Slashdot Mirror

Because money improves your quality of life more than extra time does.

Wrong. Beyond 'minimum' needs like food, shelter, health, security, and perhaps some good sex thrown in, income basically is disposable. What humans need beyond that is to feel loved, competent and a sense of enthusiasm for what they strive for. Which all has nothing to do with 'physical' wealth. Money in those latter areas is nothing but a shallow substitute, and mostly a bad one at that. That's why most people are quite unhappy with their lives, even though they're doing well by any outward metric. Depression is the first world disease that comes with that.

By any historic measure we live in times of infinite abundance. 80%+ of work done in first world societies are bullshit jobs and superfluos work. Most of which can be done by robots, better planing or, most of the time, simply left out all together.

I work part time for more spare-time, and while I sometimes moan that because of my compareatively lower income I have the feeling I am - to most women of my social herachy - not suitable for long-term relationship because of that (especially with the values our society to wrongly pursues), I repeatedly run into situations that can only be described as plain an utter envy over my freedom compared to my peers. By men and women alike. I'm only suitably as a dance partner and a lover to most. ... A situation I will probably have to learn to live with. ... And, yes, I'm going to cry you a river now. :-)

Conclusion:
You Sir need to get yourself a copy of the 4 Hour Workweek. Or, better yet, the original: Senecas Letters from a Stoic., read it and get a life (Hint: It is *not* about dependant income-work.) Stoicism: The optimised wester variant of zen-buddhism as you might call it. Get with the programm and start enjoying you life like never before. Welcome to the club.

How do you feel about products like Soylent and the community building around such products? Do you think this is something that could catch on?

Other interesting article: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2013/08/20/soylent/

I first read about this in the book "The Four Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss.

He's got lots of time-saving suggestions for tiny businesses; for example, contracting out the order-taking/boxing/mailing part of the business. There are companies that do this - send them the product, and they handle inventory and shipping.

4 times in 12 years? Underachiver?
You, my friend, have a serious problem. A self-esteem problem. Being promoted at an avarage of every 3 years is what the large majority dream of. If that (and your low self-esteem, which appears to derive itself from amounts of promotion/year) is what's troubling you, these books, all of which have had life-changing impact on mine, are the type you should be reading and looking for:

Seneca "Letters from a Stoic" - its roughly 2000 years old iirc and thus public domain (downloads all over the web). .... The best things in life are free.
Seneca was a bizarly rich and very powerfull man in Rome back in the day and is one of the more popular members of the 'Stoic' school of philosophy. Stoicisim is basically the western variant of zen buddism, without the weird stuff. Cult of Less, Lean living, focussing on the spiritual and mental, etc. ... It's all there and all started here. A must read for any educated citizen. And, btw., at the same time more comforting than any of the religios scripts can ever be imho. Whenever you're in a jam, take out seneca, read a few pages and you feel like someones breathed new life into you. If you think philosophy is for nutcases, you haven't been looking further back enough. The last 300 years have mostly been shit, but this guy is for real. No intelectual masturbating and no bullshit from this guy. Promise.

Marie 'Shakti' Gawain "Creative Visualisation"
Your standard 101 new age positive thinking book. A classic. Cheap, short, to the point. Where Joseph J. Murphy, Norman Vincent Peale, Rhonda Byrne and all the rest go on babbling for endless pages (and sometimes many books) Shakti Gawain cuts straight to the chase. A must for every bookshelf. Read this one and you'll know all there is to know about positive thinking and you'll get a neat stomachable dose of uplifting new age along with it. As with seneca I always go back to Gawain when in trouble and looking for advice on how to condition myself for the next trials. This little book has been with me for 25 years and it never grows old.

Tim Ferriss - "The four hour workweek"
This guy deserves some credit, if only for tipping me of on stoicism and seneca. The four hour workweek is basically a modern lifestyle design guide, a kind of 'Stoicism implementation plan'. I ran into this one a few years ago (when it was in the lists) and had quite a few usefull inspirations from it. His blog can be worth a read aswell, he also does (i)regular web chatshows with Kevin Rose of digg.com fame. Very funny and entertaining. Currently the latest article on his blog is on another stoic of ancient Rome, Cato.

Chris Guillebeau "The Art of Non-Conformity"
Guillebeau is sort of the less boastfull Tim Ferriss. If Ferris is to much haming and dick-waving for your taste, do at least try this guy. The book has similarities with FHWW, but also its own approach to the subject matter. Also very inspiring and well worth the money and time.

Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson "Rework"
Result oriented working in the brave new digital age. If there is a book that will lift your spirits and change your habits and workstyle for the better right away, in your current line of work, then it is this one. A must read for you and your co-workers once your done with it. The HR Chief of a large software corporation I once worked for came in one day carrying a stack of copies of "Rework" and just put them into the companies library. Didn't even bother registrating them with codes and tags first. Very smart move.

Anything from Alan Watts
The western zen buddhist. He changed me from a kid scared of life and death into a human being by introducing me to non-confessional, free zen buddhism. His explainations and lectures are top notch, very comforting and carry lots of weight. I can't tell if you'll still be as inspired once you've read Seneca, but I ran

It's not to late to learn new stuff and reorientate you profession or change your career.

In may I asked which degree I should go for for a late career boost (article seems to be archived without comments, which is a shame ... maybe you'll have more luck searching for it). The choice was CS or Business Informatics. I was leaning towards business informatics.

There was a bit of negativity in the responses (to late, missed chance, give up, blah-di-blah) but the overwelming majority was very supportive and gave very good advice. I was scared shitless of math (and still am) but started my college run for a BI Bachelor this winter-semester 10 days ago. Also due to the support and advice given here on slashdot. (Thanks again, folks!)

I'm working at the side as a developer, am on the move 13 hrs a day with something of a 70hr week, but it feels great. I'm as focused and determined as I ever was in my life and I'm being pay so low for my senior devwork at my job that no one can push me around. ... In a strange way, it's acutally quite liberating.

I don't know if I will score the solidly paying consultant job I'm now aiming for in 6-7 years (my experience will definitely give me an edge, that's for sure), but I definitely will feel better for myself once I've gotten that degree.

Going (back?) to college might not be an option for you - after all, I'm in Germany and tuition is basically zero, aside from 150€ in fees each semester, but it's never to late to change your life for the better.

Downsize/downshift, move you investments into certs for technologies or products that are currently hip or do you own private low-budget sabatical. Or even change your life entirely! I strongly recommend this guy, his four hour workweek is a fun read and at least good for some inspiration, even if you're not into that sort of literature.

Whatever needs to be done, don't be scared and make your move. I was scared too, but now that I've made my decision I feel very good and even score some envy from my buddies.

My 2 cents.

1. By the time you're learning a foreign language, your brain is significantly different than it was when you were learning your native language. You physically can not learn the same way as you did when you were an infant.

Perhaps not, but I play a lot of strategy games and I notice that if I just play the games I will grok it 100x faster than if I sit down and learn the theory behind it (the rules books as they used to have). A lot of school is like learning chess by reading the rule book. The rule book is great, once you know the game, just to clear up a few areas and misunderstandings, as well as new ideas but it shouldn't be the approach from the beginning.

The nice thing about children's books is that they assume very little and like many games, the essentials can be derived from the context. And it's usually the essential that's needs emphasis, not the special cases (by that point, a foreigner will understand what you mean, and for most 2nd language learners, that's enough progress).

Unlike games though, children's books aren't 2 way (and neither is most classroom time). I heard one teacher using Khan Academy so kids get the lectures at home, and then using her class time to go over practice problems. That's a step closer to what I'm thinking of but still not there.

I thought this blog entry was interesting enough:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/11/07/how-to-learn-but-not-master-any-language-in-1-hour-plus-a-favor/

I just wish computers and programs would come along that would allow much greater playing and feedback loop than is currently possible with just 1 teacher vs many students in the classroom.

2. Learning a language beyond the mechanics requires real immersion, the type that you can't get in an hour a day. Want to really learn a second language? Go live somewhere where everyone you interact with only speaks that language, and you'll learn it. Pretending that you can replace that experience with an hour of unsupervised language use every day is just that, pretending.

I mostly agree with you. I'm bilingual, and my father learned English the same way from nothing. But a lot of Europeans know English pretty well despite never having set foot in America. Most aren't fluent, but they're at the "good enough" level above.

Maybe it's that english is the lingua franca and just exported overseas, Idk, or maybe their classes are different. I know many places start in 4th/5th grade as well.

You are correct. I do travel about 80K miles/year on Singapore Air though, so when I miss a flight, it is very painless getting rebooked on the next one even though I'm not ticketed all the way through.

Speaking of Star Alliance/OneWorld, if you ever get the chance, book an around-the-world ticket.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/10/08/round-the-world-plane-ticket/

I paid $5K/ticket for both myself and my wife, and we traveled around the world *cheap* compared to buying individual flights (used OneWorld, got 16 segments across the globe).

You are on the highway headed strait to Nervous Breakdown City if you think that keeping track of all those devices and methods you've mentioned is going to be possible throughout your life. I recommend you take a timeout and get into Zen Buddism or Stoicism. A very good example of the basic principles of those applied to modern life you can find here, an article on low information diet by author Tim Ferriss.

I've been into computers and modern information technology since 24 years and have come back to reducing the material goods I own and the stuff I worry about to the amount that I had when I started studying. 99% of the people I meet in everyday life continously bite off more than they can chew, raking away upwards of 11 hours per day with studies, work, yoga, jogging, carousing with buddies every odd night, gym, mingling with dozens of art and media projects at a time, networking, family and tending to their S.O., etc. ... and you my friend sound a bit like one of the lot.

Mind you, I do keep notes of everyday things - in one single book that I carry around with me. All goes in there, aside from some notes I take on my blackberry and less than a handfull of textfiles on Google Apps and my PC when I haven't got the book on me. I spread my to-do lists that way too, which keeps the items on them below 20 at all times - a strategy I highly recommend to *anyone*, as long 2-do lists don't get done. I've had that blank spiralbind artscetch notebook for 6 years now and I expect it to fill up within the next two years or so. Then all get a new one. Makes maybe a dozen notebooks for my entire life, which actually is a reasonable amount if you ask me. They also serve as a sort of diary, which I've come to like.

Digital Life wise I use google apps for a few online notes and Git to version and sync my Workfiles, Music and Fotos across my MacMini and my Ubuntu Laptop. I do have a delicious account, but if I'm honest, I hardly revisit more than 5 Links of more than 200 any more than twice a year - and even then it's only out of curiosity about what was so important back then. I too have upwards of 60 software projekts that I started throughout the last decade and have never finished, most of which I archived away last year. I still have 10 or so lying around in my 'Work' folder and i've dragged around more webdomains than I will ever be able to handle ever since the first dot-com bubble. I expect to get two or three of my personal projects on the road within the next 2 years if I'm lucky, and by now I'm smart enough to know that they'll only gain critical mass if I stick with those from there on out. ... Or do you think the Kernel or the Blender 3D Toolkit would've come this far if Linus Torwalds or Ton Roosendahl would be switching projects every odd month and caring about every fart on their facebook network?

No Sir. There is a lot of productivity advice out there and a bucket load of Lifehacks you can use to trick your life and yourself into getting things done, but the first move is to reduce the things you want to handle to that handfull that you really care about to see them through even if things get rough or you lose your job or switch careers. If you don't do that, no amount of tooling, portable computers and scheduling strategies will be able to get you on track because you yourself are the bottleneck.

My 2 cents.

This topic's been on my mind, so I have a longish / digressive comment. Read at your own risk!

My constraints aren't exactly the same, but I'm lazy, find it easy to sleep too much, eat WAY too much, and exercise too little -- and would like to lose some weight. (5'10" or just over, around 190 lbs.) I realize that something has to give. My arbitrary goal is to shed 10 lbs over the next month; some people say that's a lot, but I'm not aiming for 10 lbs *every* month, and I'm not concerned about the number except that it would be a cool one to reach. I won't tear my hear out if that's not the final result, etc; I want to just get healthier in my intake / outgo of calories, to fit my pants better, etc.

My approach, which is neither well-tested yet, nor especially scientific (but seems like it should work), is basically to do simple things that I can't give up on the basis of complication (like counting foods to the molecule, keeping super-careful exercise notes, etc).

This is not exact, but I'm essentially trying to estimate what I *would* eat (unconstrained, as in "how I've eaten for 34 years") and select approximately half of that much, for any given meal / day. I know I'll go over sometimes (which is fine, if the overall reduction is still substantial), and I hope to sometimes go under, in order to get used to not being completely sated.

For instance, here's my lunch today: https://slashdot.org/~timothy/journal/232517

It's not starving myself, I realize (and try to tell myself), but it's also about a third (maybe a quarter) of what I would ordinarily eat. Getting used to a smaller amount is tough; since I'm only a few days in to the current project of eating better / smarter, I hope it gets a bit easier.

I am pondering the Tim Ferris advice to eat whatever I want one day a week (probably Sunday); perhaps that's just seductive nonsense; I suspect that coarse analogies about the body ratcheting down to account for lower calorie intake are ... well, coarse. There might be something to it, but it seems like a case where the model may eclipse that which is being modeled, leading to the physiological equivalent of spurious precision in math. However, I can also see it as a psychological aid -- if I eat my old norm once a week, then it means I've still cut down substantially.

wrt exercise: I have been jogging / walking (more walking than jogging, though yesterday was nearly equal between the two) in an attempt to be less of a slug, get the aerobic exercise going, etc. I find running boring, and have never in my life experienced the "runner's high," don't expect to. However, it's still satisfying to know that I've completed a few miles without dying. I use the time partly to listen to interesting podcasts, too. Uptempo Bach, or Clash, or New Order ... I don't listen to music as general background sounds very much, but with exercise, it seems to help distract from pain, and provides some rhythm. Maybe should try some old-time work songs, incl. sea shanties :) *Pure* running, with no distractions, though? I am amazed that anyone does it for pleasure, even though I admire the athleticism and determination of my friends who run long distances.

In truth, I'm still evaluating running as exercise; the satisfaction from it is pretty good, esp. since my starting point is so low that running 1/4 mile feels like I've accomplished something great, even though that's precisely diddly/squat to people who actually run. However, besides being pretty boring, it's not great on the joints, and not as calorie intensive as, say, swimming. Good things, though, are that a) the equipment is right (and here in Seattle, it's decent weather for it most of the year) and b) I like the fact that tracks are measured in nice little increments, so I can fairly say "OK

Yes, you can. Bruce Schneier did it. So did author Tim Ferriss. So did journalist Jim Harper.