101–110 of 214 posts
In some cases this can be helpful, ie pretending to follow the Champions League to get along with the fellows in the office, but following this as a blueprint for life can hurt much more than it helps with tons of unintended consequences(over spending, loss of your true identity, being a liar.....)
I will agree the value of a put-together appearance is valid, in many contexts. and i wouldn't take from that at all. However ... it's ridiculous to use this to defend a $2,500 handbag purchase. the purchase was inadvisable at best. marshall's, target, JCP etc have a massive business strategy around making sophisticated looks available on a low budget. so there are plenty of ways to accomplish the objective of self r…
1) Everyone should have at least one outfit that is super classy. A cheap solution is a Salvation Army or Goodwill store in a nice part of town.
2) People who live on the dole and buy things they clearly don't need or deserve. Rocking an iPhone 5 while using your food stamp debit card at the grocery store to buy junk food is the typical "Stupid" poor person move most people hate to see. There's no justification for that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Silicon Valley is still somewhat an exception to the rule about appearances. In what other area do the rich people dress exactly like the poorest? Remember the hubbub when Zuckerberg wore a hoodie to a meeting regarding the Facebook IPO. That might be laughed off in Silicon Valley but I know many people in other parts of the country that would view it as insulting for someone to show up to a business meeting wearing…
What's insulting here is that Zuck is trying to keep the "hoodie-guy" image despite his unimaginable wealth. You can't have the cake and eat it.
I will agree the value of a put-together appearance is valid, in many contexts. and i wouldn't take from that at all. However ... it's ridiculous to use this to defend a $2,500 handbag purchase. the purchase was inadvisable at best. marshall's, target, JCP etc have a massive business strategy around making sophisticated looks available on a low budget. so there are plenty of ways to accomplish the objective of self r…
There are countless movies having 2 well-dressed people side-by-side where the "in" person looks at the new person in the group and says "Get rid of that cheap suit." or similar.
The problem is that while you and me know that you can get away with the cheaper stuff as long as it's well-pressed, clean, etc., not everybody is sure of that.
He also had 750watt tube amps that were approximately 3x3 cubes on his floor and surprisingly for being valve amps of that magnitude didn't create the heat of the sun. He had a dedicated power circuit installed by the utility company so that he could separately condition and wire everything to use only the best 10,000 dollar cables available.
While this guy was certainly well off, his home probably more than doubled in value when he took that stereo inside the front door. He was retired and didnt need a large home, and this was an older 2500-3000 sq ft home in Dallas.(which is still somewhat reasonable per sq ft, compared to say silicon valley) This guy was SOO proud of his stereo, that he has listening parties every tuesday night to show it off. Sure it sounded good, but as I said, even if my last name was Gates, Buffett or Zuckerberg I dont think that would ever be on my radar as a purchase decision. In many ways I think this persons stereo and an indigent person buying a 2500 dollar purse are the same impulse. Both seem horribly frivolous, but who are we to judge really??
When debating social justice issues, it is wise to bear in mind that deconstructing one particular thesis in a vacuum offers little more than intellectual showboating; much of the social justice narrative describes small and seemingly-trivial barriers cumulatively forming concrete obstacles. For a better metaphor, Marilyn Frye writes in The Politics of Reality : "Cages. Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely a…
i didn't understand what poverty was like until i started smoking weed all the time, neglected most aspects of my life and got heavily into debt. i still wan't poor, but i started to understand why people without money, who are constantly hounded by debt collectors, tend to focus so much on the short term.
>We could, as my grandfather would say, talk like white folks. We loaned that privilege out to folks a lot. I think that speaking well, or being articulate, is not a privilege but an ability. It is not an ability that everyone has, but it is an ability that almost anyone can acquire with practice. This is true both in verbal and digital communication. If you are not articulate, you will be at a disadvantage throughou…
[*] I imagine because I don't speak it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on the average (good lord I can't believe I'm posting this on hacker news ). You're talking about the mean, there's also the median which would fit the definition pretty well.
In math, most of the time, mean and average are used to mean the same thing. I will concede that yes, I did mean the mean average, or more properly, if you wish to be pedantic - the arithmetic mean average, instead of just "average".
> I will concede that yes, I did mean the mean average
Which is fine, but you were complaining that someone else was wrong even though one obvious interpretation of their statement was correct.
I will agree the value of a put-together appearance is valid, in many contexts. and i wouldn't take from that at all. However ... it's ridiculous to use this to defend a $2,500 handbag purchase. the purchase was inadvisable at best. marshall's, target, JCP etc have a massive business strategy around making sophisticated looks available on a low budget. so there are plenty of ways to accomplish the objective of self r…
Certainly true. There are very nice designer handbags for a fraction. Even if you think the $300-500 brands aren't good enough (Coach, Marc, Kate Spade, etc), there are even more in the $800-1200 range (Louis Vuitton, for one..) I know this because I have a wife with tastes for such things :)
*Disclaimer: Am a founder of Lollipuff.
I read the whole article and do not agree. Here in Silicon Valley the importance of appearances has become marginal. Yes, you have to be clean, presentable, but that's it. After that you need the skills, talent, knowledge and aptitude to perform your job. And you need that everyday, to keep your job, in this hyper-competitive environment. I was a poor starving immigrant student at one point. I did fine without even m…
Disagree entirely. Silicon Valley is just as superficial as the rest of them, except the points your'e being judged from are a somewhat different set from mainstream society. In the Valley tech scene (and all tech scenes everywhere) the respect we afford people is heavily influenced by a lot of cultural markers. Access to newfangled gadgetry, neighborhoods we live in, even freaking toe shoes . Don't have the spare ti…