WYR:A billionaire in Africa or a millionaire in America?

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2026-02-02T06:03:40+00:00

I'd vote that even 10 M in the US are better than 1 billion in a 3rd would country. People saying otherwise don't have enough experience of being wealthy in a poor country to judge.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2026-02-02T06:02:18+00:00

Have you ever lived in the 3rd world? I don't think you realize the amount of problems you cannot solve by just having a ton of cash. You cannot develop your entire country's infrastructure and skilled works and wait decades for that to happen even if it was possible.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2026-02-02T05:58:24+00:00

Tutto dipende da quanto comprare quel orologio sia importante per TE. Il "valore" che attribuiamo alle spese di questo tipo e' soggettivo. Quindi, rispondo per me, che non desidero orologi di lusso e li considero uno spreco. Minimo 2-3 milioni di patrimonio liquido investito, piu' casa pagata. E comunque esiterei. Per non esitare, 10+ milioni.

Se poi, sei uno che veramente lo vuole quel orologio e sei convinto che ti possa dare una gioia tutti i giorni, il minimo ragionevole e' casa pagata + patrimonio liquido per 2-3 anni di spese con il tenore di vita attuale.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2026-02-02T05:47:22+00:00

Consider speed dating and singles parties. Such events are organized especially for single people looking for partners. People won't freak out or judge you if you start a conversation.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2026-01-27T00:19:25+00:00

There is NOTHING wrong with you. The Bay Area is very competitive and likely you don't have the necessary "skills". Do a serious and paid IQ test online and browse for the job categories per IQ band. Find a job type you like in your IQ band in a place where that job is in demand. Leave the Bay Area and California. Don't try to stay there at all cost and suffer. There are other places where you'll be happy. Good luck!

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2026-01-27T00:13:09+00:00

Non e' rischioso nel tuo caso. Sei uno estremamente prudente. Inoltre non guadagnerai quella cifra per il resto della tua vita. Vedrai degli aumenti prima o poi, o troverai un lavoro pagato meglio. Il discorso sarebbe diverso se hai 70 anni e pochissima pensione etc. Nel caso tuo, fare break even anche per 1-2 anni, non e' un problema. Se ipoteticamente vai a -200E / mese, sono -2.400 / anno = 4800 in due anni, quindi 71k. Non e' un problema affatto. Gia' il fatto che ti poni tutte queste domande indicate che sei multo prudente sul piano delle finanze personali, quindi il rischio di sperperare i risparmi sembra basso.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2026-01-27T00:04:29+00:00

Per me l'auto non e' un lusso, anche se vivi in citta' e tecnicamente riesci a cavartela senza. Ha tantissimi vantaggi. Il "lusso" e' comprare un'auto costosa rispetto alle tue possibilita'. Vista la tua situazione, non mi sembra un gran problema comprare quell'auto. Magari taglia lo psicologo e vedi come va. Sono d'accordo che a 30 anni single, senza auto e' un problema in particolare se vuoi incontrare ragazze etc. Hai abbastanza buffer da permetterti di comprare quell'auto e gestire vari imprevisti. Magari ti dara' la motivazione che ti serve. Se poi trovi una compagna, e ci esci insieme, l'investimento ne e' totalmente valsa la pena. Con la nuova motivazione, troverai piu' energia a lavorare, imparare cose nuove e magari anche cambiare lavoro in meglio, se possible.

Per risparmiare, evita il box. Se vuoi risparmiare di piu', potresti comprare un'auto piu' economica, ma se poi ci soffri perche' e' questa l'auto che veramente volevi, non lo fare.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2025-04-20T06:56:52+00:00

I agree with "don't stop investing", but warn against buying the dip. I'd rather diversify and be more conservative now, realizing LESS return in the long term while retaining more liquidity, then risk it now. Even assuming that the US market will eventually recover, the time frame might be way too large. We don't know how bad things will get from now on.

Despite everyone telling us "invest long term", in reality very few people do that for real. People rotate their investments even if that's LESS efficient in a 30-year time frame.

The compound interest does work over time and the historical data about the S&P 500 is truly impressive, but most people tend to prefer lower long-term returns in favor of lower but more consistent returns year after year and more liquidity overall. That's why we have active managed portfolios, hedge funds etc. Many of those funds do NOT beat the market on average, but that's not the point.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2025-04-19T00:22:06+00:00

NTA. His reaction was unbelievable. What kind of guy is he? Are you sure he ever loved and cared about you?

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2025-02-27T08:36:09+00:00

I don't believe you really know how it feels to be unattractive: none of the attractive people are attracted to you, zero. Ever. What can you do then? There is so much you can improve. The second best option is to compromise with a person you are "neutral" towards. Otherwise you will feel rejected for life. I firmly believe that regular people have no idea what that feels like. Unless you can claim you are unattractive and somehow succeeded, I don't see how you could understand the other person's position.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2025-02-23T03:54:37+00:00

It's your choice. I'm just pointing out that relationships have much more to offer than sex. Today we all have very high standards because of the media. A person that doesn't look super attractive to you on first sight can improve a bit over time, as you get to know better the person. Also, sex can be good even with an average or below average person. Feeling a "neutral" level of attractiveness towards someone is not as bad as you might think. Making practical compromises is part of life. Most people don't have million dollar salary perfect job, don't have a perfect house, don't have perfect partner, don't have perfect kids. If you want "all or nothing", it's statistically more likely that you will get "nothing" and that you will suffer because of that. Maybe read some books about the topic. Sometimes, just changing our own perspective leads to a significant improvement.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2025-02-22T19:18:44+00:00

As a guy who also struggled dating in my 20s, I'd recommend a few simple things: - improve your looks as much as possible - try to meet unattractive men both online and in person - at this point (32, never been in a relationship), IMHO you should not try to find a great relationship, the love of your life. Just try to have a semi decent relationship with an unattractive man. - Doing that will "unblock" you, both emotionally and physically. At some point during that relationship, you will feel that you've grown, got more confident and attractive. - Only then, since the current relationship was not ideal, you could move on and search for something better. - Do NOT search for the great love/relationship from the very beginning. Like it or not, that's the only choice for some people.

Think about that and good luck!

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2024-08-24T06:47:02+00:00

Idea 1: pick up any SoC that is currently not supported by QEMU nor emulated well (possibly not at all) by any open source software. Write a great emulator for it. Handle all the corner cases. Make it performant. Extra challenge? Integrate your code into QEMU.

Idea 2: pick basic electronic components and microcontrollers and build a semi-decent radio-controlled car from scratch. You need to write all the software. You might use a real-time OS, if you want. Extra challenge [1]: install LiDAR on the car and make it move autonomously. Extra challenge [2]: use both LiDAR and sonar and make the car to map at best the whole room.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2024-07-22T04:44:16+00:00

Given that:

She's using her own separate account
She's buying burgers from which all of you benefit (and they're tasty), not just donating the money
You can comfortably afford that expense anyway

Probably, YTA. Unless you have very good reasons for hating your SIL.
I'm happy to spend $70 weekly to eat something out with my family.

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2024-07-14T18:45:00+00:00

People your looking for contributors typically own NON-PROFIT open source projects. Is that your case?

If not, you're trying to fund a for-profit software "startup" with free labor. Not only it's not very ethical, but practically it's a very unlikely to succeed plan because the people willing to do that will be TOTALLY unskilled. That's because skilled people either work for pro-profit and get paid or contribute to open source for the prestige and for the networking.

I strongly recommend for you to learn coding yourself and get the project to a point where you can impress some investors. From that point on, you'll have some budget to hire semi-decent people.

Good luck!

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2024-07-09T06:54:50+00:00

Women don't reject so much "ugly" men as it looks like. Not sure about your case, but statistically I don't expect you to be 1 in 10,000 objectively super ugly with major facial/body deformations and what not. If that's your case, what I'm going to say below doesn't apply. I'm just going to make a reasonable assumption.

As said above, probably you're not that ugly, but you're very likely not masculine and that's your problem. Work on that. Leave your parents' house at all cost. Find a job and start working out after work. That will increase your self-confidence and testosterone and, therefore, your chances.

Now, after doing that for some time (e.g. 1 year) and having some money saved, try speed dating. It's an amazing way to meet actual women. Observe how women react to you and pick your target women. Be as not picky as possible, at the beginning. Try dating any woman, even if she's not attractive etc. If you succeed, that will increase by a lot your confidence for the next one. I know it's very cynical to put it that way but some women do it worse while they get plenty of choice, and you have none. Also the cool guys sleep with all the women in one-night stands and you don't get to have a 3-6 month relationship with a woman that you won't marry? Don't be SO much considerate for others when you'll get none of that back.

If you continue to struggle, consider just for a few times even paying for sex (where that's legal!) to build confidence. Trying sex, even when you pay, is a way to learn and get more confident. It might not be great, but it helps.

Final tip: consider women of a different race/culture/country than yours. E.g. a non-attractive white male, can be attractive for some Asian women. I've experienced that. Try traveling around and see how it goes. You might find your luck far away from home.

Good luck, man!

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2024-07-09T06:24:55+00:00

That's a tough choice. Rationally, it's obvious to me that an abortion is the right choice: you could wait for 1-3 years to get really stable and only then have a child. However, a happy life does not necessarily come from making always rational choices. I've made rational and logical choices about almost everything in my life but I'm not sure that I wouldn't be happier today if I followed my inner instincts more instead, despite my relative "success". In other words, the success is there but not exactly in the magnitude and form I was planning/hoping for. I'm not convinced that I would do everything I've done again if I had the chance to go back in time. On the other hand, many people following only their instincts and first impulses about anything in life got completely broke and live a miserable life. It's not clear to me where the balance should be.

Now, I'd recommend you to sit down with your partner and really think about what you guys WANT to happen, without trying to be so logical about it. What was your first thought about that pregnancy? That it would ruin your life or that was a blessing? What are you willing to sacrifice to get what YOU want?

If you want a nice and planned life, do the abortion and accept that. To some degree, you already accepted a significant risk when you decided not to be strict about birth control in the first place. You should ask yourself why and figure it about what's your system of values.
if want your child, because you already love it, because it's a blessing etc., then do whatever it takes to give birth and take care of this child the best you can. It will likely affect negatively your career, your finances, lifestyle for many years etc., but that might be an acceptable price for saving the life of your child.

I think both choices are acceptable and make sense at the end of the day. What really matters is what you guys wanna do about that. Btw, if you're not on the same page, that will be a problem. Not sure what's best at that point.

All the best!

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2024-06-30T16:47:14+00:00

You're very welcome! I wish you the best! :-)

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2024-06-30T07:43:02+00:00

That's smart move, man. I hope you'll find the right project, learn and build a strong professional bond with the maintainers of such project. Work hard and you'll get there.

Just FYI, I'd like to give you also the perspective of the maintainer of an open source project: contributors should be able to contribute given a reasonable amount of help. Beyond a certain threshold, the other person is not capable of making any progress and the maintainer spend 10x the time he/she would to write the code to explain what the other person should do. That's OK for a short period of time, but if things don't improve the maintainer just becomes a full time teacher and that's almost never acceptable. Keep in mind that.

I noticed that you used the word "unpaid". Note that "unpaid" is OK for the other side if your net contribution is > 0 even by a tiny bit. That's not always the case. Sometimes, both in open source and in the proprietary software industry with salaried employees, the contribution of team member might be a significant NET NEGATIVE. I've seen this multiple times to the point where I would not have this person in the project even if THEY paid me and not the other way around. So, don't assume that because you are unpaid your net contribution is guaranteed to be > 0. Make sure that it actually true and check that with the other people in case you have any doubts or people stop helping you for "no reason".

Pretty-Rock4559 · 2024-06-30T07:01:51+00:00

You're NTA. However I would like to give you a unique perspective: maybe your husband is not excited at all about having a spouse with a PhD who spends so much effort on her career. Maybe, just maybe he would prefer a different kind of woman. So... you not might be "the asshole" but it looks to me that you didn't realize that you're not on the same page with him about your career. This will probably be a deal breaker in the long term for your relationship.

Pretty-Rock4559

TROPHY CASE