[Coq de Combat]

  Does "apartment" means something different in Europe-land?  Because holy ****. 

LOL, no. However, usually when we "buy an apartment" here, we actually don't own it, but merely the right to live there. There are basically three kinds of apartments here: rentals (you rent it), "living-rights" (means you buy the right to live there, but you don't own it) and those that are just sold apartments, meaning that you own them. With these "living-rights" (I really don't know the correct terminology) you have to pay a small monthly fee to the organization that owns the apartment, which you own a part of (see it as stocks, you don't own the apartment but you own a piece of the organization that owns the apartment), for repairs, cleaning and so on and so forth. Whichever system you become a part of, it's going to cost you, but buying the rights to live there is probably the best thing because the fee is about 1/10th of the rental price, and then you can sell it when you want to move on, and most people make economical gains by moving (buy for $200000, sell for $250000 in 5 years). Also, if you sell but move to a rental, you'rea millionaire, granted the loans are paid. Realistically, no one becomes a millionaire from buying and selling apartments here, but there is money to be made, and for me the biggest benefit is that there are apartments to be bought at all times, just waiting for someone to buy them, while I have a huuuuge waiting line for rentals. Meaning, if I get a loan, I would have my own home in little to no time. A fully legitimate own home, with no landlord trying to rip me off.
 

Hmm, that sounds similar to what I can get here in Kuala Lumpur. Although maybe it's just my negativity clouding my opinion. The per capita income is unable to support the cutthroat prices houses or even apartments sell for now. Good news is that at worst a slow down or down turn or whatever its called is bound to happen in late 2015, so I'm saving for enough money for my own hole. It's nice that my mom can still cook dinner for me, but.... at 23 too...

Still, I'm grateful for the time and ease for now.

---

The original point was: glad to hear you're on your feet again, cdc.

Thanks. It'll feel good not having to sleep in my office anymore. Next problem is my ex wife trying to skin me for money, which is kind of rare in Sweden, but since she has no job there seems to be some kind of stipulation that I have to provide for her. Again, this is kind of unusual in Sweden, women are seen as fully capable of taking care of themselves and if they lose out on a career because of family, it's seen as their own choice. We don't really have the "house wife" thing here. But apparently she wants to try. Getting all my/our belongings and home wasn't enough. Also, the silly thing she said yesterday was tasteless: "So, it's your fault that I will have to prostitute myself to pay the rent". No, it's not, it's yours that you wanted a divorce when you didn't even have an income, dear <- What I wanted to say. I didn't say it though. I just said "Ok".
 

 
Agreed. In Wyoming you can get a 4 bedroom house on a half acre of land for $200000. Same is true in most of the southern U.S., particularly places like Kentucky and Alabama.

Damn. But yeah, go outside of Stockholm and $200000 will get you a house too. Too bad I work in Stockholm and have my children here. My life is here. I can't just move out.
 

   
That is why in the former Soviet Union it is very common that grown up children live with their parents. Just because they can't afford to buy an apartment. The salary is enough only to cover basic expenses.
 
Traditional values: patriarchy, several generations living together etc. it is because of poverty. Such structure helps to survive. I think that when in America there will be too many people and it will be difficult to save money to live separately then there will be more and more cases when children would stay with parents.

I can understand that. In a way we're headed that direction too. I talked to a colleague of mine about it, and yeah, it seems that most people have to borrow money, or get help, from their parents in order to buy an apartment. Sweden is a lot of things, but one thing it's not is a country where you become rich over night.

 

[DigitalFreak]

I live in the middle of butt worthy nowhere and 200000 gets you a half falling apart house usually located in neighbourhoods that are rather suspect.
@Coq
I think what you're describing in North smerican terms is apt renting, vs condominium, vs cooperative living. Usually when you pay to live in a place and buy I to the organization it's called joining a cooperative living complex. You see that around here but it's mostly seniors complexes.

 

[barleyguy]

I live in the middle of butt worthy nowhere and 200000 gets you a half falling apart house usually located in neighbourhoods that are rather suspect.
@Coq
I think what you're describing in North smerican terms is apt renting, vs condominium, vs cooperative living. Usually when you pay to live in a place and buy I to the organization it's called joining a cooperative living complex. You see that around here but it's mostly seniors complexes.

Do seniors' complexes allow you to sell your space when you're done with it, like Coq was describing? I've never heard of that being an option, though I also suspect that for many people a senior complex is their last home.
 
On that note, I'm not sure North America has an exact analogy to something you don't really own but can sell later.
 
EDIT: Timeshare condos maybe. That's where you buy the right to live in something one week a year, and it's really just buying into a club rather than getting a deed to ownership. And you can sell them when you're done... Sorta the same thing, except only one share instead of all the shares.

 

[Coq de Combat]

DigiFreak, yeah, it seems that the closest translations would be co-op or condominium.

 

[driver 8]

 
 
In other news,
 

 
**** Ubisoft.  Whether or not this is legit, I've known others who've worked for them and have heard similar stories. 
 
Also, as a dude who's bought a couple hundred PC games in recent years (though pirated a few too, sure), I resent their "90% of them are pirates" sentiment.  Steam's ******* huge and people buy games on that **** like crazy.  They'd probably feel even more inclined to if companies like Ubisoft didn't put out piss poor ports or tie them to some external service that may or may not even work half the time.

 

[driver 8]

http://www.clickhole.com/quiz/which-one-my-garbage-sons-are-you-1458
 
I'm the dreaded Laramie.  What about you guys?

 

[DigitalFreak]

 
Do seniors' complexes allow you to sell your space when you're done with it, like Coq was describing? I've never heard of that being an option, though I also suspect that for many people a senior complex is their last home.
 
On that note, I'm not sure North America has an exact analogy to something you don't really own but can sell later.
 
EDIT: Timeshare condos maybe. That's where you buy the right to live in something one week a year, and it's really just buying into a club rather than getting a deed to ownership. And you can sell them when you're done... Sorta the same thing, except only one share instead of all the shares.

From my understanding if the co op is a seniors retirement complex the senior can sell to someone else as long as certain criteria are met by the new buyer, think age, health, etc. Upon death the condo can be willed to the family who then sells the unit or if none of the family willed to are of senior age or don't wish to live there then the co op must/can buy the unit back at market value or at the original purchase price. Final pricing would depend on the cooperative rules which are signed and agreed to by the original unit owner. From what I know it can differ from coop to coop. If the place isn't a retirement hub then other criteria must be met to join the cooperative. Put very bluntly, most cooperatives don't want any layabout welfare or cheapo upper middle class or upper class richies around. They usually cater to working lower middle class or working lower class. People who can't work due to mental/physical disabilities are also welcome. Habitat For Humanity is known to run a couple of cooperative complexes in my city. The buildings are pretty nice looking and the standard of living, think size and finish of the buildings units, are quite nice too.

 

[ardgedee]

  **** Ubisoft.  Whether or not this is legit, I've known others who've worked for them and have heard similar stories. 

 
Most of the work details sound like conventional work situations for developers in startups and contract developer companies. Brutal hours and rampant burnout.
 
The main difference is that developers outside the game industry are generally paid commensurate with the effort. People are not applying to Facebook or Microsoft with stars in their eyes, willing to work for free if it brings them closer to their dreams of implementing social networking features. What's going on at Ubisoft correlates to stories I've heard from acquaintances at EA and other companies.
 
So the games companies don't care about the burnout rate. They've got their pick of the best from what amounts to a cornucopia of laborers available at incredibly under-market rates. And they don't care if the quality of product goes down on release; that's what patch days are for. You'll just have the same devs continuing to push 90 hour work weeks to meet bimonthly sub-releases.

 

[jgray91]

Spoiler: A series of unfortunate events.

Spoiler: I'm sorry for this, but I felt like letting it go here for some reason. Again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

It all started in Friday.

I took that day off from work, planned to get my car to its overdue scheduled service. Well being me, I didn't try to book an appointment at the designated service centre not until the day before, so it's all busy until Monday, where I didn't apply for a leave.

No matter.

Well all my Friday plans were out because a grand relative passed away Thursday night. I'll be honest, I don't know him much. It's the "typical" Asian family thing, where I have lots of grand relatives, tens of uncles and aunts and bajillions of cousins. The one that passed away was not in the circle that my parents frequently visit during holidays and such.

I've never been to the full ritual of the funeral. Usually at max was there for the prayers and burial. This time, I'm there as a family, not as a visiting friend or courteous visitor to pay respect. It's... sobering. And worrisome. I've now seen what I was taught in school; religous teachings are still a thing here, and pretty mandatory for my race. Anyways...

Sobering, in that, I am reminded of death. Clearly, right in front of me. We will end someday.

Worrisome because at most I only got my eyes wet with tears, but none fell. Sure, rationalizing it, I don't know him much, or the extended family too. I don't know which of my cousins that were close to him, so I can't console them. I don't even know how to console myself, actually, so let alone me dreaming of consoling others.

Another visceral reminder that we will return to dust, is seeing the 6 ft bed of dirt into Earth. We will decompose inside that alcove of minerals, aided by those that can't be seen by naked eyes. Many believes at what happens then exists, and I chose mind based on what I was raised.
----------------------
The same Friday, my younger sister visited home from the north. She decided - well this was a planned visit - for us to go back to our grandparents' town to savour some local delicacy; affectionately called Malaysian dorayaki. We were to go there this just past Saturday morning. We were to meet our father there too, since he was outstation nearby.

Saturday goes of as planned, mostly. It was supposed to be a day trip, and the journey shouldn't take more than two hours even with my cautious driving. Well, as it always happens, siblings were up late, and on the highway there, there was road widening stuff, and a few accidents, and some rain, so all in all, we have to stay there for the night.

As it happens, the 22nd was the state Sultan's birthday. There were some annoyance that he blocked off roads and a bridge just to host some folk performance and a fair. And some fireworks that night. I think it was his birthday, or maybe it's a secondary celebration since the town we went to is a Royal City now.

Fast forward to Sunday. My aforementioned sister was suppose to catch her bus at 3:30 pm in Kuala Lumpur. We started to make our way home from south at 11:30am. Yep, don't mention our "punctuality". This time my younger brother was driving, so he actually got us back 2 hours early.

As fate would dictate, that is also the time for the questionable tires + sports rims deal my father bought for the family car to safely burst and end its life. Well, not all the tires, just one. Thank God for the little things. At least we weren't in any danger when this happened.

As it were, my sister missed her bus, predictably. The plan now is to go into the capital to buy her a ticket for next morning, because we dare not to send her back tonight, and arriving at 5 or 6 am in the morning.

Fate has other plans though. The other car, my father's car, the one that's well long overdue for its service, broke down somewhere just now (well 3 hours ago) in the capital. They are now on the tow truck to an on-call mechanic somewhere we know and went before. My brother is out now to pick them up there, with the family car on questionable tires and a spare.
-------------------
I would like to think this is Karma. This is a term that's frowned upon in our teachings, but I feel like the meaning of the term jives with a similar term of our teachings.

I would also like to take these series of unfortunate events as tests for our patience. It seems that, IMO, we failed our comfort and decadence test, so maybe it's high time for something more "normal", negative tests.
--------------------
I don't think I'm down or depressed yet. But then again, that one time in a cold dark winter I thought the same. But back then, I don't think I aired out anything. Hopefully, this time, some of the weight is off my shoulder and my soul/mind. I would love to sleep without draining myself out by browsing **** all on my phone until the wee hours of morning, or by taking some painkillers for the ensuing migraine, or by getting tired of thinking about my failure complex and trust issues.
----------------
I cannot even begin to imagine how much more stressful my parents are now.
---------------
I've omitted a few things to maintain some semblance of coherency. Thanks for your ears (eyes, more like).

 

[compoopers]

jgray, I have to say two things.

1) I really enjoy your writing style and story telling.
2) I am worried about the nature of your post :\

It seems like there is a lot on your shoulders and you are finding a lot of negative things happening. I don't have much to say except I've been there and that I hope things get better for you, both externally and internally.

As far as things go for me...

My RE-400s broke, AGAIN. This time, after only a month of use. At least last time, it lasted 3 months. Very disappointed with the them and will not be getting Hifiman's again. If you're wondering what happened, something is wrong with the 3.5 jack where I lose sound on one side. Right now, if I jiggle it around a bit it might hit the right angle and come back, but this alos happened with my last pair and eventually it just went out completely. I use my IEMs for on the go situations and expect them to work while on the move, so this is an unworkable situation.

On the brighter side, I went back to the stock IEMs that come with the Samsung Galaxy s5. You know that cruddy white pair that is a ripoff of apple pods or whatever? Well, I found that they sound really good actually. Don't know if that's a comment on my ability to tell quality or if these things are actually half decent. Or maybe the RE-400s are just overrated as hell. I don't see myself buying new IEMs for a while since these samsungs do the job just fine.

Hope everyone in here is doing well. I love this thread.

 

[gikigill]

The Samsung are said to be dual driver units. Not sure though.

 

[mutabor]

On the brighter side, I went back to the stock IEMs that come with the Samsung Galaxy s5. You know that cruddy white pair that is a ripoff of apple pods or whatever? Well, I found that they sound really good actually. Don't know if that's a comment on my ability to tell quality or if these things are actually half decent. Or maybe the RE-400s are just overrated as hell. I don't see myself buying new IEMs for a while since these samsungs do the job just fine.

 
Are you talking about these Samsung IEMs?

 

[barleyguy]

   
Most of the work details sound like conventional work situations for developers in startups and contract developer companies. Brutal hours and rampant burnout.
 
The main difference is that developers outside the game industry are generally paid commensurate with the effort. People are not applying to Facebook or Microsoft with stars in their eyes, willing to work for free if it brings them closer to their dreams of implementing social networking features. What's going on at Ubisoft correlates to stories I've heard from acquaintances at EA and other companies.
 
So the games companies don't care about the burnout rate. They've got their pick of the best from what amounts to a cornucopia of laborers available at incredibly under-market rates. And they don't care if the quality of product goes down on release; that's what patch days are for. You'll just have the same devs continuing to push 90 hour work weeks to meet bimonthly sub-releases.

Outside the game industry, I haven't actually seen much of this for developers. I've been in development since 1998.
 
I worked at a startup once. We had a core hour system, 10 am to 4 pm for all meetings. There was an expectation of 40 hour weeks, though I think many people tended towards about 38 or 39. And the pay was excellent, along with free food and drink (including beer in moderation). The problem of course was that startup didn't succeed; they are still in business but now mostly a support consulting firm. Most of their software engineers got laid off.
 
Established stable development companies tend to be fast paced and stressful, but in general ARE concerned about burnout and give lots of vacation days and reasonable expectations of hours. If anybody is working 90 hour weeks it's typically their own decision, under the assumption that they will be more respected as an employee or advance faster if they do so. Sometimes this is true; often workaholics are on the fast track to promotion. But I'd rather be on the slow track "stuck" as an engineer, and work closer to 40 hours a week. It's a pretty badly kept secret that you won't ever get fired for doing that; you'll just tend to stay in the role you're in, which is great if that's where you want to be anyway.
 
Contractors, as you implied, are treated differently than "full time employees", and often are pushed harder. But they get paid by the hour, and often at very high rates. They also often have a parent company that will transfer them to a different "client" company if they get burned out. So though they are worked hard, they are pretty well compensated.
 
$.02

 

[jgray91]

Spoiler: Everything is swell.

Thanks, compoopers. Maybe I should take up writing again. I figured myself as a good-ish writer back when I was in school. At least I hope I am lol.
-----------------------
All is well, despite some troubling thoughts. Malaysia has **** psych support AFAIK, but then again, I haven't tried searching for it yet. Hopefully it won't come to that just yet.

Maybe it's work stress, or lack thereof. Don't want to complain too much about this, but it's bloody monotonous, and since I'm now working in a consultant company, I too would want commission or whatever it's called for added work on top of my basic salary.

A change of lifestyle should help, at least according to most self help stuff. Exercise seems like the best course of action and easiest, than change of eating habits, or a change of environtment. I should really start that burpees then jog plan I had in my mind...

Also maybe I should pack in some sporty clothes to work since I'm usually not keen on sitting on my ass going back home. And should be fine since the office is empty pretty quickly most of the time.
----------------------
Saving up for a hole of my own, and it's working quite well. Or so I think. The property prices here are predicted to go up a bit more before, at worst, slowing down, and at best, crash. At least if I can get an apartment with one bedroom and a bathroom to call my own, and praying that it would be in a safe neighbourhood, I would like to make it truly my own again. This time without the nuisance of roommates like at Moscow, or perceived shame currently while living with my parents.

Regardless, here's hoping in one to two years time I have enough saved to get a good enough apartment for going to and from work, and leftover money to get another property in 6 months to 1 year time after I've sufficiently settled in.
-------------------------
Cars are useful tool, but really eats up money out of the blue if not properly maintained and priorities are out of whack, as I seen what happened to the family and my father's car. I detest my government for doing **** all to improve on-road public transportation. Their solution is to add more roads that merge into bottlenecks. Sigh. Also money-grabbing contractors that sold contracts to subcontractors and abandon the obligation to the public, which was also abandoned by the controlling minister or whatever.

Some amazing insight I learned now that I work here. Depressing really, but "Don't stress over things not in your control". A useful mantra that works for me lately.
---------------------------
Secret Anime Santa Year 2 woohoo. \o/

Any of you guys tried the Aurisonics Rocket? I don't remember if I ever said anything about it since I got to try it for the first time at a local meet, but to me it's like my Chiri-chan the Sony MDR7550 but with a tad little more emphasis on bass overall, that I'd be happy to get it for my birthday. Same price too, and much more manageable I thought compared to Chiri-chan.

Bonus that it also looks like some penetrating end of a couple of phallic tentacles of eldritch and hedonistic origins.

 

[compoopers]

Are you talking about these Samsung IEMs?

I believe so. I replaced the tips with sony hybrids. Anyway, they sound fantastic! Why do you ask?