Pedants' Paradise

[Serial_Apologist]

Hacks
The Guardian uses this term, for example in the phrase Money Hacks, explained as 'Tips and tricks to boost your finances'. Try as I may, I have been unable to comprehend this term as so used. (They also have 'Beauty hacks'.) I see the heading 'Money hacks' to a piece and am unable to connect the word with this new meaning. Maybe this is just age; but I suspect something else is blocking my understanding of the term.

So long as no one is hacking into your bank accounts... !

[Old Grumpy]

Similar to side hustle...


...is it not just a second job?

Side hustle makes it sound like something illegal! *


*Which, of course it could be!

[Serial_Apologist]

That reminds me of an article about the late Queen when she had reached one of her anniversaries and was compared with Queen Victoria. It said that they were similar in that when they were born 'neither was destined to be Queen'. On the contrary; they were both destined to be Queen, i.e. that is what eventually happened. They were not expected to be Queen, perhaps, though in Victoria's case it was more of a certainty than in Elizabeth's.

That is what gets me about the idea of Predestination, too. People say, "That was going to happen", when obviously it was going to happen, otherwise it wouldn't! If they were more precise they might instead have given an indication of likelihood, but I suspect some people hold beliefs that everything is pre-planned, although this would amount to reducing our scope for action, and thus freedom of will, since their argument that X was destined to happen made it unavoidable. My guessing is that for some people, whether or not some result (whether negative or positive) occurs is judged more by moral and ethical standards; i.e. it's down to the sufferer's or beneficiary's actions, than by "inevitability". Either way, the expression "It was going to happen" evaporates by virtue of its tautological inconsequence. Or, as a cynic might say, "Stuff happens".

[kernelbogey]

So long as no one is hacking into your bank accounts... !

That I can understand more easily - like someone using a machete or pickaxe,

[kernelbogey]

....Either way, the expression "It was going to happen" evaporates by virtue of its tautological inconsequence. Or, as a cynic might say, "Stuff happens".

Similarly, people say 'I was lucky to miss that plane, because it crashed'. But in that alternative scenario, where they caught the plane, it might equally not have crashed.

[Serial_Apologist]

Similarly, people say 'I was lucky to miss that plane, because it crashed'. But in that alternative scenario, where they caught the plane, it might equally not have crashed.

Now, that would be entering a quantum world!