Anecdotal story time. We have a family villa in Spain about an hour and a half south of Alicante. We just got back from two weeks there like we do every year. The heat and humidity this time was the first time it was too much so that we didn’t enjoy our time there. We’ve had this place 21 years.
Yes it’s Spain and it’s always hot which is why we bought it but this year was something else. The mix of both very high temps (higher than usual for July) and much higher humidity just made it very uncomfortable. We don’t usually need the AC on in July but we had to run it every night this time to be able to sleep.
Even the pool wasn’t refreshing as it was a constant 33C whereas it is usually around 28-30.
On the Wednesday night just gone we also had a heat burst. My first experience with such a thing and wow that was something else. It was like opening an oven door. The blast of scorching hot air in my face was almost suffocating.
Of course there have always been outlier days that have been too damn hot over the past two decades but this time it was the whole two weeks. Not just the odd day. I dread to think that it will be like in August which is when the temps usually hit their highest.
I’m a simple software guy I don’t pretend to know much about the climate but I listen and when thousands of scientists present data that shows average temps going up it makes me worry. If things continue like this some areas just won’t be reasonable to live or visit. They’re just not comfortable. You have to stay indoors as the sun roasts you in minutes and the humidity just makes you feel like crap constantly.
Even our neighbours who live there are talking of moving as it isn’t a nice place to live anymore. You feel trapped indoors with AC and do all you can to avoid going outside.
If these kinds of temperatures do continue to rise as predicted there is going to be a huge relocation of people to more liveable locations which is going to be a whole other problem.
I live in [redacted] where we have hot temperatures in the summer but we have pretty good humidity and it rarely feels “too hot”. I have AC but almost never need to use it unless it climbs to around 40C for a few consecutive days so I am used to pretty hot but I just did not enjoy Spain these past two weeks and was so glad to arrive home last night to 29C.
Not sure if you will see this but on the chance you do I was hoping you could get in touch with me directly as I would really like to talk to someone on TRT to ask some questions. If possible could you drop me an email? You can email my username [redacated] at gmail. Many thanks!
I don't like to be notified about anything non-critical. I take time in my day to check the 'threads' link at the top of Hacker News and spend the 10 seconds or so it takes me to see if anyone has replied to anything I posted over the past few days and if I feel it warrants a response.
If it does I pop a note in my to-do list along with a link to the comment in question and get around to it later.
The last thing I want is yet another ping to tell me someone replied to me on a social news site. One of the reasons I comment on Hacker News is that it doesn't poke me in the eye for every reply I may get.
Honestly if Hacker News were to add this feature I would disable it instantly or maybe just not bother interacting with the community if they did it in an invasive way that I cannot disable, although that is quite unlikely.
Quick edit: I didn't mean for the above to sound hostile to what you have made. Apologies if it comes across that way. I just feel very strongly about over-notifications in todays world. For those that want it hopefully they find your extension helpful!
Obviously this is just my personal experience but I just love the mentality of the [redacted].
Work life balance is one. They don't take shit from work and I love it. 2 hour lunch breaks are the norm here for example. The interesting thing is somehow the [redacted] are more productive vs our UK counterparts that work, on average, 7.2 hours more per week than we do. How does that work?!
The general family first attitude I love.
The weather is also a nice bonus. When I pick my kid up from school more often than not one of the other dads will suggest we go play boules (pétanque) for half an hour and just chat about life.
Oh neighbours randomly pop round with extra food or drink they had they thought we might like. I had a neighbour knock at the weekend as they had some Cheddar left over from a party the day before and they know I like Cheddar as a british person so figured I would want it more than they did lmao. Just silly things but it really brings a smile to my face.
Of course some of this is I am just fortunate to live in a nice area with nice people but I lived in a nice area with nice people in the UK too and unless I knew someone quite well they would never pop over with spare cheese, etc. I am sure I could have such an experience in the UK but my 35 years living there I never had it whereas it is just the norm here in [redacted], apparently.
Healthcare is absolutely fucking fantastic too. I had some health issues the past few years after slipping a disc in my low back. I had an MRI within a few days during the height of the pandemic with lockdown in effect. Saw the consultant 10 minutes after the MRI who started me on treatment and it was superb. I compare this to my cousin that needed an MRI for very severe migraines and had to wait 9 weeks for! Also I am always able to get an appointment with my GP the same day (or very worst the next day if I call after lunch for example). Compared to trying to get an appointment with my GP back in the UK it is just so damn easy. I used to get additional stress trying to book a GP appointment when I lived in [redacted].
I could go on but I should mention some not so great things too...
The education system needs reform. It isn't bad but it is dated. They need to move beyond rote memorisation of 500 year old poems every week and embrace a bit more modern technology but...
They have a weird almost fetish like attitude towards no screens for kids. Like I have witnessed teachers and others get giddy with excitement when talking about no screen time. It is very bizarre to me in a world where almost everyone uses a screen for work in some capacity.
Also deliveries here are the absolute worst. I dread having a package delivered by Colissimo or La Poste.
Honestly we only moved because of Brexit but we're very glad we did as it has been wonderful for our family. It was hard with the pandemic as travel was restricted but nobody had an easy time of it during the lockdowns so I can't fault anyone for that.
If you want to chat more feel free to drop me an email [redacted] forwards to my proper address just pop hacker news in the subject so it doesn't get swallowed :)
Edit: Sacré bleu! I almost forgot... I have a fantastic boulangerie just a few minutes walk from my house and that is true of pretty much every house we looked at. Honestly it is quite hard to find a house that doesn't have a boulangerie within a 5 minute walk. At least in all the places we looked which is just outside of [redacted].
Value is just some human made up currency after all. "Is it worth the time?" etc.
If I were to approach life with the mindset "well everyone I know is going to die some day and humanity will die out so what's the point?" I'm not going to have a very positive outlook to life.
But I figure I'm here. I get 90 years or so if I am lucky. I might as well enjoy them while this combination of atoms is me.
>is a great option for casual VPN users who just want to unblock content
Honestly that is all you should ever use these VPN services for. Convenient access to blocked content (or flip to a different region to access alternative content).
Sure your own VPS running WireGuard or OpenVPN is better but that isn't as easy as just picking a different country on a pretty map in an app to get access to a show on BBC iPlayer or Netflix a second later.
Nord, Express, etc. are close to worthless from a privacy aspect but they're very convenient for watching blocked content and that is all anyone should use them for.
If you want/need privacy because you're on a network you don't trust (hotel, airport, whatever) then your own VPS and WireGuard are what you should be looking into. If you trust you home ISP and have decent bandwidth (both ways) you can easily run your own WireGuard server on pretty much anything from home and just connect into that so cost is pretty much zero.
Yes it’s Spain and it’s always hot which is why we bought it but this year was something else. The mix of both very high temps (higher than usual for July) and much higher humidity just made it very uncomfortable. We don’t usually need the AC on in July but we had to run it every night this time to be able to sleep.
Even the pool wasn’t refreshing as it was a constant 33C whereas it is usually around 28-30.
On the Wednesday night just gone we also had a heat burst. My first experience with such a thing and wow that was something else. It was like opening an oven door. The blast of scorching hot air in my face was almost suffocating.
Of course there have always been outlier days that have been too damn hot over the past two decades but this time it was the whole two weeks. Not just the odd day. I dread to think that it will be like in August which is when the temps usually hit their highest.
I’m a simple software guy I don’t pretend to know much about the climate but I listen and when thousands of scientists present data that shows average temps going up it makes me worry. If things continue like this some areas just won’t be reasonable to live or visit. They’re just not comfortable. You have to stay indoors as the sun roasts you in minutes and the humidity just makes you feel like crap constantly.
Even our neighbours who live there are talking of moving as it isn’t a nice place to live anymore. You feel trapped indoors with AC and do all you can to avoid going outside.
If these kinds of temperatures do continue to rise as predicted there is going to be a huge relocation of people to more liveable locations which is going to be a whole other problem.
I live in [redacted] where we have hot temperatures in the summer but we have pretty good humidity and it rarely feels “too hot”. I have AC but almost never need to use it unless it climbs to around 40C for a few consecutive days so I am used to pretty hot but I just did not enjoy Spain these past two weeks and was so glad to arrive home last night to 29C.