u/suggmynut

This is kind of a rant, but I wonder others' perspective. I have used the same smartphone that is now 6+ years old and have had 0 issues with it. I love this phone. It takes great pictures. It has never slowed down. The battery life is great. This used to not be the case back when I owned Apple. My phone maybe lasted 3 years. Tech has changed since then, and phones are lasting longer, yet we are still seeing yearly releases of smartphones and people upgrading non-stop despite the features being nearly the exact same. Why do people do this? It costs so much money. Tech companies benefit from the yearly releases, but the consumer is not, yet they still dish out the funds or surrender to constant monthly payments to have the newest phone. I haven't asked what kind of phone someone is using in years because they all do the same thing at the end of the day... and we are pushing more and more towards companies favoring planned obsolescence and subscriptions for features that before had one-time payment to keep the money rolling in rather than adding actual new innovative and useful features. I would rather see new phones every 4 years and actually get new features and specs than to see so much effort put into yearly designs that frankly don't look much different at all and are many times ugly and different just for the sake of being different. I want to be able to use my Tech for many years before I buy new.

It's kind of a rant, but I think it's important. I always hear people talk about age and what a person in their prime years can achieve and I really hate the idea of telling people that they will never be able to achieve what they could have in their "prime". I don't think it is helpful nor even true and really just serves a has-been culture. For one, people absolutely mature physically at different rates. Sure someone over the age of 45 is going to be suffering from age related caps, but I see people in their 30's all the time complain about how old they are and how they just have too many aches and pains and have accepted they are no longer in their prime years to get in good shape. But those aches and pains 90% of the time are from lack of conditioned muscles and strength that is the whole point of working out and towards a fitness goal. When I was a young kid starting out, I certainly hated working out because it was hard and it hurt a lot. But i didn't have an excuse of age that older people and society tries to give them. And everyone is dealt a different genetic hand anyway. Your fitness capabilities in your 50s could absolutely squash someone in their 20s who has a completely different set of genetics than you. I just really cannot stand the way age is treated in fitness and in society as a whole really. You are never too old to get fit. You are never too old to try something new or learn. And it absolutely doesn't always mean it's even going to be harder for you to do it. We place so much value on the young yet trust them with absolutely nothing. People speak of being in your mid 20s as your prime yet there is nothing expected of a person in their mid 20s. It seems we always tell the young they should be working towards great things and the moment they hit 30 we start telling those same people "looks like you never did anything truly great" oh well its too late now. And I absolutely hate this. Any thoughts?

Me (28m) and my wife (31F) are in a fairly good position right now. We have low rent and good paying jobs, both college educated in a field that is safe in terms of job market and salary to an extent. While a big priority is eventually buying our first home (a whole other post that needs made cause that's its own beast for first-time home buyers) we simply have never had any experience with investing and I would really like to make sure our future is secured. Also, I am not really sure if it's a great time to invest either as I am planning on going into a doctorate program within the next 2 years which will require me to take out significant loans as this program does not allow for you to work during those 3 years (you have to sign a contract) and we won't exactly have much ability during that time to invest large amounts but my salary will increase by 4-fold once graduated. Is it better to invest after? How should I start? Do you know of any good resources or videos that explain finances comprehensively? I am at a fork in the road of my life and am very nervous about going into my doctorate because I have never taken on significant debt in my life but the life changing salary of completing my doctorate is absolutely too good of an opportunity to pass up although without owning a home during that time it feels like there is so much opportunity for unforseen financial strain. I would love some guidance on this. Anything helps.

A lot of nurses on my unit are switching to the eko Core, and I thought it was awesome... until I realized you need a paid subscription to access advanced features? That is absolutely predatory and abhorrent business behavior, and I haven't seen anyone call this out? It's quite shocking how people just accept that they can buy a product THAT expensive and then have to pay a subscription to use all of its features. It is absolutely insane in normal business practice, but for a device that is used to help save lives? We are really normalizing this? And is the app collecting patient data? I find it hard to believe it's not storing and selling the information collected from auscultating, considering it's connected to the internet through your app... with location and everything available to be detected. I feel like there are major lawsuits in the future, and considering the subscription, I refuse to support that company. Am I alone in this?

I'm pretty well versed in biology and work in a bio field yet I keep hearing about new "peptides" that people are injecting or taking for bodybuilding (usually some overweight person at work or random conversation) that tries to explain the science and different versions yet it somehow has alluded me. Can someone explain to me what this new "peptide" craze is about and what they are? Any info is helpful. I know a lot of people who desperately want to lose weight or get fit and drink the kool-aid of any shortcut they can possibly find that doesn't involve them moving their body or doing anything hard and it is upsetting to watch. But if these things work more power to them. I just get nervous being uneducated about the topic and don't want to come off harsh when I don't really understand the topic. Watching so many people shrink on ozempic after it took me years of incredibly hard work to achieve the body I wanted may have me somewhat bitter, lol. But I also forsee and have already seen some serious negative affects from people running to ozempic or injections to do the work for them. Thanks in advance!