RevTadd

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder is an outstanding book. It's about a non-fiction book a team of computer engineers at Data General in the late 70s. Data General had been a leader in computers during the 16-bit era, but had fallen behind during the transition to 32-bit and the book is about a team who were effectively tasked with betting the company on developing a new computer to put them back on top. The best thing about the book is that the author was actually a journalist who had spent the year working in Data General's office and living with the team, so the book has a feel to it almost like your reading a documentary.

I'm an expat living in Australia and travel back and forth 2 or 3 times a year (excepting during the covid days where I went nowhere for 2 years), but I've never had Australian customs check my laptop, phone or any other device. Not saying that it is something that doesn't happen, just that I think this is a pretty low probability event you're getting worked up about.

I'm an American expat abroad (almost the same age, though not in Canada). Ultimately going abroad is a very personal decision that needs to reflect your own particular circumstances and preferences, but below are few thoughts from my own experience for your consideration or rejection. Visa - getting a visa will be the key consideration. If you happen to work for a large professional services / tech company / similar company (e.g. KPMG, Accenture, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley), getting a work visa as part of an internal transfer can be almost trivial (and was my experience). If you don't work for an international company then getting a temporary work visa (especially one with a pathway to permanent residency) can be exceptionally challenging and will depend on a lot on your own circumstances, where you're wanting to go, and whether you have any particular set of skills for which you can secure a visa with or otherwise get an overseas employer to sponsor you for. Location - Again, your own preferences for location should be the deciding factor, but I would generally recommend going to a larger, more metropolitan city (that has a decent amount of international and / or domestic migration). In Canada, I think this would mean Toronto or Vancouver. The reason being from my perspective is with going to city like Calgary or Montreal, most of the people you meet will have been born in that city, went to school / uni in that city, and worked in that city and its just a bit challenging making new connections when everyone you meet already has large existing 20+ year friendship groups. Healthcare - I think its well understood globally the state of American healthcare, but you'll want to do your research on healthcare before moving over, as other countries universal healthcare programs don't always extend to non-permanent residents. For example, in the country I'm in now, I don't (yet) qualify for the government healthcare program and have to get special expatriate health insurance instead, which annoyingly enough is about 1.5x as expensive as the health insurance I had in the US. My circumstance is a bit atypical though and I knew it was going to be the case (and I can't really begrudge the government for not placing a political imperative on reducing health insurance premiums for a population of relative well off foreigners who can't vote). If you have special healthcare requirements, or expect to have healthcare needs in the future, just be sure to do some research ahead of time. Lifestyle - One thing to note is in terms of your lifestyle, moving abroad won't necessarily mean much of a change, unless you actively choose to to make it so. That is, its very easy to settle into the same sort of work / life patterns even if moving to a very different city or country and you may find your day to day life is largely the same, with only a few differences at the margin. If you're not looking for a significant lifestyle change, then it may not be something to worry about, but if you are, then just keep in mind you need to change your lifestyle / habits, your location won't necessarily do it for you.

Depending on what exactly you're after and assuming you live in at least a small city, I would just go to a tailor where you live and tell them what you want. A lot of tailors will do custom dress-making and while what you want clearly isn't a dress, its the same sort of skillset to make and they will have access to fabric you need (or the ability to acquire it). *I've been envisioning you wanting something like a party shirt or a button-up shirt with some unique / wacky design perhaps as opposed to printed design.

I'll go the other direction here, I can't stand dark modes, they remind me too much of using a bloomberg terminal and light modes in most cases just look 'cleaner' to me.

Thanks for the feedback so far, as one final question when you say Eve are a bit scummy, what is the history there? The monitor otherwise looks like a pretty compelling option for me so far as long as there's not any dealbreaker with the company itself. I suppose charging extra for the stand is a bit of an Apple move, but I'm going to put them on monitor arms anyway so will dodge that bullet. Is shipping cost especially bad?

Thanks all, the Gigabyte M28U looks like a pretty good option. The 28-in is a bit larger than my target size, but I think the thin bezels should help the footprint from being too comically large with two of them side by side on my desk. The G7 4K looks a bit too gamer-ish for my taste, though. @e22big Is the ROG monitor you referred to the ROG Strix XG27UQ or were you referring to another model? HDR, while a nice to have is not overally high on my priority list so I expect all of the option should be good for my use case. I'm also not fussed on pricing, I spend more time looking at my monitors than I do at my girlfriend1 so its not an unreasonable spend to me. (1) If I had a girlfriend

I've been using two Dell 2415Qs for the past 6 or 7 years and they've been serving me well, but recently one of them (lefty) has started going on the fritz and my troubleshooting efforts have been largely unsuccessful. The downside of a two monitor set-up though means I'll need to replace both. My 2415Qs were pretty good back in the day (when there weren't many options for sub 32in 4k monitors), but monitors have come a long way since and I want to find a good replacement option that will last another 6-7 years (or more). From my own researching I've been looking at the LG 27GN950-B or something similar to it, but want to make sure I haven't overlooked any good options. Any recommendations would be much appreciated. What I'm looking for (generally in order of importance): Resolution: must be 4K, very strong preference for 120hz (or higher) but not an absolute deal breaker if 60Hz only Size: must be 24-27in (24in would be most preferable, but the market seems pretty limited these days for 4k 24in options) Inputs: must have at least 3 inputs (though if inputs 2 and 3 are only capable of 4k 60hz, that is not an issue) Audio: must have an audio out option to pass through audio from HDMI / DisplayPort to my speakers Curviture: must be flat (not curved) Bezels: very strong preference for super-thin bezels (or at the very least, super-thin side bezels) UI: strong preference for quick switchability between inputs (the slow switching of my 2415Qs has been a source of annoyance over the years) G-Sync: moderate preference for g-sync compatibility Weight: mild preference for lighter weight / thinner size so they can move around easier on my monitor arms HDR / color accuracy: the more capable the better, but I'm not doing any content creation or color critical work Response time: quicker is better, but I'm also not a competitive gamer Price: indifferent on price

There was a time when people said the same thing about automatic elevators without human attendants; I doubt even 0.5% of the population these days has any issues with riding elevators. Full self-driving isn't quite ready yet today, but in as soon as 5 years from now I wouldn't see myself taking any more risk getting into a self-driving car as I do in about half of the ubers I take.

@Stagea, Thanks, that's all really helpful. As far as your points above: 1. I'm generally a fan of a clean and uncluttered set-up, with everything that can be out-of-sight. In terms of room acoustics, that's on definitely on my list of things for the space, I'm planning to set aside some separate budget for room acoustics and furniture, but I'm still figuring out some of my aesthetic plans there at the moment. 2. My music taste is a bit eclectic (or perhaps tasteless rather) with everything from blues to german gansta rap. I usually cycle between new genres on about a monthly basis. I rarely play loud music, think more relaxing to music in the evenings with a gin in hand rather than a house party 3. I'm more looking for a good reference sound given the mix of things I generally listen to 4. I don't have any brand preferences, in terms of form factor, I was thinking likely integrated as opposed to separate components given preference for a cleaner / less cluttered set-up with bookshelf speakers, but I'm not wedded to this and would consider a range of options I think something like the NAD M10 V2 was probably about what I had in (my very uninformed) mind so I'll look into it. I had also been reading up on the Cambridge EVO 75 / EVO 150, but wasn't sure how those my fit with my use case. In terms of speakers, there are a couple of good specialist audio shops near me, which I was going to check out for sound preference once I had a better understanding of what I am wanting. I definitely agree on planning upfront and avoiding buying twice. I generally like the mentality of buying once and for life wherever possible, though that's sometimes easier said then done.

Thanks all, it seems like Amazon Music HD is the preferred option for hi-fi streaming, so I'll give it a try. I had heard the Spotify Hifi announcement earlier this year, but it seems like Spotify has gone radio silent on it ever since so it remains to be seen what the service will actually be like. As far as equipment set-up, my goal is to have a quality set-up for music listening for my study / home-office (about a 3m x 3m sized room, so small but not overly space constrained). In the back of my mind, I've been tossing around a price range of something like US$5,000 - US$7,000, but that's not based on any actual knowledge of what I may be able to get for that amount.

I've been interested in getting a hifi set-up for my apartment, but am very much new to the game. Does anyone have any advice / resources to look into for figuring out a good system. My key initial questions relate to (a) media choice, I'm not particularly into physical media and so want to know what's the best digital source (e.g. streaming or digital purchase) for high-quality / lossless audio and (b) what equipment I should look into for a high quality set-up (and at what price range does the marginal benefit of better gear start to phase out)?

Ultimately, its just supply and demand as with any other asset. If you are say a German who wants to buy a US product, you would first need to use your euros to effectively buy US dollars, which you would then use to buy whatever US product you are after. In this way you create a demand for US dollars based on your perceived value of what they are worth (i.e. getting the US product that you were after). You're demand in combination with everyone else's demand for US dollars (as well as demand going the other way, e.g. US persons wanting to trade their US dollars to acquire goods, services or assets in other currencies) determines the valuation of the currency. Likewise businesses and firms engage in the same behavior, converting currencies acquired through sales oversees back into their home country currency in order to pay employee wages, debt and equity financiers and other uses they may have that require their home currency. The value will depend on the perceived usefulness of having US dollars (or any other currency). If a country prints large amounts of new currency, has very high political instability, or a stagnant or falling economy then individuals may begin to view that currency as being less useful and thus less valuable causing the currency to decline (potentially to becoming worthless in the most extreme examples). In this way, currency is no different than gold, pokemon cards or artwork in that people buy them all with the view that they believe they will be valuable to them in some way in the future.

I think it can vary by the keyboard. I had two wireless number pads once, on one the numlock key was a 'live' key that I was able to rebind using autohotkey, but on the other the numlock key was a 'hardware' key that just shifted the function of the other keys on the number pad (ie, it was not picked up as a keypress by the OS and able to be rebound by autohotkey)

I did a similar project adding fans to my desk so I could dock my laptop out of sight in one of the drawers. Noctua makes 5V variants of most sizes of their fans which you can then just power off a standard issue USB hub or USB power plug (like an old iPhone charger you may have laying around). They also happen to make an adjustable fan controller which you can use to control the speed / shut off the fans when you're not using them. If you want to avoid the Noctua premium, I'm sure you can find much cheaper 5V fans from other brands online. I went for the Noctua fans, only because the normally awful looking brown/tan color scheme actually turned out to match my desk quite nicely.