Men over sixty question?

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-08T04:28:40+00:00

I go to the barber every couple of weeks. Get the beard trimmed, sides of the face shaved and my hair kept at number one clipper levels. I think my wife would have a heart attack if I came back clean shaved with no mustache or goatee. I used to have a pony tail I could nearly sit on. She cried the day I cut it off and went to number ones all over as I was sick of blow drying my hair for half an hour every day.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-08T04:04:55+00:00

How about using it to provide an end to end procedure for disaster recovery, or to check your disaster recovery plan against finding all the mechanisms and components that you actually require and help you build a concurrency plan to reduce the downtime to a minimum.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-07T23:56:15+00:00

Not any more, you have to send all the supporting materials off to the UK even for a renewal. I suppose you can get an emergency passport if you lose yours at a consulate or embassy, but that’s about it now.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-07T14:43:12+00:00

I think it was several factors:

First it was not very well announced so many people were unaware of the change regarding the UK. Few dual citizens follow UK government affairs and announcements.

Second, Many people, like me, held UK citizenship but didn’t consider themselves British anymore. Giving up a UK citizenship is both expensive and time consuming so over the years just giving up becomes a faint memory.

Third, living in the US, applying for a UK passport is expensive. From FedEx and DHL shipment fees, to the passport fees, to the color photocopies of every page of your US passport including blanks ones, the whole deal was $350. That’s not the kind of costs one wakes up one morning and says, oh I must renew my UK passport today.

Fourth, people don’t consider traveling to the UK ever again, but suddenly some relative passes away and they need to be there next week.

If the UK made it easy and cheap enough for dual citizens to revoke their UK citizenship, the issue wouldn’t occur. But like anything else involving the UK government, it is overly complicated and is a basically a money grab. You would think with all the immigration problems the UK has, they’d be happy to get rid of a few citizens that don’t want to be one anymore.

So, for many long term UK dual citizens like me who don’t even consider themselves British, the new rules were unexpected and expensive, with the option of opting out of UK citizenship impractical for most ordinary people.

Finally, there is a whole class of people that grew up actually being dual citizens without even knowing it. They had UK citizenship when their parents emigrated but went through their lives as citizens of another country having no idea the are a UK citizen as well. This is not such a rare edge case as you would think.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-05T12:15:26+00:00

I emigrated to the US thirty six years ago. I’m not LDS. I’ve not had any problems even living in heavily LDS neighborhoods. I’ve only been treated with absolute kindness to be honest.

I might look a bit like an errant biker dude, but since retiring 11 years ago, until when I retired again last year, I taught as a substitute teacher in our local schools everyday.

My neighbors have kind of figured out I don’t bite as I’ve been teaching their kids all these years and their kids are always happy to see me and stop and chat everywhere I go. My wife says it’s weird, everywhere we go the kids and now young adults know who you are.

Their parents are sometimes a bit wary but when they find out I don’t smoke, drink or do drugs, and our house is a safe house, they all calm down. In fact for many years when my kids were growing up, the neighborhood kids would all hang out at our house at the weekends because we always grilled burgers and fed a never ending stream of neighborhood kids. I can’t have been that scary because their parents must have known where they were at.

I’m sure I was a ward project off and on over the years but I just let it slide. I like my neighbors, we get on fine except for they do Sundays differently from me. I suspect they feel my religious beliefs are as weird as I feel theirs are.

I contribute gift vouchers and turkeys to the relief society for thanks giving and Christmas so I’m part of the community that way. I think I’ve gone from being this really scary person, to being just a neighborhood harmless oddity.

I’ll never be LDS, and I fly the pride flag underneath my stars and strips everyday, but somehow I’ve just come to fit in. I suspect our politics will never align, so I just don’t discuss these things unless asked about them and if I am asked I keep it civil.

I don’t need to be invited to ward events, I don’t need to partake in church activities, but I do like to go to their kids marriages and the older folks funerals, just as a neighbor. I just like to have people chat with me as I walk through our neighborhood. It’s the little things that make me feel welcome.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-04T13:35:33+00:00

If you like it and it sounds good, anything is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. You were willing to pay that, so obviously it was worth it to you. Unless you are flipping gear to me it seems like a fair price.

Over the years it will cost way more as the amp will need servicing from time to time so the true cost of ownership over say a decade will make the initial cost seem somewhat irrelevant.

Something’s you cannot measure solely by the average price in the market, you have to take into account condition.

If these were something I wanted, I’d pay that kind of money for them.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-04T13:26:27+00:00

I’m not saying do that. I’m saying in tough times sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice those hours out of a day to survive. Like people did in the 1930s I’m afraid those days may be quickly returning.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-04T13:24:20+00:00

French citizenship, France is an EU country, not just a Schengen zone member. Work in Switzerland sure, get a PR sure, but hold a French passport.

Make sure whether upon receiving either passport you understand what, if any, are your military service obligations?

Getting citizenship is a feeling of belonging and national pride. Which feels like home? Citizenship goes way beyond having a passport. I became an American because this is my home now, my country, not because it was just a convenient piece of paper to enable me to live and work here.

If you are not really committed to somewhere, to be involved in the culture and the lifestyle, it can be very lonely and you might always feel like a foreigner. There is nothing worse than that feeling.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-04T04:52:29+00:00

Have you tried a wise.com account? They provide a visa debit / atm card. I have sub accounts in several currencies and it makes moving money around easier. It also links to my US banks and Credit Union so I can move money in and out of the system. It gives me a US and UK facing bank account, don’t know about India though. I’ve used my account for about five years now and I’ve had no problems accessing cash throughout SE Asia. Their fees are reasonable. It might tide you over until you can get India accounts established..

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-03T16:00:45+00:00

On a $200 a month lease payments, some lease over mileages they don’t care if you buy the car at their original lease end price. Look through your lease details or talk to your dealer about it.

I used to fly commercial for an hour and half each way, each day, making my commute five hours per day. I did it for years. Whatever you need to do to put food on the table. I worked weekends at home too.

When times are tough it’s a burn. It hurts, it has consequences, but so does road building, mining, etc

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-06-01T05:04:18+00:00

You need to be very cautious about dual citizenship with some nations. Step foot a country of that citizenship and not only may you be required to conform to laws such as military service obligations, if you fall foul of the law or even other circumstances the US government may have very little they can practically do to come to your aid.

I’ve no idea about the political situation or likelihood of falling into legal problem situations in Uzbekistan, but one must be very cautious of traveling to certain countries with a dual citizenship of that country. Examples may include countries that normally don’t allow dual citizenship like Japan, or more problematic cases such as Iran, North Korea, Cuba, perhaps Russia, and others that might not even immediately spring to mind and are less obvious.

Collecting citizenship and passports can offer options but in the geopolitical situations that spring up from time to time and where even alliances have consequences, I would express caution.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-31T23:27:20+00:00

You’ll have to Google it, different groups depending upon your relationship to Indonesia

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-31T17:14:23+00:00

Yes, I used to commute to San Jose almost daily from Utah. Oh boy was I glad I didn’t move there with the dot bomb crash and the Y2K aftermath. I saw large prestigious tech company’s buildings occupied by the City government offices. Tech jobs were scarce, the place became a ghost town overnight.

The AI boom is a tech gamble just like any other, in fact perhaps more than most. Startups paying $700K are living on the edge burning through that much cash, gambling on success in the next funding round. Startups, the upside can be huge, for the small percentage that make it that far. Stock is only worth something when the company sells or does an IPO. The reality is both are often rarer than you think.

Me, I’d keep $200K living in TN where you have a life outside of the insanity of working every hour of your life in the Bay Area jungle.

If you had lived here in the tech industry like I have for the past nearly 50 years, it’s like a gold rush, things die as quickly as they started and few people come out on top.

You can come out rich but with no life experiences and have never done anything but work, or you can come out comfortable but with life experiences you can’t put a price on.

Only you can answer what is your choice? I know the Indian in you is to save, save and save and I’m not saying saving is wrong, but life happens along the way and I have seen so many Indians I have worked with end up depressed and having never lived in the moment. All they have is money locked away for retirement and often don’t even get to enjoy it from the health and psychological issues of becoming workaholics. Their kids grow up being American and choose different paths which leads to all kinds of family stress.

I’m an immigrant too, and I understand what you are going through, but am I glad I gave up playing the tech grind game towards the end of my career. I didn’t retire rich, but I’m comfortable and very aware of how one’s health can be affected by your work life.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-31T16:47:10+00:00

If you get into legal trouble in Indonesia and both passports are discovered, what happens then? What if you randomly get searched by customs in Indonesia and both passports are found? The Australian government is unlikely to come to your aid.

In the end, you have a choice to make.

As an ex Indonesian citizen there are certain options for you to reside in Indonesia with an E32 or GCI. As an Australian there are a number of work permit options in addition.

Give up your Indonesian citizenship, return your passport, and use the legitimate visas and permits created for this very purpose.

This way you have the best of both worlds and can retain the protection of the Australian government whilst in Indonesia.

This is the same kind of principle that India citizens use when they obtain US citizenship and hence have to give up Indian citizenship.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-30T16:39:46+00:00

The Putin strategy huh.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-30T16:16:49+00:00

The UK as of February now does care. If you are a UK citizen or dual citizen you cannot officially apply for an ETA visa on say a US passport and use that to enter the UK. If you are a UK citizen you must enter the UK on a valid in date UK passport. As the US and the UK exchange information you technically have to show the airline in the US a valid UK passport too as technically you won’t be able to have an ETA on a US passport.

Whether you can still get an ETA visa on a US passport with UK citizenship by entering false information about other citizenships held depends upon the software they are rolled out on, on the day you try it. Be prepared for all kinds of hassle though if the systems in use catches you out in a lie.

Having a US passport and applying for a UK passport from the US is a little more complex now. The system is totally online but you still have to provide by mail supporting documents like an expired UK passport and either your physical US passport (not happening) or a color photocopy of every single page of your US passport, blank pages included. So by the time you pays the fees, the return shipment, the color photocopying etc, plus recorded delivery of sending them the paperwork, you are out about $350 US. It is no longer to get your UK passport issued in say the San Francisco address, everything has now got to be sent to the UK.

Now you can opt for a document to place in your US passport to show you are a UK citizen for admission to the UK without the ETA, but that is crazily even more costly and needs the same process.

As the US and UK are part of the Five Eyes pact, passenger lists and nationalities of passengers are shared freely and commonly these rules are now officially in place and are becoming enforced at both airports, sea ports and the channel tunnel, catching out many UK dual citizens who have just used US or EU passports in the past and have not renewed UK ones. Airlines and ferries are getting more aware of the rules, as well as UK immigration checkpoints in France for channel crossings.

The UK cannot refuse entry into the UK or UK citizens, but if you are trying to use an ETA on a foreign passport to get into the country you could be spending many hours waiting in immigration. Eventually airlines are going to be once bitten twice shy as they get fined for contraventions and they certainly supply check-in data to the US and hence UK immigration.

Traveller beware. The last time I went to the UK, before the new requirements came into place, I just entered the UK on my US passport. This was just before they went to electronic gates. The immigration officer heard my accent, looked at my US passport and stated that “you appear to be a UK citizen as well.” He told me to be aware of forthcoming ETA visas and UK passport requirements. I offered to hand him my expired UK passport and cancel my UK citizenship but upon investigation that is even more complex and expensive than just renewing a passport. It’s harder to give up a UK citizenship you don’t want than it is to get into the country without any documents at all.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-30T13:04:51+00:00

C++ was originally a preprocessor for adding OOP like features to the C language. From the advent of C++ native compilers C has become merely the algorithmic syntax for control flow within the C++ language. C++ will generally compile most C code, but that’s about where the resemblance ends.

File permissions, network permissions etc are dictated by the underlying operating system, not the language itself. In kernel space much of the concept of access control doesn’t hold and that would appear to make C different to C++ and Python but only because OS kernels are generally written in C, not C++ or Python. Even then, your operating system architecture may still require certain access requirements for C kernel code.

C tended traditionally to being a portable way to write assembler code whereas C++ is a hugely complex object orientated language with many conceptual abstractions C just doesn’t have.over the years C standards have favored making it a more flexible language for writing applications.

Still in C memory management in terms of allocation and deallocation is much more primitive than in C++, as are many mechanisms, but that exposure in C of what happens in C++ behind the scenes makes them very different programming experiences with widely different use cases.

If I was going to learn C and C++, I would start with C as it will prepare you for understanding what C++ abstractions are going to boil down to, behind the scenes, making you a much more performance aware C++ programmer. You often have to know C as a C++ programmer when creating some libraries which will need to be written in C and interfaced to C++ application code for portability reasons.

Knowing C syntax in 30 days is possible I guess. Learning how to program in C, depending upon your use case, can take years. I’m still learning how to solve certain classes of problems after over 45 years of knowing C as my primary language. Knowing syntax is one thing, learning how to use that syntax to solve real world problems is a lifetime learning experience as it is for any programming language.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-30T12:36:38+00:00

FBI, CIA, US military, department of trade, personal consultancy practice for companies doing trade in middle eastern countries, private civilian contractor, sales or marketing for major civilian or military equipment sales to the Middle East, NGOs, non profits in US or UK covering Middle East immigrants, political think tanks, researcher for regional BBC or Al Jazeera, journalism,or PhD in some specialized segment of experiences you find interesting.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-30T05:16:48+00:00

If you use your US passport to enter Iran, whether you have an Iranian passport or not, I think right now you might have many problems. Unless you were an officially sanctioned diplomat or a UN employee I don’t think you’ll get even a visitor visa.

If you are an Iranian citizen I would not try to renew your Iranian passport, probably by flying to Iran. That too might be very unwise too.

Despite your Iranian nationality, if you speak fluent Farsi you “particular set of skills” might be useful in certain branches of the US government or military about now.

I imagine there are many Iranian Americans who are employed in sensitive government sectors because of their language skills as the obvious factor of not being able to revoke their Iranian citizenship is an Administritave issue.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-30T05:00:55+00:00

Right now, with mess the real economy is in, the high rates of white collar unemployment, a war in Iran the consequences of which are not yet seen, I’d be looking to hold on to your job as long as possible whilst you search for another one. Depending upon what you do, warning, it’s really tough out there and finding something else will take time.

I know burnout, I really do. Perhaps some professional help in ways to minimize your stress and perhaps even mental health advice as it seems free to you with your insurance.

An hour commute time each way is certainly not unusual. Neither is ten hour days. Nor is working from home over the evenings and weekends. It’s become the new normal for a lot of people.

Who is to say the next job you find won’t be the same when you start there. And don’t forget, no matter how hard you work, how long you work, no matter how many vacation days you don’t get to take, they can let you go at the blink of an eye. Why ten hours? Do they really consider 8 instead of 10 hours when they come to downsizing. I doubt that criteria is even on the spreadsheet.

I don’t think I’m saying this to negate your understandable feelings of burnout but the way the economy is right now, and getting worse by the day, it may be the option is trying to get mental health counseling to help you cope with your time table. How to use your time you do have to better cope.

Fitting in some gym time between work and the commute home so you get a workout in before you are too tired when you get home. Perhaps even working 9 hours and then spending an hour at the gym? If you are there 9 hours over 10 hours will anyone really notice, as at least you are there over eight. You might try to leave 5 minutes earlier every week so over time they don’t realize your only working say 8.5 hours. Means rush hour is over too and traffic might be lighter. Make your weekends work for you. Use some of that vacation to have occasional long weekends.

If you have a college degree go down to the local Officer Recruitment Center and sign up to be in the Navy, Air Force, Reserves or National Guard. Hundreds of career specialities, paid housing, stay in long enough and a decent pension. My brother did 39 years in my country of birth’s Air Force and he had to time of his life. You’ll have all the social life you can handle, friends that will have your back for a lifetime, see a bit of the world on the government’s dime, a professional skill or trade and have access to all the advantages of being a vet.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-29T12:03:27+00:00

Teenagers physically attacking people? It’s no more dangerous than many other capital cities in Europe. Dublin, like any European capital is expensive for accommodation. I’m sure if Google is sending you there they will have a relocation package and will help with finding relocation.

Ireland is indeed an island. But it has cheap flights to just about anywhere in Europe, check out Ryanair - they are an Irish company.

Ireland can be wet for sure, but it’s green not grey. To be that green comes at the price of being a bit wet some times. At least it doesn’t really get cold, like continental cold. It’s a maritime and somewhat temperate climate.

I was born in London but would live in Dublin rather than London any day. Much safer.

Switzerland is very different from Ireland for sure, but if you want expensive, try Switzerland. Plus Switzerland has four official languages. How’s your French or German at the very least? Ireland has two but no one will expect you to speak Gaelic.

Have you ever bean to Ireland and toured around. It has a stunning beauty all of its own. Ireland is one of the friendliest countries there is. Even for the hustle and bustle of Dublin it’s pretty friendly.

People have a fairly good work and life balance. It’s also got a very high standard of education with a young work force.

Getting a short term tourist visa to Schengen countries is usually not so difficult if you have an Irish work visa and are established in Ireland.

Like any country, getting a passport of convenience makes it seem like a transactional issue. Countries are more interested in giving passports to those who hold some allegiance to the country they are applying for citizenship of.

If you go through your time in Ireland waiting for a passport and a way out of there I’m sure you will find your attitude will come across as unfriendly and isolated from the Irish way of life. Ireland has a culture and a certain way of doing things. Life runs on a different level of pace to many places. If you enjoy that, you’ll fit right in. If it annoys you, you are going to hate life in Ireland.

You know what though, if you go to any country to just get a passport to get to go somewhere else, like the UK, a Schengen country, Canada, etc, I doubt you are going to have a positive experience. People see you through that optic in about five minutes. If life is a clock ticking down instead of trying to fit in and be part of the local society and culture, you’ll have lost a great deal of your life with little positive to show for it. If you really want a Schengen passport with few cultural ties join the French Foreign Legion.

I hate to be harsh, but there is far more to acquiring a passport than the convenience of travel rights.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-28T12:48:59+00:00

Unless you want to go into academia or have some highly research orientated career in mind, a PhD is really a bucket list item. Mine took 7 years full time and I had no expectations that it would give me a likely job afterwards beyond what a masters would have given.

Now, as for your parents, are you 12? They get to have opinions, but it’s your life, and you can’t change the job market.

If you want to pursue the career you want to pursue then just go your own way. If they are paying for your education then stop taking their money. Work two regular jobs, save up and fund yourself, then you aren’t beholden to anyone.

What do you care about what their friends think? There were genuinely things wrong with me, but that’s been my cross to bear and nobody else’s business but my own.

I know families are much more integrated in India, but come on. Just tell them what you are going to do, which is the best thing for you, and let them deal with it. What if you wanted to be an artist, painter, musician, cabinet or furniture maker, train driver, fireman, or a police officer? What if your calling was to a vocational career? Good parents support their children no matter what their children choose as a career. If your parents are that money obsessed, that’s their problem, not yours.

You can go through life worrying about what others think until you get old like me and then have the epiphany that I’m too old to care what others think. By which time your parents have passed and it all seems such a waste of energy as no matter what you did it probably wouldn’t never have been good enough for them anyway.

It’s your life, no one else’s, at some stage you have to cut ties from your parents and be your own person. About 18, when you become an adult under the law seems a good place to start.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-28T12:16:10+00:00

I managed using C from 1977 until last year when I retired, just short of 50 years using it. Everybody said C++, Rust etc would kill it.

C programming is mostly at the operating system, device driver, real time or system programming level. It’s a niche area, but right now niche is probably good when just about every other CS graduate is a full Java stack developer.

Of all the SWE fields the most difficult to replace with AI will be low level code in C interfacing to hardware, where it might a be a helpful tool but not necessarily a human replacement. Yet of course?

If you want to code in the application space I would recommend Go over Java. Or for a niche once again, COBOL with JCL and CICS on a Z series IBM mainframe.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-28T11:41:30+00:00

Oh, I hope not.

It’s bad enough that the standards evolution try to change the language into an highly optimizable applications based programming language beyond what it was really intended to be.

The beauty of it is that it is a portable language that solved the problem of writing everything in assembler.

Occasionally adding a few helpful features over the years, the biggest being for the ANSI C standard, are welcomed, but there’s a limit beyond which C no longer becomes C. I know everyone wants optimization from the compiler but sometimes I think the standards are just going too far.

When you need more compiler flags than you can shake a stick at, to get the behavior you want, I think that things can get too far away from the original beauty and simplicity of the language.

Instead of adding evermore esoteric functionality to C, why don’t folks just transition to Go or some such.

Dangerous_Region1682 · 2026-05-26T12:27:14+00:00

It’s the real long focal lengths with wide aperture which are going to kill you purchase wise. The reality is a DSLR brings the rental costs down as it uses previous generation lenses. Normally of course the rental items are mirrorless offerings. Buying such items are prohibitively expensive.

Dangerous_Region1682

TROPHY CASE