tech companies or startups).
It's not only the Westside.
My girlfriend lived on the border of Hollywood and West Hollywood (La Brea area) and she used to pay around 1200 for her bachelor/studio room. Ever since last year, they would raise her rent by almost $100 every time she asked them for something (fix minor things).
In the end it became too expensive, and she was told her room would be going up to $1600 after she moved out.
Seriously?
I've lived in LA for almost three years. I hate this city. And it's so easy to hate that I don't even say it anymore.
Why would you buy or start a family in a place with polluted air, filthy dirty streets, contaminated parks, high crime, and, more importantly, really bad schools. And you can get all that whilst paying super high rent, as well.
My girlfriend actually used to like LA and then I think I complained so much she is starting not to like it. The funny thing is, she's a ballet dancer, so she's in the arts/entertainment business, so she says she would still put up with all of it if we weren't together.
Man, she's a lovely person, but I usually do not like a lot of people in the entertainment/Hollywood industry (actors/actress, artists, etc.).
There are 'hidden costs' to living in LA/California.
It just depends on what you prefer and where your priorities are.
I would love to move back to Vancouver, because when you consider gas (living close to work vs living in a suburban sprawl), property (yes, you get a bigger house here, but unsafe neighbourhoods are just around the corner, and bad air), quality of education (Canadian primary and secondary schools outperform American ones), then is it really worth the trade off?
For example, in LA, the concept of 'you get what you pay for' is truly taken seriously. You want the best? Get ready to pay thousands and thousands of dollars (more expensive than Canada, usually). If you just want mediocrity and barely get by, LA is super cheap, affordable, and you can raise 10 kids here, no problems.
EDIT: With regard to poutine, that looks like the fancy poutines you get in Santa Monica. Savages! All of them!
EDIT2: Added clarification
There have been times when there was absolutely nobody. Actually, I enjoy going hiking really early (say, around 6am), because there is nobody.
But I find pleasure in it. As the article says, the environment and landscape help me transcend my feeling of loneliness.
On a side note, I may be a slightly different case, because I suffered some traumatic/dark experiences when I was a child. The feeling of anxiety and fear was crippling, until I found I could cope with it if I voluntarily search it out when I am feeling well.
So, this feeling of hiking in the dark, being alone, and isolated helps me control and overcome my fear and traumatic experience.
The only drawback is that if I don't do this every so often, including exercising, I can slip back to some depression.
Why wasn't there a discussion on how what Sivers is explaining is the concept of NIHILISM?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism
What Sivers said has an underlying message: there is a meaning to life: it is that there is no objective/inherent meaning. This is important to note because of the huge ramifications this has and has had in philosophy since Nietzsche.
Unfortunately, nihilism is circular and presupposes moral relativism.
While 'you have access to everything', it sometimes doesn't work like that in practice.
A stranger living with a family has to put up with unwashed dishes/unavailability of kitchen, kids screaming, the man of the house watching/owning the living room after working hours (4pm/5pm to 10pm), the family having supper and cooking, etc.
All of a sudden, the student is basically restricted to living in a 70 sqft room. And usually, these small rooms aren't 'proper rooms' (e.g., no ventilation, no insulation, many times no window or small window).
The reason I say this is because this is exactly my situation. With the exception that I have a 9-to-5, as well. I pay $400 to share a room with someone. A room that is divided by a piece of wood. I have no window and it was built as a pretty poor annex with no A/C or heating reaching my room. I have no window either, as the other side does where my roommate is.
As her child, I was always scared of developing it, because there were times when I definitely had scary symptoms. I learnt about various hypothesised causes or things that could 'bring it about', so I never did drugs and practised ways to keep myself calm (I used to be extremely nervous, had sweaty hands and feet, etc.).
Now that I'm 31, I think I've done pretty well. Even with medication, my mom cannot really identify who I am, though.
I guess I just want to thank you for sharing your knowledge about schizophrenia.
Also, would writing it be something a beginner/novice like myself could do or does it require pretty advanced skills?
Thanks for any info you can provide.
I feel bad that comments posted just to say they agree with someone/something cannot/will not be seen. This type of 'noise', as long as it is sprinkled lightly throughout, isn't so bad, in my opinion. I mean, I understand HN is meant to reward thoughtful comments, but at what point does this concept go into Less Wrong-type of ridiculousness? I'm totally not trolling, but we're only human. To deconstruct all aspects of a community/forum to only allow strict logical/cerebral behaviour seems like a community I would rather not be a part of.
In the end, I'll probably not endorse any comments, or at least extremely little, because I don't know if I agree with the concept and would rather not get involved.
I'm probably in the minority here, though.
Haha. I just realised it means the colour of the top bar the logo is on.
In fact, I read this article and I see many parallels to the novel by Franz Kafka.
The reason I quoted it was because the following (from the article) reminded me of it:
"Latif sank deeper into depression and hopelessness as the futility of the legal efforts towards winning his freedom became clear. In one of his last letters to his lawyer he tells him: 'Do whatever you wish to do, the issue [of my defence] is over', and includes with it a message of farewell written both to him personally as well to the world at large: 'With all my pains, I say goodbye to you and the cry of death should be enough for you. A world power failed to safeguard peace and human rights and from saving me. I will do whatever I am able to do to rid myself of the imposed death on me at any moment of this prison... the soul that insists to end it all and leave this life which is no longer anymore a life'".
Josef K thought the law was accessible and would protect him, because he was innocent--so there is nothing to fear, right? Wrong. The excerpt from above is taken from a central piece of The Trial--the parable "Before the Law", which was a conversation Josef K had with the priest.
Franz Kafka studied law. He thought it was made to confuse the layman and that the law was not blind and balanced, as the statue so famously demonstrates, but rather has wings and shifts.
Though The Trial is a work of fiction and Latif is a real man, when I first read this book, it helped me realise and gain more compassion towards those who have been treated unfairly by the law.
How is the job market for entry-level web developers in Vancouver? I studied literature and philosophy at UBC but I'm looking into transitioning into web development.
I moved to Los Angeles two years ago from there, but I will be moving back. It seems like there are more opportunities for entry level web devs in LA than in Vancouver.
I've been focusing more on JS, Python, Ruby, PHP and MySQL, but your comment caught my eye.
Thanks for any info!
What level of Korean would you say someone (I'm Canadian) needs to be able to get by? I understand there is always a tour guide, who is a government official. But I just want to know if some Korean is recommended. Thank you.
I'm just wondering what is at play in this state.
It was immediately removed from this site.
I'm actually from Vancouver, so I would love to know the name of the company.
The OP's old employer:
1. Has one (big) claim to fame 2. Located in Vancouver 3. Has a product "dealing with large amounts of money from customers’ bank accounts"
But (3) might not be part of a product already released.
There are a lot of game developers in Van--with, of course, a thriving beer/overtime culture, but who really knows, to be honest.
Is this concept more of a 'share your route'?
My problem: his presentation sounds too contrived. My background is in literature; meaning, I am obsessed with literature and reading and its where most of my knowledge rests.
I love Thoreau. I'm a hiker. I'm learning to program. I really like computers and technology. But I rarely, if ever try to unite the two. Sorry, it just doesn't work.
One things computers try to do is make things scale, as I understand it; understand and organise things with massive computer power. I'm not saying this is a bad thing.
But Thoreau wanted the opposite.
I'm sure the presenter meant well, and his heart was in the right place, but have a close look at the words he uses. They're buzzwords to try to relate to an audience who is further apart from Thoreau's ideology than he might've wished.
He is "rebranding" Thoreau. Thoreau is not a 'content creator', because that word has certain connotations nowadays, which do not apply to him. Yes, this might be semantics, but this type of updated/21st century diction to try to relate/appeal to a new audience sounds contrived.
I applaud his efforts, because at least Thoreau serves as a way to balance out technologists' lives.
But because he was so extreme, all this sounds like yoga instructors talking about living a better life sipping on their Starbucks coffee and buying expensive Yoga mats.
I mean, sure, it's really good that you have recognised the worth of many nonmaterialistic things, but you're not really helping if most of your life is materialistic. Note I'm not forcing anyone into doing away with their material- and technology-driven lives.
All I'm saying is Thoreau's ideology and the modern person are not compatible, unfortunately. And because of that, all we can do is sit around and study his writings conceptually, abstractly, without gaining the experience he wanted everyone to have. Few of us could stand 2 years of living the way he did, yet the presenter actually feels the need to tell his audience, (I'm paraphrasing), "Sure! Thoreau ONLY did it for 2 years, and he had mom and sister come out once a week to help!" Um...how long would the average person be able to stand it?
The OP says it is easy to take Thoreau out of context, because he is so quotable, yet continues to do this very thing!
"Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth's servant to show him her master's study, she answered, 'Here is his library, his study is out of doors.'"
He doesn't mean that you need to go and collect data electronically on people or go on a Google car and photograph every single major street to store it, analyse it, and show it to the world on a computer. If you believe this is what he is saying, this is called "reappropriation".
Lastly, let me quote again from his book titled Walking--a recommended read because it is short, yet illustrates his ideology.
"In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a strain of music, whether by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet."
Stop trying to tame Thoreau's ideas. Let's not try to make ourselves feel better by saying we have some things in common with him or stretching his ideas.
I go into nature to get away from my computers and society and everyone else. It is my own personal struggle or inner conflict. I don't need to try to convince others of how good we can have it if we just adopted Thoreau's ideas, because by our current standards, he would be considered an extremist.
In that same passage above, Thoreau goes on to talk about how domesticated animals need to reassert themselves.
Please, let's not dilute Thoreau just to make us feel better, because (1) most people who don't agree with him will not feel better about it; and (2) most people who want to agree with him will find that they cannot adopt his ideas or lifestyle. I think the HN crowd is too smart to adopt some half-assed idea. They'd rather come up with their own idea or take on how to find a balance between technology, nature, and tackling startup culture.
Anyway, I also have what I like to describe as an underdeveloped stereoscopic vision. I can't see 3D movies either. Basically, my condition fits the OP's description.
When I tried out the Nintendo 3DS I also could not see it well, but I moved it at angles and kind of, barely could. However, I had to stop a few minutes later because it was giving me a massive headache (migraine-like).
I'm interested in Oculus Rift. I'll give it a whirl but I'm afraid it will induce that same head pain.
Has anyone with a similar condition experienced headaches in a similar situation?
If this weren't the case, some Americans wouldn't have a problem with 'divulging' their medical history.
Health care is based on science, you're right, but there are factors that influence what is researched and where funds go. Plus, putting it in practice or implementing it according to the right policy; this is another issue.[1]
Also, I think you're undermining the magnitude of lobbying.
But Google is a huge company, with a lot of power and capital. So, like I said in response to someone else, I am very interested in the details of Calico.
[1] http://billmoyers.com/2013/05/18/blinding-us-from-science/