Same here. I am introverted and I hate social interactions. It drains me. BUT for me, after talking and meeting a person face-to-face a few times, all the rest of the online communication becomes a lot more smooth-sailing.

A Pi4B 8GB is like $75. Add a power supply, case, heat sink, storage, and you’re at like $150.

Recently I purchased a used Dell USFF PC with a 4-core i5-4590S, 8 GB RAM for $50, shipped, from eBay. I mean it does use more power, but it is also more powerful than a RPi. I know, not an apples to apples comparison. But if you don’t need to do stuff with the GPIO, and your machine is just plugged in to the wall, and is just running apps in containers, then a USFF PC (e.g. STH’s project tiny mini micro machines) may be a much better option than a RPi.

I really don’t understand the RPi4’s price point right now. But glad the Pi Zero W exists, that makes so much more sense and at the right price point.

We voted Trump out. I say it is robust. But a democracy is only as good as the people within it. And only if the people vote. So there’s work to do.

One issue is, I’m ethnically Chinese, but been living in the US for more than 35 years (in my 40s), that when I try to speak my limited Chinese, I sound like a child. So to a person from China, I’m an adult Chinese person sounding like a kid, so it may look like I’m some type of a mentally challenged person. So it can be very difficult. And then if they found out I can speak English, they’ll be like “just f-ing speak English” and get it over with already. Of course it depends on the situation and person. But that’s the general difficulties of being Asian American in Asia (who is trying hard to blend in).

For non-Asians in Asia, they all say “everyone is so nice and patient with me”, and that’s because they are obviously a foreigner and its still a novelty for someone in China to be able to interact with a foreigner (maybe not in big 1st tier cities), so they will give you the time of the day.

I learned Zhuyin (注音) in Taiwan when I was younger, but then stopped using it when I immigrated to the US. At some point, I wanted to type Chinese on smartphones, so I started to learn Pinyin and used Pinyin for a while to type Chinese. The issue with Pinyin is that it uses the alphabets and that collides with English too much, I think as a English speaker, you naturally would try to use English’s way of pronunciation to try to sound out words in Chinese, and that creates problems for me because its a mismatch.

But recently, I started to use the Zhuyin system again, and it is just a lot more natural. Of course for me, I’ve learned it before as a kid, so it wasn’t that difficult to pick it up again. But it would be a steep learning curve for someone new to Chinese. But I still recommend it, it would be like someone needing to learn Hiragana and Katakana when learning Japanese. I’ve also learned from some of the older Chinese people from China that Zhuyin used to be taught in China as well, which was surprising to me. I guess that was the system in use before Mao decided that China needs to “westernize” and go with roman alphabets with Pinyin.

A lot of developed countries are going to see a decrease in population starting in the next 20 years and that will probably go on until the end of this century.

Our growth-minded economics needs to shift. Maybe we need to focus on how to gracefully decline. A decrease in revenue does not mean a company is not profitable. So that mindset needs to change.

We really need to focus on geriatric care, there will be a lot more old people than young people, so we need some way to get care to all the old people without over-burdening the young. More robots? Or robot-assisted care so that is it not so taxing on a nurse? I recently had to help a neighbor who was in declining health and mind, and man, I do not want myself to be in that state burdening my children and family. So we need some legislature to allow assisted suicide for those with terminal illness so I can go and die with dignity and grace.

Then we need a new de-construction industry that is focused on removing old buildings and old infrastructure and restoring the land back to its natural state. Otherwise we will have a plague of urban decay if that’s not managed well.

Part of high housing cost is due to the investment mindset and housing speculation. However, another part of high housing cost is that other people did put in the work to raise its value. Want to live in a clean, convenient neighborhood? Someone kept the place clean. Many businesses set up shop in the area to make it convenient to buy things and get things done. Certain passionate chef set up a wonderful restaurant so that you can just come by and enjoy good food. Some group of people, leader, or politician put in the political maneuverings that got certain ordinances passed or raised the bonds or taxes to build the public transportation. So over time as people continue to invest time, effort, labor to improve an area, it should be expected that the area becomes more expensive (and desirable).

I believe there are, and will be. Over 20 years ago, I moved to Dallas, TX area for the same reasons - to get away from unaffordable housing in the west and east coast. At the time, I found Dallas to have a good housing price to income ratio.

But in doing so (moving to Dallas), I may have also potentially taken a big (lifetime) pay cut. I graduated from a top ComSci school, but in moving to Dallas, I put myself outside of the market of the emerging FAANG companies in the west coast.

I think now there are still medium size cities where you may find a good balance of cost to value and quality of life. It really depends on your career goals and life goals. There’s always a trade off. I believe right now, the midwest is a good value, if you can stand the winters there :)