The number of times I've picked up my phone to do something, see a notification, and completely forget what I had picked my phone up to do 5 seconds later is mind boggling.
I started pruning the notifications that I allow quite aggressively because of it, but it's still a very regular issue.
> It sounds more like a Ponzi scheme in a Gold farming disguise to me.
I would agree with this if the primary income stream came directly from the increase in value of Axies as the game attracted more users. From my understanding, the income comes from acquiring and selling in-game currency rather than from the Axies themselves.
Is this a bullshit job? Maybe. Ponzi scheme? I don't think so.
If people are working this bullshit job, it means that this bullshit job is better than their alternatives. I'm not convinced the existence of these kinds of games is a net-negative.
What ends up happening is the smooth love potion becomes used as transactional currency in Philippines besides being a game currency to purchase Axies. This is not going to be what the government wants and who knows what can happen next, but as you see this automatically gives people a way to transact digitally by using the underlying infrastructure without a fintech company
Is there an equivalent extension to open Hacker News links in an app on iOS? I'm currently using Hacker, but would be willing to switch for this feature.
Hard work is necessary but not sufficient. I agree that the essay glosses over the element of luck that is involved, but I don't think that makes the rest of what Paul is saying wrong. Even if hard work alone doesn't always lead to success, not working hard guarantees that you won't be exceptional.
I'd like to know the answer to this as well. I'm not sure what I would do if I were to become financially independent before "retirement age", but it certainly wouldn't be getting a job at a BigCo. Really curious to hear the motivations behind it.
I probably could have skipped my 5th startup, but psychologically, I couldn't see myself as retired. Startup #4 was, for a time, the most stressful job I've ever had. My part was distributed, and I was dealing with all the gotchas that entails, and these gotchas were being uncovered at a high rate, thanks to a stellar system testing guy.
And then, suddenly, the last serious distribution bug was solved, and the system was working, rock solid. And I glided, through the acquisition, and then for a couple of years with our new corporate parent. Interesting new development stopped, and it was all about maintaining a working system. They knew they couldn't keep people there with interesting work, so they threw money at us. And it worked for a lot of people. Me too, for a while, until startup #5 came along, and it was really interesting. So I left.
But #5 was poorly conceived, and had other difficulties, and it burned me out after a few years. A really deep burnout -- I was angry all the time, and couldn't get myself to focus on work. I figured that 25 years of startups was enough, I was able to retire, so I did.
I do sometimes struggle to keep myself occupied. I've done a couple of minor software projects, but it is difficult to motivate myself to do something that has already been done, and that nobody really needs. I have also found it difficult to motivate myself to get into new (to me) areas, e.g. machine learning. There is some amount of depression going on, for sure.
I did consider going back to BigCo, but: I really enjoy having the freedom to travel where and when I want, the lack of stress, and all the other obvious benefits of not working. But the major reason is this: If I am bored and don't know how to fill my time, that is a fundamental problem. Doing some random task for BigCo doesn't fix that problem, it masks it. I need to figure out what it is I want to do.
I did find one fun project: I decided that I really needed something that didn't involve sitting in front of a keyboard. So I decided to build a sailboat. Having no experience with woodworking, I opted for a kit that includes pre-cut wooden pieces, and it's up to me to glue, and sand, and varnish, and paint. Sort of like building a model, like when I was a kid, but on a bigger scale. Surprisingly difficult, for me at least.
It is not unreasonable to request that devs building on top of your platform use an API. They also aren't requiring it, they are simply suggesting it to avoid future breakages when they change the internals of how their application works.
Requiring that they maintain this compatibility would be like requiring the maintainer of an OS library to maintain the contract of a private method because my app relies on grepping their code base to parse the contents of the method.
When you don't have a defined set of public interactions with your app, every change is a breaking change.
I was going to temporarily cancel my NYT subscription because I wasn't using it enough at the time. Once I found out I had to talk to a person in order to cancel, I told them that I would never resubscribe because of it. It's infuriating that they try to use inconvenience to hold your dollars hostage. Why not just focus on making a great product?
makes me wonder what would happen if you called your credit card company and did a stop payment? Basically say it's a subscription and they're not letting you cancel.
I assume the NYT could contact a collection agency and say "this guy didn't cancel his subscription, but just stoppped paying. So after 6 months of this, he owes us $xyz." And then his credit rating takes a hit.
