I love reddit.com. They are a great community of people from all around the world, and when I saw this post today and then the subsequent comment I felt that more people should see it.

It started with a question from a 14 year old that red: “I was wondering if some of the older or wiser members of reddit would care to lend some advice. It could be about anything really. Just some tips or advice you’ve learned over the years. Thanks!”

The following comment, by Warlizard, just inspired me and I felt that I just had to post it here:

1. Make decisions based on what YOU want to do, not on what other people want. Following the crowd is easier, no doubt, but you won’t be happy.
2. Don’t ever close any doors through laziness. Sure, school is a pain, but you don’t want to limit your options by screwing around. Be excellent, try your best, and if you choose to go to college or not, know that it’s YOUR choice, not one foisted on you by poor decisions.
3. Try everything. You’re at a point in your life where the world is open to you. Just because you haven’t done something doesn’t mean you won’t like it and it can’t provide you with a lifetime of satisfaction.
4. Be kind to everyone. It’s easy to get approval by picking on those weaker than you. Avoid that temptation. Everyone deserves your regard.
5. Forgive your friends when they wrong you. They will. It’s part of life.
6. Don’t do drugs until you’re old enough to do it responsibly. The consequences of getting caught aren’t worth the momentary pleasure.
7. Wear a condom. Dear god, wear a condom.
8. Be kind to your parents. Odds are they love you and want what’s best for you. Alienating them will hurt them and those scars will last for decades (personal experience here).
9. If someone asks you out on a date, go. You never know.
10. Read. Everything. Get a list of the top 100 books and slog through it. Yeah, everything won’t make sense but you’ll understand the world so much better. Everywhere in our culture people allude to things that you just won’t understand if you haven’t forced yourself to become well-read.
11. Take every opportunity to travel. Seriously. The world is huge and you want to lose your provincial view as early as possible.
12. Get involved in politics. You may as well get disillusioned early.
13. Masturbation is fun and free.
14. Go easy on porn. You don’t want your expectations to be that your girlfriend is going to go ass-to-mouth and then let you blow a load all over her mom’s face.
15. Stay in shape. It’s so easy now and it will last your life.
16. Don’t smoke.
17. Learn a foreign language.
18. Don’t be contemptuous of those who know less than you.
19. Take every opportunity to tell your family you love them.
20. Learn to cook. This will get you laid.
21. Save your money for things that are important, not things that give you momentary satisfaction.

“Hope this helps.”

You can see the original post here: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/isezb/advice_for_a_14_year_old/

The short answer is yes, I think Google+ has the potential to steal a lot of Facebook’s dedicated users, provided it gets adopted on a massive scale.

In case you’re not aware, Google announced the Google+ project earlier today and after looking at the promotional videos and accompanying blog post I must say that I think it’s a giant leap forward for Google. This can fundamentally change the way we use the internet. Think Facebook, but without the “walled garden” approach, that’s been my biggest problem with Facebook since day one.

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So let’s face it, Facebook and Twitter killed your social life, you log on and within 3 minutes you know exactly what everyone, from old school friends to you co-workers, are up to at that very moment. The problem is that you don’t really have connection with any of these people anymore. You sit in front of your computer, they press “Like” from their cell phone and both of you think you’ve just made a connection.

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter killed the monster by feeding it too much. We are human beings and we actually need to have some real human interaction every once in a while. This is where group buying comes into the picture.

One of the few ways you can guarantee that someone is going to do something is by making him or her pay for what they’re about to do or attend. And if the price of that item or service is significantly cheaper than what it would normally cost, then you will have yourself a deal.

I was 1st introduced to group buying when I was approached by a group of friends to attend a beer tasting event. The whole event came about as a result of a very cheap offer on a group buying site and to make the offer valid, there had to be a certain number of purchases. So naturally all the people in the circle of friends were involved.

And I don’t know about you, but I will much rather have some beer with a group of friends instead of writing on someone’s “wall” on a social network. We will probably still need Facebook or some other service for tagging each other in compromising positions, but with group buying the core of this social encounter moved away from online and moved into offline or like we used to call it, into the real world.

Here are a few of South Africa’s group buying websites:
(Please let me know if you know of any more)

• Twangoo
• Ubuntudeal
• Dealio
• 24 Hours Only
• OneDayOnly
• WiCount
• SaleWine
• GroupBuying
• My City Deal
• CollectiveCow
• Skoop
• VuvuPlaza
• Justenga
• Zappon
• UCit
• Bangoo
• CitySlicker
• Dealson

I love this music video and song at the moment.. so I thought I’ll share