> US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now
The thing is .. there's a point here, but it's not at all tied in with physical products. People are obsessed with one side of the ledger while refusing to see the other. Most of the stuff the UK is struggling with (transport, healthcare, energy) are "state capacity" issues. Things where the state is unavoidably involved and having better, more decisive leadership and not getting bogged down in consultations, would make a big difference.
The UK stepped on its own rake because it was obsessed with tiny, already vanished industries like fishing. Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer. It's not actually where we want to be. While real UK manufacture successes (cars, aircraft, satellites, generators, all sorts of high-tech stuff) get completely ignored. Or bogged down in extra export red tape thanks to Brexit.
To improve reality, we have to start from reality, not whatever vision of the past propaganda "news" channels are blathering about.
I may have ADHD, I never went for a diagnosis and found body doubling useful at times, especially when I was in school some decades ago, back then I had no name for it. However, I find white noise very helpful with staying on the task and with increased focus. My company moved, about a year ago, into a very cramped office that is also extremely noisy. This exasperated me, I would get drained of energy in a couple of hours and my focus was being severy affected. I even considered quitting and looking for something else. As a last resort I started listening to white noise. I’ve been using white noise (white+brown+pink) for about a year now and find that it helps not only with cancelling out the noise but with focus and staying on task in general. I even use it at home at times. I know this may not be useful for everybody but I’m sure it could help out some of you. I use https://noises.online/ and mix all the types of white noise at the same time for maximim coverage but any type of white noise generator would do. To me it feels like being close to a waterfall. At first my ears hurt a bit after a few hours of white noise but got used to it after a while.
Here are a few STEM focused ones I'm in. Note, that much of the content (due to the younger age demographic) is people asking for homework help and such a lot of the time. Funny enough, that has died down now with the advent of ChatGPT. Equally, I've met many field experts who hang out in these groups too and people I've eventually become friends and colleagues with:
Sure, I only very recently started expanding my music horizons, but here are some I picked randomly from my library. Lately I'm into desert blues / enka / math rock / city pop.
Tinariwen - Sastanàqqàm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vACZA9dGvV4)
Mdou Moctar - Tarhatazed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZvPoE0EH1o)
椎名林檎 – 人生は夢だらけ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDnLHd2Ei3Y)
Tatsuro Yamashita - LOVE SPACE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNQic9N2I7c)
Mazouni - Écoute-moi camarade (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnsa9dazW04)
Stromae - Papaoutai (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiKj0Z_Xnjc)
Spitz - Yasashii Ano Ko (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkIOd78C82I)
Trio Nordestino - Forro Pesado (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwbqMR8k8gg)
Given - Marutsuke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI_fCegBxZw)
I usually find music through radiooooo and random YouTube playlists/channels, such as below:
Radiooooo https://radiooooo.com/
Habibi Funk (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSzlOYn5Ae0KO94AWy7XeVw)
japanese math rock to listen while strolling around in the cherry blossoms (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-YDhSU4OwI&t=1661s)
japanese enka when gracefully ending an everlasting war (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spcoJ8Xcqy8&t=1055s)
japanese indie rock songs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRiruE1FaIQ)
My Analog Journal -
Thanks! The site is a Hugo[1] site with a modified version of the Doks template[2]. I changed some colors and the font and I hired a designer on Fiverr[3] to do a logo for $99.
My problem is renting apartments. If you ask the strata or the building managers about charging points in the carpark, they look at you like you're speaking Klingon.
This is true of even very recently completed buildings in well-off areas of relatively wealthy western countries. Heck, I just walked past three Teslas in my building's car park, one of which is new and wasn't there last week!
Do people... not plan ahead? Do architects not read the news? Are they from another planet where electricity delivery is not a problem that architects have to deal with in building design?
Mind you, I got the exact same dumbfounded stare from people when talking to cafe managers and gym owners about the impending COVID lockdowns back in February 2020: "Lock...down...? You think so? Really? Here?" (Don't think IT is spared from this, I get the same vacant expression when I talk to network engineers about IPv4 exhaustion and the need for IPv6.)
On a more practical note, I have business idea that might interest the YC News crowd: The main problem raised by building managers I spoke to was that it was "too hard" to solve charge-back and the like. Wiring is "easy", that's just a matter of calling out contractor, but organising the billing of the tenant and then splitting the revenue between the various parties involved is more work for them than it is worth, because it is complex to set up but initially there may be only a couple of electric cars generating very little revenue. An "electric charging billing" cloud service that manages everything with low overheads might sell well...
Would make a nice pairing with:
https://www.make.do/
which is sold by Lee Valley: https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/home/toys-and-games/cra... (an excellent company to do business with).
A prototype of this was on Reddit/Imgur a while back:
https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/9en02z/kids_table_saw/
with instructions on making one w/ a parts list at:
https://imgur.com/a/kids-table-saw-2cg0HJB