Audentes Fortuna Iuvat

  • 2 Posts
  • 16 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 25th, 2024

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  • This is NSFW so I’ll cover it in spoiler text…

    The incident...

    In my teens I had warts in a very intimate place. Our insane family doctor handed me a bottle of Podophyllin (either mixed with salicylic acid or two bottles, I don’t remember) and a toothbrush. He said to apply it wherever was needed. If you know about salicylic acid you will already know how insane that was. I slathered it on completely ignorant of the impeding consequences. It burnt my exit so badly I was scream crying constantly. Because the doctor had made it sound like he did a normal thing I thought I was just being a baby. I remember spending a lot of time in baths being looked after by my then gf just in constant, near passing out, agony. It’s easily the most pain I’ve ever experienced. Also, it didn’t get rid of the warts!! I had to wait till many years later and a very gentle medicine called Aldara. No pain and no more warts, thank goodness.




  • If you want a great example of how instantly otherwise good people become the worst versions of themselves almost overnight watch what happens when a rich person with a large family dies. I did a couple of years in the will writing sector. I’m telling ya… zero to Golem in no time at all. I’ve also watched good people I knew extremely well turn bad too many times to remember. It all starts with “I couldn’t possibly have servants. How embarrassing!” and before you know it it’s “Eduardo! I’ve told you a hundred times I need my watermelon juice chilled! One more mistake and it’s back to Caracas!”. People should have to undergo intense psychological training to be able to be rich and stay human.


  • I’ve got a few that I can’t really separate:

    Dental hygienists are greedy charlatans who convince us we need an expensive hygiene appointment every six months when we really don’t. That used to be true before the invention of the electric toothbrush but not now. I stopped going 7 years ago and I make sure I brush properly daily for two minutes with my electric toothbrush. I occasionally use inter-dental brushes for a deeper clean and my teeth are perfect. No soreness, gum bleeding and certainly no cavities. It’s lies I tell ya.

    AI is the most incredible development in human evolution since the invention of the wheel. I think it is the beginning of our next evolutionary step. It may even save us from destroying ourselves. It has brought me personally incredible results that have enriched my life in countless ways. I can’t wait to see where it takes us. People who are angry about it are dumb (you did say “controversial opinion” lol).

    Money is basically the ring from Lord of the rings. You can’t have it without it changing you. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of knowing a great many millionaires and they’re all miserable bastards pretending that they’re not. Their families hate them, most of them are alcoholics and drug addicts. They hate themselves even more and their money doesn’t mean anything to them so they use it to impress others or hurt them, just so they can feel something. It’s all a disgustingly wasteful, tragic act.



  • I get to work from home exclusively. My right to do that is never questioned. My boss is super understanding and my work gives me holidays whenever I want on short notice. I get raises all the time and if any of our clients start being toxic I’m allowed to shove them out of the nearest airlock. Yes, I love being self employed 😁.

    Everyone should at least once, seriously consider starting their own business and working from home permanently. Specially now you can literally put everything you love doing, whatever it is, into ChatGPT and it’ll tell you the best business for YOU to start, how to structure it, what you’ll need and how to make it all work (Yes, yes AI will be the end of us bla bla but in the mean time it’s a goldmine of free information and inspiration).

    Having a job can be nice and cosy but working for yourself is incredible. There’s no HR, no KPI’s decided by someone else, no office politics and you can work from home wearing scuba gear if you want to. It really is worth trying to find your bliss and not just accepting things as they are.

    Couple of little success nuggets I will add… Only buy hardware/software as you need it, not before. In fact, don’t buy anything until there’s a clear need. No office space, no business cards even, no cool e-ink tablet to take notes with or other vanity silliness. Nothing you don’t need. Don’t offer services you don’t need to offer. If you behave like a swiss army knife, you’ll be treated like one forever.

    Whatever you’re selling, make it a monthly subscription. This might be the most important bit of advice I have if you want to work happily from home for yourself successfully. Try out a bunch of networking groups and join a couple that focus on friendship first and business second. Those are your office pals who will bring you clients, be clients and give you advice and all you have to do is the same for them.

    I guess no one’s reading this far down but that’s ok. For some reason your post inspired me 🤭


  • This line is interesting from this article (no paywall or ads).

    “Thinking about business cards in the future, they are destined to go the same way as the tie. Some people will use them but they will not serve any real purpose other than to simply establish an image about the person or the company they work for”.

    I think that feels about right. It hadn’t even occurred to me to compare it to tie wearing, but I think it’s true. Maybe 2 out of 30 people now wear any kind of suit or tie to the groups I go to and it used to be the standard. I haven’t had to order any new cards in over 2 years and it used to be every six months.



  • The only thing more certain to exist till the end of time than prostitution is people complaining about it. I like it because it makes something explicit that is implicit in so many apparently non transactional relationships. There are so many people who say prostitution should be banned, who are also in relationships/marriages where they expect sex for shelter, food, safety or whatever. Prostitution makes the transaction clear. People point to the exploitative nature of it, but then reveal their real agenda by also rejecting the idea of making it safer for the people selling access to their bodies. The whole thing is a massively hypocritical pile of double standards. Mix into that cultures with backwards patriarchal religious doctrines and that’s where you get the really angry people who talk about dishonor and stoning and all that jazz. Prostitution has been around since there were people and will always be around. When the puritans are in charge it just hides for a bit. This has been my TED talk, thanks lol