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

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101–110 of 187 posts

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

#101
post #79
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wanted to read an article about someone escaping a bubble, but closed the article the first time it challenged your bubble?

Many are becoming fatigued with the unrelenting virtue signalling that's going on these days.

[deleted]

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

#102
Reminds me of undergrad class registration, when everything satisfying a general education requirement would fill up and the server would crash the instant it started.

I didn't choose to take History and Religion of Ancient Israel, but it was the class I got the most out of.

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

#103
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Speaking as a parent: children are excellent life-randomizers by default.

The hard part is letting them be random instead of forcing them into Adult World schedules.

"Johnny, stop having a blast in the beach with the new friends you just made, or their parents might invite us for dinner or something! We need to drag you to the Museum of Boring Things right now so we can maximize the value-add of this vacation!"

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

#104
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app took you too a daycare? Where people leave their children? Did you actually enter it, or just move on? I'd feel pretty uncomfortable with a random stranger and his friends showing up to my kid's daycare. I hope the apps have gotten better location filtering in place since 2015.

> I'd feel pretty uncomfortable with a random stranger and his friends showing up to my kid's daycare. I hope the apps have gotten better location filtering in place since 2015. Wouldn't this be the onus of the daycare? To allow/disallow strangers? If the app points them to a high-security military installation, they're not going to get in. Other strangers not using the app can still show up at the daycare...

And presumably as soon as you see it's a day care you can say "neat" and move on to the next location.

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

#106
This "I'm bored with my life. I shall appify it and travel to random countries" stuff is a whole level beyond First World Problems. It is something like First World Problems of the Jet Set. Yet, this article doesn't cast him as a member of the Jet Set.

Modern Life has gone to some rather weird places that were simply inconceivable until incredibly recently.

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

#107
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just stay alert, in some parts of the world it can end tragically: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/07/british-woman-...

What does accidentally making a wrong turn into the bad part of town and getting carjacked have to do with the original article?

Obviously the concern of the grandparent is that if you do like the article says and you blindly follow some randomized scripts to where they tell you to go, you can easily end up "into the bad part of town".

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

#108
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app took you too a daycare? Where people leave their children? Did you actually enter it, or just move on? I'd feel pretty uncomfortable with a random stranger and his friends showing up to my kid's daycare. I hope the apps have gotten better location filtering in place since 2015.

Just imagine if it took them to a park or candy store where there were also children around. Terrifying!

[deleted]

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

#109
post #71

To a certain extent, this how we used to travel back in the day. You hung out in a hostel, had conversations with other travelers (instead of thumbing through Instagram), and let the randomness of other people and life, not apps, dictate your itinerary. You walk down a street, "oh hey that looks interesting", and wander down a quiet alley that leads to cute cafe, or jump in the back of a tuk-tuk headed to a waterfall…

The 'old way' is exactly how I traveled Vietnam. My and my friends didn't have any plans at all, all we had booked was our first night's accommodation in Saigon. The rest we planned from talking to people at hostels, we ended up with a big group of about a dozen of us by the time we got to Hanoi.

In my opinion, it's the only way to travel.

I have never understood planning in advance your entire holiday down to the hour. I guess it's more important if you're American and only get 2 weeks of holiday a year.

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

#110
post #71

To a certain extent, this how we used to travel back in the day. You hung out in a hostel, had conversations with other travelers (instead of thumbing through Instagram), and let the randomness of other people and life, not apps, dictate your itinerary. You walk down a street, "oh hey that looks interesting", and wander down a quiet alley that leads to cute cafe, or jump in the back of a tuk-tuk headed to a waterfall…

Spot on, apps have optimized our lives... to local maxima. Apps can't guide us to peak happiness because the best is disconnected from the rest. Even when it comes to something as "simple" as music, I've never found a "favorite" band through something like Spotify. Good music, sure, but the "bar raisers" alway comes from randomness - radio, odd bar show, personal recommendation, cabbie's CD player, etc.

I've found a lot of great new artists through Spotify's discover weekly.
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