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Posted by cratermoon 10/28/2024

Buy payphones and retire(computer.rip)
476 points | 352 commentspage 3
damir 10/28/2024|
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thefourthchime 10/28/2024||
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warner25 10/28/2024||
This author is a very good and entertaining writer. You're really missing out if you don't take the time to read every word. Make yourself a drink, find a nice place to sit, and enjoy.

I was introduced to his work through an HN post last year. I was hooked by that first piece, and I've often gone back to his archive whenever I've had the time to read something long-form for leisure.

101008 10/28/2024|||
I didn't but I thought of that after reading one paragraph and noticing it was going to take some time to get to the point.
phyalow 10/28/2024|||
Was very tempted too, but preempted that by evaluating that the effort of opening an extra browser tab -> navigation -> model selection (select 01-mini probably) -> then back/forth copy- paste, was mitigated by a very quick skim read/jump to the end.
tombert 10/28/2024|||
I use the Kagi Universal Summarizer fairly often, which I believe uses GPT. It's generally useful enough.
gs17 10/28/2024|||
I've done it for this blog before. It's a writing style that's "not for me" even when the topic is something I'm interested in.
wingworks 10/28/2024|||
I copied the text into a TTS site and listened to it. Well worth it for any slow readers.
add-sub-mul-div 10/28/2024|||
If I'm not interested in reading something fully I can get the main idea of it from skimming much faster than I could by getting an AI summary. And without the uncertainty that the AI got something about the summary wrong.
buildsjets 10/28/2024|||
ChatGPT says: "The speaker wonders if others use ChatGPT to get summaries of lengthy texts to determine if they're worth reading."

Nope, just you bucko.

tomjen3 10/28/2024|||
You are getting downvoted so heavily that I can barely read your comment.

Unfortunately HN has a hate for AI, but any writer should expect to demonstrate right of the bat that you have something worthwhile to share. Most stuff posted online is not worth reading. The article failed to demonstrate that, and it had the style of "I need to pad this to reach some kind of minimum word count".

I think reading the article was worth it, but thanks to the the style I was about to quit several times. Your solution of runnning it through an LLM would certainly have been a better outcome than this.

pc86 10/28/2024||
Imagine viewing reading what is at most ~2 pages of text as an "investment."
highcountess 10/28/2024||
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anonzzzies 10/28/2024|
Why would I want to retire? I am old and most my friends are boring or died after they retired. Sounds like hell on earth. I like working, it is my hobby and life.
asveikau 10/28/2024||
This article isn't about retirement; the reference to retirement is the line the scammer is using to hook people. The scammer is telling the mark they will generate lots of money from passive income (from payphone calls), and won't need to work. It is actually an article about Ponzi schemes.
hinkley 10/28/2024|||
Ponzi schemes are pure financial instruments. If a product is involved it’s called an MLM.
asveikau 10/28/2024||
I'd say that is a bit like splitting hairs, but the article does question the extent to which actual payphones and calls were actually involved..
hinkley 10/28/2024||
Ponzi schemes are illegal. MLMs are legalized Ponzi schemes. The outcomes are similar but one has a veneer of legitimacy that makes it more dangerous for some people.
asveikau 10/28/2024|||
It's instructive not to argue the finer points without acknowledging what TFA says about the operators of the scheme breaking the law:

> In 2006, Charles Edwards was convicted of 83 counts of wire fraud and sentenced to thirteen years in prison.

Then another company:

> By 2009, more than a dozen people had been convicted of fraud in relation to Prometheus.

popcalc 10/28/2024||||
MLMs are pyramid schemes, not ponzis. For example bitcoin is a (somewhat decentralized, but centralized among major mining companies) pyramid scheme while Tether is a Ponzi.

Both pyramid schemes and Ponzis are illegal. MLMs are illegal in many places. In the US they were successfully able to lobby their way into carving out a legal niche in the 80s. They are also the reason supplement safety is so loosely regulated in the US.

verisimi 10/28/2024|||
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Swizec 10/28/2024|||
> Why would I want to retire? /../ I like working, it is my hobby and life.

So you can work on things because you want to not because you have to. At least that's my plan. Not quite there yet.

TheRealPomax 10/28/2024|||
Note that there are loads of things that you can't keep working on after you retire. If your company had you in a position where you ran really interesting projects, all of those are the company's projects, not yours. You got to work on them because you worked there, and once you retire you can't just keep working on them, you can't even do the same work on your own because your contract made that pretty clear: now you're committing IP theft.

So you retire, and by law you're no longer allowed to do the thing you love. It's not a good deal.

Rumudiez 10/28/2024|||
You can be "retired" (don't _need_ to work) and still have a dayjob. My father-in-law does this and works 2 days a week so he doesn't get bored and has a little more spending money, all because he likes his profession but not because he has to work for a living anymore
pc86 10/28/2024||||
It's pretty cool that you have such detailed knowledge into everyone's personal circumstances that you know they all have employment contracts and what the details of those contracts are.

Most people reading this right now are in the US, and the vast majority of US employees at at-will, which means no contract at all. Even for those with contracts, it's a pretty big leap to get to "IP theft" with anything anyone could reasonably work on in retirement.

TheRealPomax 10/29/2024||
What made you read that comment and go "they're talking about everyone" instead of "oh, yeah, those people also exist, blanket statements don't make sense in this context"?
dleink 10/28/2024|||
The things I love are broader than "IP controlled by my company." I can see that if the thing you love is massive financial institutions or defense contracting or something?
bongodongobob 10/28/2024|||
Maybe he's a helicopter mechanic or a million other things you can't just do at home.
dleink 10/29/2024|||
Most of the things I love aren't done at home. I already noted there are passions that can't be performed individually.
brewdad 10/28/2024|||
Go buy 40 acres in the desert and live your dream.
dustyventure 10/28/2024|||
If a very expensive hobby is a lot of work are you working or retired?
bongodongobob 10/28/2024|||
Unless it comes with a fleet of helicopters to play with, I don't see how that's helpful.
TheRealPomax 10/28/2024|||
Or, you know, you're a specialist who worked their way into a career at anything that produces hardware. Philips, Samsung, heaven forbid you work for a larger corporation, how many of those people can there possibly be, right?
dleink 10/29/2024||
You have won. Yes, if the thing you love specifically requires the collection of capital then of course, you will have difficulty finding that outside a corporation.

I suspect with analysis this is not the case for the majority of folks.

Hardware is a funny example though, because I feel it's easier than ever to get some interesting hardware stuff going.

iwontberude 10/28/2024|||
Makers, programmers, hackers always have to work by definition, the question is whether you also want to. That can be done anywhere, it's all a state of mind. Most of the answers to the problems of the world are inside of there.
mock-possum 10/28/2024|||
I think the deal is when you retire you no longer have to work. You can spend your time doing whatever you want. If you don’t feel like working today, you don’t have to. If something comes up last minute, you can change your mind. If you want to move to something new and more interesting, you can.
anonzzzies 10/29/2024||
Well, if that is the definition, then i'm retired for almost 25 years now (I sold my first company at 25). But yeah, I saw retiring more as the people I know who retired in the traditional sense; 'now finally we can travel!' and that turns out to be a rather boring and unfulfilling lifestyle. the old (70+) people that are happy and not dead, all work fulltime in their own companies. From my barkeeper (he is 75) to the owner of a 100m euro/year company that makes roofs who is 90 and goes to the factory every day.
forinti 10/28/2024|||
You might not want to retire, but your body (or mind) might have other ideas.
jabroni_salad 10/28/2024|||
Do you already have financial independence? Not being able to understand why retiring would be desirable sounds like an incredibly privileged opinion.
IshKebab 10/28/2024||
Don't humblebrag.