Recent submissions

Comment · 4 years ago
I recommend testing Yerba Mate as an alternative to coffee. For me drinking even one or two cups of coffee can give a bad, anxious mood later in the day as caffeine withdraws. Meanwhile Mate seems to give similar energy, but the withdrawal feels more gradual, not giving me such bad mood.

Just get green, non smoke-dried version if you can.

Comment · 4 years ago
You could consider working remote / hybrid with a bit longer commute.

There is no need for everyone to live in a big overpriced city.

Comment · 4 years ago
So you think tearing down a house every 50 years isn't an environmental problem? It absolutely is. Concrete especially causes major Co2 emissions.
Comment · 4 years ago
It absolutely is discrimination as not all whites are privileged. These days your skin color doesn't matter much, what really makes the difference is the wealth of your parents. A rich black guy is privileged compared to poor white guy.

Yes, MOST African Americans are poorer due to historical discrimination. But similarly some whites are also poorer due to historical reasons beyond their own control. The solution should be support to the poor to help them achieve better educational outcomes, regardless of their skin color.

Just raise taxes and build a system that helps all poor people achieve better educational outcomes instead of racist affirmative action. Scandinavian model provides a good example. Anything else is just nonsense and convenient to the rich elite.

Also, it's possible to make college/university admissions very much anti-discriminatory simply by making them exam-based, and preventing those who check the exams from knowging who did the exam. This is how the system should work.

Comment · 4 years ago
"Life isn't short--it's LONG, and you have a brief moment in that life to maximize your preparation for the rest of it. Use it wisely."

Anyone can die any time if they're unlucky enough. Leaving much of the fun until you're old may thus be a very bad strategy.

I agree one should focus on productive activities already in their 20's, but meaningful leisure is important too. It's meaningless leisure that you do only out of boredom that people should restrict more - for me that would be social media, news and gaming.

Comment · 4 years ago
My wife's grandparents actually made a metal frame specifically designed to hold the Finnish maternity box at a comfortable height. Now it's in use for our newborn, since the box size hasn't changed.
Comment · 4 years ago
Yeah, I don't really get why some people buy all this hype and even preorder stuff. Maybe I'm getting old, but I just don't care anymore for most of the new stuff, no matter how fancy the looks. I downgraded my PC and only play indie / decade old AAA nowadays, with only few exceptions which are mostly niche strategy games.
Comment · 4 years ago
Usually you still need a decent pay, since few jobs really are interesting/meaningful enough to make you work for free, or for a salary that doesn't allow you to save enough to buy what you really want.

I don't have expensive hobbies, only thing I want to buy is my own house. If my salary doesn't allow that goal with rising property prices, then living on welfare can be the rational choice if better job opportunities simply aren't available. A few extra hundred doesn't motivate if I can't buy anything meaningful with it. For many millenials it's easy to get enough money for short-term hedonism,but anything else is difficult.

Comment · 4 years ago
You can always find new friends once you start meeting people off internet. Tbh I find purely online friendships not to last long, especially now as an adult.
Comment · 5 years ago
Nuclear is problematic, but it should not be phased out as long as there's fossil fuel used in energy generation. All efforts should go into replacing fossil fuels for now.
Comment · 5 years ago
Of course discrimination has greatly affected wealth distribution in the past. Still, I believe wealth re-distribution through Scandinavian style welfare state is the answer, not lectures about white-privilege and minority quotas. These days simply being white doesn't make you privileged if you were born into poor family, and being black doesn't automatically make you underprivileged if your parents happen to be wealthy.
Comment · 5 years ago
The problem is that there are a lot more "successful people" with a degree nowadays, but not that much more demand. Thus the value of nearly all degrees is lower now than decades ago. Only ones with difficult entry (like medicine) really hold their value. Even CS degree is fairly useless without hobby projects or working experience.

Many university programs exist simply to make money, or in European publicly funded institutions because of arbitrary government targets for raising education level in general population. Nothing to do with actual demand or applicable skills in workforce.

Comment · 5 years ago
Privilege is primarily about money, not race. If you want to help poor people, then tax the rich more regardless of race and underprivileged minorities will benefit naturally more.

All this obsession with race is just a way for the elites to urn attention away from actual solutions which would hurt their profits.

Comment · 5 years ago
It's not just US thing, similar widening gender gap can be seen also here in Finland (probably rest of Europe as well), despite us having free education.

As far as I can see, many master's degrees are not worth today it even if you pay no tuition fees. Many blue-collar jobs like plumbing pay better nowadays than your average humanities, social sciences etc job, with equal or better job security and only 3 years of studying instead of 8. So, avoiding higher education can be the rational choice.

In addition, there are major flaws in how students are handled nowadays. Teachers simply have no authority to punish bad behavior, and it seems restless boys suffer the most from this in educational outcomes. The system is increasingly designed only for kids who enjoy school and perform well even without supervision.

Personally I had no trouble with school, but I'm still not convinced that CS degree was the right choice instead of plumbing or something similar. The job market sucks for everyone except senior software devs.

Comment · 5 years ago
Most people spend that time doing a job they hate so they can afford someone else for services to meet basic needs.

Not a good deal IMO.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton