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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

#121

Post by vosper »

et-al wrote: 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…

On the flip side, having just spent a year traveling to 18 countries - including most of SE Asia - the internet has made travel a hell of a lot easier (I've done it pre-internet, too). My wife is vegetarian, so rather than wandering around trying to find something she can eat in Vietnam (one of the least veggie-friendly countries we went to) we can do a little research on TripAdvisor and know where we're going for lunch and dinner. Likewise, with a few hours working on the laptop we can book several weeks worth of flights and accommodations, and not have to worry about that anymore. I think you end up with a lot more free time because you can take care of the necessities so easily.

Why take a tuk-tuk to a waterfall that might not be there (that sounds like what you'd call a scam, to me) when you can take a tuk-tuk to a waterfall that definitely is there?

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

#122

Post by thejosh »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #110
losteric wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed, discover weekly is great, I have a couple of different tastes in music depending on what I'm doing, and each discover weekly/daily is separated into genre. It's great.

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

#123

Post by tomsthumb »

SolarNet wrote: post #88
losteric wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is why I subscribe to internet radio instead. It's cheaper and has better discovery features. For example di.fm

I find music by choose a word from the dictionary and listening to the top dozen results, or for searching for a song i really like then listening to the dozen or so results that come after it.

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

#124

Post by [deleted] »

et-al wrote: 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…

[deleted]

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

#125

Post by brightball »

et-al wrote: 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…

My wife and I bought an old RV last year and that's exactly what we've done. We plan a general route and make sure we have stops lined up...and just explore. Do whatever looks interesting along the way.

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

#126

Post by galfarragem »

vosper wrote: post #121
et-al wrote: 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…

On the flip side, having just spent a year traveling to 18 countries - including most of SE Asia - the internet has made travel a hell of a lot easier (I've done it pre-internet, too). My wife is vegetarian, so rather than wandering around trying to find something she can eat in Vietnam (one of the least veggie-friendly countries we went to) we can do a little research on TripAdvisor and know where we're going for lu…

Because "life begins at the end of your comfort zone." -- Neale Walsch

Some people travel for sightseeing, others for personal growth.

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

#127

Post by johnfn »

et-al wrote: 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…

I agree with the substance of your comment, but these types of comments would be much more effective if you dropped the superior air that you treat the people you're conversing with.

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

#128

Post by moneytalks »

et-al wrote: 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 article strikes as very Anglo-centric and the worst of first world problems with a solution that is both condescending and out-of-touch.

His problem was the monotony of life and a feeling of being basically too secure and too happy.

With all the homeless shelters, soup kitchens and other places where people have tremendous need within a short Uber ride, it just strikes me as odd to devote so much time to building first world toy to take you far away.

Want to live and feel like your life has a purpose? Volunteer or pick a random needy person to send on the trip Europe. Give them a camera and hope they bring you back some pictures.

I know this is an unpopular perspective, but when your job and life isolate you from the suffering and need (and risk and danger) around the corner, then the answer shouldn't "build me an app so the world can dance for me. Dance, world, dance! I'm boooorrredd."

Hell, build an app that actually helps more than one person. The irony of ironies was acknowledging his white privilege while being clueless to the larger Western-world-privilege and too-much-disposable-income-privilege.

Bahh. By all means travel. By all means make apps to entertain yourself. But do we need an national news agency covering the guy who got bored with life so found a way to make it work harder to please him? And what the hell, NPR, really? The guy who burns tons of CO2 cause he got bored -- no environmental impact assessment?

And don't get me wrong, the guy sounds like a good guy. I'm sure he's friendly, sociable and all the good things.

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

#129

Post by coldtea »

nazgul17 wrote: post #119
coldtea wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's part of it. Another part is that, even if everything you see is novel everyday, if you are 1 year old, a year, e.g. getting to 2 years old is 100% increase in your life experiences. Getting…

I get the math, but the reasoning feels unjustified: why should we assume our brains work that way? It would make sense if we remembered the same amount of stuff every year, but reality is, you have fewer memories of the past. I am on the "routine makes every day the same and days just pass unnoticed" camp.

>I get the math, but the reasoning feels unjustified: why should we assume our brains work that way?

Well, the math doesn't change if we make other assumptions. The relative amount of time that passes us by is less in our 30s and 50s than in our 1s and 10s.

Routine by itself ain't the answer as kids also have routines (school is whole big routine, as is living day-in/out with your parents, going to lessons, playing with friends, etc.), but their days don't "pass unnoticed", and a year of e.g. middle school seems to last forever when you are young.

>It would make sense if we remembered the same amount of stuff every year, but reality is, you have fewer memories of the past.

The concept I described is not related to memories per se, but to new experiences -- which is subtly different (and not totally unlike your explanation).

You know what a party is, and it's not that exciting the nth time you go to one, because you've seen 50 other parties in your lifetime, whereas the first times you went to parties (or had your first drink, or visited another country etc) were more impressive. That's regardless of if you actually remember all or any particular of those 50 other parties in any great detail -- it's enough that you remember the experience of having been to parties many times already.

Now, the problem with merely saying "routine makes every day the same and days just pass unnoticed" is that it's a limited version of the above. What it lacks is seeing that even if you added random stuff to your days, you'd still have seen and done most important stuff in the past. You can't re-drink your first drink, learn about pop music and films for the first time, re-give your first kiss, go to your first party etc. You'll have to get even more random (and add stuff that is either too crazy or has less impact and importance) to beat those experiences later on.

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

#130

Post by WalterSear »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #110
losteric wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We call it Spotify week. First week, suggestions are amazing. Second week they are great. From then on, they are terrible.
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