Yeah it is a lot of fun, last week I was talking to a guy in Ireland just to switch bands and talk to another guy in New Zealand.

It’s actually easier than ever to get in. You can get a decent handheld UHF/VHF local rig for less than $30, and a decent QRP HF global rig runs about $225 after you upgrade your license. There’s study guides out there for $10 (and even free ones) that go over the actual questions you get on the FCC exam. The license fee has gone up to $35 from $10, but the equipment has gotten cheap enough for anyone to get in.

Look into WInlink. You have to have an amateur radio license, and you’ll have to choose between different software (ie: radio modem), and you’ll need an HF transceiver. Once licensed you can create a Winlink account (via radio, no web signups!), which gives you access to smtp through their gateways (which are actually owned by other hobbyists). Different towers/repeaters have different specs/protocols (PACTOR, Packet, I use VARA) but all of them allow you to send email to any domain or recipient, just like regular email. Hardest part is configuring your laptop (or even phone) to control your transceiver to send the signals out. The email you’d have is your_callsign@winlink.org and with HF frequencies you can hit just about any gateway listed here https://winlink.org/content/gateway_locations

안녕하세요! I taught English in China, one of my students was Korean (I worked at an international school), his mom and I talk regularly. Perhaps it’s not as different as I have come to understand, but from what she’s told me the transition is difficult for them and they have a hard time fitting in. Which I can relate to, having moved to China for 10 years (I was in Incheon for a little while later) and then back to the USA. Coming back here (US) from China was actually hard for me after 10 years so I can imagine (a little) about what they go through. But she had told me it is difficult for them to be “successful” in the South, even if the housing is much better and there’s far more in the way of food, necessities, and entertainment.

Home made salsa is the best!!!

I do ham radio. Probably the coolest thing I’ve “made” is a setup where I can send email without the need for an internet connection on my end. I use a small laptop connected to a transceiver to send out high-frequency sounds (VARA) on very low power (5-10 watts) to towers around the world that will decode the signals, convert it to a regular email, and send it to the recipient (bob@overthere.com). Then reverse the process when I check for a reply. The whole setup fits in a small backpack and I can use a piece of speaker wire for the antenna. It’s about as fast as dial-up used to be, but it works!

No sweat, we’ll just stop importing your syrup and electricity (which really only makes up 11% of electricity used in a couple locales/towns). We don’t need you. At all.

Existential threat? Really? If tariffs are existential threats, then Canada has been exitentially threatening the US for decades. They’ve been tariffing us for years and then you complain when we return favor. Grow up.

Canada doesn’t do free & fair trade. That’s the whole point.

Actually, Canada has been taxing American goods at insane rates for decades. It’s been Canadian “tariffs we don’t really call tariffs” kind of sneaky BS. Protectionism at its finest. I’ve been to Canada and bought Budweiser and Marlboros at 3x the price they cost in America (and 4x the cost of their Canadian counterparts), with the border just 20 miles away.

But when the shoe’s on the other foot, Canada cries like a little baby.

As much as I don’t like Trump, it is fun to watch Canada take a dose of its own medicine. And here’s the kicker – America doesn’t need Canada. At all. In fact, Canada is an expense for us. So I say shut the border entirely. It won’t hurt the US one bit.

Yeah it’s really hard to say “this life was better than that life”. What you measure and how you measure just doesn’t “measure up”. Some would say Elon Musk has the best life, he’s the richest guy on the planet, they’d like to be him, etc. Other’s think he’s the Anitichrist.

Sorry to hear about your brother. The older I get, the more I don’t think there’s ever any “seeds of self-destruction”. I’ve seen a lot of people go down the drug road. Some you’d never guess would ever even touch a drug. But once that dopamine and endorphins hit the reward center of their brain, that’s usually it. Human beings effectively become lab rats at that point. The behavior is identical. I (like most people) experimented in my 20’s, but it was never conducive to the life I wanted to live (seeing the world). I like to sleep, I like to keep my wits about me, so anything stronger than beer was just never a good time. I have also lost friends and loved ones to the stuff, it just leaves you wondering “why”? I think for some, the feeling or high is truly overpowering and it only takes one curious moment to expose yourself to that kind of risk.

But all of that is just one of a billion different paths to go in life. Some people go to MIT and end up working at the CERN. Others go into art or music. Some become contractors, some go into politics, some fly into space. Some have kids, others don’t, some even adopt. I’m always fascinated by the “how” in it all. What lead them to choose the things they chose? What surprises came along the way that they didn’t see coming? I find out more and more, most people didn’t “decide” to be where they are. They just ended up there, in part from life choices but equally in part circumstances. The mom of three really only planned to be a mom of one. The contractor had originally planned to be a musician. Thank you for your message!

I lived in Asia for over a decade. The Korean spoken in the North is very different than the South. And as the South is a developed nation, there are contexts that simply do not exist in the North. And considering they’ve been divided for so long without much in the way of any kind of interaction, the languages have had over 80 years to evolve.

Do you speak the same English that was spoken 80 years ago? Now double that effect to simulate the difference between two languages evolving away from each other.

They die from lack of food and nutrition, smart guy…

I’ve been there, and wouldn’t want to live there. They work hard, insane hours and have one of the highest suicide rates on the planet.

But it still beats starving to death in North Korea and watching your kids die from malnutrition, zero internet access, etc.

FYI my life is STILL interesting! I ain’t dead yet!!!

It really is. But it also costs a lot.

I really wish I had the “ultimate algorithm” for everyone to find happiness. Not even joking. In my 52 years on this rock we call Earth, I still haven’t found my own “ultimate algorithm”. The rules change. The situation changes. People… Change.

My life never involved the white picket fence, nice house, beautiful wife, or kids. And the shit part is, when I was young – I thought that was the ultimate weighing scale of life. Get all that or die. No room for inbetween. You’re a failure if you don’t succeed, blah blah blah.

None of that is true.

I once hopped in a car with a guy from Phoenix who “had it all”. Nice house, his wife was trophy-level, he had 3 kids all going to college. Perfect life. Showed me photos of his house. Eight hours later he was yelling and screaming about how his two boys just smoke weed, his daughter only calls when she needs money, and his wife hasn’t laid him in six months. Perfect life, huh?

I’m not saying to pack your bags, I’m not saying go get a home loan. I’m saying your life will be a different trail. Maybe you get married, maybe you don’t. Maybe you end up rich, maybe you don’t. And I really HATE to coin a phrase, but it really is about the journey.

Prepare for that as best you can. If you’re in school, finish it. If you have a job, save.

What you don’t realize is that you’re already on your own trail. You just haven’t realized it yet.

Just wait! Life actually gets worse!!!

I am making a joke but at the same time, I’m 52. I squeaked through the 70’s and 80’s with an alcoholic father who liked to beat up my mother and I. Once I turned 16, I left home. Mom committed suicide after I left.

Ended up doing some college, then computer programming after a stint in the Air Force. Spent my 20’s pretty much dizzy as hell, I loved girls and pool and darts and bars. Spent my 30’s teaching English in Asia. Had some fun and dangerous times over there, always research your destination country well before you commit to a job abroad.

I lost my passport in Cambodia, was finally medically evacuated from Cambodia via the US Embassy (I’m 5’9" and weighed 110 lbs, not good!) and was dropped off in L.A. in the middle of December with no money, no ID, and nowhere to go. I had just turned 40.

I spent the majority of my 40’s hitchhiking the USA. California to Florida and back twice, then up to Monatana, Idaho, back down through Nevada and Utah twice, then AZ back to FL and finally started hanging out near the places I liked. Eventually that became Houston in the winter and Denver CO or Bozeman MT for summer. I got into house-sitting, I don’t hitchhike anymore. I have clients primarily in Denver and Houston and friends all over.

Now I’m 52. Recently diagnosed with spinal stenosis, CES, PTSD and other health issues. It went by fast, although I would have said life moved at a snail’s pace when I was a teenager.

You will have to find the motivation to survive whether there’s music or not, that’s a fact. Life does not come guaranteed with good tunes, although we’ll both probably agree it should. Some people tell me I lived the wrong life. Others tell me it’s interesting. And some of the drivers that picked me up while hitchhiking – have told me it was beautiful.

Some rich people are bad. Some are good. Some poor people suck. Others are not. Take everyone at face value. Never lump them into groups. Never burn anyone, and never burn yourself. Watch your back. Hope my little rant helps. You have to find you. You have to decide where you’ll go. You have to choose what is important, and what isn’t.

And listen to this song regularly by Baz Luhrmann – “Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now”

They get South Korean assistance (think welfare, housing, citizenship classes) in the beginning. But no joke, and look it up for yourself – they still have a hard time integrating. The languages are different between the two countries. The culture is vastly different. Most are limited to unskilled labor, which pays very little. Many find it impossible to adjust. Some actually try to go back. Not because North Korea is better, but because they have no friends or family in the South.

Unemployment numbers come from State’s tallies of people that are currently claiming and drawing unemployment. So if you don’t find a job in 26 weeks and you’re unemployment runs out, you’re no longer “unemployed”. If you quit or were fired and unable to qualify for unemployment, you’re not “unemployed”. If you’re disabled and can’t work you’re not “unemployed”.

Jobs data is just as bad. They do a survey of business and ask how many are hiring. Even if they don’t hire anyone, or it’s a ghost job, it’s still counted as an “available job created”.

As for new jobs filled, they survey payroll companies like PAYCHEX.

Counts of who is looking for a job or not is done with another survey.

Inmates are not counted in any of this.

In 40 years, GenZ will be the new Boomers. They won’t understand the new Generation D (for “dummy”) that’s too lazy to make their own bowl of cereal without a robot doing it for them. GenD will call GenZ out of touch because they choose to bathe themselves alone rather than shower with a bathing robot. GenZ will reminisce about the brief time they drove their own car, how this new generation just doesn’t understand, and the few remaining GenX’ers will one-up them from the retirement home with talk about stick shifts. Oh, how that new lazy generation knows nothing about the hellscape of manually vacuuming the house. Or having a job. GenD will put down GenZ about not knowing how to live in a fully-automated world, while GenZ quips back about how they were the ones that built that fully-automated world. The big generational debate will be on whether or not to elect robots to Congress or just have AI run the country. And that GenD should liquidate and redistribute the wealth GenZ is hoarding. I hope I’m still around, and I hope there’s popcorn!!! :-)

Both political parties suck.