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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

#161

Post by coldtea »

Kiro wrote: post #153
coldtea wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Well, you obviously don't jump into a volcano just because the app tells you to. Unless you're going full Dice Man with it.

No, but you obviously also don't necessarily know if some streets it asks you to go to are in bad areas, unless you know about the city/country it has you visit in a lot of detail.

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

#162

Post by chris_wot »

somberi wrote: post #156
galfarragem wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "life begins at the end of your comfort zone." -- Neale Walsch Some people travel for sightseeing, others for personal growth.

In the same vein - "Life begins on the other side of despair" -Jean-Paul Sartre

I reckon life begins at birth.

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

#163

Post by chris_wot »

maehwasu wrote: post #138
moneytalks wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Life is way too short to spend in soup kitchens worrying about how much and what form of privilege you may have.

Wow. I hope this is sarcasm. I'm sure that those who need soup kitchens don't share your point of view.

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

#164

Post by 3131s »

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…

> Why take a tuk-tuk to a waterfall that might not be there?

Because if it is there, it will be pristine and untouched save for the few local people that know about it. And meeting the locals might be more interesting than meeting the other tourists at the crowded waterfall on Trip Advisor.

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

#165

Post by chris_wot »

bonniemuffin wrote: post #144
joezydeco wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is one of the top reasons I'm interested in having kids. I think I need my life randomized a bit more, but "the app that sends me to random facebook events" won't come see me for Christmas when I'm old.

You may live to regret that. Most of the random things my kids do are cute and funny. There are also times when they are decidedly not cute and funny, and you spend hours scrubbing the walls getting rid of Mr Bee stamps and removing those your 7 year old stamped to the ceiling (how the heck did he reach the ceiling?!?)

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

#166

Post by ensiferum »

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…

Yes indeed, this is the "app" equivalent of backpacking.

I did 3 backpacking trips (total around 27 months) back when smartphones weren't prevalent and it was (and has always been) mostly about trying out weird shit (such as fruit picking) going to places and meeting (loads) of people.

Sadly even that is probably changed now and I bet that the modern hostels are places were people stay in isolation and stare at their phones instead of socializing with each other ;-(

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

#167

Post by zer0th »

I've noticed that problem in my life as well. As a result, I decided to consume media a bit more randomly. My harddrive has a folder called "todo". This folder contains subfolders labeled "watch", "listen" (which includes "music" and "podcasts"), "read" and (a fun one) "pilates". The folder "watch" includes mostly movies and documentaries, sourced from my public service broadcaster's VOD service (which I scan weekly for interesting stuff) or youtube. The "music" subfolder of "listen" contains first and foremost dj mixes I've collected from eclectic rss feeds. "read" has all kinds of PDFs and HTML pages (mostly scientific papers, long-winded articles and e-books). The "pilates"-folder contains videos of individual exercises (I find it more exciting to not always do the exact same routine)

On top of that I've written a script which prompts me to choose a category (i.e. one of the folders delineated above). It then randomly opens a file from the respective directory. When I am done using a file the script asks me whether I'd like to archive it, keep it (in case I am not done with it yet) or delete it.

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

#168

Post by TeMPOraL »

to_bpr wrote: post #90
DanBC wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> virtue signalling A phrase only ever used by people who wish to send their own special kind of virtue signal.

calling out virtue signalling isn't really signalling in itself though, beyond an expression of disapproval obviously.

It's signal turtles all the way down.

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

#170

Post by janfoeh »

chris_wot wrote: post #162
somberi wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same vein - "Life begins on the other side of despair" -Jean-Paul Sartre

I reckon life begins at birth.

You're all wrong. Live begins when the kids have the left the house and the dog's dead.
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