Does this belong in technology?

Exciter - when DM fell off their cliff.

Are you ok?

Yes, I’ve got a detailed plan and I’m sticking to it. In 12 years from now, my youngest will be 15 and I can start winding down. I can’t imagine doing nothing, but with some part time work I think my wife and I can stretch to make it work. Requires that the oldest self-fund through university, which I had to do, so I’m ok with that.

Currently 47, which is probably substantially older than most people here. The concept of “retirement” (winding down) seemed so far away (didn’t start saving for it until late twenties) but compounding interest really is the most powerful force in the universe.

Of course if the stock crashes, plans may have to change. I’m slowly moving towards a stronger bond mix but that lowers return and pushes dates out. It’s a hard balance.

I think I’ve accounted for everything that one can plan for; late life care costs, risk of both my wife and I living to 100 (in a financial sense, we should all be so lucky), higher spend until 75, then lowered. There’s a risk that the UK removes universal state pensions, which would drastically alter my plans.

https://imgur.com/a/MAWe4eq

Agreed. There should have been a default place to sign up from the beginning. Leaning on federation as a feature is something very few people care about until they really care about it. The mass adopter just looks at where their favourite celebrity or talking head is and then move there.

I didn’t. Thanks for the shoutout, I’ll have a look.

Of all the meeting solutions, I’ve come to the conclusion that Google Meet is the least bad.

Been on PhotoPrism+ for a few years (90000 photos, 9000 videos). I use PhotoSync and it’s rock solid (although I go through an FTPS server for sync) - I’ve never ever had an issue with it. Yes, it’s third party, but for me it has just WORKED. Can also highly recommend PhotoPrism although I don’t edit many tags.

Looks great. Will definitely try out.

Day to day I just use LunaSea. Added convenience of being able to add a film from a phone.

Speaking as a Dane, where Halloween has invaded in the last 20 years, basically to replace Fastelavn, the traditional spring-based festival of trick or treating, just another excuse for selling stuff.

Your own happiness is more important that somebody else’s happiness.

Not to say you shouldn’t be nice or help people, or invest in other people’s growth.

But don’t do it to the detriment of your own.

Man good dental hygiene is one of those things you just do not think about until you’re older. Flossing, interdental, mouth wash (before brushing), regularly visiting the hygienist and dentist. Your teeth evolved to last 35-ish years, the rest only happens from hygiene.

Cry.

The board doesn’t care about the number of people employed. They care about the current profitability and future profitability.

Of course that’s their job; to look after shareholder interests. And the money would move to a better investment if they didn’t.

It’s the whole system you need to change, if you seek change, not moan about an individual CEO.

I am well aware this won’t a popular answer.

I am also well aware of all the negative aspects of what I’m about to talk about. I believe these negative aspects to be real and I’m not disputing them.

I am also well aware of the follow on hard-sell-to-vulnerable-people problems that happens here. I myself felt under immense pressure to “buy more” when I did it, resisted and never heard back from them again.

But…

Attending the Landmark Forum was absolutely the biggest, long-term, positive thing I’ve ever done.

So many positive things followed on from that. In a long weekend, I genuinely changed who I was, towards something that was much more fulfilled, much more true to myself and with much greater self-worth. 25+ years later I still use the learnings, especially around taking accountability for everything that happens in my life and the realisation that every memory I have is flavoured by my interpretation of it too (since I own the interpretation, and I have made an active choice on how to interpret, I can change the interpretation and thus change the meaning the memory has for me; since my memories shape who I am, I can change who I am by changing my interpretation of my past).

I would not recommend it to anyone else. I learnt this the hard way, because I DID recommend it to someone else and they decided to leave their wife after doing the Landmark Forum course. I know that this is likely to have happened without my involvement but I still feel immensely awful about it. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Don’t do the Landmark Forum. You will be under difficult pressure, in a vulnerable spot, to attend more courses and to bring your nearest and dearest in as prospects. The view of the Landmark Forum is “we know it works, we know it transforms people’s lives for the better - you do too; why don’t you want your friends and family to experience the same transformation?”. It’s hard to argue against, both because you’re surrounded by happy, transformed people when they pitch you, and also because, for me at least, it was actually true. It really did change me for the better, hugely so. I was intent on not “joining anything” but just take the upsides away. I saw many who immediately went out to become a “convert” and probably annoy and worry the f*** out of their friends and family. I really don’t like this technique and I can’t understand why they don’t take the pressure off, which would remove a lot of the accusations that’s fielded against them.

Having said all that, for me, it was the most positive thing I’ve ever done.

The one I’ve got at the minute, a Seat Leon (mark 4); it’s built on top of VWs MQB platform and honestly it’s a piece of shit.

The list of issues is as long as my arm: The reversing beeper gets stuck, the graphics don’t draw on top of the reversing camera, plugging a phone in stops playback, the shitty entertainment system crashes, keyless entry gets shy when it rains, the emergency alerting system throws a fit if it loses mobile signal, there’s no light on critical controls in the dark, the interior light sometimes can’t be switched off, the cruise control gets confused about which side of the road it’s driving on and doesn’t want to overtake another car (it thinks it’s undertaking), the speed limiter is hiding behind UI 4 steps, the clutch etc etc.

Every month I discover a new niggle. This is the third Seat I’ve owned (having previously loved my two Seat Leons) and will most definitely be my last VW group car ever. What a piece of trash.

The worst meetings are the ones with people in a meeting room and people online. All in person or all dialled in (even if from an office desk).

I’m 47. I’m not a boomer (although I’m probably hella-old compared to most here) and I’d just like to say: What a bloody bunch of boomer-bosses.

“Have you tried disagreeing on a call! It’s hard!”

Grow up man, use the hand up feature and state your case. I work in a fully remote business and we have better meetings here than any office based meeting I’ve ever been in. Calendars are public, confluence is prevalent, slack is the lifeline (thankfully very little email) for everything; with a bunch of “banter”, hobby channels etc. We start every large meeting with a “one personal and one professional highlight” before we commence. I know the people here better than I’ve ever done my office based colleagues.

They are going to regret this. I do not know any developer who would prefer 5 days in the office. None. It’s not like Amazon’s compensation was that high. I really genuinely don’t understand how they expect to recruit.

Be rich. Makes everything so much easier.

Budget. Don’t need to be fancy. But build a view on the things that you’ll need to pay for over the year (Christmas, birthdays, holidays, car service, boiler service etc) and actually put money aside every month to pay for those things. Nothing beats the adult feeling of “yes, I’ll just pay for this thing here from this envelope and done”.