Excuse my assumption, I’m just very familiar with the defensive patriotism-fuelled reactionary insults from Americans when they learn I live in Norway. I’ve never met anyone from Europe who had a similarly negative reaction to that, because why would they?
So I guess I’m a bit confused and a little curious as to what made you so sour for seemingly no reason. Care to fill me in?
And here I was thinking you were being a bit tongue in cheek. Don’t be so offended that I left the US to live a better life, snowflake. Be glad I’m gone instead.
Haha we might not get as much nice weather and sun around here as someplace like San Diego, but man, when the weather is as nice as it has been these past few days, we make sure we enjoy the hell out if it. Plus, this time of year we get more daylight hours than most of the world. It’s truly spectacular walking outside at 3am this time of year, when the streetlights don’t even need to turn on for a couple of months straight.
On the flip side, the winter months are dark and cloudy, with only around 4 hours of daylight for the weeks around the equinox, a few minutes of actual sun if you’re lucky and the clouds clear out temporarily. But if you ask me, the glorious summertime sun more than makes up for that.
Plus, when I’m leaving the bar with my friends after last call and one of us faceplants on the concrete, it’s comforting to know that calling an ambulance won’t bury anyone in debt 😁😂
If moving to a civilized country is a potential option for you, it could pay off looking into your genealogy.
I grew up in the US and moved to Norway after feeling like the country was nose-diving politically. I remember feeling serious shame for paying taxes to fund such horrendous actions, an unwavering sense of hopelessness, and even serious depression. I remember the first time I realised how much I felt like a foreigner in my own home country, and the existential dread those words brought with them, amplified by the fact that I felt like there was nothing in my power I could do to change that. It was so far beyond awful. I’m struggling to find the words that can accurately convey how bleak and worthless life in the US felt.
And I say this as a cis white man. I’ve heard horror stories, but I can’t possibly imagine what it must be like for trans people in the US, especially in the past several years.
At some point I learned that because my grandmother was born in a certain EU country and fled during WWII, I qualified for citizenship of that country, just by proving my relation to her. It took some time, but I got the documents in order to put together my application, and left everything behind to move to Norway. With EU citizenship, you could move almost anywhere in Europe you choose. I chose Norway for many many reasons, but scandinavia in general is just so incredibly politically refreshing. Regardless of political views, the system itself just… Works.
Since you have 20+ years experience in your field, you might not even need to go though the process of getting a citizenship you may or may not qualify for as a birthright, depending on your profession. Many countries also have immigration laws in place making it extremely easy for skilled workers to relocate there, permanently. I know in Norway, the company hiring the skilled worker can essentially vouch for skilled workers, granting them the right of residency as soon as they’re hired. And there are many companies which post job listings in English, without requiring you to know the local language, because… Well, damn near everybody here is completely fluent in English and has no issue speaking English, or even switching to English for entire groups of people, even if only one person struggles with Norwegian.
But anyway, I’m sorry you’re forced to feel the way you feel living in your own home country. I can relate to parts of it at least, and even the sum of those parts was unbearable for me. So it saddens me to read messages like yours. I just wanted to offer a suggestion that worked to stop these feelings for me, and ended up being the best damn decision I’ve ever made in my life.
If you have questions or anything, feel free to send me a message.
Please tell me that’s not the real price for what is essentially a few small blades in a cup attached to an electric motor
I could see a Wikipedia-style donation model working to keep lots of different servers up. But I can’t see it happening for servers hosting exclusively news + memes + whatever random communities people want to add.
I _could _ see it happening for dedicated broad-topic or semi-niche instances (instances for gaming, investing, Linux, music production, etc.) each hosting a collection of related and maybe more niche communities (for CSGO, Bitcoin, Arch, EDM production).
As they become more popular, server hosting costs increase, and at some point they might need to ask for donations to keep afloat. People are willing to throw a little money towards something they enjoy, especially if it’s their choice to do so. And they feel good about it. And instances that stay around longer gain more users, more usability, more credibility (assuming a non-toxic community).
I could definitely see it leading down a path of growth and prosperity for the platform. However, now that I typed this out, I could see it both working positively, and being abused and exploited, so 🤷
I’m not sure, I just see a blank comment box with 1 point and no username asking for a favor
Strange, I can’t see your comment. Maybe something is wrong with your account?
God I miss Tidal. Their suggestions were so far above and beyond everything else I’ve tried, I just wish it was managed and maintained competently. Their Android and desktop apps are (were? It’s been a while) so chock-full of playback bugs and annoying little quirks, and their customer support is probably not even legally considered customer support at all, considering the fact that it seems to consist entirely of a single email bot that receives support tickets, waits 3 weeks, then closes that ticket.
I was particularly irritated with the fact that albums would become “unavailable” so incredibly often, while a new, identical version of the album was made available, for no apparent reason. Since these replacement albums weren’t automatically migrated into my library, I would have to remove and and re-add the albums individually in order to play them from my library, then update all my playlist containing any songs from that “disabled” version of the album by removing and re-adding each individual song. That shit got old, FAST.
I eventually had to swap to Spotify because of an absolutely baffling bug that acted like a virus and slowly “ate” my library (more info below if anyone’s curious), and Spotify’s music suggestions are just nothing short of horrendous.
My “discover weekly” last week for example was made up of approximately 60% songs either already in my library, or songs that I’ve listened to before and not liked much from artists in my library, plus 7 (!!) 20-30+ minute soundscapes, something I have NEVER listened to before, as well as 2 new Ariana Grande singles (sponsored? I’ve had to block her, those singles were popping up everywhere), and a few songs from totally out-there genres, including a country rap song which just so happens to be the one and only song I’ve ever actually disliked back before Spotify removed and re-introduced that feature, some background music from a random indie game’s soundtrack which was mostly just cave noises, a jazz-fusion album’s interlude, and something that I can only describe as bubblegum cyberpunk black glitch-metal dancecore. A positively psychotic selection of music.
Granted, that was the worst discover weekly I think I’ve ever had, but I still just wish that tidal worked for me, because I’ve never discovered more great music from any other platform’s suggestion algorithm, and nothing since has even come close.
About the weird bug if anyone’s curious:
The bug was pretty fucked up in that it behaved basically like a virus. At random points while listening, Tidal would fail to play a song at master quality, automatically downgrade playback by one level, then apply that inability to play master-quality permanently to each subsequent song I played in that session. These songs were now “infected”. Replaying these songs at a later date would further degrade the playback quality by an additional level, and also add a delay of ~20 seconds per playback quality level it had been downgraded to, as well as infecting any other songs I played after. When a song reached 96kbps (or 160? Whatever the lowest is, I forget) and could not degrade any more, it would either play at minimum quality after a ~60 second delay (which was unskippable because Tidal was unresponsive to playing a new song during the delay), or just fail to play entirely while loading infinitely, absolutely chugging my battery-life, and overheating my phone. I could only stop it by force-closing the app, which would crash my phone, every single time. There was about a 20% chance for one of these songs to fail playback, but if it did play, that chance to fail playback was now applied to each subsequent song played, no matter the song’s “infection level”. Though that at least didn’t seem to be permanently applied like the quality degradation, but I don’t know for sure.
The weirdest part is that the bug would persist, spread, and behave exactly the same way on an old phone that had never had tidal installed before, and also with the desktop app (though without the overheating, and it would throw and error message after some time if a song failed to play). So the bug seemed somehow account-bound?
I researched unsuccessfully for weeks looking for a fix, and I tried everything I could to fix it aside from making a new tidal account, because it was a lot of trouble to migrat. And support… Well, Tidal support apparently just doesn’t exist. I had sent 3 separate support tickets, all of which went unanswered, then marked as “resolved” and closed 2-3 weeks later. Only the 2nd ticket got an automated “thanks for your ticket, staff will help soon” response before being marked resolved and closed.
Eventually, so much of my library became infected (as well as a ton of random songs that would commonly end up playing after albums) that my ability to both listen to the music I loved and discover new music in the styles/genres I loved was crippled. Which obviously rendered the entire platform effectively useless. So after being repeatedly ignored by support with no explanation, and after several software updates that didn’t fix the problem while I was trying to contact support, or even just report the bug… I had to give up and switch to Spotify.
Here’s the fun part: you only get that if you work somewhere that obeys labor laws! Many (most?) restaurants pretend like they don’t exist at all. I’ve worked at a place that would occasionally (3 times in the year and a half I worked there) fire a chef just after the pay-cycle without saying a word, so the chef works the next 2 weeks up until payday, asks “where’s my paycheck” and the boss says “you don’t get one you were fired last week”.
On a chef’s salary, that has potential to put them and their family on the streets.
Edit: Sorry about this comment, it’s pretty useless, I just had time to kill waiting for my next flight. Reads like a fictional dystopian exaggeration, but it was my reality and continues to be reality for many others, unfortunately. TL;DR - anecdotes outlining how US working conditions can be brutally unforgiving, especially in the restaurant industry.
There’s 3 days sick leave in the US? When I was still living there, I got my 2nd write-up (3rd = termination) for not coming to work because I needed to go to the ER for an overdose. Side note: caffeine powder is way cheaper than coffee, but if you’re too broke to afford coffee, you’re too broke to afford a milligram scale reliable and accurate enough to prevent accidental overdose.
After breaking my 30+ day streak of 12-15 hour shifts (about 90-100 hours per week, was normally only 85 or so), I came back to work the next day with a doctor’s note, and my boss said “I don’t think you’re lying to me…” followed by 10 very long seconds of suspicious squinting and staring me down, “… But yesterday was Saturday, so I’m going to need to write you up”. You see, it was explicitly forbidden to call in sick on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
Don’t let your loved ones work in restaurants, ESPECIALLY in the kitchen. I unfortunately couldn’t quit because I had no days off to apply for other jobs, and missing out on even one day of pay was the difference between covering bills AND food, or having to steal food to avoid homelessness. I legitimately considered choosing to be homeless temporarily as a way out, because I pretty much lived at work anyway, I only ever slept at the apartment. Granted, my situation was particularly bad because they were actually stealing 50% of my earned wages (~$8300 over 10 months, which I eventually got back after threats of litigation).
I’m absolutely not mocking you.
You’re basing some of your arguments on things you don’t seem to actually know, and using incorrect interpretations of my words as basis for some of your counter-points. I’ve noticed a pattern in people who formulate and present arguments/points similar to the way you do, and they tend to be difficult to hold civil discussions with, so I chose to end our discussion.
I’m sorry if that comes off as harsh or rude, but it’s my honest reason for ending our discussion. There’s truly no malice or mockery behind my words
Anyway, this is my last message to you. And since you seem to have read my previous message as a passive aggressive mockery, I really do genuinely hope you have a great holiday season.
I’ll argue that the blackberry was just a better implementation of the already existing PDA exactly like the iPhone was just a better implementation of already existing touch-screen device, but beyond that I just don’t feel like taking time to repeat/clarify points I’ve already made or responding to "pretty sure"s. So I’ll just suggest we agree to disagree on this particular topic and wish you a merry Christmas 🎅
Sure, cost was almost certainly taken into account, they are a business after all.
But they didn’t just get lucky by gambling touch screens and waiting to become cheap enough. Take a look at the user interface of the touchscreen phones that came before the iPhone. Very limited in what they could do. Users were locked to a few small menus and custom-tailored applets, not much different than the UI of the phones before the iPhone. A touch screen was really more of a tech gimmick than a feature. Most (if not all) only accepted single stationary taps, any movement with a finger pressed to the screen wouldn’t register properly, if at all, and there’s really only so much you can do with that.
What Apple innovated is a better use for touch screens, an improvement in the way we were able to interact with our phones, coupled with a re-imagining of what a phone’s interface should be at a fundamental level. And they accomplished this with huge help from their decision to move away from tap-only touch to something that felt more natural: multiple/moving gestures, such as scrolling by moving your finger up or down, pinch to zoom, etc.
This really caused the single biggest movement away from what cell phones really were for us. Before, they were mostly portable telephones with a few extra poorly-implemented and barely functional gimmicks (ever use a web browser on a Razr?). With the iPhone’s success, Apple single-handedly shifted us into the new cell phone model; a customisable, intuitive to use, modular canvas that anyone can mould into whatever suits their needs via apps created by anyone (which Apple gets huge credit for yet again, because this could only he possible with the developer kits Apple released, effectively outsourcing creative solutions in taking advantage of the iPhone’s functionality).
When you look at what they set out to innovate, how they went about doing it, how much different it was than phones in the past, and how incredibly similar it is to phones today, a whole 15 years later, you just cannot reasonably deny that it was an extremely innovative and influential product.
Are you saying that other people had been working on and creating what became Apple’s mobile phone touchscreen interface, and they just bought the already near-finished product? If that’s the case I wasn’t aware.
Or if you’re trying to correct me (I assume you’re not, but you never know), I did acknowledge that Apple didn’t invent the touch screen or touch screen phone, the tech has been around since the 1960’s and even on phones since the early 90’s iirc.
Came here to say something similar about touchscreens on phones. It’s probably the most impactful innovation they’ve had, and ever will have imo. I can’t ethically support Apple as a company and I haven’t owned an apple product since the first iPod touch, but they absolutely deserve credit for this one.
Even if they didn’t invent the touch screen, or even the touchscreen phone, they certainly figured out how to perfectly integrate touchscreens into mobile devices a fluid and intuitive user interface which served as a canvas on which to build pretty much anything you wanted in the form of a mobile app (a $200B+ industry which the iPhone absolutely catalysed the explosive growth of).
It arguably even began a significant change in the course of modern human interaction, due to how much more versatile and therefore more commonly used mobile phones with a similar UI basis became since then; because of that, increasingly popular social media platforms now had a new way to provide use for their platform (via mobile apps) on a device that pretty much everyone now had with them all the time. I don’t think it’s coincidence that social media use saw such substantially explosive growth soon after the iPhone and subsequent “copycats” were on the market.
So their innovation here was really the first step in a number of global paradigm shifts. It was just such a monumentally impactful step forward. Because of this I genuinely think that the iPhone is almost guaranteed to be in history books for centuries, like the printing press or the light bulb.
I still remember the first phishing website I ever accidentally visited, rnyspace.com
Ah, so individuals who disagree with the actions of their home country so much that they leave their entire lives behind to find a new home with a governing body they can feel good about supporting with their taxes are the ones to blame for the idiotic behavior of their bought-and-paid-for government representatives?
Being born somewhere doesn’t define a person. Not a single person on this planet has control over where they come from, but we do have control over where we go next. Pointing fingers at people who leave the countries they don’t want to be a part of and telling them “nobody likes you” without a shred of knowledge about who they are beyond something as inconsequential as the place they happened to be born… It’s xenophobic, prejudiced, ignorant behavior, simple as that. And you should work on that.
I bet you’d find that you have a lot more in common with people who uproot their whole lives to separate themselves from their home country than you think, if you talked to some. Most people will at the very least admit openly “yeah, my home country just needs to get it’s shit together”. Some go as far as renouncing citizenship of their home country after becoming a nationalised citizen in their new home, myself included.
Most immigrants also don’t like the actions of their home countries’ governments, maybe even its population in general. In fact, it’s probably the biggest reason they moved away in the first place. So if they aren’t taking those ideals with them when they immigrate, what’s there to be bitter about?
It can be hard to communicate tone over text, and I’m running on very little sleep because of exams so I might not be doing the best job of that right now… So I just want to make sure it’s clear that it’s not my intention to attack or insult you here, and I’m sorry if my message reads like that. I just think you have a viewpoint that is flawed, and I want to outline the flaws I see in a way that might get you to look at things differently and consider things from a different perspective.