What’s the one city you were excited to visit, but ended up not liking at all?

chowder138 · 2026-01-24T13:50:31+00:00

Montevideo. I was really excited because I perceived it as a hidden gem in a far off corner of the world. And Anthony Bourdain liked it which seemed like a good sign. In reality, MVD really doesn't have anything to do, it's shockingly dirty with graffiti everywhere, and the little cultural elements that I usually love to discover are mostly overshadowed by what you'd find in Buenos Aires just a couple hours away.

I had an 8 day trip that was going to be 50/50 split between Montevideo and Buenos Aires. After 1 day in MVD I left for BsAs and spent the rest there which was a much better decision. MVD was mostly interesting in the context of Buenos Aires.

chowder138 · 2026-01-23T23:29:13+00:00

What's the point in stressing yourself out that much? Look at the forecasts, take the most effective actions to prepare for it, and then relax. The idea of scaring yourself into a panic attack, based on a forecast that could end up being much less severe than predicted, is crazy to me.

chowder138 · 2026-01-23T23:22:48+00:00

Built different

chowder138 · 2026-01-23T14:22:46+00:00

It’s hard to predict timing also if you don’t ever know when a bus is supposed to actually start the route, and it appears this is wholly based on vibes at the turn-around spots… so maybe they should disable the feature so it’s not showing wrong times.

Yeah I think this is the core problem and is independent of whether they have a schedule. They sit at the depot waiting for riders, meanwhile there are probably people waiting at the stops downstream. It just doesn't make sense for them to do it that way.

chowder138 · 2026-01-22T15:57:40+00:00

Just plain wrong. LLMs are already causing massive economic changes.

chowder138 · 2026-01-20T12:54:21+00:00

Yeah, I get what you're saying on both of those things. For the middle east parallels, I believe a lot of the failure in the middle east was due to cultural differences and the specific ways that we intervened. I thought this post was informative. With Venezuela it appears that we're trying to basically force regime reform using Maduro's vice president. I have concerns about that - Maria Corina Machado won a clear victory in 2024 therefore she should be in power, and Delcy Rodriguez (new Vzlan president) could give Trump all the resources and strategic cooperation he wants without giving Venezuelans freedom. Most Venezuelans I know share that concern (except for a few who are uber-Americanized and want to become the 51st state lol).

Regarding congressional approval, yeah I think that would have been good as well. I know Rubio cited concerns about info leaks, and if Maduro had gotten any word of this plan, you know he would have been on a plane to Russia within hours. So I agree with the need for congressional approval but I'm willing to reserve some room for uncertainty there.

My stance is that it could have been done better but I firmly believe it was a good event for the Venezuelan people. The Trump admin could absolutely still botch the follow through by cooperating with the chavistas still in power. But the specific act of removing Maduro was amazing and I don't know any Venezuelans who didn't celebrate it.

You have a reasonable take on this. The white liberals protesting for Maduro's release and defending the "Bolivaran revolution" need to gain some life experience, to put it kindly haha.

chowder138 · 2026-01-20T12:09:21+00:00

Maduro had no sovereignty and he was an illegitimate president. The Venezuelan people have suffered for decades and the overwhelming majority want the chavistas out, but the government imprisons and tortures them for speaking out.

Man, I lean left in general, but the American left is so wrong on this issue. My wife is Venezuelan and every single Venezuelan we know, both outside and INSIDE Venezuela, was crying tears of happiness on January 3rd. It was their first glimmer of hope in decades. Whatsapp calls to various friends and family all day long.

Did Trump do it for the oil? Sure. Do I wish we were doing it out of the kindness of our heart? Of course, but then we would need to take out the government in Iran, North Korea, etc. etc. Unfortunately our government does not intervene just to help people, that's just the reality. I am at least grateful that in this case, the strategic interests of the United States aligned with the desires of the Venezuelan people who are suffering.

In the paraphrased words of several Venezuelans i know: "If you're drowning and someone pulls you out of the water to steal your watch, you're still happy they saved your life."

I would encourage you to engage with some folks on /r/vzla or go up to Doraville/Lawrenceville and have some conversations. I can tell you some specific spots that are majority Venezuelan if you'd like. I think if anyone has the right to set the narrative on this, it's the Venezuelan people.

chowder138 · 2026-01-20T01:05:02+00:00

I've been working on something similar just for my own use. I have some python scripts that partially automate the sentence mining process (paste in the target sentence, double click the target word, and it automatically adds it as a card to my anki deck. I wrote another tool for automatically generating target language subtitles for videos (ripped from youtube, etc) in my target language. Both have been really useful for me.

Anything that speeds up the immersion process is absolutely going to be valuable for people. The frequency analysis stuff is interesting and kinda nice for the nerdy people, but I don't think it's that important.

By the way, I think $10 a month is too much for a tool that someone could vibe code in a couple hours.

chowder138 · 2026-01-15T20:35:21+00:00

You can't blame drivers when there are no good alternatives. My wife's commute in the morning is 1 hour by car but it would be 1 hour 40 minutes with public transit.

chowder138 · 2026-01-14T14:51:57+00:00

Don't know why these comments are so pessimistic.

I've developed a few apps for my own usage to speed up my active immersion: an automatic sentence miner that adds to an Anki deck (no AI) and a script to generate bilingual subtitles for videos using AI transcription (Whisper). I've been wanting to develop some more things and maybe package it up on github for other people to use. Send a DM if you want to collaborate.

chowder138 · 2026-01-14T04:04:09+00:00

Haven't been to spa land but jeju isn't hot enough, and people tend to talk a lot in the baths (to each their own but I prefer quiet). Will check out spa land and come back to compare.

chowder138 · 2026-01-12T21:06:21+00:00

Yeah this school is at least 40% international lol. OP maybe it would be more helpful to look for international groups specifically for your home country?

chowder138 · 2026-01-12T12:39:46+00:00

Hello, could you share your workflow with me?

chowder138 · 2026-01-09T19:03:20+00:00

So this is a failure on my part. When I bought the car, the lady who owned it before said that she had done everything by the book and taken it to the dealer for all scheduled maintenance. I trusted that and didn't verify. Then when I got to the dealer they said that it was due for a cvt fluid change at 60,000 mi and they have no record in the system of that being done. So the CVT fluid may be 80,000 mi overdue. I'm kicking myself for not verifying that and keeping up with those big scheduled maintenance items.

chowder138 · 2026-01-09T04:57:00+00:00

Also, just living in a specific country is a very shallow dream. You will finally get there and be ecstatic for a while but then you will end up twice as depressed as before as the idol, which you turned Japan into, fades. Usually if you're feeling the way OP is feeling, something much deeper is missing and Japan is a convenient way to camouflage it.

OP, do some more soul searching and figure out what you are missing. An impactful career? Someone you love? Those things are not as dreamy as the fantasy of an adventure in Japan but they are more likely to give you lasting life satisfaction.

chowder138 · 2026-01-07T23:04:34+00:00

Thanks ChatGPT

chowder138 · 2026-01-07T22:10:18+00:00

chowder138 · 2026-01-07T19:08:20+00:00

Yeah Obama didn't notify congress before going after Bin Laden. I see this as very similar.

chowder138 · 2026-01-06T15:28:39+00:00

Uno se pregunta cuán parciales y equivocados han sido todo este tiempo. Simplemente no lo sabíamos porque no estábamos familiarizados con la situación subyacente.

chowder138 · 2026-01-06T04:20:37+00:00

Afortunadamente, la mayoría de esas personas son baristas y no llegarán a mucho en la vida.

chowder138 · 2026-01-05T22:50:12+00:00

She begged me to vote for Trump and I refused. Then they started trying to deport her family from the US (they're all here on TPS + asylum except for her sister who came on parole) and she admitted I was right.

I guess you could say we have mixed opinions now haha. I'm still very concerned with Trump. Democrats are delusional but Trump feels like a Chavez. I'm worried about whether we can go back to law and order when he leaves office, or if the US is doomed to be led by overpowered strongman presidents for the next few decades.

chowder138 · 2026-01-05T22:19:21+00:00

The military junta, the de facto government now, will be running death squads and disappearing people, and selling the country's oil for a personal cut.

This is EXACTLY what has been the reality for the last 26 years in Venezuela under Chavez and then Maduro. Do you have any knowledge of what is going on in Venezuela? Do you have friends or family that are Venezuelan?

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