My ugly solution to this problem is to have a free Oracle Cloud VM in the other country that I use to run a VPN (Oracle provides instructions [1]). I then connect to this using OpenVPN on my phone, which allows me have a Google account that thinks I am in the other country and so allows me to install apps that are restricted to that country. I don't have the VPN connected all the time - only when I want to access the App Store using the Google account that I have for the other country.
To be a little pedantic, your solution is a solution to your problem, but only a fraction of the problem you're responding to. Your VPN won't help access the UK apps that require a UK phone localization if those same services aren't also available in the region of your VPN exit node. And since he's talking about UK-specific apps and services, VPNing his US phone back to the US isn't any help.
This is essentially what's known as 'digital migration'[1] in mainland China. Many streaming services aren't available in China; foreign companies that do operate here often have their features reduced. So, apart from buying foreign SIM cards and using multiple Apple accounts, we typically subscribe to something called 'airports,' which provide standardized, open-source VPN protocols with servers (called 'nodes') in various regions. Besides bypassing internet censorship, these nodes often use residential broadband and specify which streaming and LLM services they can unlock.
I used to listen to Digitally Imported's Eurodance station a lot 10-15 years ago, but eventually it felt like I just kept hearing the same songs, that they never added any new music to it.
During my PhD at MIT my girlfriend asked me how I thought I would feel about those years in the future. I said relieved that it was over, as, although I loved everything about the place, I felt constant pressure. She knew me better than I knew myself, it seems, as it was obvious to her that I would in fact long to be able to return to that time. I'm sure part of the longing is just due to the fact that I was in my 20s, living in my own nice on-campus apartment, and was hopeful that I had a bright future. Many people probably have a longing to be 23 again for similar reasons. However I think that what makes the feeling especially strong for me is that being at MIT added a feeling of privilege to every day. It created a sense of fulfilment, that I had done everything right and had succeeded.
I don't think I could bear to visit now. The smell of the Infinite Corridor, the tunnels, Vassar Street, the Eastman Court trees in Autumn, or a warm summer evening by the Charles, would bring back memories that would be overwhelming.
My wife and I go back to Clemson every 1 or 2 months since we graduated 20+ years ago. Sometimes just for dinner, to take a walk. Sports helps of course because there's never a bad time to go to a football/soccer/basketball/baseball game. Even went to a club team rugby match one time.
We take our kids there, show them around, tell them stories and get ice cream from the agricultural center.
It's a beautiful place that we both love.
Strongly encourage you to return as often as you can. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. It's going to be a part of you for the rest of your life.
Just a heads up that the YouTube link at the bottom of [1] is pointing to the wrong place. It seems it should be youtube.com/@CodesCarolina instead of youtube.com/@CarolinaCodeConference
There are two kinds of MIT students: those who spend their time at MIT feeling they're not working enough, and those who spend their time after MIT feeling they haven't worked enough back at MIT.
The intellectual atmosphere is really something -- I don't know any other place in the world where so many interesting ideas will be whooshing past you, vying for your time. If you get too used to it, wherever you go next will feel like a backwater.
I wish this was explained more thoroughly at the age where "prestige" is a driving factor of applying to institutions. My college experience was devoid of obvious/visible/present intellectual stimulation, as a data point.
>'m sure part of the longing is just due to the fact that I was in my 20s, living in my own nice on-campus apartment, and was hopeful that I had a bright future. Many people probably have a longing to be 23 again for similar reasons. However I think that what makes the feeling especially strong for me is that being at MIT added a feeling of privilege to every day. It created a sense of fulfillment, that I had done everything right and had succeeded.
I feel literally the same about my 20s (not at MIT, but thereabouts).
It's the same reason why replaying the start of a video game feels satisfying.
> hopeful that I had a bright future
Life is full of choices—some small, like how to spend a day, and some large, like where to live or work. In youth, options feel endless, and many decisions are reversible. But as time passes, choices accumulate, obligations set in, and the future becomes more constrained.
At some point, we realize that paths we once considered are now closed —backpacking across Europe in your 20s, starting a family before 60, or pursuing a dream we always deferred. The surplus of time and energy fades, and life starts to become... predictable.
That's why the fantasy is alluring. It lets us revisit a time when anything felt possible.
Before 60, the max age to start a family is debatable. I used a number most would agree is inadvisable due to the likelihood you would see your children to their 18th birthday.
Most would set a maximum age where they would want to start a family as something significantly earlier.
Yeah I hope so. Anything above roughly 40 is only an option for men and if you have a kid at 60 then you’re going to be almost 80 (or worse- statistically speaking dead) when the kid leaves home. Not at all ideal.
I've stayed pretty involved though go into Cambridge less than I used to; the traffic is just so bad. Even volunteer at an annual reunion event now even if I don't go to my own:-) It was good for me and, while my relationship has changed over time, don't really regret a lot.
Definitely gave me a good start on a lot of things--not all academic.
I think many people underestimate the mental anguish caused by being ostracized by your former coworkers, and by the realization that, even after a lifetime of working hard, your career prospects are now in tatters.
> there's a very loud minority of performative extremists with an army of sock puppet accounts who want to hunt down the snitch
The people running the bot armies for foreign influence operations probably do not care about hunting down the snitch, they are simply following orders to spread that message.
My suspicion is that this murder was organised by Russia as an attempt to normalise and encourage further vigilante actions, thereby weakening society. They chose their target well for this one, but I imagine, even after the shift it has caused in what is considered acceptable, there will be less widespread approval of future killings.
Even if this was completely accurate, doesn't it make you mad that they will spend millions of dollars and 100 times more man hours trying to hunt this guy down than 99% of all other murders?
Also they are going to track and investigate thousands upon thousands of social media normies who decided to let some schadenfreude slip for a sweet meme opportunity
I wonder whether the murder, and the immediate strong social media reaction supporting it, were part of a foreign influence operation. Normalising the idea that murdering a CEO makes you a hero and that a large percentage of the population would react to a murder with a laughing emoji will be effective means of furthering division.
I don't buy it. I think people are tired of the current system. Seeing loved ones suffer because of lack of healthcare.
For me the irony is that this has brought people from both sides of the political divide together, yet the people on the right just voted for a guy that will make society even more unfair.
Perhaps the next four years will be a true reckoning. The darkest moments before the dawn of a new era. The rise of Bernie 2.0, half man half machine, an efficient anti-drilling machine.
I don't have my hopes up. The only thing he accomplished in his first presidency (of which Republicans controlled the House and Senate for half off) was a huge tax cut for Wall Street, yet he was elected again.
Both things can be true. It would make sense for a foreign adversary to exploit the feelings of discontent produced by very obvious, very omnipresent shortcomings in the system.
Foreign influence ops work like throwing seeds on the ground. They only grow when they find the right conditions.
The answer to such operations is not to just point at everything bad and divisive and say “might be foreign influence!” Of course, it might be. Or might not! Who knows. Guesses are not really actionable or influential. And without hard proof, over time it sounds like crying wolf.
The sustainable defense is to address the ground conditions themselves. People are pissed about health care and wealth inequality—separately and together. That’s not something a foreign country did to the U.S.
Doesn't really pass Occam's razor. It might be foreign influence. It might be aliens. It might be people are genuinely upset with an insurance company and/or it's CEO.
A means of furthering division? I've seen nothing but barely-constrained glee from liberals, conservatives, progressives and MAGA folks. This seems to be one issue we can all agree on.
America does not want for-profit insurance interfering in their medical care. The insurance companies are do-nothing middle men who will stop at nothing (including mass murder by systematically denying medical care) to extract value for their shareholders. It's disgusting and morally corrupt - yet they have the government in their pocket and are effectively immune from the law. Hell, they largely make their own laws.
This event was America's reaction to the situation - things have gotten so hopeless that vigilante justice is widely seen as the only option.
The purpose of this attack was to normalize vigilante murder (and, as you say, the target was well chosen to achieve that). The division and societal breakdown come later when vigilante actions become more common.
Have there been any recent developments in "lab-grown wood"? The last time I looked into it there had been some research on it (also at MIT), but there didn't seem to have been any updates for a few years.
