A "Foxhole Radio", except for the big amp.

There are actually good tips in there.

However, I don't agree with the idea with Warren Buffet as example, of billionaires who don't spend money on new cars, expensive clothes, multiple houses, etc. Why would a billionaire not spend? Is it just about owning more and more money and assets? Why?
You can't take your money into the grave with you. Is he being a 'good capitalist' that way? He's just making money with money, which is useless when you reach a certain point, where you and all your heirs can never spend it all. That's just an addiction of money
and a lack of imagination. The idiot retired at age 95! He wasted his whole life working.
I don't envy people like that, I feel sorry for them.

1. Nope, never bought a new car yet. I hate new car smell. The dealer sprayed it in my car, during the last service/MOT-inspection. It's weeks ago and it is still bothering me.

2. We were lured, with the promise of nice prizes, into the den of time share sellers,
on the Greek island Rhodes. After a tour of one of their hotels, the salesman told me the program, something like 5 weeks of vacation, for €4000,-, excluding the flights.
I thought for 5 seconds and just said "No, that deal sucks!". Then HE was even accusing ME of wasting HIS time. I told him "not my problem", asked him for my prize and left.
The prize was some useless vacation discount voucher. No way, will I ever be even tempted to get into something like that.

3. I buy brand clothes sometimes, but only brands that deliver value for money. I wear a lot of PME Legend. I buy clothes that look and feel good and I spend more on 100% cotton, because micro-plastics are so damaging to the environment. Of course a coat is often made of plastics, because cotton would soak up the rain like a sponge. I use my coats for years. The price varies a lot. One summer coat costed about $50, but I paid $300, on sale, for a good winter coat. It's not an investment, I'm paying for comfort. I'm not paying (a lot) for status.

4. I do spend some money monthly on the state's lottery. I know it's incredibly unlikely that I ever win a big prize, but the video called it a "tax on hope". That hope is worth the money for me. For many people, it's the ONLY hope they have to ever escape their pitiful existence. I am lucky, I don't have a pitiful existence, I have wealth that is unattainable for many young people these days, and I'm pretty good at investing. Still, that "tax on hope"
is worth it for me. First of all, it's the state's lottery. Part of my money goes to prizes, part goes to charities and part goes to the government, which makes it a tax literally. I don't mind paying taxes, when the government uses it well, which they mostly do. The state is the sole shareholder, so I'm not further enriching some private owner.
Second, it encourages big dreams and motivates me to accumulate some wealth.
Still, I'm not postponing living, like Warren Buffet. I'm living for now too. I'm prioritizing a job that I like, instead of a job that makes more money. I'm working for 40 hrs/week and never even have to think of work outside of those hours. I work to live, I don't live to work.
DON'T try apps like Acorns or Robinhood, they are designed to make you gamble away your money, while their owners become wealthy from your sub-optimal decisions.
Use traditional trading platforms and don't think you can be a day-trader.

5. I never buy anything, except my house, on a loan. I did have student loans once, but those have long been paid off. I have a credit card, but any purchase on it is immediately deducted from my bank account.

6. I studied for 10 years, but in The Netherlands education is much more affordable. Without that education, I would not have been able to climb up to my current job.
Like I said under 5, my student loans have long been paid off. A country that makes education that expensive is hurting it's own competition strength. Education is not just an investment in your own future, it's also an investment for the country. Every dollar spent on education by the state, provides it with a $10 return in economic benefit over time.

7. I don't own a boat. The idea is to spend money on things that make you happy and more comfortable, not things to show your wealth, just to make you look important. I grew up in The Netherlands, where showing your wealth is considered to be vulgar. Our culture is defined by the proverb "Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg.", which means "Just act normal, then you're already acting crazy enough.".

8. I pay around $40/month for life insurance, for both of us. When one of us dies, the other gets just enough money to be able to stay in our house. Insurance in general is much more expensive in the US than in Europe. The example calculations are bullshit. Insurance is not an investment, it's risk remediation. It's to protect your significant other, when you fall away, so they don't suffer financial disaster, besides the loss of you.

9. My current phone is the first one in many years that I bought new. The previous 4 were all cast-offs from my girlfriend. She is a heavy phone user and I only used phones for WhatsApp. Every time her battery-life declined too much, I just did a fresh install, with minimum apps, increasing the battery-life to days. But, I've been using the phone more,
so I bough myself a new one, with a good camera. And I have a subscription for 12 GB data. I don't even use a separate camera on my vacations anymore. I do have a PC and gaming hobby. I spend about $400 per year on it. For a main hobby, I think that's fine.
I fix things only as long as I think they are still worth fixing. However, when I buy things, one of my major criteria for the product is build quality and reliability. I buy quality appliances that last long. I don't buy French or Italian cars, because something always breaks on them. I own my third Japanese car, because usually they last at least 15 years, before their maintenance costs turn not cost-effective. Car parts are very expensive.
At some point in a car's lifespan, the parts become more expensive than their practical value and the functional value of the car. I must admit it's a luxury consideration, because not everyone has the money to replace a car, when that time comes. I can, but always make sure that I can, for when the need arises.

10. We aren't married, but it was only for a small part a financial decision. There was always some family struggle in my girlfriend's family. That would have meant that not everyone would or could be there. It would also have put a damper on the festivities.
That wasn't worth it to me. We did have a big party, when we were together for 25 years. Otherwise, we have a cohabitation contract and wills together. I also think that the whole promising to be faithful to each other and to stay together is bullshit. About 36% to 40% of marriages don't last. Why would people even promise something that they don't know if they truly want to keep? I'm not doing that and I'm not expecting that. We are not each other's property. We are lucky to have each other, but when that changes, some old promise won't change anything. My love and loyalty is my gift, not my obligation.
I don't expect anything different in return.

What was very telling, is that during this video, I got several adverts for ways to become financially independent, if I would follow their seminar or get into their investment program. All people who are trying to do exactly what the video warns about. I'm sure that many people even are attracted to those things, at such a time. Then they can help those people become financially independent, while they probably loose a lot of money themselves. Why do people get lured into crypto? Because rich people advertise for it, while they have a investment system trading hundreds of thousands of dollars, pump-and-dumping crypto's, and taking all the money from the small fish. It's a scam.

Besides the sad fact that he is not in school, but working, he's doing a good job.
Another $0.05 well earned.

That's a cool use of math. Fractals are very interesting.
I listened to all of the music, but I stopped watching soon,
because that's an overload of the brain. I guess, if they put
some hidden messages in, your brain will eat it like candy.

Damn good piece of trance music though. I put it in my favorites.

This is a good video to protest the cultural stigma attached to solitary life. It's not sad, it's a choice. When I was in my early twenties, I was preparing to live solitary, it just worked out differently. When I met my girlfriend, I really considered if I wanted a relationship. It ended up with the decision to just try it. I have always been clear with my girlfriend that I was not much interested in having children, or at maximum one. It ended up to be none. That's because I don't want to live my life completely in service of others. In our relationship, we both need time for ourselves, we both have our own hobbies and separate social groups. We have evenings together and evenings we do our own thing. I think that's healthy.

However, I am happy that I chose to be together with someone. My girlfriend completes me. I think I was a bit too solitary and introvert to become happy on my own. I had only one friend, which would probably not have lasted, when he made a family. Now we have a couple friendship. All the other friendships we developed were created by my girlfriend. One of her friends has become like a brother to me. My girlfriend also instigated all the contacts with neighbors. That was our social life for years. However, my job has made me less introvert; it required me to learn negotiation, networking, presenting, training and coaching. When I started in my current function, I found it difficult to be heard, but now I mostly meet respect and trust. I became more confident when talking to complete strangers, since I decided to become politically active. It's basically the principle that practice makes perfect. It also changed who is instigating the social contacts in our relationship. I'm bringing in party leaders and members for political meetings and people who are associated with neighborhood projects. I meet party members from all over the country, when I go to meetings, seminars and conferences. I don't think I would be where I am now, if I hadn't accepted this relationship.

I didn't hear that in this video, but if you are talking about Nikola Tesla,
I think there is a big chance it's just a myth.

That giga press is a nice innovation. Tesla only gets a small part of the credit though, because the Italians were already developing it. That's an example of electric cars
driving innovation, because it's a company being forced to think of something new,
for when the market for engine blocks will disappear. At least Tesla has a lot of money
to create that new market. However, I expect a bit more from the wealthiest man in the world. Driving the innovation towards affordable electric cars is worthwhile, but it's at best 3% of the solution for the world's climate emergency. How about investing in solutions for the other 97%+ of the problem.

Government regulation doesn't mandate the car industry to make cars difficult or hard to repair or ugly, they only mandate them to produce cars that are cleaner and more fuel economical. It's the car manufacturers themselves that make their cars hard to repair, because there is a lot of money associated with that. It's of course logical that cars become more high tech, which makes them difficult and hard to repair, but that's also just the times we live in.
I think the time of cars being designed ugly was a trend that ended now.
Cars are being made to look nicer again. It's taste of course, but I'm seeing some very beautiful new cars lately. While Japanese and French cars were hideous and boring the past decade, they are making better looking cars now. Most people don't want to drive something ugly.

I still see many popular car TV programs. I don't think a shortage of that is a reason for the lack in skilled mechanics. It's just the choice young people need to make for their education. Does the education to become a mechanic result in a good income?
There is the same cause for why there are not enough pharmacy assistants in my country; it requires an advance education, but the pay is only slightly above minimum wage. Young people are not going to invest in an education that doesn't provide them
a good living standard. That's not being lazy, that's being rational.

This is a very popular genre lately. I hear a lot of men feel a lack of purpose and meaning. I do think this is related to modern life. I do not agree with him that these issues he's addressing are the cause of the problems of men in modern life, I think he's addressing symptoms. Still, it is all good advise. I can summarize point 1 to 9 as; don't spend too much of your time on fleeting pleasures and rudderless life, but invest a lot of time and effort in taking control of yourself, to maximize your potential, to shape the future towards your goals. Only his 10th point is an outlier; he advises to be mindful of the present, and be positive spiritually. It's a good balance to the other 9, which are very much rational endeavors. He doesn't go into much detail on how to do this, it's more of a warning that the other 9 points have a risk of loosing the 10th.

I find this all very centered on men. Woman face the exact same challenges nowadays. They might face a bit different challenges relating to the pursuit of fleeting pleasures. Instead of being controlled by the the impulses from their throbbing dick, women have problems controlling the impulses from their burning credit card. Otherwise, they have mostly the same problems. Also, I don't think these points are just related to modern life, these have been important since people needed to be independent. They are not much relevant to a serf or a slave, but a caveman needed to think about lots of future interest, instead of seducing females, if he wanted to survive.

That's a great 'all you ever wanted to know about transistors' course.
It wasn't all new to me, but it was a good deepening of my knowledge.

He uses the exact same multi-meter that I use at work.
At home I use something that looks like it, but is many times cheaper.

Did you find it for a music related project?