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Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

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Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#31
post #29
post #10

Max should meet Luke Rhinehart -- The Dice Man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man

This book is at times both brilliant and hilarious. I definitely recommend that anyone curious at least pick it up and read the first few chapters. As a bonus for those with a soft spot for 90's pop punk, it was also the inspiration for the Millencollin song 'Random I Am'.

also "Six Different Ways" by The Cure

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#32

>And Max acknowledges this privilege. Closed article.

I understand the overwhelming influx of SJW stuff, but this is actually quite appropriate here. As a fellow white guy, I know it's a lot easier for me to walk up to stranger and have them trust me than many minorities would experience.

it's not just trust. a minority person (by which i mean to include all and only the less powerful in society, which has a heavy overlap with racial and ethnic minorities) can seem completely non-threatening, but still won't receive the kind of treatment he gets because the other party cannot muster the mental energe to do it as they finds it hard to imagine such treatment "leading to" anything.

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#33
post #23

i've been doing it for almost four years now, and it's amazing to see how wrong and how frequently wrong your preconceptions and expectations can be. you don't need an app to do that though. a spreadsheet is perfect for that purpose (and telling Google Assistant to 'flip a coin' or 'give me a random number between 1 and 20') and gives unlimited flexibility and less reliance on developer to implement features you want…

Everyone has their own way of randomizing. You like spreadsheets, that guy likes creating an app for that. Big deal? To each his own.

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#34
post #23

i've been doing it for almost four years now, and it's amazing to see how wrong and how frequently wrong your preconceptions and expectations can be. you don't need an app to do that though. a spreadsheet is perfect for that purpose (and telling Google Assistant to 'flip a coin' or 'give me a random number between 1 and 20') and gives unlimited flexibility and less reliance on developer to implement features you want…

But in your case you still have to pre-select a range of options right? How do you avoid missing the 'unknown unknowns' that a separate service might help provide?

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#35

This is an awesome idea. I've spent a lot of energy making apps to automate my life and management my schedule. Now I'm tempted to also have it throw in something random now and again. I couldn't go to these extremes (I couldn't pick up and move to another country for instance) but it would be cool to say do things less extreme... like pick a random place for dinner or watch this random Netflix movie.

Random dinner location is certainly worth a try, for dipping a toe in the shallow end, so to speak: http://www.restaurantgenerator.com

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#36
post #16

This is great. I think that the illusion of time speeding up as we get older is due to getting into a routine where we do the same thing every day, and the brain begins compressing memories as our everyday experiences become less novel. Using a "randomizer lite" program to shake things up might be a good start to breaking the routine.

protip: do this before having children, as it will be virtually impossible after.

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#37
Great idea, but I don't need an app for that. My fiance takes on this role - we've been living in another country for almost two years because of one idea she had. I'm picking the next place once both of us get bored with this one. Suggestions, as always, welcome. Has to be in the EU though.

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#38

Ah, but what was his source of randomness? Perhaps he didn't have enough entropy and now he's got to do the last few years all over again ;) I think I naturally do a bit of that myself: whenever I have some empty time, I fill it with something "random", only instead of choosing randomly I often choose the cheapest option. For example, I once booked a flight to Iran departing hours after I bought the ticket, simply be…

> I once booked a flight to Iran departing hours after I bought the ticket, simply because it was the cheapest option for an interesting place to fly (under $180 round-trip.)

...

...

I'm trying to decide which part of this sentence is the least surprising part. It's definitely not the part where you could fly to Iran and back for a grand total of $180? I don't think it's the part where you figured out that this was a thing you could do, and then decided to do it with only hours notice.

There has to be a follow-up question, but I'm still too baffled by this sentence to think of it. Bravo? I would not have the fortitude to try this, as a white American of European descent. Even knowing some Arabic (if you know any Farsi, that would obviously take some of the surprise out for me...)

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#39
post #5

Well he won't meet me. I live in the No-Facebook Bubble. Though sometimes the parties I help organise are listed on the Facebook by third parties. So there's that slim chance...

How do you know when someone isn't on Facebook? ;)

Is there a site to sign up on so people can find you and find out that you are not on facebook? That would be great! Maybe facebook could integrate those results into there people search. "John Smith, Anytown, USA isn't on facebook. Try emailing him".

Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life

#40
This is the plot of the indie movie called "Buggaboo": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206610/

The main character, who is an Indian engineer living in Silicon Valley, says to his friends : "What if you could randomize your life?". That's all I'll say. It's a good movie. I'm not going to spoil it for you guys.

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