blah_why_not

Sounds "Authoritarian".

One of the largest & most powerful companies in the world (exceeding the East India Trading Company at the height of their power-- in regards to the block of Alphabet executives)

is not going to abuse their power to push their executives' (and their executives-- Looking at you, Blackrock, JaneStreet, Vanguard)

and expect me to tolerate it, let alone consume it.

Keep your authoritarian bull to yourself. We're not all sheep around here.

Indeed, very true. I am fortunate to have been able to teach myself web development from cafes & libraries while sleeping in a tent (cumulatively, for about 1.5 years).

Now in my mid-30's I have about $60k to my name. It'll whittle down to $50k in about 6 months ($2k/mo burn rate for rent + expenses). I have faith that I will land consulting clients or a full time job by then, and can continue saving up to $100k - $150k to buy with as much cash as possible (I hate debt).

I am looking into buying cheap property, simply to camp on it & store my stuff in a shipping container.

Looking forward to falling asleep to the sounds of bugs & nature, and waking up to birds visiting my tent and chirping at me. And at long last, I won't get kicked off private/public property.

bucket + [your choice of: sawdust, leaves, dirt, sand, etc.] --> bury it every few days, or chuck it in a dumpster

You can buy enough Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries to power an A/C unit for about $5k.

Throw together a control system for solar panels, plus the solar panels to feed the batteries for under $1k

And toss a canvas tent over it. Looking at $7-10k total, for your entire comfy off grid tent living system. Potentially includes a decent size Yurt at that price.

Some system designs are available here: https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/

Kudos to Will Prowse for freely sharing his content.

I appreciate the comment. It's humorous and brings some realism to the argument.

"“personalized learning time.” ... which fed them a “playlist” of content where they learned specific skills."

Farse 1: You don't learn skills by being fed content. You learn by learning, then applying (such as by testing or building a project)-- rinse and repeat.

Farse 2: You need to have an impetus to learn: a reason why. An intrinsic motivating factor, such as a particular goal.

"they can probably afford to cut some fat."

They have TONS of fat to trim

I used to work there. I was appalled by how many people in the company spent company time in slack chats about controversial political issues (as if they would persuade someone with divergent values).

While I was working, I saw various slack channels filled with a constant stream of political chats. I thought "What the hell is everyone else doing while I have my head down and I am working?!"

I resigned after 3-4 months. I found it to be "clown world" inside Unity.

language penpal sites.

It's not an app... but rather learning with others.

Advanced-level language learners may want to transition into actual real live conversations-- it's so you can spontaneously learn new concepts, expressions, and vocabulary.

I used to use a good penpal-language learning website called MyHappyPlanet. It was back around 2007-2010-ish, and the site no longer exists.

But looks like there are alternatives here:

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/foreign-language-penpal/