GFischer

Exactly, it's a man-made, not a technical issue - breeder reactors are the solution.

It's not a technical problem (solution is well known), it's a policy problem.

In my case, most of my outside socializing was through gaming meetings, and:

- the local Gaming Society closed for 2 years (meeting for the first time after 2 years in November),

- the local game stores stopped doing in-person events for 2 years (still no news on Magic: the Gathering in-person pre-releases, not authorized for Latin America despite my country being basically covid-free),

- I started playing D&D (with coworkers, so the OP has a point), had one in-person session and then we moved to Roll20 (slowly coming back to in-person).

I do think people were socializing outside more before the pandemic.

I'm from Uruguay, and all bidets have hot and cold water from the plumbing (our housing is built after European standards).

No idea how they do it in Japan.

Over here (Uruguay), rideshare services are way more reliable for tourists.

I have family from the countryside, and while they're not robbed outright, they're driven on the most inefficient way that drives up the meter.

Tourists can pay up to 100 dollars for a trip from the airport for example (legally if morally questionable).

A similar trip on a rideshare is less than half, but they're banned from the airport.

Plus, taxi drivers are unionized and are terrible drivers, while rideshare drivers are regularly kicked out if they give substandard service.

Pokémon GO had that problem. Lots of "flyers" hacked their GPS for fun and profit.

I'm on a "wait and see"... if they force me to go back to fully onsite, I'm quitting.

If they make it flexible / hybrid, I'll stay for a bit more.

I was already on the fence due to the lack of career growth, it would be the final shove. OTOH I was looking forward to some low-stress time as I'm getting married and was going to use a lot of time off, I'm not looking forward to switching jobs just yet.

Very interesting read, we're facing similar regulatory capture issues here in my country.

I still don't have a dishwasher or a garbage disposal (and I've never even used / seen any), diswasher seems really marginal upgrade as a childless couple - I guess it is a timesaver for a family of 4+?

I'm really wondering about the garbage disposal thing and I'll go Google about them.

Here in Uruguay most of the .uy sites are local businesses.

It's not only Europe. I live in Uruguay and I got an SMS to check if my auto-filed taxes were correct, if I do I have the option to make changes right in the government website.

And the local IRS has the best paying software development jobs in the government, so they actually have decent software (although they could do with some more UX people).

In my experience, raising prices might have a small short-term effect, but if the product is good, sometimes you'll think it was overdue !!!

It has happened to my own fees, and I still should raise them (so I totally understand the fear behind it).

Plus, the United States has significant inflation now, which you aren't used to, but in other countries it's TOTALLY NORMAL to raise prices every year.

As someone that decided to stay (even after getting visa sponsorship offers), not necessarily (although Uruguay is probably a "higher income country" these days).

Although the good contractors are SWAMPED for work, I definitely have to up my rate.

Wow, this offhand comment reminds me that there's a vast gulf between US compensation and elsewhere... 130k/y as a "below market" offer...

I doubled my salary between last year and this one and I'm still not even halfway to 130k/y (and I'm happy because it's remote).. .and I live in the most expensive city in South America (more expensive than US midwest & Texas, cheaper than NY / SF of course).

I thought USD 130k/year was a good offer even in the US, I think it's roughly what the Texas-based developers I work with make.

Most landlords own a single rental, but most rental properties are owned by large companies (notably REITs like MAA that has over 100.000 properties)...

So what you're saying is both true (in that it saves average-earning citizens) and false (most of the money went to large corporations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-America_Apartment_Communit... ).

Very insightful comment, I ended up reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....

https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/american...

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-day-the-supreme-cour...

I have an Austrian brother in law, he had a top position in a major Austrian company and he was ridiculously low paid.

He ended up moving to San Francisco where he's making 20x what he was making in Austria.

The way jury trials are portrayed in American media -selection bias of jurors, prosecutor deciding what evidence and significantly limiting the power of juries - I rather prefer the way it's done in European countries (and in Latin American ones like mine which copy Europe usually).

I pay more than 55% in effective tax rate, and my income is about 60k USD a year.

I live in Uruguay, South America - my taxes include healthcare and retirement.

It's definitely not ideal and it's crippling my chance of ever owning a home, but it does pay for a lot of social services way beyond what the U.S. provides - key differences being state provided healthcare and education up to and including the university level.

I work in corporate software development, and the incredible inefficiencies astound me every day.

There's a lot of useless work mandated by law as well... I've spent years of my life developing useless anti-money laundering software because a lawmaker somewhere thought of a convoluted potential possible money laundering insurance fraud scheme (while ignoring the actually used ones).

The insurance company had upwards of TWO THOUSAND developers working... and the software was incredibly bloated and slow crap. It's mind boggling.

I had to look up K-lining. TIL.

Well, the people in the article (Whale Alert, the ones that gave BBC the article) absolutely traced the bitcoins that were cashed out, but as you mentioned, law enforcement did nothing.

Elon is the perfect person to hack, he's always doing bizarre stuff, so if I'd fall for anyone, it would be for this one.

And the type that got rich off BitCoin are way bigger risk-takers than average - I was offered to "get in" on BitCoin at 1000 dollars and I thought it too risky, my former coworker who did and got rich is very much an adrenaline junkie (but didn't fall for this scam fortunately).

I do that as well, but I'd still be extremely harmed if Google does ever decide to suspend service - I have an Android phone and a lot of things that are tied to that Google account.

Plus, my mail is sometimes caught by spam filters, and people actually find it very odd that I have my own domain (it is a plus for technical stuff though).

I wonder how many people in the U.S. would recognize what is instantly familiar to us in Uruguay, the Yerba Mate gourd (10 out of 10 Uruguayans would recognize)

https://www.123rf.com/photo_120278916_stock-vector-yerba-mat...

Yes, unless you're infirm and you have to give a medical reason.

And it has bite, you get your wages garnished if you didn't vote, unless you pay a hefty fine.

So change the freaking society as well...

I've ran for the equivalent of Congress in my country, and even got elected as a substitute, and sent 3 draft bills for consideration.

It has better safety nets than the U.S.

I feel I'm doing my part, unfortunately my work is automating work in the U.S., not in my country.

"I perform rituals with my team chanting a praying that azure will stop acting wonky." so accurate it hurts

I can report that Azure Function App development is at least pretty decent, as long as you have the paid Visual Studio IDE and Azure Function Tools (haven't tried the free version yet).

I tried AWS Lambdas a few years back and it felt way more primitive.

I have a terrible setup at home. My office is extremely better set-up, and they spent several thousand dollars on seats, 32' monitors, etc.

Working on the crappy laptop and a kitchen chair is less than ideal - and the fact I was furloughed 4 months and ran out of savings means I can´t buy new stuff for WFH, not to mention it could end up being wasted money if I'm back in the office the next month.

And I'm not in the US so "used" stuff or other cheaper workarounds don't work for me (no "buy it from Amazon", there's no Amazon here)

That was actually the same thing Reddit did, IIRC. Have a bunch of different accounts and post interesting stuff.

Nobody wants to join a barren community.

That's also why clubs and other social gathering places entice people with free drinks, VIP passes and get some cliques to be in early, to generate movement.