My first days as an office grunt worker

themushroomkingdom · 2 days

Yes it is. I've been making millions of sperm for the past twenty years so I should know.

themushroomkingdom · 2 days

Interesting thought there. That sperm was as much you as your father: 50 percent of your genes and 50 percent of your father's genes.

haavarl · 3 days

Yeah. Not cool. As a parent, I try to control my toddler. It's not always easy. Kids are often just messy. When that happens I make sure to tip extra. In general though, my experience at restaurants with my kid has been positive. The restaurant staff often like to carry her, play with her, and generally find her adorable. I also tip extra for that. You are after all paying for the experience, and waiting staff who improve your experience and you kid's experience should be rewarded.

MaenadsWish · 3 days

This is hilarious. The progression of faces for all the characters, including the baby, makes for a great rage comic.

gold-coin · 3 days

I don't think it's bogus.

To your point about logistics, opening a fast food restaurant involves very little logistics. You can find similar restaurants in tiny little backwater towns in the middle of nowhere.

Albaik decimated KFC in Jeddah. If I had the KFC franchise I would do everything I can to stop them from coming. If what you're saying is true, it's telling that Albaik is opening in Madina and Gaseem before Riyadh or Eastern Province, which are much bigger markets.

Kaffir · 5 days

Me too. All his books are extremely fascinating and informative, not just the most famous one Guns Germs and Steel.

Kaffir · 5 days

I upvoted you for meaningful input, but I read that book and have serious reservations about it. De Soto had that book published in 2000, which means that he wrote it in the late nineties, when we all lived and breathed Greenspan ideology. The book can (simplistically) be summarized into this sentence: if countries adopted institutions that allowed people to monetize their physical assets, like mortgaging a house for example, then they could leverage these assets to achieve robust growth and growing prosperity. The problem is that the form of capitalism advocated by the book, when taken to it's natural conclusion, offers an system like the one in the US today, which has shown itself to be potentially very destructive as evidenced by financial/economic recession of 2008 and its aftermath. I have a feeling that if de Soto were to write a book on the subject today he would have quite a different take.

I'm much more comfortable with Diamond's analysis in his book Guns Germs and Steel. I won't attempt to simplistically summarize that, suffice it to say that it is one of the best books I read and I would highly suggest it to anyone interested in this subject.

SaudiBacon · 6 days

I guess none of the websites I'm interested in happen to be blocked. About privacy, if anyone bothered to check they'd find that 90% of my browsing is on Reddit! But you have a point. I guess I can install a VPN on principle, but is it worth the trouble? If there were an easy way to do it I probably would.

SaudiBacon · 6 days

Hmm. I don't use any VPN. Should I?

dollarbillmontgomery · 9 days

I thought I'd offer a slightly different angle than most of the comments here. While most of the developed world is in their fourth year of economic stagnation, Riyadh, and Saudi Arabia more generally, is currently in its tenth year of an economic boom. Money is good and business is plentiful. I'm not sure what position you'll be taking but a fresh JD graduate from a respectable US law school makes around $180k annually at one of the international law firms based here. Of course it's all tax free, and there are no other taxes either like sales, etc. So yes, its tough socially, and the temperatures during summer are scorching, and this year we've had more dust storms than ever before, but for most people coming to work here it is worth it. You save a lot and open up opportunities later down the road. Some Western expats come here and end up staying decades, going back home later to a very comfortable retirement.

For more pragmatic suggestions:

Living in a compound will certainly be more comfortable but it will be considerably more expensive (maybe 2-3x). As a Western expat bachelor you can get a relatively cheap and decent apartment.

So many expats come here and never really get to know the locals, because we tend to be reserved. They tend to stick together. That's the lazy route IMO. Make an effort, learn Arabic, and you'll have a huge edge over 95% of expats.

Being single in Riyadh will suck no matter what, but this city is a great place to develop hobbies because there are less distractions like bars and clubs. Read books, go off roading the deserts, or do whatever you enjoy. As an expat you have an extra measure of freedom so take advantage of it. By the end of your two years you would have grown significantly as a person.

In terms of books, I hear Inside the Kingdom by Lacy is very good although I haven't yet read it.

Hope that helps!

MalcolmY · 11 days

So that when going to and from their meetings "طال عمرهم" don't have to get caught in the traffic that you and I have to deal with daily.

Having said that, I drove on portions of both roads today and did not find them closed. Maybe they found that enough people avoided those roads that they didn't have to actually close them.

RollerDerby88 · 16 days

This will probably get lost in the comments, but it is very ironic for me to read this comic. I recently applied to a masters program in bioscience, and got in yesterday. It's a full ride scholarship covering me, my wife, and my daughter. I have no background in biology; not a single class in college. I'm also 33 years old. It is never too late my friend.

sullen_ole_geezer · 18 days

A sincere thank you for your informative comments. It's a shame this informative string of comments isn't at the top. Reddit seems more interested in calling OP a liar rather than understand what he was trying to get across.

DrJulianBashir · 18 days

Reminds me of the main thesis of the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (GEB) by Hofstadter, that discusses how self-reference and formal rules allow systems to acquire meaning despite being made of "meaningless" elements. It also discusses what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of "meaning" itself. (all quoted from Wikipedia) The book claims to explain what consciousness is.

Or maybe this has nothing to do with the article and I only thought of it because I'm reading that book right now. Either way good book. Check it out if you find this stuff interesting.

cptzaprowsdower · 25 days

What a fun game. I liked the concept. I only wish it was longer and had more levels. Reminded me of another fun game about life, Alterego.

brittnie920 · 28 days

Banging pencils around might break the lead inside but I doubt it. If you've handled lead from mechanical pencils you know that it's slightly flexible. Which means that the surrounding wood in a regular pencil should be enough to protect it from breaking.

It's more likely the sharpener. When it gets old the blade becomes dull and doesn't sharpen properly. That stresses the lead so it keeps breaking.

luckilu · 1 month

I'm not sure that's a legitimate counterexample, but you raise an interesting point. Sharia law is concerned with who Muslims can and cannot marry, it is not concerned with Jews. According to Sharia law Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men. Also, Muslim men cannot marry women who are not Muslim, Christian, or Jewish (for example they cannot marry women who are Buddhists, Hindus, or proclaimed atheists). However, there is no law singling our Jews.

Historically speaking, within a state governed by Sharia law, marriage of non-Muslims would be governed by laws and courts specific to adherents of that religion. Jews and Christians had their own courts and judges for matters like marriage. Sharia law wouldn't interfere as long as Muslims are not involved.

Of course, this is from a historical perspective. I'm not sure what the situation is today in Muslim countries since secular laws exist to varying degrees. However, I'm quite certain that no laws single out Jews or any other non-Muslim religion in any meaningful way.

Source: grew up in Saudi Arabia and studied this stuff in school.

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