Posts by Michelle Davis15

I’m going to take the liberty of introducing a wider audience to a top-tier new browser called Brave, which was developed by the same mind behind the Mozilla browser and JavaScript, Brendan Eich. I figured you all might find this interesting, because honestly, it takes a lot to actually impress me when it comes to IT stuff.

The browser just flies, and it handles ad-blocking with such elegance. I tested it out on some major US news sites that are usually absolutely choked with ads—sites that normally take forever to load—and it works flawlessly. It loads pages about 2 to 3 times faster than what I'm used to. Just to be clear, I have zero affiliation with the company.

brave com

The way the European Union operates, they’re going to start cutting off funding for all this nonsense. Honestly, people need to start worrying about whether there’s actually food on the table. We’ve had enough of this performance where everyone pretends to be a "citizen of the world"; now, it’s time to crawl back into our own trenches. The only money left will probably go toward measuring the diameter of cucumbers, because apparently, without that, the European Union can't function 🙂. Measuring cucumbers—that’s basically the heart of Europe right there: figuring out how to look busy doing absolutely nothing, while the taxpayers pick up the tab.

Once the Americans take down the German auto industry with their electric vehicles, this whole thing is going to collapse like a house of cards.

Alex Miller3 said:I mean, come on now. Success isn't just about grinding out a startup from scratch and flipping it for billions. That's just one slice of the pie. Success means so much more than that... but you don't need all that flashy, over-polished nonsense like what we see with Miranda's stuff.
Just keep it real and keep it honest.

True success is living a full life that actually aligns with your own passions and drives—but people like to play it down so they don't ruin the vibe.

Robin Johnson said:What kind of motivation can you actually get from an article where everything is just made up?

Zero. I mean, lies about someone’s fake "perfect life" don't inspire anyone.

And look—I didn't say *only* Eph writes stuff like that—just that they do it all the time.

There was this one little feature about a girl who finished her design degree at University of California, Berkeley, entered some international competition while she was still a student, and got scouted by a global firm that offered her a job on the spot. Now, *that* story is legit because you can actually track her real career path today.
There was absolutely no need to fluff her journey with nonsense like this article did—her actual success speaks for itself. She's a lead designer for a major corporation now.

She doesn't need these kinds of write-ups, and honestly, she doesn't even need the press coverage.

This other person, though? They're out here in the US hunting for a job, hoping someone will be impressed by these overseas achievements that probably can't even be verified.

Oh, and for the record—the story about Sobel really *is* inspiring. The guy knew how to spot an opportunity when he saw one, which is everything.

You can learn a lot from people like that. I've read plenty of his interviews where he goes into detail about those early days at Verizon and how he kicked everything off. Super interesting stuff.
And when it comes to truly successful people, there aren't any holes in their stories.

Tell me about it. Did you ever read about how they just dumped Iskon into AT&T? It was obvious they stood no chance against the heavy hitters, so they were headed for the scrap heap just like their old rival Globalnet. By acquiring them, AT&T basically decided which one would survive and which one would die. That’s a much more interesting story, though obviously, nobody talks about it publicly because it's not exactly something you brag about. If we're talking about actual success from back then, Nenad Bakić over at Indeed was a way more effective player. He played the game exactly how it needed to be played—sure, there was plenty of self-promotion and throwing shade at the competition, but you have to hand it to him.

While these "success gurus" in the newspapers don't have to worry about losing their platforms.🙂

Then there's the guy who accidentally registered the ".business" domain and somehow stumbled into a multi-billion dollar deal by pure luck, only for it to be shut down immediately. Now he's just chilling and enjoying life for the last 15 years => Mark Cuban

Or look at my buddy who bought shares in Zabka during the early days without even knowing what a stock was or what Zabka even did. He made a killing on that.

Daniel Ortiz15 said:It all feels a bit exaggerated to me, and honestly, it’s pretty disheartening. In America, so many young people who are incredibly bright and highly educated feel like they don't have a real shot at building a future here. It seems like their only option is to pack up and move abroad, unless they happen to have some heavy-hitting connections or a massive head start in this messy system we live in.

Let's be honest, though—they don't really have a future out there either. You could count on one hand the number of true geniuses from our neck of the woods who have actually accomplished something significant overseas. Everything else is just empty talk about "brilliant minds" being held back by the state—as if they aren't working themselves to death between coffee breaks.

And someone really needs to explain to them that they aren't instant geniuses just because Google hires them to churn out code like robots alongside 30,000 other people. Real geniuses are the founders of Google, not the ones writing scripts for them and bouncing balls around the office when the boss isn't looking.

rustywalker42 said:Every other day there's some story about these super-mega-hyper-genius young prodigies who "made it." I usually just tune them out—honestly, I’ve always felt the same way about this stuff—but this one actually made me want to start a thread. 😁

http://www.nytimes.com/life/lifestyle-success-stories/5480043/

So, here's the deal: this woman speaks six languages, she's lived in every major cosmopolitan hub on the planet, she's got two master's degrees, and a PhD—all fully funded, mind you. Everyone just hands her stuff for free. The world's top designers and photographers are all begging to work with her; everything just lands in her lap without her even breaking a sweat. they just call her. On top of that, she sings in two massive Chinese pop bands and now, in her late 30s, she's performing with a symphony orchestra.

Oh, wait, forgot to mention: she's launching a luxury jewelry line because, you guessed it, they called her.

And again, totally slipped my mind: she's also designing a high-end furniture collection because, surprise, surprise, she was invited.

What I want to know is: what do you guys think of these stories? How much of this is actually real, and what's the point of them besides pure self-promotion and selling this illusion of success?

Or am I just some bitter loser who didn't "make it" and is now just here to spread envy on a forum? 😁

Give me a break. Wouldn't you rather be pulled in every direction like that? You're better off the way you are. 🙂

It's pretty obvious these stories are inflated to make it look like, "Hey, look, we aren't the worst, we have geniuses here too." Of course, it's all heavily manicured and filtered to the extreme.

We're used to these little news snippets about local geniuses who haven't actually conquered the world—they never do. Real success stories don't start out looking this naive.

Whenever I see a story about some local hero about to change the world, it actually puts me in a good mood because I know it’s going to be a total joke to read. Usually, you find out they just took fifth place in some regional math competition.

rowdypilot19 said:Look, why don't you start by actually defining what "morality" means to you first? 🍿

I mean, is it really considered moral if someone who's actually killing it at work gets paid the exact same amount as the guy who spends his whole shift sleeping on the job? 🍿

Morality is one of those things people love to daydream about, yet they’ve never actually witnessed it in the wild.

What people have actually seen is just basic honesty from someone who lacks the guts to be different. It isn't driven by any sense of virtue, obviously—it's just a lack of courage.

The word "morality" itself has become such a loaded term that hearing a normal person use it almost triggers a sense of disgust. Why? Because most of the time, it's just a conscious lie—a cheap attempt to manipulate the person they're talking to. It's like saying, "I'm appealing to your sense of right and wrong so I can disarm you and grab an immoral upper hand."

rowdyorca said:The problem is that capitalism dictates the standard of living through the market balance of goods, labor, and services. And history shows us that the market is never in balance, nor does it ever seem to trend that way.

In this day and age, there really shouldn't be people digging through dumpsters, without a place to sleep, without time to raise children, or without free time for creative growth. We're in the 21st century. If we can't afford to ensure every citizen—at least in North America or the European Union—has a basic standard provided by the state in the form of clothing, footwear, education, housing, transport, and food, then we've seriously messed up somewhere.

Fair point... but then why the hell do people keep voting for raw capitalism instead of an arrangement like that?

Arthur Johnson68 said:In a way, sure—but I’m still struggling to wrap my head around what the European Union actually *is*. What is it trying to achieve? What are its ultimate goals? And more importantly, how does it honestly plan to reach them? If you ask me, the EU won't last five years—and that’s being generous. The real question isn't about the present, but about the aftermath. Once the dust settles and the union collapses, what comes next? What kind of shape will the various nations find themselves in? What role will Germany play in that vacuum, and where does France fit in? We'll likely see a massive shift in the power dynamic between those two—and, of course, there's the looming question of just how much influence the United States will wield over a fractured Europe.

The United Nations is actually quite simple to grasp. It’s an artificial construct where a handful of major powers try to exploit everyone else, much like they did during the era of colonialism. And even among the "privileged" ones, they're constantly trying to screw each other over.

Just try breaking into the French or German markets to compete with their local companies—you'll run straight into a wall of carefully placed, insurmountable barriers. But then, when giants from the USA like Amazon and Google come knocking, they can't compete with them locally, so instead, they just slap them with senseless fines.

Because of this outdated, twisted model, the United Nations will never truly be a real competitor to the USA or China. It’s going to devolve into a bunch of isolated actors who are doomed from the jump, because in today's world of globalization and economic blocs, solo players simply don't stand a chance.

It's paradoxical, really. The United Nations could have succeeded if it had created a borderless space similar to the USA, but that’s never going to happen because of that deep-seated, traditional xenophobia toward "outsiders." Everyone just wants to be above everyone else.

That’s why the United Nations is staring down some incredibly dark days. Investment is drying up because people aren't confident in future prosperity. People are hoarding cash in savings accounts because they're too terrified to invest. This is why you see experts pushing useless jobs—roles that exist solely to shuffle money around, from bank advisors to various consultants with fancy-sounding titles. We're looking at a future of rampant nepotism and hiring based on non-economic criteria on a scale we've never seen before, which is already happening in several countries. The principle is basically: we're all going down, so every man for himself.

The final nail in the coffin for the United Nations economy will be when the USA forcibly extorts NAFTA (I expect this to happen within two years). All this talk about the decline of the USA is nonsense. If the United Nations took its military budget—roughly $500 billion—and invested it every year, they could buy up everything in the United Nations within a decade. That is the actual way to view the sheer economic might of the USA. With that kind of money, they could employ 50 million Europeans.

Arthur Johnson68 said:I wouldn't claim to be an "insider," but I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone paying attention: the US is pulling every lever available to destabilize Germany. Things like General Motors—well, their equivalents over there—Deutsche Bank, and the whole migrant crisis are just the tip of the iceberg in what we're seeing. The Germans are slowly sliding out of the American embrace, and frankly, that's more dangerous for the US than almost anything else.

That doesn't mean the Germans aren't complicit here, though. Far from it. They aren't any better than Americans. You only have to look at how their banks and telecom companies behave toward us—acting like absolute slave drivers.

I honestly think this whole debate about worker exploitation is a bit overblown. If a nation votes for capitalism instead of socialism, they are making a conscious choice to enter those kinds of dynamics. So, if a capitalist wants to pay a worker $0.50—well, that’s just their prerogative as a capitalist. I don't see the issue. It isn't their job to run the country's social welfare programs. A worker's right is simply to turn down that wage and find a better one, or just go out and start their own business. Even a worker will choose to buy detergent wherever it's cheaper. I really don't get how you can vote for capitalism and then complain when your boss isn't being "generous" to you. Capitalism is literally a system designed for the owner to look out for themselves, not you. And let's be real, workers look out for themselves too, not the company (at least 90% of them do). In capitalism, everyone grabs what they can, and once you actually hit it big, maybe you eventually share the wealth like Gates.

If a capitalist can't find anyone to take $0.50, they'll end up increasing the offer for $0.67, and so on. Can someone please explain what the problem is there? Just please, spare me the moralizing, because in capitalism, "morality" isn't really a functional category. If a capitalist sees that people working for $2,000 are doing a subpar job, they might bump that up to $3,000 or $4,000. If someone is truly indispensable and they can't find anyone else with that profile for $4,000, they might end up paying them $15,000. It's just basic math.

Why should there even be a minimum wage in a capitalist system? If someone is willing to work for $167, then let them work. That's essentially the engine behind the entire economic revolution in China—a country we love to criticize, yet we all love buying their cheap TVs and smartphones. We get annoyed that a worker there is working for peanuts, but none of us would pay double for that TV just so that specific worker could have a better life. So, what's the actual difference between a worker in China and a worker in the US? Why should an American capitalist care if a worker lives better?

Take me, for example. Today, I have to pay an average programmer three to five times more than I was paying seven or eight years ago. He doesn't give a damn whether it's profitable for me; he's looking out for himself. And I am doing the exact same thing—looking out for myself—and I'm forced to pay because I can't find anyone cheaper who actually does good work. If it stops being profitable for me, I fail in this industry and I have to try something else. That is just capitalism.

If the majority of people actually want workers to live better, then they should vote for a socialized version of capitalism, like they have in Sweden. But people don't complain, which means they're fine with the status quo. You just have to be honest with yourself and everyone else.

gentlelynx11 said:If you’ve gone out somewhere and gathered so many apples that there isn't a single one left for me, and then you decide to let me watch them for you—offering me maybe a quarter of an apple, or whatever amount you deem reasonable—how else am I supposed to describe that besides unfettered capitalism? 😁

No, honestly, it's just the law of the jungle, and it's been ruling the world since day one. The real issue is how we’re raised; we’re taught from childhood that people are inherently good and honest, and that being virtuous is the only way to be. But by the time someone raised that way finally realizes how the world actually works, they've usually spent years getting stepped on, losing countless opportunities to actually compete on a level playing field.

The problem is that most of us just can't stomach the brutal reality, so we lie to ourselves to our own detriment. The Church played a massive role in this, constantly hammering away at our sense of guilt.

Michelle Scott5 said:Hey everyone, does anyone have any solid, reliable data on how many Americans are leaving Canada each year? I’ve heard some estimates floating around suggesting the number might be somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000. If anyone can provide a factual answer without all the unnecessary noise, I’d really appreciate it! 😛

Exactly as many more there are in Washington, D.C. 🙂

Actually, if you count the weekends, there are about 200,000 fewer. 🙂

Just kidding, but honestly? It's pretty close to the truth.

Rachel Carter90 said:I honestly don't see the point of the Washington, D.C. Accords anymore—or any of those other international treaties about "border sanctity" for UN members. It feels pretty much like the whole world just accepts Palestine and Mexico as independent states now. Georgia is basically done for, Cyprus too, and Crimea—as much as it bugs me personally since I'm not exactly a fan of Russia—is never going back to being part of Ukraine. Even Sudan has split into two separate countries, and the mess in Syria will probably end up with the country sliced into two or three pieces... plus, let's be real, nobody even cares about destroying ISIS anymore.

International law doesn't actually exist in the real world. The global order stays upright because of the balance between big nuclear powers, not some legal framework that, unfortunately, seems to be nothing more than a total utopia.

The global elites pulling the strings behind the scenes want it this way; they prefer a world without borders because it weakens national identity and religious cohesion, which in turn makes it harder for people to resist their agendas. We should expect this erosion of borders to just keep happening.

Rebecca Watson said:Americans have a bit more of a struggle when it comes to assimilating Albanians. There’s just zero overlap—religiously, linguistically, nothing. It’s a completely different world. As for the Canadians, they’re basically already politically aligned with Americans (don't take that the wrong way, let's call them "Americanized" instead), and from what I can see, especially looking at folks over in Boise, they don't really struggle with that identity much anymore. Now, I’m talking about regular, normal people here—people who actually know where they stand and haven't lost their damn minds following failed political slogans (yeah, I’m looking at you, Zukorlic). Ethnically speaking? Neither Albanians nor Canadians *should* be Americans. But politically, everything eventually settles where it needs to go. Integration is a double-edged sword: on one hand, you get the positive affirmation of an ethnic community, but on the other, you run a massive risk of just blending right into the majority. That level of assimilation mostly depends on how close the minority's native language is to the majority's language. Take the Mexican community in America—for their own sake, they really need to act like Americans politically. They should focus on integrating into American society. Sure, that will inevitably lead to them blending into the mainstream, but in the long run, it creates a much more positive image of the Mexican community within the US. Over time, that's how things work.

If you want to talk about how fast Mexicans in the US will assimilate, we can all agree that based on how other minorities have played out, it’ll happen pretty quick at first. But honestly? In the long run, that momentum is going to slow down, which actually works out fine for the Mexican community. Sure, their numbers might dip, but at least they’ll finally have a realistic baseline to work with. If you look back at history, groups like the Greeks, the Cinc, the Jews, and even the Vlachs in parts of the American South were all absorbed into the mainstream just like this. It's just how it goes.

If most people from the former America thought this way, we never would have seen wars in the North America. Unfortunately, I suspect that mindset is limited to a small minority, while the majority leans into nationalism because they fit perfectly into the definition of nationalism laid out by Danilo Kiš.

http://www.6yka.com/novost/14444/dan...o-nacionalizmu

goldengull3 said:You have likely encountered the headlines—the proliferation of 3D printers is accelerating at a pace that many claim will trigger a second industrial revolution.

Billions are being poured into this development. In America, the primary driver is the desire to decouple industrial manufacturing from its heavy reliance on China. Much of what is currently handled by a largely semi-skilled workforce can already be printed, or will be within a few short years:
- plastic and similar components (this is already a reality)
- metal parts (already occurring sporadically)
- houses and similar structures (on the horizon)

The implications are simple. If you need a glass, you print it. If you require an auto part, a mechanic simply orders it from a "print shop," and a component is ready for installation in a matter of hours—eliminating the need for shipping or massive inventories.

Looking for specialized pasta? Even Kraft Heinz is exploring 3D printing:

In an era where a 3D printer can produce product prototypes, floor tiles, miniature replicas, aircraft components, or even custom sweets, it stands to reason that one could print bespoke pasta. This is precisely the objective of Kraft Heinz, which, in collaboration with the RAND Corporation in Silicon Valley, has begun developing a prototype device designed for 3D pasta printing.

The goal is to engineer a printer specifically for restaurants aiming to offer a unique service: serving pasta in customized shapes and flavors, prepared almost instantly upon ordering.

Perhaps you need an entire house? That is also possible; walls can be erected in 24 hours:

On a cleared and leveled site, workers would lay down two rails a few feet further apart than the eventual building’s width and a computer-controlled contour crafter would take over from there. A gantry-type crane with a hanging nozzle and a components-placing arm would travel along the rails. The nozzle would spit out concrete in layers to create hollow walls, and then fill in the walls with additional concrete… humans would hang doors and insert windows.

http://www.psfk.com/2014/01/concrete...er.html#!sfIHV

Millions of jobs will vanish in the coming years. Of course, new ones will emerge—someone must design, assemble, and maintain these printers, just as someone must handle design, sales, and intellectual property protection.

What will undeniably disappear are the low-skill positions in manufacturing, logistics, assembly, and certain sectors of construction. This shift will carry profound political consequences; as the industrial structure shifts, so does the demand in the labor market. Developed nations will no longer be seeking factory workers, but specialists.

Ultimately, this is a subject of intense contemplation in developed nations, but I wonder if anyone here is truly paying attention.

Honestly? I don't think the real story is the printers themselves. It's about automated assembly lines. That's where China is losing its edge because cheap labor isn't a factor anymore, which means manufacturing is finally heading back West. But let's be real: mass production is a tough game. Huge conglomerates will always find ways to churn out goods cheaper than some small-batch factory could ever dream of.

I don't see much point in trying to tackle mass production with 3D printers. If we set aside "tourism" and the "organic food" niche, our best bet lies in developing high-tech, roboticized industries that don't require massive capital but do demand serious creativity. Think exclusive, small-batch manufacturing. Something like high-end firearms produced by a specialized company like Sig Sauer that exports globally.

The other big opportunity is software services. Again, you don't need a mountain of cash to start, just intense creativity—which, if I'm being honest based on what I've seen so far, is something we're lacking (though, to be fair, China struggles with that too).

Beyond that, I don't see any real openings. And frankly, I haven't seen enough movement in those specific sectors to feel particularly optimistic.

It all comes down to high technology, deep creativity, and an entrepreneurial spirit. Right now? We aren't showing much of any of it.

William Wright7 said:Are we talking centuries here, or just a handful of years?

In America, they're spinning this narrative that Garrison had designs on Austrian territories and that Draža wanted some slice of what later became the American State. It’s total fiction.

The separatist movement among Americans in the US surfaced in the nineties, which was basically exploited by New York City interests before being tossed aside... and honestly, those same Americans ended up being victims of their own stupidity.

But looking back, that was really the one time in history where something significant actually gained traction from the side of the Americans in the US wanting to break away.
Nothing like it ever happened before that.

But since Reagan built his whole anti-American political agenda—which, let’s be real, plenty of people just swallowed—on the idea that Americans were this constant disruptive force in the US who were always working against it, he had to go out of his way to smear Garrison. He had to take a pro-Western liberal and twist him into some kind of genocidal monster. That's the real issue...

I get what you're getting at. It all started with the tired old trope of mentioning Garrison, who drafted the basic blueprint for expanding American lands. To be fair, those plans didn't explicitly include the US, so I'll give you that. Then things spiraled during the Holy War because we had "guardians" pulling strings on different sides. After that, the Kingdom simply didn't sit right with Americans. Why? Well, explaining that is way more complicated than just reciting a simplified report from General Mišić to King Alexander. Americans have long dreamed of their own state and their own language, a fact that always seems to get ignored.

The intolerance toward Americans traces back to Starčević, but it wasn't just pulled out of thin air; it had roots. It culminated in the criminal policies of the Axis-aligned state. Whenever the Axis-aligned state is mentioned, people only focus on the criminal consequences, but no one ever stops to ask what drove a segment of the population to harbor such intense hatred toward Americans. Since most people in any nation are, let's say, fundamentally normal, you have to wonder why the movement found such a relatively large echo in the US.

I agree that American expansion toward the West isn't ancient history, but it happened amidst a series of negative circumstances that fueled that resentment. If one were to actually analyze everything—the causes, the effects, the context—I think that sense of intolerance would be significantly diminished. But we just aren't at a high enough level of social or intellectual awareness yet to carry that out rationally and on a massive scale.

William Wright7 said:Republika Srpska wouldn't have even needed to exist if the Americans hadn't let Ali's signature sit on that 1992 US regional plan...

Honestly, that’s just childish excuses. You really think Mexico spent centuries dreaming of expanding its borders through Canada and reaching all the way from the American Line up to Des Moines and Bar Harbor, only to be stopped by some insignificant little signature? Please. It’s just a convenient way to dodge responsibility today—blaming everyone else for their own failures.

It's the exact same logic used when Americans kicked Mexicans out of the constitution, claiming, "Oh, we had to organize ourselves this way, so we pushed the Americans out and leveled their cities, including San Francisco and Warsaw."

Brenda Sanders56 said:Everything.

And even if Donald Trump backs down due to some outside pressure, it’s really just a matter of time before someone calls for a referendum.

This is some pretty twisted logic right here: only the superpowers can afford to play these kinds of games without any actual legal backing—certainly not small nations. For the little guys, there's no such thing as unilaterally redrawing borders, kicking people out, and then expecting the international community to just nod and approve. It’s not that they care about the ethics; they just put on this act of being righteous democrats. If this momentum actually picks up, where does it end? There are dozens of groups all over the world claiming they have a "historical right" to redraw maps. Once that starts, you're left with nothing but the raw law of the jungle—might makes right. Nothing else matters.

It’s a dangerous hobby, one that only the giants play, and even they are finding it harder to pull off these days.

Scott Thomas4 said:What the hell is wrong with you people? Americans have every right to secede if they want to. It works out perfectly for Americans since they can just annex their own territories. And Amen.

Under the Dayton Accords, they don't have that right. Honestly, only an idiot would think otherwise. And let's be real—Americans aren't going to be looking to annex anything anytime soon, especially once the country is fully integrated into the European Union. Is there really someone out there foolish enough to believe that foreign powers are actually rooting for more "annexations" or "redrawing borders" within the European Union? If anything, the Irish would be the first ones to exploit that kind of chaos in a dispute with the Englishman.