I have a line of Android apps that have a few thousand downloads. So far I've made about $30 in half a year with ads. But I'm positive that it would be a different story if I could dedicate myself to that full time.
I could probably move to Ecuador or Cambodia and retire outright. Trust me, I've been considering it. But there's something about the developed world that I enjoy. When I traveled through Asia, I like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea. But Singapore seems to be even more expensive than the US?
What's beautiful about Malaysia is that it's somewhere in between. The major cities (KL/Penang) are like developed world, but the living costs are relatively (way) lower.
- I have 23 days of PTO per year, which is generous for the US. I did several two week trips the past years, mostly to Asia. My job is fairly low stress, I work less than 40 hours per week. But still, as soon as I set a foot into the office, it feels like all life energy gets sapped out of me. Maybe it's the fluorescent lighting? The crappy HVAC that oscillates between freezing and muggy? The open office plan we moved to last year? The constant sitting? As soon as I'm on my bike on the way home, I feel better.
- Worst case, if I do it: I get lazy and don't do anything during my time off, and won't have anything to show for at the end. But that's entirely in my control, and I won't have anyone to blame but myself.
- I read many blogs and comments about this. A recurring theme is people saying "I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to bring myself to go back to work after taking such a long time off." While I can see the point, aren't they implicitly admitting that there is something wrong with their current situation?
I've been talking to my manager about this. The problem is, after moving to an open floor plan, paradoxically we don't have room anymore.
I'm trying to work standing up for a bit. It does help, but of course is far from ergonomic at a regular desk. It probably also looks ridiculous, me doing a semi-split to get low enough to reach the keyboard and mouse.
Try using a few reams of copy paper (or books and boxes etc) to prop up monitors and input devices. I had such a makeshift setup at first.
Also, have you tried working from home? Orthogonally, negotiating a four day work week 4x8h (at 80% pay) might help you enjoy yourself more. Managment might not be too happy, but if you insist and tell them that the alternative is 0 day work week at 0% pay (i.e. you leave), they might see the light.
To be honest, it doesn't appear to be Photoshopped - at least to my eye. Snow is tough to photograph in general (all that bright, reflecting light!) - this just looks like a camera exposing for the foreground and blowing out the rest.
Let's say you're Greece and you're a trillion Drachmes in debt. You can't pay the interest anymore, your deficit is too high. Greece uses INFLATION, it's super effective! Prices double, but wages double also. Tax income doubles. What stays the same is the debt, and suddenly Greece can afford to pay its lenders. National crisis averted. Only the lenders are screwed, and those who had their savings in Drachmes. That's also the reason why it's very popular to have savings accounts in "hard" currency in these countries.
That's how it has been for decades, but now with the Euro that's not possible anymore, leading to the Euro crisis.
At least it would keep them from using them to extort money from other victims.
A patent troll could lose without the patent being invalidated. It could be that the patent is enforceable, but not in this particular case (a case where a jury finds the defendant wasn't actually infringing).
We've seen patent trolls go after victims with nebulous claims that might not win in court even though the patent wasn't likely to be invalidated.
This may prevent those situations because if they lose and they have to hand over the patent, it deprives them of future extortion money.
It may at the least limit the scope of companies they go after to actual likely infringers.
I'm not sure about patents, but at least with copyright the judge in the Righthaven case ruled that Righthaven lacked standing to sue because they didn't have exclusive rights to the copyright.
Looks like an interesting game, love the artwork! But why is the demo video cutting back and forth between scenes so quickly? Quite confusing and irritating.
I found that number hard to believe, so I looked it up. In 2007 (the most recent figure I could find) the US sent $2.5 billion to Israel. The total budget was $2800 billion. So it was more like 0.09%.
Huh. My source was the New York Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/the-coffin-... ) who stated " all foreign aid accounts for about 1 percent of federal spending — and that includes military assistance and a huge, politically driven check made out to Israel, a wealthy country that is the largest recipient of American aid. True humanitarian aid constitutes roughly half of 1 percent of the federal budget" so I thought it was ½% of US budget went to Israel.
I think you're misreading the quote. It says foreign aid is 1% of federal spending, only half of that is true humanitarian aid, and the country that receives the most aid, humanitarian and not combined, is Israel.
Coal and nuclear power are both dangerous, just in different ways. And there are incidents that don't get much international coverage, but still have a lasting impact. For example there has been a small fire at a German nuclear plant in 1986. Officials say no radioactivity was released. But still, 20 years after the event, cases of childhood leukemia are three times more prevalent in the surrounding area than normal. How many children died because of this small accident? How many other adverse effects exist that we can't see or link to nuclear power?
http://www.oh-strahlen.org/docs/ableukkome.pdf [PDF]
