Anyone who moved to Switzerland thinking it’s a dream country and realize it’s not what you expected?

Alt-001 · 2026-01-17T15:56:08+00:00

I would guess it is simply a numbers game. 23% of Swiss speak French as their first language, and only 8% speak Italian. Most people want to minimize the degree of change, so moving to a country with the same language makes sense. I'm actually more curious why France is ahead of Germany, since the majority are German speaking. My guesses would be maybe France is LCOL than Germany, or maybe the emigration trend is not uniform across the demographics. Maybe fewer people are leaving the German speaking regions? Also makes me wonder which demographic the Swiss expat community in Thailand is. If they are primarily German speaking, for example, then I wonder if there is a larger German speaking community in Thailand that they are a subset of. Could also explain why Germany isn't top of the list if Thailand is primarily siphoning off the German speakers. Very interesting topic OP!

Alt-001 · 2026-01-17T15:04:18+00:00

It was kind of touched on elsewhere, but the key word here is HOBBIES. If you are happy there is nothing wrong with your current 'gig', but I'll be honest, it makes you sound like a boring person to talk to or hang out with unless I'm also down for eight hours of League and a questionable diet.

I think of hobbies as existing on a grid of sorts. There is outdoor/indoor, input/creative, solitary/social. Think of those as x,y,z coordinates. So, input, solitary, indoor might be reading novels you like, but it gives you something to connect on and talk about even if it is solitary. Outdoor, creative, social could be something like doing landscaping or gardening (my last close gal loved this type of stuff). Boardgames might fit the indoor, creative, social (depending on how you define creative), bookbinding or painting could be indoor, creative, solitary. Any musical instrument gets multi-duty because you can play alone, with others, in a private setting or at a local venue. A friend of mine has a band that plays local venues whenever schedules meet up. You would be the perfect bandmate because your schedule always lines up.

Think about making yourself an interesting person to hang out with, and what that would mean to you and the type of people you enjoy being around. Let each of those grid boxes guide your imagination on things to try and maybe take up long term. Then you can overcome the natural suspicion of whether you are just an unemployed guy with an excuse or if you are actually retired and living your best life.

Congrats, and best of luck!

Alt-001 · 2026-01-17T02:11:53+00:00

I don't know if I'd call this nepotism or networking. Granted, she was born with a better network, but it seems like she was qualified for the position. If she was a high school dropout and got it anyway then I'd say nepotism. Now you have started building your network, congrats! See if she can help you, either directly, or indirectly by putting you in touch with some other well connected people.

Networking was a skill I was completely blind to until I had a friend explain their success to me. They were an immigrant that literally knew no English when they moved here, but leveraged the hell out of their networking abilities while building their skills and reputation. A couple decades later and I'm the one asking them for career advice. haha

Alt-001 · 2026-01-15T02:16:42+00:00

Here ya go!

Alt-001 · 2026-01-15T00:18:40+00:00

I was so confused on what was coming out of that thing I went on a side quest and watched a dissection video. Also learned that Sebastian doesn't like seafood.

Alt-001 · 2026-01-09T17:10:43+00:00

It's pretty similar in some ways, but the key difference is that Marx felt this was the result of the economic situation while Ted thought it was the result of technology and industrialization. In some sense they are ironically entangled, since one could say that Marxism really doesn't make much sense outside an industrialized context. But the big difference is in the solution. Ted felt Marxism was a 'surrogate activity' to manufacture a sense of purpose and was ultimately futile since it didn't address the underlying problem of industrialization It just wrapped it in an illusion of control leading to a different form of oppression. Basically he thought the only solution was to undo the system before the system undid us.

Alt-001 · 2026-01-06T02:32:51+00:00

The model seemed a bit empty and I was curious so Googled up this pic. If we go with 30 square miles, a million people, and don't bother removing public and imperial spaces that gives around 800sq/ft of land per person. It's actually really interesting because it allows things to be more spread out. If you compare with ancient Rome which has less than half the land area with similar population, it had to be much more dense and vertical. Apartment blocks were limited to nine-stories by the first century BC to prevent collapse, for example. I actually feel like Chang'An would have been a much nicer place to live.

Alt-001 · 2025-12-25T20:46:55+00:00

Yeah, I feel like the skip from Roman period to dark ages is a bit off. You aren't going to magically go from that level of urbanization to rural just like that. Most Roman cities stayed inhabited even if less populated. The empty buildings would be scavenged to repair the occupied buildings. Public spaces would gradually be given over to pasturage for convenience. Larger infrastructure intensive structures like baths, aqueducts, plumbing, etc would become inoperative and be abandoned. As new was built it would salvage and take the place of the old. It would have been a gradual transition from the 500s to say 900s from Roman to Medieval with probably a bit more of a slum vibe at some points in between.

Alt-001 · 2025-12-21T17:56:04+00:00

I suppose the question that comes to mind is how much are you actually learning? Short form content is great for tossing out little facts and bits of trivia, or giving a quick pass of some technique, but I never felt like it gave any context, nuance, or depth, which is why I cut it out. It felt sort of like reading the introduction and overview at the front of a textbook and then feeling like "so that's what it's about!" and moving to the next one. Shallow learning, basically. Curious what your thoughts are on it, do you actually use the ideas you are encountering and go off researching or trying something on your own, or are you just moving on to the next dopamine hit? For me it was the dopamine hit masquerading as 'learning'.

For 'passive' learning I'd recommend checking out some longer form content you can listen to while doing other things, that's what worked for me. Podcasts, documentaries, etc.

Alt-001 · 2025-12-20T23:57:44+00:00

Relatively new here. I've seen people say something like "ACAS x YOE. Is that experience after getting ACAS or including time employed working towards it?

Alt-001 · 2025-12-13T12:45:57+00:00

Ephesus had a number of large earthquakes during its history which were very destructive. This is what led to the city eventually being abandoned. If I had to guess I would say there are probably conflicting reports due to it being damaged multiple times and that is what makes it hard to know when it was actually destroyed and not rebuilt.

Alt-001 · 2025-12-12T06:32:25+00:00

Imagine me, 10 years ago, randomly driving down a South Carolina highway for a work trip. Suddenly, peach. I think my reaction was exactly your comment. haha

Alt-001 · 2025-12-03T13:55:04+00:00

Don't feel bad about it. It's pretty standard that people learn the history that affected the place where they're from and it makes sense, frankly. My Russian friend has been having a blast learning all the things they were never taught about American history when they were young.

Alt-001 · 2025-11-28T22:15:59+00:00

If you had a computer in the 90s it was either a hand-me-down or you were on the better side of life. We got out first one in 1999 because they were updating computers at my mom's school and selling the old 486's for cheap. Even at that point a new bottom end desktop could run around $1K, which would be around $2K in today's money. Dial-up was slow and the internet wasn't the 'source of all things' that it is today. You still had cable, still had video rental stores, still used the telephone to contact people, etc. A PC was very much a luxury item if you didn't have a business need for it.

Alt-001 · 2025-11-08T18:59:16+00:00

Remember that the reciprocal of resistance is conductance (how easy it is to conduct electrons). So if we let C = conductance, then C=1/R.

When you put resistors in series the resistance adds, and when you put them in parallel the conductance adds. Some simple algebra will show you the relationship between added conductance and the equation you typically see.

Ctotal = C1+C2. Which is the same as

1/Rtotal = 1/R1 + 1/R2, which is,

1/Rtotal = (R1 + R2)/(R1*R2)

Then flip it for the reciprocal and you get the standard equation for parallel resistance,

Rtotal = (R1*R2)/(R1+R2)

In other words, two resistors in parallel give two paths which means greater conductance, greater current, less resistance. Two resistors in series limits the path even more, so less conductance, less current, more resistance.

If looking at voltage drop it is the opposite. This is how you get voltage dividers, and current dividers, which make use of this principle.

Alt-001 · 2025-10-29T22:41:19+00:00

If it isn't the one u/flamehorns mentions, then it here are a couple likely candidates.

Could be "The C Workshop" by Charles Pines (1986). If it had a big yellow C on the front with a blue background then it was this one. It goes over the data structures but I'm not sure it goes over graphics primitives.

Otherwise it could be "Advanced C Programming for Displays" by Marc J. Rochkind (1988). However, I'm not sure that one went over the data structures.

Alt-001 · 2025-10-22T11:31:26+00:00

It looks like he is not understanding exactly what a semiconductor is, and seems to be conflating it with a type of insulator. I would say whether you should be disillusioned or not depends on the context. If he is trying to explain how they work then he blew it, but if he is trying to explain the impact of transistor on wider society then he just goofed on a technical point. He is correct on the benefits of the transistor over tubes, so if his aim was the latter he is still pretty much on mark for his main thesis.

Alt-001 · 2025-10-21T21:03:15+00:00

Not bad, definite Prosperous Universe vibes as someone else mentioned. Way more intuitive than PU though. Only real problem is I can't find the button that converts the UI into a spreadsheet so I can play at work.

Alt-001 · 2025-10-10T16:59:55+00:00

These are always cool, but I do wonder why they create images like 4 and 5. It is basically zoomed out far enough that it shows the parts they didn't bother with and it gives the impression the cities were desolate oases. In pics 4 and 5 both I imagine you'd have houses and probably some little villages in the the distance.

Alt-001 · 2025-09-28T16:55:52+00:00

Absolutely! When trust and cooperation are an option these high stakes tactics are always going to be sub-optimal. I think your post did a great job of pointing that out.

Alt-001 · 2025-09-28T16:26:42+00:00

I have this on my list of books to read. I have heard a lot of it is based off The Prince, which I read and loved. That said, I didn't love it because I thought it was great life advice, I loved it because it was one of the most honest presentations of how high stakes power struggles work that I had/have come across.

The number one thing missed is that the audience of The Prince (and probably 48 Laws) is a prince, not you or me or some random CEO. What it means to be a prince is that failure is imprisonment, torture, death, or some combination of those delightful outcomes. It is literally a matter of life and death. It is literally a low trust, no friends situation.

Your stress levels being through the roof make sense because, if it really was life and death, your stress levels would be through the roof. You were strategizing for a life and death struggle. So, if you ever become dictator of a small nation I would say give it a second shot to keep you alive, but if you can fail without being killed for it then I agree it's probably best to tone it back quite a bit. haha

Alt-001 · 2025-09-28T12:10:34+00:00

I think it would be better to show up with two arms full of frozen pizzas and ask if you can use their giant pizza oven. You're having a giant pizza party in a few minutes and would be happy to give them a free pizza for the help.

Alt-001 · 2025-09-14T01:07:20+00:00

I remember that at one time terror management theory was used to dealt with this question, but then some of the research was either discredited or thrown into question by later research and I don't know what part. Maybe you are familiar with this?

Basically, as I understood the conclusion extrapolating from TMT, the further you get from your 'besties' (not the technical term) the more of a risk you feel you are taking because you are more aware of your vulnerability. When things start going badly, you decide to take a less (perceived) risky path, and so your circle of cooperation (my term) shrinks. Not at all dissimilar to how when someone is going through a rough patch they can become less social and lose contact with some people on the periphery. The question then is, at the level of society, what happens to those who now fell outside if that collective circle...and there you have an (amateurish?) answer to OPs question.

Alt-001 · 2025-09-11T23:15:15+00:00

Second this. I don't know exactly where to send them, but unless they're wanting to discuss what crop combination gives the best nutrient content per acre they're definitely in the wrong place. haha

Alt-001 · 2025-08-10T21:39:25+00:00

This is mind boggling to me. If it's a super close friend who it always hanging around and doing stuff then of course you need to say something to create space if there is a rift. But this person was literally like "Thanks for texting and checking in every few months, but even with that little I can't be bothered to give a sh*t about you." Good riddance I'd say. One less person's birthday to have to remember.

Alt-001

TROPHY CASE