>I can afford to get the new iPhone every year or two if I wanted
Maybe that's what the difference is. Being able to afford these things means you might not feel a similar need to posture that you can afford a certain lifestyle that you really can't. I'm guessing that at minimum wage most would struggle financially especially in a large city like NYC, so being able to pull the newest iPhone out of their pocket might be their way of assuring themselves and people around them that they are doing alright financially.
My wife has had more contact with poorer communities. And she believes it's partly to maintain the appearance of wealth and status. I suspect it's also a luxury within reach versus those which seem impossible: homeownership, choosing ones employer, world travel, etc.
This is super interesting, I'm about to undergo a small DIY smart mirror project and wanted touchscreen capabilities but all the hardware solutions seemed impractical and expensive. This might be a super easy way to make that work.
> I was thinking – what if I assigned a particular number of points to each food I eat and try to keep points under certain threshold daily, and, which is more critical, weekly.
Yup, even the weekly total is very similar to the Weight Watchers system.
I think the insight is that you don’t really have to track down the points for everything you eat. you can guesstimate how many points something is and the measurement error will come out in the wash after you calibrate it to observes weight loss / gain. Pretty neat IMHO!
