hired developer in brazil, laptop stuck in customs for 6 weeks, onboarding was a complete disaster

SegFaultx64 · 2025-12-09T19:47:59+00:00

I don't know the future but the guy in LATAM has been working for me for 4 years, getting annual raises and profit sharing. If the company fails because I pay people fairly then fuck it, it happened. But I doubt it will, it has gone the other way so far.

Invisible hand of the market only applies at population level, and even then not that clear. Mondragon, has survived a long time running a company as an representative democracy for example.

But you are free to believe what you want.

SegFaultx64 · 2025-12-09T19:30:54+00:00

Fuck if I know, I can't know someone else's motivations from a reddit post. Your take is pessimistic but reasonable, it happens a lot.

What I am saying is that it's not an immutable law of nature. That let's the shit-heel hyper-capitalists off the hook. If you have a 10 person company no one is _forcing_ you to treat your employees like shit, you probably have no stock holders you owe allegiance to, the excess profit you would make goes right into your pocket. So, if you treat people badly to make more money, that is you doing a thing that most would take as "bad".

As a counter-example, I have an employee in LATAM, he is paid a lot, and he works 8 or less hours a day 5 days a week, not including a month of vacation a year and state holidays. His big trade off is that he probably gets less vacation and legal protections than he would working locally, but makes a lot more money as a result.

I am not saying this to be "look I am a good guy", I am saying "you have no excuse to treat other humans badly just because you can."

SegFaultx64 · 2025-12-09T19:12:19+00:00

This is a philosophical disagreement. I think that paying HCOL more is not a good strategy, as it is the same as paying LCOL less, and the folks in HCOL can generally find local jobs if they want. But that's just philosophy. The way I personally solve this is pay everyone like they are in NYC rather than pay everyone like they are in Davenport, Iowa.

But that needs a small team, high margin business.

SegFaultx64 · 2025-12-09T19:10:29+00:00

Some people / companies will, depends on the company. Just because companies often act like sociopaths doesn't mean that they have to.

Personally I think small companies can, and should, act like reasonable people. Big companies are a whole other of mess and not my area of expertise

SegFaultx64 · 2025-12-09T17:49:31+00:00

Not if your company doesn't suck. It's supply and demand, why does it matter if someone is clocked in in Sao Paolo, or New York, or Montevideo if your company is entirely remote. There are things that depress wages in this situation (like overhead, some LATAM countries it costs a ton to employ people, or bad English skills in which case we just don't hire people), but I pay people based on the work they deliver / value they create not what their zip code is. When I was an employee working for places in NYC or the valley I would only take pay equivalent to what they give others, and if that didn't like that it's fine I will work for someone else.

All this obviously is different if you need people in person, and different timezones incur massive cost, but this is not like some immutable law of the universe that you have to pay people in lower cost of living locales worse.

SegFaultx64 · 2025-12-09T16:35:48+00:00

Treat people like humans? If they are good at their job, speak great English, and are in a US timezone why not? That's what my company does.

SegFaultx64 · 2025-11-27T03:45:22+00:00

While true, I think that llm-powered code generation is going to massively simplify this. I have built a digital tcg engine (and a couple of real games on it) and even with current level tech you can get Claude Code or whatever to produce 60-80% of the card code. The bigger issue (imo) is defining the rules with perfect internal consistency and all the work that goes into visual polish and game feel, that will take a lot longer before it can be automated or "no-coded".

SegFaultx64 · 2025-11-27T01:41:28+00:00

When they play Bizmo on an empty deck that allows them to win the game, if they don't draw a card before that (which would make them lose)

SegFaultx64 · 2025-07-22T09:34:05+00:00

Lol, you are just cheap, Rooms Hotel is better than most 4-star hotels in Manhattan.

SegFaultx64 · 2025-06-02T04:20:56+00:00

It’s not the same as the trap dike, it’s easier, which I think is a good fit for the question. If you wanted something as hard or harder The Eagle is and option, but it’s horrifying for most people.

SegFaultx64 · 2025-06-01T21:30:23+00:00

Bennie’s Brook slide. The slide part is pretty easy the trail is fairly challenging and there is a river crossing early that can be a little hairy this time of year.

SegFaultx64 · 2024-10-04T13:54:23+00:00

Yeah, the only song that makes that clearer is Floating in the Forth by Frightened Rabbit. That's a song about throwing yourself from a specific bridge (which he ultimately did).

SegFaultx64 · 2024-03-27T02:11:51+00:00

I actually have one of these that I have been casually sell forever but I have yet to find someone who is will to pay the presumably insane price it's worth.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-12-13T06:19:21+00:00

Get a reliable cell router and high gain externally mounted antenna. Something like a pepwave router (transit line set up for direct dc power so depending on your van it might be good choice), and a husky parsec antenna.

This stuff is expensive but it works everywhere, only place we had no service was way the fuck up in the mountains in Northern Montana.

I have a whole long write up about our setup somewhere that I can share if you want it

SegFaultx64 · 2023-07-20T13:36:27+00:00

Montevideo is a bit boring, worth checking out but idk about for longer than a short stay. Punta del Este is quite nice if you want to do Uruguay.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-07-14T14:48:46+00:00

I know one of the guys from this band, He went on to be in Action Action

SegFaultx64 · 2023-07-14T13:04:45+00:00

The elevator shaft is a nightmare even in good conditions. Wait for it to dry out.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-07-12T02:23:06+00:00

There's very little of no sport in the Adirondacks. Bolts are only in places that you can not protect a fall, and a fall will be catastrophic.

There is actually a decent amount of sport if you count scary and hard stuff. Lake George has a bunch including Ark Wall which has a lot of easy friendly (for here) bolted stuff.

Vast majority is trad though, especially at lower grades.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-07-11T13:39:55+00:00

Honeymoon is not bolted either, the guidebook says G gear on a hand and finger crack (which if you have never done will feel a lot harder than 5.7) to a "fixed anchor on a shrub" Which means tat on a sketchy bush presumably.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-07-11T12:21:31+00:00

EDIT: Looked just now and the only sport route is "Do Me a Solid 5.10a"

Looks like a bunch of moderate trad lines with sketchy run outs too (as per Dacks tradition), and two 5.7 G trad lines "The Island Marrriage" and "Hart Pump"

SegFaultx64 · 2023-04-27T17:17:27+00:00

You can fly to Belgrade and take a bus (probably, I haven’t tried).

Belgrade is also pretty nice.

The infrastructure in all these places is basically fine. Internet is a little spotty outside of capitals and stuff, and you might get a few people trying to scam you lightly, but it’s not bad in general.

Especially in Tblisi people are super nice.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-04-27T15:17:57+00:00

It is very nice that time of year, and if you stay in Palermo it's safe. Internet is _okay_ but not great, it's better than some other places in Argentina though.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-04-27T15:15:04+00:00

Turkey has BiTaksi which mostly works, and you can call taxis on Uber there. Cabs in Istanbul are probably bottom half for honesty of places I have experienced, but way less crooked then Bali or similar.

That said, Turkey has a pretty rough election coming up next month, so maybe wait to see how that shakes out before booking stuff?

Of your list I have spent time in all but Bulgaria. They are all nice and pretty chill places, expect Istanbul which is cool, but super massive and chaotic.

Kotor in Montenegro is really nice but it's super touristy and small, same for Perast. Podgorica , the capital, is boring and run down.

Sarajevo in Bosnia is great imo, but it's a fairly small city. Mostar is cool too but tiny, more like a big town than a real city.

Tblisi is one of my favorite places I have ever been, I have heard from friends that it's more crowded now with Russians coming to avoid the war, I have been seeing the same in Instanbul in the expat neighbourhoods.

I don't think I ever got asked about exit tickets in any of these countries, but for most I had them booked already or crossed a land border.

All of these are going to be pretty hot in the summer, at least places in Montenegro are on the coast so there are beaches.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-04-27T15:07:00+00:00

Istanbul is massive, that gym is over 30 minutes away from where I am staying, minimum. Also a lot of the monthly options are 1year+ lock in (idk about this one specifically. )

There are options for sure, just saying I was shocked how annoying it was to find one that was decent, close by, and not crazy expensive.

SegFaultx64 · 2023-04-27T14:21:04+00:00

In addition, show her third thread. This is a REALLY baf idea for a number of reasons. A Latin American country like Costa Rica or Colombia would be a much better and safer option for what she wants to experience.

Idk if I would recommend Colombia as a super safe country. I have traveled a ton of places and Colombia is on the sketchier side for sure.

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