Which is an entirely fair use case, and the total market value of this use case is between 1B and 10B USD and will be decreasing over time as these nations develop banking systems. That is not what was being sold though, what was being sold was that the future was every transaction, from real estate to video game virtual currency, would be on chain, that luxury cars and yachts and art would lose value to luxury 1 of 1 NFT pfps and that code is law and what matters is what the chain says. It turns out that law is law, nfts are not any of those things, and I will be transacting in fiat for pretty much all of my purchase.
yes, valuations have gotten ahead of reality. that seems like it happens a lot with technology products and companies. the hope is that the law will eventually catch up, tech improves, market matures, and more people will find cryptocurrencies a decent substitute for fiat. if these things don't happen, crypto might die out, and haters will be right. but with most innovation, there needs to be optimism and some "true believers" or visionaries who will work and build stuff that pushes forward the industry. there seem to be plenty in web3. let's see what happens!
Try buying bullion online in US in a way where payment clears in under an hour without crypto. The main other option is debit/credit and bullion vendors usually charge much higher premiums for those methods.
The fact that goldbugs charge each other premiums for not paying in gold (or what they perceive to be digital gold) is not to my estimation a strong argument for cryptocurrencies.
Perhaps not. The advantage is not likely philosophical here though as large more cold and calculated bullion companies like APMEX offer this discount versus credit/debit.
I think a real upside of crypto is in dealing with entities that you view as very low risk (APMEX and other trusted bullion vendors) who view you (random guy buying) as potentially high risk. Crypto allows you to provide irreversible payment, which seriously lowers the risk to the vendor that you can somehow claw the money back (as you may be able to with a chargeback, fraud protection, even possibly the bank somehow reverse the ACH transaction etc).
When you send crypto to the bullion vendor they certainly have risk the value of the crypto itself can go down, but basically zero risk you'll able to claw it back. I think this plays a big part in making it the cheapest quick clearing way to pay for online bullion. Credit/debit buyers are paying premiums that account for the risk associated with reversible nature of most of the fast clearing options.
Ideally there'd be a basically instantaneous wire transfer that is impossible to claw back for any reason if you wanted the lowest premium.
It was the first major digital currency play, but it was not blockchain-based and thus technically not a cryptocurrency. It was, however, a useful sneak preview of most everything we've seen play out since in the crypto space: money laundering, hacks, criminal prosecutions etc.
Meh, it depends, but you're generally right. If you waste your 20s on inane technical achievement and ladder climbing, then you haven't spent time figuring out how to form healthy personal connections, or on the extreme end, you might be a total asshole and nobody's told you because they couldn't care less to burden themselves with someone who only cares about their job. If I didn't have a few different relationship experiences, I wouldn't be in a healthy one now. If you get it right the first time, you're very lucky. So you better start now, otherwise the prospect of starting a family might literally be out of reach within 5 to 10 years, though the marriage thing, if you want that, is always possible.
At the moment, I'm a bit younger than 32, but I almost consider relentless tech grinding to represent a silly sort of immaturity, or at least a bit confusing. As in "You seriously haven't found something else to do with the little spare time you have?", not that I'd say that.
Historically, misinformation spread due to lack of reliable communications technology (news took a while to travel around the world). Now, misplaced trust in media and abuse of technology spread misinformation.
I was just thinking about this the other day, in the context of ancient texts referring to things being written down. You come across phrases in ancient accounts like "it is written ....", and in a world where almost all information and news came from word of mouth and rumors, something being written down made it inherently more credible.
Today everything is written down, much if not most of the information we receive is via written documents, especially online. There is a level of bias and intentional misleading that is often hard to believe. Hearing something from a well informed friend seems far more credible than a news story now, since you can't depend on journalists to research and relate the available information without intentionally withholding, minimizing, or amplifying to create a narrative that is in line with what they want people to believe.
I'm not screaming 'fake news' here. An example would be an NPR story that claimed a certain person, previously employed in a professional field, was 'unable to find work' for 6 years. Clearly the person had struggled with substance abuse, but that was never mentioned, and the narrative was 'In This Economy' despite the fact that if you show up drunk to job interviews that is an essential fact in a human interest story about a person being unable to find work. The journalist and/or their editors wanted to write a story about how hard it is to find a job 'in this economy', so they hid facts that didn't reinforce that narrative.
Well, "it is written" was also a statement about the credibility due to an inherent bias towards the educated. Yes, you can't necessarily trust a journalist...but you certainly can't trust a friend's opinion either; they aren't even expected to be well informed.
Good in theory, but implementation was poor the one time I tried it. The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks), and with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep. Personal safety and luggage theft was a concern as well. I canceled my return trip and booked a low cost flight instead. Maybe the extra funding will improve train conditions and process.
> The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks)
You get what you pay for. There was probably an option of a 4-person compartment (2 double bunks), or perhaps even a first-class option with a two-person compartment. FWIW, I personally have never had a problem sleeping even in the 6-person cars; people are generally respectful of each other.
> with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep.
Where was this with passport checks with border crossings? Were you somewhere in Eastern Europe? There is plenty of room for overnight trains within Schengen where passports are not generally checked at border crossings.
Croatia to Germany is only a little less annoying with Slovenia’s ascent into Schengen.
But before that, it was stop for Croatian exit controls, deal with Slovenian EU immigration, then Slovenian/EU customs, then Schengen once entering Austria.
A lot of interruption for an overnight train when travelling solo.
Then the equipment problems where I had to board a coach train and transfer to a bus before getting on the sleeper some hours later.
With the migration crisis, spot checks have been introduced at a few select crossings, but that still leaves plenty of possible train routes within Schengen where the authorities are not concerned about checking for migrants.
If you choose a 6 person sleeper car, you can't really expect much. It's a bit like a hostel - you choose it because it's cheap, not because you expect to get proper rest.
To me, the 140EUR would be very much worth a private room, bathroom, and shower. It's travel + hotel, or some decent approximation. If you booked other forms of travel and an overnight hotel, you'd surely spend as much money and more time.
Not sure if it exists still but in 2012 I took a round trip Berlin Paris in a 4 bunk bed room around xmas. It was about 200 euros per person. About 13 hours in train, not the best sleep in such room.
> What trains have you found that offer this? As an American unaccustomed to such trains, I'd be super interested to try them.
Just FYI, we have those in America on Amtrak long-distance trains; the Bedroom and Bedroom Suite (on both Viewliners and Superliners) have these features, as does the Accessible Bedroom on Viewliners. Roomettes don't have the shower (or the bathroom, on Superliners.)
The Late, Slow Limited (Lake Shore Limited). Cool route through the rust belt. The shitty thing about the two East coast-Chicago routes is they dropped dining car service. Until recently sleeping car passengers got an actual on board full service restaurant prepared meal included in the ticket. They dropped this due to costs. Now there is just the cafe car and these airplane style meals included with sleeping car tickets.. not the same at all.
That is too bad. My experience was a few years back.
I’m built like a gorilla and airplane seats are often pretty tortuous for me.
The train experience is pretty cool in many ways, despite with the problems that exist. Even in NYC, I can show up 5m before the train leaves and be good to go, while airports have all sorts of bullshit to deal with. It’s a shame that the circumstances of the mid 20th century prevented us from having good, integrated transportation for passengers.
The Trump 2019 budget cut over $600 million from Amtrack's budget, and Amtrack was already not in great financial shape.
If there's a change in leadership and some changes in US mentality regarding trains vs cars/planes, there might be hope for Amtrack in the future. If not, then I would expect more services being eliminated until there's nothing left.
I travelled in a such a cabin in 2012 from Denmark to, I believe, Munich. Very relaxing, and with a complimentary bottle of sekt from the conductor.
Sleeper cars are great—I have fond memories of travelling up the coast of Norway in 1990, as well as travelling in the seventies in Sweden with my father.
You do realize that Amtrak long distance routes offer such accommodations?
I mean yeah, the trains themselves are slow as shit and might not go where you want, but superliners and viewliners have some interesting accommodations.
Train pricing is utterly insane, I have tried the last few years to find an affordable alternative to flying/driving by searching for long-distance or overnight Amtrak options (for Southwest area), but have consistently failed to find tickets less than $500, regardless of time of year.
Sleeper trains to Scandinavia were a thing not so long ago. When German DB scrapped their CityNightLine system around year 2014, Copenhagen was being served with a sleeper train that had carriages to Basel, Amsterdam and Prague. The carriages were shunted between trains somewhere in Germany. It only takes few hours to reach Copenhagen from most inhabitated parts in Sweden - actually Copenhagen's airport is the main airport for many leisure travellers in Sweden. Nevertheless, a decade or two earlier there was a similar sleeper service that reached Stockholm.
I'm finding it hard to believe that sleeper services are not economically feasible since Europeans think of them quite fondly but of course, if they were feasible they would not have lost to discount airlines and even buses. Maybe sleeper trains could be operated more efficiently or marketed and priced more aggressively? In addition, it's currently a lot easier to buy a plane ticket than to plan a long railway journey and figure out which companies will sell the tickets.
Most CNL trains were still well-filled when they were suddenly cancelled. It was just that DB didn't want to invest in them anymore (the carriages were 30-40 years old and needed to be replaced), they wanted people to take fancy high-speed trains instead. Also, some countries levied high track access charges. Blaming only cheap airfares is not entirely fair. ÖBB took over some CNL routes and marketed them a lot better, and has made profits on them.
> Sleeper trains to Scandinavia were a thing not so long ago.
There's still a Stockholm-Malmö-Berlin sleeper, though only in the summer. There's also a year-round Stockholm-Malmö sleeper, and in Malmö you just take a 20-minute ride by Öresund train to hop over to Copenhagen.
Why not ask professors at your university for opportunities on campus to do research in the fields you're interested in? This would be infinitely better than only doing MOOCs on your own (which you can also do on the side) because you are 1) receiving guidance from professors and/or grad students, 2) possibly getting paid, 3) have something concrete to put on your resume.
The thing with doing MOOCs on your own is it seems easy to get lazy and end up wasting a lot of time with nothing to show on your resume.
Appreciate your idea! I could do that but I don't want to be stuck in the academic environment any longer than needed anymore.
And agreed about the MOOCs, while they are valuable, there might be even more valuable things you could be doing or ways in which you could be developing your skills.
+1 for Slow cooker. Just cooked a 5 pound organic free range whole chicken ($13) which should last at least 5 meals. Washed chicken, added some fresh ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, water. Total prep time about 15 minutes. Slow-cooked for 3 hours on high.
5-minute freshly steamed leafy greens (kale, spinach, collards, mustard greens, etc.). No need to chop, just rip off a handful, wash, throw in a small pot, put on lid, turn on low heat for 3 min. Ready to eat.
Canned sardines for cheap, instant, healthy protein.
Capellini pasta (very thin) cooks in 2 min as opposed to thicker pastas which might take 10 min.
Reliable money transfer in nations with under-developed banking systems is a clear use case for crypto.