> Since everyone can vote, I want the whole populace to be informed, even poor people.

So then only rich people get to decide what they make available for free to poor people.

I don't think this is adding anything new to the way the world already works.

That's how it works now. This way regular people have some say instead of no say.

I'm a bit surprised about the fact that the somewhat related magnetic stirrer [1] never made it in to mainstream kitchens. I used these a lot during my PhD, and can imagine them being handy in the kitchen. I suppose one difference is that in the kitchen, liquids tend to be more viscous.

As I write this I realise that popping a small inedible magnetic bean in to food while cooking is a bit of a safety hazard, so that is probably why we don't see this at home. Although, you could have larger stirring beans, or other shapes, which wouldn't be a choking hazard. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stirrer

Viscosity is the big problem in the kitchen. I am no 5 star chef by any means but pretty much everything I have mixed in a beater or blender is thick enough to require a sturdy mechanical link to the drive motor. The firm attachment also means you're not fishing out stirring bars from completely opaque liquids. Might be able to use a magnet but that one more thing to clean.

Could a vortex mixer work for cooking-style mixes? I'm thinking everything from powders (throw in all your flour and spices, mix) through to larger grains (breadcrumbs, seeds), through to thick fluids (dense soup with starch or potato) through to something as heavy as dough. Could it plausibly work? What sort of substances are mixed in a lab?

Fish them out with a ferrous metal rod. Do not serve until the stirrer is back where it should be.

Use the excellent eBird and Merlin apps instead.

Yup, just get rid of the apps you don't need, and you remove the problems with smart phones.

This reminds me of a video I watch recently of a comfortably off guy who decided to try and do a long-distance cycle with just £100.

He could afford not to rely on others, but instead he let people buy him food, give him a bed, etc.

This didn't sit well with me. If you can pay your own way, but choose to instead let others pay for you, you're just sponging off people.

> If you can pay your own way, but choose to instead let others pay for you, you're just sponging off people.

I was particularly perturbed at the mention of someone emptying their bank account to help this guy, who has more money than the person emptying their account. I'm no ethics expert, but there is an idea that the unbounded acceptance of generosity becomes a form of exploitation, which I agree with.

I thought the eaay was creepy but that section just gave me the heebie-jeebies. "Sympathy vampire" is the term that came to my mind unbidden. It reads like an essay by someone aromantic describing love purely in terms of going to restaurants to eat exquisite food, and the mutual benefits of filing taxes jointly.

indeed the author sounds like an alien visiting a human zoo

I say it depends how he communicated it. If the other persons assumed he did not have money at all (and he was not clear about it) it is close to fraud - otherwise it is an awesome exercise in humbleness and expanding ones mind about the illusion of money. Not being dependent on it.

I used to hitchhike with a very low budget, but liked my independence and feel not comfortable to be dependant on other people, if there was no one in time, I took a bus. (If there was one)

But buddies I travelled with also took the no money approach serious (despite also having a bank account somewhere). Partly ideological, partly spiritual motivations. Not being dependant on money. It is freeing.

> But buddies I travelled with took the no money approach serious (despite also having a bank account somewhere). Partly ideological, partly spiritual motivations. Not being dependant on money. It is freeing.

I knew a ridiculous rich guy, who said the parents: “I do not want money from you, I will manage alone” He went to another city (where I met him) and he always bragged about how “liberating” it was, and how grown up he was, and he knew what is like to be poor, because he was poor… (1)

In my opinion he was full of shit and full of himself. It remind me about the film Inside Man, the opening scene features mastermind Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) in a prison cell, he say something like “being in a cell is not being in prison”. Is absolutely not the same being poor, in contrast to having money and not using it as part of a kind of game.

(1) let me give me more context: I saw him telling other people, who were actually poor and were struggling to eat, and giving lessons of life to them, explaining how being poor is an “opportunity“. It was a miracle he conserved all teeth that day.

"Is absolutely not the same being poor, in contrast to having money and not using it as part of a kind of game."

It is definitely not the same if there is a safety net you always can call and go back to. A true poor person does not have that. But if you have done the livestyle and know that you can get by without money, you do loose some fear of loosing money. That is indeed a liberating feeling and did helped me grow. But I also did not go around bragging how liberated I am, so I cannot judge on the person you met.

> But if you have done the livestyle and know that you can get by without money, you do loose some fear of loosing money.

I disagree. I’ve seen people that used to say “I was unemployed, I don’t fear unemployment”… until they lost the job.

To me is like saying “I will go to see the bear behind bars in the zoo, so that when I see one in the wild I do not fear.”

The people I know that actually were poor fear poverty the most. That guy never ever had such a fear. He even never ever studied or worked, because liked living from others, until he went back to the parents.

I mean, it depends of course. Especially now that I have children, who depend on me. I do know, even with kids you can hitchhike, do work exchange, etc. but it is a whole different story than doing it on my own, so I would never claim I transcended above existential fears regarding money. But I do believe my base attitude is way more relaxed to always find a way somehow and that helps me a lot to not get a heart attack considering all the stress I do have to face.

About others I don't know I won't judge, but surely quite some like living in a illusion, no doubt about it.

How do you "work exchange" doctor and medicine instantly if ur child gets really sick, and have 0$ and no insurance or free healthcare?

having money, gives you more choises with each amount, the liberty.

Yeah, insurance is a good point.

Poverty isn't surviving on beans and bread, or skipping a meal. It isn't sharing a tiny one bed apartment with 4 others. It's the fear of starvation. The fear of not being able to feed your family, or keep them warm in the cold.

I think if he is willing to be generous in other times and places as well, it can be a good learning experience.

I know this is also how Jesus lives in the Gospels, and has his disciples do so at times as well.

Of course he paid his way by healing the sick and raising the dead!

And telling really good stories.

in contrast, Jesus also could turn water into wine and he has the most rich parents in a human history (can manifest anhthing) so was he taking advance of people like the writer?

You should read the comment you are replying to where I address this.

I did some bike touring for a few days at a time, and lived out of monthly Airbnbs for years. I was helped out several times, but my objective was to only accept when I was in a pinch. It's when you're relying on other people as a routine that it flips some circuit and I question it (the difference between a friend staying over and moving in, Airbnb and Couchsurfing). So the daily hitchhiking, even though he likely needed to save money, got to me a bit more than the other stories.

An interesting question would be - have I helped people more well-off than me? and how did I think about it?

I think there is no reason for him to write this article for free, or any of his articles, but I am glad he did us the kindness.

(I did like amish hackers https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ )

This is part of the issue I have with the original article.

When these kinds of "unique" people are rare, that's ... sorta okay. Once you get too many of them, it's no longer interesting and becomes an active hazard.

I have a further problem because it seems like the author has no plans for the reverse when it is supposed to be his turn to be on the giving side rather than the receiving.

I think it's a balance. In some cases, the act of giving means much more to the giver than to the receiver, especially when they want to be a part of something larger than themselves.

Right, he's promoting living in a more helpful, less isolated world.

My wife and kids always make fun of me for the goofy dad-joke-level interactions* I will create with strangers (that far more often then not elicits laughs from the person with whom I interact).

When they tease me about it, I ask them if they'd rather live in a world of complete atomization, free of any human interaction.

I know I would not!

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEGohj0IkQo. (They call me "Bonjour" sometimes lol)

Then he needs to be willing to live both sides of the equation.

You don't even need a macro lens. I used a kit zoom lens and some lens spacers, bought used for £60.

(I did my post-doc on slime mould decision-making)

Yes, you can use spacers. That is probably a good way to get started. I believe you can even use kits to put a standard lens on 'back to font'. I prefer a dedicated macro lens personally. Lenses like the Laowa 100mm for Nikon are fairly decent and not _that_ expensive (note it is manual focus - in macro you generally move the camera rather than changing the lens focus).

Just to echo what you said:

The "reversing ring" trick does work, (mounting a lens backwards) but the ergonomics are shit. I bought one to play with and tossed it in a drawer after only using it once. A real macro lens is so much better.

> Funnily enough, everything ran at about the same speed as it does now.

I've often thought about how certain properties of humans impacts the tech we make and accept.

For instance, to a human, something happening in a couple of seconds is quick, and in several seconds is fairly quick. Hence, build steps etc tend to creep up to those sorts of numbers.

I really wish their was a setting to tune feed "volatility". This also drive me crazy.

Sometimes I'll be marking something as "not interested", but that time with it spent auto-playing is enough for my feed to turn in to the stuff I just said I wasn't interested in.

There is probably something you are naturally better at, but it might not be something that is very visible, like juggling, or playing guitar. It might be something like being patient with people.

Also, do you have things that you are really interested in, or enjoy doing? I think sometimes the basis for what people call "talent", is really just that some people happen to really like a thing, and then spend a lot of time doing it. )There is obviously also the flip side of this, which is people often prefer doing things they are naturally good at.)

As a final thing, if you really don't have any particular talents, who cares? You are no less valuable a human because of this.

This is really cool - thanks for posting!