It's basically a decentralized, censorship-resistant P2P internet. The philosophy has merit, but the performance sucks and it is currently mostly a venture capitalist funded scam.
We had a perfectly working internal IRC system at work. For some managerial reasons, the decision was made to 'keep up with the trend and adapt to new softwares, firstly by moving on to Slack'.
I am young, in my mid-twenties. I like new. I like Slack too. But I honestly couldn't see any reason why we moved to it. We pay slack probably more than what we needed to maintain our own old tiny IRC box. But money aside, there are real issues with Slack that are just not there with hosting your own IRC.
The major one being privacy. For a field that is almost religiously against abuse of privacy, we sure as heck don't seem to have an issue with all of our work conversations being stored on another company's server.
Another quip I noticed was archiving. While my IRC allowed archiving without any limits, there are limits imposed on how much archives you can have access to on Slack. Of course, its customizable, but for that first time you're looking for something said 6 months ago by an ex-employee, you realize that there is no way to go back. You set your preference and learn to move on, cause well, its a different company after all. And you're paying for it.
The article doesn't say that information from B or C is useful. All it explains is only 2 particles can be entangled with each other. So either A is entangles with B or it is entangled with C, not both. Which means that either Anne's reality is correct, or yours. The whole thing about the decoding machine is just described to oversimplify it for the benefit of the masses.
> One clue might lie in Anne's decoding machine. Figuring out which other bit of information A is entangled with is an extraordinarily complicated problem. [...]
In 2013 they calculated that, even given the fastest computer that the laws of physics would allow, it would take Anne an extraordinarily long time to decode the entanglement. By the time she had an answer, the black hole would have long evaporated, disappearing from the universe and taking with it the threat of a deadly firewall.
The "machine" is an oversimplification, but I don't understand the equivalent experiment that can distinguish between B and C.
Usually the discussions are only about entanglement of 2particles, because that is weird enough, but the math for more particles is just a little more complicated.
What's wrong with imagination, hypothesis and a simple analogy that can reach out to the masses? One might argue that your approach to science as only a set of facts based on formula is boring at best. One needs to ponder the meaning behind the formula and results. Yes, we got a number, but what is the implication of it? After all, doesn't science exist to satisfy our curiosity about the world in the first place?
Because now we have infinitely many imaginary hypotheses, and we can't resolve their differences since we have not enough facts, and ones that are ornate and humane tend to capture most attention.
But universe is made with inhumane ways, it's complex where it's not expected and it's simple where we expect more. It's never intuitive.
It's a blind alley. Doesn't help us find the exit from labyrinth.
I work for an IT consultancy that has about 40 people and an open office. I have never had any issues. Probably because almost everyone is a developer/administrator and people mostly prefer communicating through IRC. The office space is completely silent, and the desks are in groups, far apart from each other. It is wonderful, looks good and doesn't make me feel depressed sitting in a cubicle with partitions shorter than my height giving a fake sense of privacy.
All I am saying is there is a wrong way and a right way of maintaining open offices. Bashing all open offices for being cheap and unproductive is naive.
I work at a startup and I am 25. I have saved up some money and seriously considering retirement by the time I am 30.
Not that I have a lot of money saved up. I just have a couple of thousand bucks. Nothing fancy. But to me it is a seed money to try out new things, at an age where making huge mistakes wouldn't result in me being 70 and penniless. There will still be enough time to return back to IT once (if) I fail miserably. And it will also be an extended break in the worst case.
I want to explore the world, jobs, hobbies, people. I have realized the 8 hours everyday I spend on my desk is the best time to be out and about. The sunshine is literally gone by the time I get off work. If this is what hundreds of years of progress and planning has led to, I think we have failed.
So yes, I support people who think about retiring early, and actually living their lives when they are still young. If youth is the best time of one's life, it shouldn't be wasted on the desk.
I agree. I'll only retire when my body gives out. I decided what kind of old man I want to be and I won't be one of those hunched and shriveled guys. I intend on making it to 140. People who retire die.
Ahh, to be 25 and single again. Trust me by the time you're 35 and have kids you'll have a different sense of what's important. Your kids will be your sunshine but also your responsibility. Early retirement, living on a couple thousand dollars a year, will seem like the dumbest idea ever.
>Ahh, to be 25 and single again. Trust me by the time you're 35 and have kids you'll have a different sense of what's important. Your kids will be your sunshine but also your responsibility. Early retirement, living on a couple thousand dollars a year, will seem like the dumbest idea ever.
That's a choice that a 25 year old need not make.
For those of us who have hit or are even beyond 35, and chose not to have kids, things look very different. Particularly if you work in North American IT, you're able to funnel all of that extra disposable income into things like early retirement, as well as improving your day-to-day quality of life (that could be vacations, gadgets, whatever you'd like...).
Yes, don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have early retirement as a goal, and maybe even try it out for a while (it was my goal from an early age and I tried it out for three years in my late 20's / early 30's). It's excellent motivation to save money when you're starting out.
And I was in the same boat; when backpacking through Thailand I thought, "Thailand is cheap, I'll just raise a family here". Well sure, for backpackers it's easy to live on 3K per year. But with a couple kids, you'll likely want a safe car (stupidly expensive there), decent schools (again), something nicer than a backpacker hostel, etc. Heck, flights home to visit family will run close to 10K per year alone.
Retiring at 30 = being a boring person for your 40s, 50s, etc.
I think a better situation is to be financially secure by your 30s (be completely out of debt, pay off a mortgage, have money for children, etc.) and then have the ability to start companies or work freelance for the rest of your life rather than being a slave to the 9-to-5 grind.
I do like the concept of getting rich slowly and learning slowly. I would love to peruse multiple degrees (I already have two) just out of the love of learning and also meeting other lovers of knowledge.
I think you simply value the work environment much more than anyone that "retires" at 30, much similar to people that continue to work after winning a large lottery. And that's ok. For most people that want extremely early retirement, though, it is time to spend with family: Time to learn: time to experience. Not a lot of people acheive this, but that's the dream.
My wife and I might retire in our mid-30s, in the US but not in an expensive area, and be completely comfortable with well under $1 million in assets. Because we live a laid back, low cost lifestyle -- with the house paid off (as of this week) our burn rate is dropping to under $20k per year.
You might need considerably more money to maintain your desired lifestyle. There's nothing wrong with that -- but recognize that not everyone is you.
raise the kids. Make indie games, with the understanding that it doesn't matter if they never make significant revenue. Write. Read. Study. The key point here is really "not needing to earn more money" rather than "not doing anything".
> If this is what hundreds of years of progress and planning has led to, I think we have failed.
You're saying this after complaining spending eight hours a day (presumably five days a week) at your desk. That leaves far more leisure time than most [working class] people had "hundreds of years" ago.
While this comparison is true for 100-200 year ago industrial jobs, and farming in subsistence conditions, the original hunter gatherers had plenty of free time, and that's what we're evolved for.
Main problem is, there's to many of us for hunting and gathering to be sustainable...
He is 25, and he plans to retire at 30, in 5 years he may save another couple thousands more.
Let's put on the lower part of the "couple" spectrum and say he have 200.000, in 5 years he will have 400.000 USD. This money is enough to retire early with the 4% rule http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need...
Maybe you are assuming that he want to live in the states, with the interest of this money he could live easily in Spain, Thailand, Argentina, etc...
It can be [1]. Instead of saving 10-15% of your income, suppose you cut your expenses drastically and started saving 80% of your income. The math works out that you will be financially independent within 5-7 years and no longer have a requirement to work for money.
I understand citizens and residents of US have their own valid concerns regarding this issue. However, as a foreigner working on a temporary visa who was denied an H1B in last year's lottery, here's an alternate point of view - Imagine being born and raised in a country that does not have adequate research areas in the the field you love - computer science. What do you do? You move to a place that better encourages your dreams. You know you cannot directly get a guaranteed job in US that supports research and the field of work you love, so you take a hefty loan and come for a graduate degree to US. You live hand-to-mouth (remember that it is infinitely tougher for people from poorer countries to get the total sum needed for a master or a PhD in US.), struggle through all the cultural barriers, loneliness and constantly battle feeling alienated, all to finally one day achieve the life you dreamed of - a job you are passionate about, and a life that respects you as a human being.
Fast forward to job hunting - unlike residents and citizens, you know you don't have the luxury of 'not having a job' for more than 2 months after completing your graduation - imagine the stress it puts on you. But you battle it out and land up in a company. If you are lucky, it so happens that you are doing what you love. But for a lot of foreigners, the deadline to have a job and stay here just so you can at the very least repay you loans in USD is far greater than the original dream they have, and so they accept whatever is offered.
Well, we say "I've completed a graduate degree, taken up a job and now I have to repay my loan before I can continue with the American dream." But then within a year you have yet another deadline - H1B. And unlike previous deadlines, this one is out of your hands - utterly and completely. You are a highly educated person working as a skilled worker in a respected position, and now your whole life is dependent only on one thing - a lottery. A random lottery will decide your fate. At that point it hits home - all your life you thought your hard work was an investment towards a better future, but now you know its no different than if you were buying lottery tickets for the past two decades.
Imagine the helplessness, the crushing sensation of all your dreams shattering. That's what its like to have your whole life dependent on a lottery. Want to limit foreign workers? Make interviews tougher, change laws to reject the possibility of working after a graduate US degree. I mean it - do anything but please do not let our lives and fate be decided by a random lottery. It is humiliating.
P.S. What's funny is to realize that unlike all other categories of immigrants, H1B skilled workers are here on their own merit. I am not married to someone with a green card and dependent on him. I am not here illegally after crossing borders at midnight. I am not here because I have a lot of family wealth. And yet, for a country that prides itself on hard work, it is somehow toughest for people in H1B category to get a visa. I cannot help but wonder if today I decide to get married to anyone with a permanent status here, I will immediately be out of this agony, and can choose to be totally dependent on another person's income, contribute nothing to the economy, and easily get permanent residence. Can't help but chuckle at the absurdity of laws.
Yup. That about sums up current US immigration policy. Luck is such a large part of life. I was born here, but both my parents managed to legally immigrate before it became so difficult. They met in the great melting pot that is New York City.
