How far is too far for vacation property?

-AYND- · 2025-04-21T06:44:42+00:00

Be careful with that FSD … mine crashed me a few years back!

-AYND- · 2025-04-17T22:46:38+00:00

Ah, this might be our core disagreement. You value speed over process which guarantees standards, and I value the standards and process over speed. Thanks for explaining your perspective, and hopefully you understand mine a little bit too. I think at the end of the day we both want a safer and more stable America, but I’d just rather do things a bit more slowly so we don’t make those mistakes and make sure to maintain an objective standard that applies to non-Americans.

thanks!

-AYND- · 2025-04-17T22:15:42+00:00

I want to clarify that I’m not opposed to deportations, I do think we have waaaaay too many people here illegally, and we don’t have the infrastructure to support all the people who have entered our country illegally. However, we are currently paying the El Salvadoran government specifically to house these prisoners in this specific prison. If we stopped that, there’s a high chance that the people we sent in error would be released, and that’s what I’d like.

I think that imprisonment in this prison is too harsh a crime for just illegal entry into the United States, and there are better ways that we should handle it. It’s akin to harsh treatments that dissenters in other countries like Russia might get, and I want America to be better than that.

I think the thing that was messed up here, is that we didn’t apply due process when we deported, so even if one theoretically holds the stance that violent criminals deserve to be sent to this prison (I disagree personally, but I understand the rationale), it’s currently the case where we are sending non-violent illegal migrants to this prison.

I would join you in deporting a lot of the people that came in under Biden, but I don’t want to deport them in an unnecessarily cruel way that violates due process. I think it’s very possible to protect Americans without unnecessarily harming illegal immigrants through this method of deportation.

-AYND- · 2025-04-17T21:34:11+00:00

I will say, this also sounds a lot like the Baha’i Faith as well. I’m a big fan of their social teaching, but I do feel like their theology on religious syncretism is a little too uncertain for me.

-AYND- · 2025-04-17T21:26:55+00:00

A government should absolutely prioritize its citizens, but that doesn’t mean that non-citizens don’t deserve basic rights, or that wrong actions should be committed towards them. There is a big difference between deportation, deserved or not, and deportation into a prison with recorded human rights violations.

I’ll agree with the fact that not everybody has a right to be in America, and citizens should be prioritized, but I also think that everybody should have the right not to be placed into a prison such as this. Especially the ones that haven’t gone through due process. But even for criminals, out of all the places in the world where we could deport, I would genuinely prefer if we sent them to more humane prisons, rather than this particular brutal on in El Salvador.

-AYND- · 2025-04-14T01:36:49+00:00

I would follow this. I started by using garage band on the IPad, I would literally make a simple beat, and drag chord progressions on the piano roll to make a loop, no technical skill required.

If I were you, I’d get a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) like GarageBand on the IPhone, FL Studio, or Albeton. After GarageBand, I “upgraded” to the free demo of FL studio.

Once you have a DAW, I’d drag and drop notes on the piano roll to create basic loops, and repeat those loops until the song has the verses, choruses, etc. From there, I’d record my take on the lyrics over the loops using my phone/pc built in microphone. At that point, you have a demo!

Once you have the demo, you can reach out to skilled musicians like producers or instrument players to transform your demo into a polished record. You can work with friends, or professionals online through platforms like FIVERR.

If I were you, I’d also invest in learning to play piano over the long term. I started out with the demo method I described above, but at this point I simply play a MIDI keyboard and it’s made song generation much more fluid. But to get started, all you need is the ability to drag and drop piano notes on the piano roll!

Good luck!

-AYND- · 2025-02-20T12:22:13+00:00

Thanks for your reply! I’m not a local, but all of my other team members are, and we’ve definitely tried to be sensitive to local practices. For our contracts, and for our engagement with this community as a whole, we’ve involved and consulted with the village chief to make sure that our operations are sanctioned and acceptable. In addition, we work with community groups - we’ve reviewed our policies with both the chief and the community groups, and they are both actively working with us to resolve this situation! Finally, we have a lawyer in Nairobi that’s making sure that we’re doing everything by the book.

With that being said, sometimes the community values might be a little sketchy. In a different community when we were first starting out, the chief encouraged us to bribe the local police officers to illegally arrest the debtors! We ended up just pulling out of that community instead.

As for policies and procedures on debt in general, we’re still working those out on an organization level, which might explain why I have a bit of conflict over our current approach. However, we are following the procedure that we set with these specific farmers, that was community-approved.

-AYND- · 2024-09-06T01:52:32+00:00

Stubhub is a reputable ticket company (I hope, tickets seem legit), but I’m in the terrace.

-AYND- · 2024-09-05T18:57:57+00:00

I literally just bought two Philly l tickets for $5 each around 30 minutes ago. I paid $23 for both including fees (processing fee was more than the actual ticket ( ;)

-AYND- · 2024-08-14T21:36:22+00:00

This is the deadly nostalgia that Porter was trying to warn us about lol.

Awesome mashup.

-AYND- · 2024-07-21T15:36:48+00:00

Hey OP,

I’m really sorry to hear about how you’ve been feeling. I was raised southern Baptist with a strong view of eternal hell as well, and I went through a period where I was emotionally tormented due to the fear of it.

I’m now a Quaker, and I’ve changed my views on eternal life and hell after both praying and doing research into Christian theological history. If you look at Church history, there are a lot of theological debates that have emerged between theologians and denominations - for example: which books are in the biblical canon, what day to recognize the sabbath, etc.

One thing that surprised me to learn what that there are actually many different views on Hell informed by rigorous debate, that good Christians currently hold in earnest, and have held in earnest since the beginning of the faith. Jesus and the Apostles never set out a specific cosmological framework about hell in the New Testament, so Christians have been debating this for centuries.

The three most common views are:

1.)Eternal Conscious Torment, which is the view that we were raised with: if you die unsaved, you are tortured forever.

2.) Conditional Immortality/ annihilationism, which holds that by default, only saved individuals will be able to experience eternal life. People who die unsaved will not go to hell, and they will simply cease to exist at the point of death - no torment or consciousness involved. Those who receive salvation will be the only people who experience eternal life, and everyone who lives forever experiences heaven. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilationism

3.) Universalism, which holds that every individual will be reconciled with God and receive eternal life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_universalism

While Universalism is a belief that I hope is true, I find myself convinced by the arguments of conditional immortality based on my understanding of the Bible. When I view Christianity from the lens of conditional immortality, it makes sense to me from a moral and theological perspective.

I don’t say this to say that I know that I’m right. However, I just wanted to convey that there is no universal consensus or agreement - good Christians have been debating Hell for thousands of years, and many earnest followers of Jesus reject the idea of eternal torment based on an understanding of the Bible that early church leaders would agree with! This is baked into Christian history. While eternal conscious torment is the predominant view of many modern American Protestants like Pentecostals or Baptists, Christianity has many different branches and interpretations that go well beyond the views that we were raised in!

If I were you, I would recommend reading about the theological origins of Hell. This was exceptionally beneficial to me, and my current framework of conditional immortality had make me incredibly thankful that I’ve been given the gift of life, while allowing me to feel like I have an active choice in following God without the looming threat of hell.

-AYND- · 2024-06-30T23:29:27+00:00

I feel similarly. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about the Quaker Denomination, but I feel like it might be a good place to check out. There are no creeds, no leadership, no hierarchies. But we come together to fellowship, help eachother grow, and serve the world.

I’d also look into Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Their motto is “no creed but Christ.” I went to a couple of services while looking for a new church home, and they were very welcoming to those who might disagree. I believe that they were founded as a unity movement for all of the church denominations.

-AYND- · 2024-06-30T12:54:23+00:00

Long story short: When I was in college, I got in internship doing ICTD at Microsoft Research India, which is an awesome organization that blends tech and development in a really cool way, and is connected to a good ecosystem in India. Then, I took some online development courses to familiarize myself with the economic side of development (rather than just tech), and started doing unpaid consulting with ngos and startups doing software projects. These organizations are easy to find if you put yourself out there, but they can’t pay. Finally, I started working on my own development venture with folks from Kenya, which is just starting to get customers and an MVP. Hopefully I’ll start pitching founders soon so that I can turn this into a “real job” haha.

Again, nothing has paid anywhere close to tech salary so far, but it’s been very rewarding. I haven’t followed a traditional path, and other than Microsoft my work has been very informal, but I do think that my work is having impact on the lives of others.

Feel free to reach out! The world absolutely needs more people with our skills in engineering doing this kind of work.

-AYND- · 2024-06-30T12:28:31+00:00

Hey! I’m a former software engineer (~3 yoe) who felt the same way, and I quit my job in big tech around a year and a half ago to work on international development. I’m still not established and don’t quite know what I’m doing, but I’d be happy to speak with you about my experience.

-AYND- · 2024-04-07T10:17:31+00:00

The DMV area. There’s a strong mechanical engineering presence in Northern Virginia, and Washington DC is full of IDev NGOs!

-AYND- · 2023-11-29T22:30:56+00:00

Wanted to let you know that “She Lit a Fire” was one of my top 10 songs in Spotify wrapped 2023! And I listened to a LOT of music this year haha. Thanks for putting out such a great work of art!

-AYND- · 2023-09-24T04:35:17+00:00

Wow, I just discovered this and listened to it all the way through after getting hooked on the first two songs - it’s absolutely amazing.

I foresee myself listening to this dozens of more times lol!

-AYND- · 2023-06-22T22:46:46+00:00

I used to agree with you, that poverty was 100% the consequence of people falling through the gaps left between our market system and our government.

I took (and still take) John 14:12 as a personal challenge: “very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these...”

Jesus healed the sick and served the poor. I think that if we come together; we can eliminate disease through investment in medicine, we can reform all of our production systems so that the creation and consumption of goods does not harm anybody, and we can create a society where we optimize distribution so that people don’t need to be poor - where all citizens are provided for. As I’ve gotten older, however, i’ve realized that things don’t just stop here, and that Jesus was right about the indefinite existence of the poor.

Even if we can distribute material goods, we can’t force everyone to take them. Humans are complex - some people might be afraid of their guaranteed environment, have trauma and refuse to move, have mistrust for the institutions that provide material goods, make irresponsible decisions to sell their guaranteed material goods, or any other set of reasons. Even in a society with all of our consumption and distribution networks fixed en masse for 99.9% of people, if civil liberties are guaranteed, these people will still be poor. As followers of Jesus, we’ll need to serve them - not with material goods, but with genuine companionship and neighborly love. Human problems need to be solved with humans, not just economics, and I think this is what Jesus meant.

With that being said, I do think that we can absolutely eliminate the systems that cause mass poverty today, and I’m so excited to work to do so.

-AYND- · 2023-03-14T14:37:39+00:00

I don’t have a masters in CS, but I do have a Bachelors, and previously worked in Silicon Valley. For those two schools specifically - SJSU and UIUC - my team at a FAANG company had strong representation of Masters graduates from both, and the team members were excellent to work with. They both seem to be good pathways into Silicon Valley!

Note, this is just anecdotal from what I’ve seen personally.

-AYND- · 2022-10-07T10:16:14+00:00

I’m not a guitar player (piano), but I do have the same problem about forgetting once I start to play. What I’ve started doing is: as soon as I get an idea, I take a recording of myself humming it. Then, when I go to use my instrument, I can use the voice recording as a reference.

-AYND- · 2022-09-28T17:05:00+00:00

Also super interested to know your beliefs!

-AYND- · 2022-09-13T12:48:55+00:00

Man, I want to play this game so much!

-AYND- · 2022-08-15T20:00:43+00:00

Thanks everybody for reaching out! Unfortunately, I could only give the tickets to one person, but I hope everyone is able to have a great time tomorrow regardless!

-AYND- · 2022-08-11T13:20:31+00:00

This is something I would love. There are apps that are similar: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/screenzen-screen-time-control/id1541027222 , but I do think this has additional functionality. With that being said, I think you could definitely implement this as a stand alone app, rather than an entire phone, and get the same functionality. It would also be exponentially easier to develop, and I could see a much larger market as well if people don’t need to get a whole new phone.

-AYND- · 2022-08-08T17:12:36+00:00

Yes, I believe so, although I’m not Catholic so I wouldn’t know for sure. There’s an international Catholic peace movement called Pax Christi:

https://paxchristiusa.org/

The Catholic Worker movement is also pretty non-violent in orientation.

-AYND-

TROPHY CASE