HN user

djpr

161 karma

Academically Trained Futurist. ex-Digital Strategist.

Posts0
Comments56
View on HN
No posts found.

The nuanced version I've heard in other tech industries (bio/agri-tech) is this: a) Europe organisations and gov't does all the deep research; b) US private companies turns it into products and reap the PR and money.

In fact, I know of a huge company that does all their research in the EU, where they can get gov't funding, but then the process to turn them into products is in the US (less regulation, larger market).

Not ancient, but I come from indigenous folks that live Southeast Asia. Because we're from up high in the mountains, the traditional way of living is supposed to go back quite far in time.

There are still a few that live traditionally in what basically is a large, two-floor long house for a multi-generational household. The families live on the second floor in one large room, but often with a small loft area for a quasi-third floodr The bottom floor is open with no walls (just support beams) to keep the animals. So it's constantly noisy.

1. Your life will be utterly transformed. My child has been a source of wonder and joy, but also immense challenge. Stop comparing to your previous life, you gotta dive into it.

2. Get fit. You'll likely end up needing to carry a lot of baby and toddler stuff for some time.

3. Grow your empathy muscle. It isn't easy being a newborn or a kid. There's so much they don't understand, get confused or frustrated about. So when they cry, tantrum or rebel, realize they're just trying to make sense of things but don't have the language or capacity to express them.

Be intentional on how you spend time with your kid, listen and observe them as away to connect.

4. Be intentional about connecting with your child. Some folks think there's this magical connection that exist the moment the baby is born. It wasn't the case for me. I wanted a kid but I had to intentionally understand and make that connection with my kid. For me, that meant talking to my newborn, pretending like she understood me, even if she's just a week old. See #3. re: building empathy.

5. Stay connected with you partner at all times. In the beginning, it'll be like hurricane ripped through your lives. In the beginning, staying connecting is making sure you know how to support her. End of the day, she has it tougher with you with all the body changes and breastfeeding demands (if she choose that) to do.

As you two figure things out, go from "all hands on deck mode" to being a pro at changing diapers, make time for connecting and learning to be a couple with a kid and without a kid (when you're kiddo is in daycare).

6. You're gonna buy a lot of baby stuff you'll end up not needing. It's fine, you're figuring this out by trying things.

7. Baby-led Weaning was amazing for us. No purees. No special "baby food". At six months, our kid ate with us on the table, same food as us. Really helps their independence, easier on groceries, and helps to bond eating the same thing together.

No. From the first paragraph of the article: “USING carrots to create concrete, turning wood into plastic, or even compressing it into a “super wood” that is as light and strong as titanium might sound like a series of almost Frankensteinish experiments. Yet all three are among the latest examples of employing natural fibres from plants as eco-friendly additives or alternatives to man-made materials”

I've got a toddler and already work 4 days week (Friday off). Daycare is 5 days a week, so it's great to have Fridays free to work on my side projects, read, go on small hikes - and when my wife is free - we take long lunches together etc.

As long as daycare / schooling remains 5 days a week, I think 4 days a week of work for parents is a fantastic idea.

I am a foresight practitioner (otherwise known as a 'futurist') in the policy making space. I am a member of two organizations that focus on applying foresight in policy making space, one with a focus on intergenerational fairness and another on participatory futures (civic engagement & foresight).

Clients include the full run of international organizations, e.g. UNICEF, UNDP, and so on, and international foundations.

We're not in the business of predictions or focus on techno-solutionisms, rather we help policymakers and organizations understand different ways social change can unfold and impact them and help them build strategies that navigate around these changes.

I like what I do and feels it has high social impact. I just wish it paid better and wouldn't mind working with a long-term fund or VC as an additional side gig to make that happen.

"Nuclear has been mostly replaced with renewables, while fossil fuel generation has been in slow decline as well."

That's another way of saying, the German Gov't have decided to shut down nuclear power, while they still run fossil fuel power plants and bringing renewables online.

Given we're in a climate emergency, we need to shut down fossil fuel power plants first, while bringing up renewables online. Nuclear shouldn't have been prioritised.

It's weird to write all that off as just shallow millenials being too vain to work out of a Regus (which is a company I had never even heard of before the documentary, despite having been in this position of needing a small short-term office space for my startup in the past).

Regus is huge (wikipedia says over 3000 spaces as of 2019), but it is no surprise that most people - outside of traditional, multinationals corporations- have heard of it. Regus started as a serviced-office, which serves a very different market than coworking spaces - though now the two have blurred.

If you're a small business or start-up, Regus isn't the place. It's incredibly expensive and very conservative looking. My company's Regus space (for 4 people, as it was a new country office) in Malaysia costed us as much our eventual +20 person office space.

I've worked from numerous Regus spaces via multinational consultancy I used to work with. They were always in prime, high-end locations and incredibly stuffy. Regus offices (felt like, pre-WeWork) a place to impress bankers and and Fortune500 clients. Regus has remade themselves because of WeWork, which is an improvement.

Fantastic to hear you have that Michelin/James Beard experience. And as someone that does, I'm sure you know that style of cooking (esp. much of Michelin) is not the entirety of gastronomy.

I spend my time around the Michelin/50 Best chef crowd, so I hear often this "respect the ingredients" mindset, but it's just one mindset. It's limiting to think of spices "covering up" a bad ingredient, when one can also think about the dish in totality - which includes everything from spices to how its cooked to the quality of the main ingredients.

One can enjoy Asador Etxebarri, and the technical excellence on how the chef expertly plays with fire to complement the main ingredient, and also enjoy mole from Oaxaca, rendang from Indonesia, and so on.

You can also combine both. I have had phenomenal laksa in the Basque country, playing on the bright flavors of Asian spices and the amazing product (seafood) found in the Basque country.

Gastronomy is that full breath of that experience. We can prefer more one of the other, but you're cheating yourself to be so dismissive.

To add to what Arkhaine_kupo said: In Southeast Asia, you can find cinnamon used in beef dishes, such as in beef rendang found in Indonesia and Malaysia. Typically a 2-3 sticks of cinnamon are thrown in, along with coconut milk, curry leaves, and more.

Cinnamon is also added to chicken or mutton, such as in varuval (Malaysian dish adapted from a South Indian one).

Over in China (and also in Chinese communities in Southeast Asia): There's the Chinese five-spices, used a lot in BBQ pork. It typically has cinnamon and cloves along with star anises and two other spices.

If you have more questions about any of this, let me know!

Perhaps Europe is better at gender (due to strong social policies), but Europe is't immune to racism.

It's not talked about so loudly like in the US, but I've experienced so much low-key, out in the open racism in Europe towards Arabs, Moroccans, Chinese, Africans and so on.

I'm not white and while I don't feel like my life is in danger, I know from looks and behavior that I'm not on equal footing with a white European.

I work with two small non-tech consultancies. For one, some of us are doing this (informally) with support from management. In emails signature, zoom calls, mural/miro screennames etc.

For another, we do this internally but not externally. We work with a tremendously, broad spectrum of people to generate social good. Some of these stakeholders would not receive this well, but at the same time actively invest time and money on key common areas (be it women's health to child mental health).

So in this organization, I think we would have to think throughly about the potential to alienate some stakeholders that sets us back on other social good activities.

Hey OP: Thank you for this. Management Operations is such a neglected field. I've just subscribed.

I'm my consultancy's ops person (we're +20 people), so its nice to see these topics on HN and elsewhere. I look forward to your content continuing.

Germany doesn't have many "unicorns" so politics will protect them until way too late, for the companies, for the share/stakeholders and the planet.

Interesting. Is there a strong feeling of innovation/unicorn envy among the wider business culture in Germany? Is it a fear of being stale, comparisons to Silicon Valley & Asian tech scene, or something else? I'm curious if you have more insight on this?

100% with you: Durian pastries in Singapore are bland. Honestly, I haven't found pastry form of Durian that great, and I love, love, love durian since I was a kid (I'm Indonesian).

Keep in mind that there are over 200 varieties of Durian - some are even red inside, some sweet, some more pungent than others, different notes and textures. The best for me is Musang King variety in Malaysia, esp. when they get a slight alcohol after taste.

University of London includes among the most prestigious colleges in the world: King's College of London, London School of Economics, and Goldsmiths. They have been doing distance learning since for decades, if not longer if I remember correctly.

The one thing to note, at least when I took it in early 2000, is that its tough. I signed-up for their business/finance program and it was quite the course workload.

Maybe it's not Singapore that's an outlier, but the US? Delivery in Spain, Portugal, and other European countries is by motorcycle.

I believe in the US, a car driving license is fairly easy to get and used cars are very cheap. Plus, given the driving culture, I assume that in the US people just don't think about motorcycles unlike in Europe or Asia as a viable way to get around.

So you're thinking somewhere between the Magnises card by Billy McFarland (Fyre Festival dude), Soho House, and upper-tier retail banking...that's all 100% instagramable?

I think you're on to something. I wouldn't be surprised if Soho House or other private clubs work with retail banks towards something like this.

One time, long ago, I had money once, and I was a member of HSBC Premier. It allowed to me to cut lines at the bank, have a small lounge area, and get free coffee. But that's about it. I don't think it would cost them too much to sign a deal with Soho House or WeWork or something like that, and offer tickets to see Beyonce at some private concert or something like that.

There could be market for something like that.