precisioncoder

I'm with Hofer telecom https://www.hot.at/

Hofer is better known as Aldi, they're a big discount supermarket chain owned by a German family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi

As a side note the same family (two brothers) also own Trader Joe's although it's a legally separate business.

Recently my telecom has starting sending me regular texts (~3-6 months) "We've improved our service, you now have X more mb/month" "We've strengthened our infrastructure, your bill has been reduced from x/month to y/month, if you'd prefer more data you can reply with MOAR DATA to this text and we'll keep you at the same price and give you X more data."

Knowing that I'm continuing to upgrade while doing nothing increases my satisfaction and I haven't even shopped around since I switched to them.

Thanks for pointing this out to me! It's disappointing to hear that, but after reading through the Kiva's response I understand some of the difficulty. They're certainly not ideal but seem like a solid choice compared to most of the other organizations out there that are completely opaque as to what is actually done with the money.

There is an organization that focuses on this which has been quite successful as far as I know.

https://www.kiva.org/

The idea is micro loans directly to people who want to do something like buy a cow.

"Kiva loans have a historical repayment rate of about 97% (this number fluctuates slightly so check Kiva's homepage for the current rate)"

When you receive the money back you can then make another micro loan to help someone else out.

That's an excellent point, any substance that alters your brain chemistry such as Marijuana, Alcohol, or Coffee can have a positive or negative impact. We are rich complex beings and everything we put in our body adds to that. I think many of the harmful substances can have a positive effect if used in a healthy way. We need to let go of either demonizing them for their negative effects or deifying them for their positive effects. Once we realize they're complex supplements that can be an enjoyable addition when used in certain circumstances while still respecting their potential for abuse we'll have made a big step forward.

Those statistics are highly suspect, from the article:

"Every year, the government gathers these statistics by approaching 6000 households and asking them to fill in a questionnaire. They don’t have to write their names on it, but they do have to hand them over to a government official. In a country where – as I’ll discuss later – even doctors call the police to inform them if their patients are suspected of using drugs, it is very likely that this method leads to figures that hugely underestimate the proportion of Japanese people using drugs."

As well as:

"He concluded: “A very Japanese way of not dealing with the problem is – don’t take the data that would show that it exists.”"

We have no idea what the statistics might be as they don't want to measure them since then they would have to admit that they have a problem. If people are in pain they'll find a way to escape it, and it seems there's a lot of people in pain in Japan and Korea due to the focus on extreme amounts of work and strict social rules. How they are doing compared to the west is a matter of debate, I think roughly equal just with different areas being difficult, however we can't truly measure and compare as the numbers are being deliberately ignored.

It's a real "melting pot" and is very very desirable as a place to live. It's the center of youth and technology culture, lots of hacker spaces. There's huge youth communities, public garden projects, lots of alternative communities. I love visiting there and if I moved anywhere in Germany that would probably be the place. I have a lot of friends who moved there. Apparently one of the strongest start up cultures in Europe as well.

Mostly Java Backend or full stack, they have a niche in a smaller company and get noticed for delivering great results.

I moved here originally for love, then stayed because it feels like home now. I'm in Linz, I started in Testing, moved to back end in Java and am now full stack + devops. Still spend most of my time hacking away at Java on the back end though. ^^ I pass through Graz every now and then, I have friends there and there's an amazing acrobatics community there.

It's improving a lot in Austria right now I feel like, there's huge demand. I have friends that thanks to big bonuses are taking home ~100k€ for developer positions. (They are very good at what they do)

Europe is all about quality of life raises rather than cash raises. My passion is acrobatics and I negotiated less working hours rather than a big pay raise. This year I'll do partner acrobatics teacher training for a month in spain and still extra time left over for staffing a meditation retreat over christmas. I'm in Austria and my progression is as follows. (All of below hours are flex time, all overtime can be redeemed as time off at a later date) (* is negotiated raise)

2011 - Moved from Canada to Austria fresh out of college

2011 - 26k€ 38.5H/W Company 1

2012 - 31k€* 38.5H/W Company 1

2013 - 35k€* 38.5H/W Company 1

2014 - 37k€* 38.5H/W Company 1

2015 - 46k€* 38.5H/W Company 2 - Mandatory overtime 10/month

2016 - 49k€* 38.5H/W Company 2 - Mandatory overtime 10/month

2017 - 50k€ 38.5H/W Company 2 - Mandatory overtime 10/month

2018 - 35k€* 30H/W Company 2

2019 - 42k€ 30H/W Company 3

A few notes -> Taxes are very high, but so is support. I have no worries health care, dental, etc everything is covered. 5 weeks paid vacation a year, unlimited sick days. I end up with about 1000€/month after rent/food/entertainment and I live very comfortably. I'm not rich but it works well for me.

These are both excellent points about life expectancy, thank for for sharing this information, looks like I got to learn something today. The overall point however that Marie Curie did live a long fruitful life despite her research and could be considered an excellent role model. There is often a misconception that she died young due to her research, and often the subtext of disapproval because of it. I think it's sad that it's common to belittle someone for quoting her.

Why not? I'm assuming you're implying that Marie Curie's research shortened her life. Marie Curie lived until age 66 in 1934. Life expectancy according to this (http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-stati...) random google search for 1935 in France was 58.09. This means that Marie Curie's life was 113% longer then usual for her time. The current life expectancy in the USA is 78.74 according to the top google result, so if it helps you can think of her as living to about 89 in our terms. In other words despite her research she had a long fruitful life. I wish I had the chance to make as great an impact on the world as she did.

My wife has clicker trained our cats based on what she found on youtube videos. You need a smart cat (Ours are bengals) who loves treats and a lot of time but it's very doable. Our cats can both do the following tricks: Sit, Stand, High five, Turn around, Roll the ball, and Knock over the object

I agree, in fact to go even further the upper limit would also have to be specified. For example 3886 of the 1000000 companies founded in the past 1500 years in Japan have survived giving a 0.3886% survival rate. Since we have no idea how many companies were founded, the survival rate is completely unknown. It would be better to compare a country with a similar age such as China if they want to make an interesting comparison.

That's simply not true, according to the definition of race it requires sharing a biologically identifiable connection with other people. An Asian man and a Native American could be born in the same place and raised in the same family but would not share the same race. Discrimination on the basis of country is a separate thing which I don't think has a specific term. Wasn't able to find one with a quick Google at least.

I have a friend who's fairly young (early 30's) who heard about an opening in COBOL that a company couldn't fill, taught himself COBOL just to fill that position and ended up running his department and getting headhunted from others. Sometimes learning obsolete technologies can be a great career builder. Just make sure there's a shortage in your area.

In fact it's so good that it's now making inroads in Europe and North America. If you play internet games many of the guilds require members to use LINE. I picked it up to chat with friends in Japan and love it, I'm now trying to get my friends to switch over.

Some introverts are prone to rushes of sociability, what I heard that really clicked with me was that it's how you relax or recharge. If you relax or recharge best alone then you're basically introverted, if you relax or recharge best by being social you're basically extroverted. I can be incredibly social and am prone to frenzies of activity that cause many to think of me as an extroverted person. Afterwards however I need to retreat to my space and spend a lot of time alone to recharge, also if I don't get that alone time for too long I end up run down and worn out. It's just part of the fun. I would definitely say there are pros and cons to both sides the biggest seem to be that introverted people lose out since we are such a socially connected society while gaining in independent action. Extroverts seem to effortlessly maintain social connections that they often can use as resources however often suffer from loneliness or fear of being alone. These are purely my own experiences of course, YMMV. In any case learning to relax and your own particular way of doing it is important no matter what category you feel most comfortable under.

Y'know the thing about topbars or sidebars that scroll with the user to stay on the page? They obstruct vision, thus they get blocked. Then later when the user returns to the page at another time they're confused that the site doesn't seem to have navigation. Or maybe it's just me, still for someone like me I've very very happy that there are plenty of features to simply right click an annoying design feature and remove it so I can read in peace.

It's an interesting article but I feel like the study draws the completely wrong conclusion. I would draw the conclusion that humans when offered an experiment they have control of that offers a new or interesting experience will participate even if it causes them pain. If I participated in the experiment I would definitely shock myself since I've rarely been shocked in the situation, then I might spend the rest of the time analyzing my behavior and trying to see the influence of evolutionary drives as a motivator and enjoy that even more. It's basically the same thing as putting ANY button in a room with the warning "Do not press this button".

This is your chance. The best way to meet friends as an adult is to have a common activity. Learning English is an excellent way for you to meet other people also interested in learning English. Jump online and find English learning groups, English classes, etc. You should also look for meetups for people of your native language so you can go to them as well. The next step is go to the meetings even if they suck, even if you feel lonely and bored. The best way to meet people is to get out there, you don't meet anyone in your house. If you have an interest in a sport that's a great way too, however I would say the more unusual the sport the better. With common sports like Basketball or Soccer people often join in groups and it's harder to make new friends. Something like Fencing or Archery would probably be better. I went through the same thing in a different country, I made my few friends through board games, d&d, and fencing.

Livejournal was a pretty big blogging center that started in the 90's. (Well '99 so the end I guess) If you look at wikipedia for blogging it seems blogging started in the mid 90's but was probably mostly done on self hosted sites.

The EU and China are the other big players right now. Both approach America in both economic, military and diplomatic influence.

I highly recommend drinking a cup of hot water in the morning. Actually at least some of the benefit of a cup of coffee is the warming effect on the body. (Which is why showers are a great way to wake up in the morning) You also can't discount the placebo effect which is equally effective even if you know it's a placebo. Oh also hydration is important for wakefulness. It's also just damn comforting to have a warm drink, especially in the morning. I normally drink 2-3 cups of hot water each morning.

I hear you, it's always good to stir things up a bit. Personally on my campaigns I like to bring in the Iron Heroes reserve hp system. Basically heroes get a pool of double their max hp as "reserve" when they rest they can transfer hp from this pool to their hp. It eliminates the whole 5 minutes of battle 8 hours of resting problem for adventurers.

As for WOTC I'm really unsure how I feel about what they've done. I read that with 4th edition they also fast forwarded Forgotten Realms 100 years and switched it to the new magic system. I don't really read that much fantasy anymore but it still bothers me a little that the Realms I knew and loved are now gone. Kind of reminds me of that old Dragonlance 5th age thing. Oh well I guess I'm just getting old, I'm sure there's lots of people who enjoy having a fresh start. In other news I'm really excited that Shadowrun seems to be making a huge comeback! There's also seems to be some action on the Darksun front, it's really nice to see some of those old favorites that I felt never got a fair shake rise from the dead.

In Austria it's 25 + bank holidays, and Austria has a large amount of bank holidays so some years it can be around 35 days free. I was pretty shocked when I first started working here how much time was given free. I'm going to have a hard time readjusting when/if I go back to Canada.

The great thing about D&D is since the system is ultimately controlled using the GM's brain any abuse can be patched on the fly. Assuming you have a good GM of course.

I highly recommend Pathfinder(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathfinder_Roleplaying_Game), it's basically 3.5 with further polishing, 3.5 was released under the open game license and pathfinder has continued it's tradition. It's also got a great support website: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ and it's really fun. I'm running a Pathfinder game on a weekly basis after about a 5 year break and I'm really enjoying it.

Winston Churchill =) http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/300099-churchill-madam-would...