Nice to see that it’s being celebrated in Romania as well. Here in the Netherlands, we are a day earlier.

As for your question: I do not know whether your parents give you stuff at St. Nick’s day is a good definition of them seeing you as a child. As long as they are alive and in good mental condition, they will probably see you as their child. Even with my long, gray beard, my parents still see me as their child. In a way, I consider that wholesome.

Semi-offtopic: enjoy being a kid while you can, regardless of your age. :-)

My career found me to be honest. My university study was a dead end (AI) and I needed money. My then-girlfriend had japplied for two jobs, one entry-level programming job and another one, not programming related. She had just been hired by the other company when the programming company contacted her for a second talk. Of course she declined, but they asked whether she knew anybody with a bit of programming experience who was looking for a job. The talk went well and within days I had an actual income.

As much as I dislike them, their music has evolved. Their 80s stuff sounds different than their 90s stuff. However, after ‘Achung baby’, they have not made any interesting music whatsoever. To be honest, ‘Achtung baby’ did not stand the test of time for me either.

You are absolutely right. I meant Linkin Park. d’Oh!

Oh yes. They have certainly lost their touch.

Also Rammstein or Til Lindemann’s solo work (which is just Rammstein with less effort).

Another one is Limp Bizkit. The music has not evolved, even with the new singer.

Bring in the downvotes.

Aside from dehumanization, grifting and the environment, I read somewhere that AI and Crypto companies will trigger the next financial crisis within a year. It is expected to be larger than the 1929 one. With the formerly most powerful nation of the planet being led by a demented baboon who is played by a bunch of tech millionaires, I find this very concerning.

As others have stated: lose the 60 hour work week. That was insane when you were young and crazier as you get older. In 20 years the only people who remember your effort for your boss, are your children because you were never there for them.

An advice from my father in law that always stayed with me: if you can, try to find a job far enough to enable you to flip the mental switch from employee to house father and back, but nearby enough to not waste time commuting. He used to need 30 minutes for that. I need a 15 minute bicycle ride.

Also: long walks, running in the weekends and a few beers every night. Not proud of the latter.

Eight year olds, dude!

I speak Dutch and English fluently, I can have a conversation in French and German and I can read Italian, Spanish and the Nordic languages.

Being able to make myself understood in a large part of the world is a comforting thought, but does not much for my self-esteem. I would think that it should be the default to be taught foreign languages at school. If you are in a non-English (and possibly Spanish) speaking country and you refuse to learn other langugages, then I would consider you to be a bigoted idiot. I am not talking learning disabilities here, I am talking explicit unwillingness.

Where are you from OP? Right-left is a spectrum. There is nuance. Where I live, polarization is a problem, due to some far right fuckers holding our politics hostage. Any nuance is immediately derided as being ‘far left’.

There’s contexts for the left-right sperctrum, like social, economic or cultural. To throw in a few crude generalizations: social leftists are for a more equal society for the rich and poor alike with equal chances in terms of education, affordable housing and medical care. Cultural leftists are more open to foreign influences like migrants and niche cultural stuff and economic leftists lean toward a more honest economic structure with more government regulation on big corporations.

So it is perfectly possible to be culturally / socially left-ish, but economic right-ish.

I am not a game developer, but I imagine that getting loads of online flak on projects that are not quite finished yet can be very demoralizeng.

I do develop other stuff and do not do sneak peeks anymore.

It is a good read. I love his perspective. May he beat many blerchs in years to come.

I visited Aarhus a few years ago. Would recommend.

Wasn’t that supposed to happen back in 2012?

Lagavulin. Any alcoholic drink in general, bit a good whisk(e)y and particularly a more um… aromatic variant is a weakness for me.

If I was able to retire early at any age, I’d probably do some odd jobs or perhaps I’d volunteer for stuff. I need something to do.

Not really, but I make a point of being offline when doing certain activities like evening walks or long distance runs. Also, if I have some free time at home (which is rare), I put my phone in another room and just do offline stuff.

Will Smith and his one facial expression.

Housing crisis. In our country, it’s being framed as an immigrant problem, but it is both a political choice and political inaction that is the culprit.

Also, big inflation…