saucymew

Good for you, I hope this is a new journey of self-reflection and recharging for your next adventure.

As much as I respect the founders/alumni that came from PayPal, do any of them still use it?

Forced to use PayPal since 2004 as a small business owner, it was impossible to reach their customer support. They've also left me to fight with insurers when it came to fraudulent transactions.

Glad to hear they built a talented team, but as a customer...

If you're looking for an opening book, I recommend FCO Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul van der Sterren for any beginners/under 2000.

FCO is well written with many diagrams (sorry I hate reading move lists), and captures the amateur/pro metas as openings came and went out of favor through the years.

Also, all the cool kids play 960 now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess

Now that human experience and Alpha Go have plotted out the playable variances in the first 40 moves, I still offer you this: you should play blitz chess.

Not being to find the best move leads to sub-optimal play which then offers tactical back-and-forth games. In my live games, I also try to use openings (e.g. Sicilian Najdorf, KIA) that reward sharp playmaking, inviting human error.

"Bluffing" in chess could be interpreted as "gambits": giving up material in exchange for attacking tempo/positional value. The bold bet is that despite your material disadvantage, you can still beat them before the game ends. "Deception" could be feinting a queenside push, only to position your army for a kingside endgame.

Chess was my FIRST introduction to "money hustle" via tournaments, playing pick-up park games, against my dad, etc.

Owning the results and preparing for the next game taught me a life outlook: Win or lose, there's always a new game waiting if you still want to play.

It reminds me of Thiel's "Zero to One" that competition is for suckers, aim for true monopoly power.

Depends on your speed. If you want a slow but epic burn, Left Hand of Darkness. Something faster action novella, Lathe of Heaven. And the OG Harry Potter tale, Earthsea series. It won’t be time wasted with any of these.

Would anyone with actual children who are living in the smartphone era care to comment? Blanketing "access to information leads to nihilism" removes social exclusion, FOMO, cyber-bullying, etc. from the conversation, imo.

Highly recommend "10 Years" which captures how HK society views the near future when the Mainland presses their influence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years_(2015_film)

This is allegedly caused China to block Apple iTunes after carrying "10 Years" in their catalog. http://www.smh.com.au/world/china-blocks-apple-itunes-and-ib...

Though he is probably more well known for his fiction, his memoirs (Boy, Going Solo) were my first reads of Dahl as a child.

That man could tell a fantastic story within a chapter.

However, statistically correct.

As an 80's anime kid, I remember when I first saw Castles in the Sky and My Neighbor Toro Toro. It left lasting impressions on my world views of flying robots and bus-shaped giant cats.

But Princess Mononoke straight out floored me. The surprising heaviness and violence felt like they backdoored a complex film for adults. In Japan it was the highest grossing film of ALL TIME until Titanic came along.

My growing years have been enriched beyond measure by the Ghibli/Miyazaki films. May my curiosity and joy of trekking hidden paths be the legacy of Studio Ghibli.