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[2019-03-12 11:35:58] - a: Because a lot is made about how 1% in fees can make a huge difference over time due to compound interest, and I totally agree with that, but my historical record to date (since I've been tracking) has me beating the market by more than 1% a year. It's more like 10 percentage points a year... -Paul
[2019-03-12 11:32:36] - a: Hmmm, that's a tough call, especially since those might not be the numbers. What if it was 100% chance of retirement at 50 or (25% chance of retirement at 50, 50% chance of retirement at 47 and 25% chance of retirement at 42)? Because part of the appeal is that I might beat the market by a few percentage points or maybe a LOT of percentage points... -Paul
[2019-03-12 11:27:17] - paul: ah, the good-old russian roulette. it's a man's sport. (this is probably not a fair comparison, but i'll make it anyways, just as like a narrative or something) i guess if you asked me if i had to choose between a 100% chance of retirement at 50 years old, OR a 75% chance of retirement at 45 years old WITH a 25% chance of retirement at 60 years old, i'd probably pick the first one? it's why i buy bonds!
~a[2019-03-12 11:27:14] - a: That theory being that investing in stocks is the best way to build a nest egg for retirement and that the chances of losing money over a 20+ year time horizon is very close to 0. -Paul
[2019-03-12 11:26:24] - a: Also, the experience with the Japanese market keeps haunting me because they had highs in like 1990 that they still, almost 30 years later, have not returned to. That could easily happen here as well, which would totally destroy the main theory underpinning my retirement strategy. -Paul
[2019-03-12 11:24:55] - a: Honestly, we keep focusing on beating "the market", but what is the market? S&P500? Total market? US only or international? I can craft compelling arguments for why the S&P 500 might not be the ideal investment over the next 30 years (too tech heavy and overweight FANG) or even why the US market might underperform international markets. -Paul
[2019-03-12 11:22:13] - a: No idea! And I don't think anybody can ever even measure that. Past performance and future results and all. I would guesstimate I have something like a 75% chance to outperform. -Paul
[2019-03-12 11:18:09] - paul: "I have a good chance of over-performing over the long term" how high are your chances? worded differently, what are the chances that you will underperform compared to the s&p500 in the long term? ~a
[2019-03-12 10:55:45] - But when it comes to funds, there's no guarantee that the money you attract is going to be aligned with your investing goals and strategy. You might have the risk tolerance to invest in risky biotechs that might drop big time in a given quarter because you believe that in 5+ years it will pay off, but the people whose money you manage might not like seeing a 5% drop in a quarter... -Paul
[2019-03-12 10:54:25] - In essence, my investing strategy and time horizon and tolerance for volatility and risk is perfectly aligned. I do not freak out when I have big drops or underperform the market for a few years because I "know" (as much as anybody can know the future when it comes to the market) that I have a good chance of over-performing over the long term. -Paul
[2019-03-12 10:52:32] - https://alphaarchitect.com/2016/02/02/even-god-would-get-fired-as-an-active-investor/ Obviously this is an imperfect exercise for any number of reasons, but I did think that the idea behind it was interesting and goes towards a point I was trying to make before about the difference between an individual trying to beat the market and managing a fund to beat the market... -Paul
[2019-03-12 09:37:58] - a: I have put very little thought into growth vs value stocks as up to this point in my life it not been a thing. I'm think that Vanguard has some funds that are specifically set up to be more tax efficient? So maybe I would look at those and either invest in them or try to emulate their strategy. -Daniel
[2019-03-11 14:08:51] - a: Doesn't mean I don't have dividend payers in my portfolio, but they've been slowly dropping out in favor of more companies that don't make a ton of money, but are growing faster. -Paul
[2019-03-11 14:07:47] - a: Now? I probably have a bit of a bias against dividend payers in that they tend to be companies that don't have as much in the way of growth prospects (if you're paying a dividend, then you probably can't find anything better to do with your money and probably aren't going to grow much as a company). -Paul
[2019-03-11 14:06:40] - a: Oh, haha. I answered the question I wanted to answer instead, I guess.
I used to love dividends because it felt like it slanted the odds in my favor tremendously in terms of making money (this was back when I was more focused on making money than beating the market). -Paul[2019-03-11 13:38:44] - paul: or, should i be heavier or lighter on bonds in my tax-advantaged accounts vs my taxable accounts? bonds seem to give out *only* dividends, but stocks (on average) give out *more* in dividends. ~a
[2019-03-11 13:37:07] - paul: no, i'm asking a different question, i think. given the current tax-law, would you prefer to buy a fund/stock that gives you lots of dividends or one that gives you zero dividends? assuming both funds/companies are otherwise equal? should i consider buying fewer "value" stocks and should i buy more "growth" stocks because the growth stocks typically give out fewer dividends and are therefore more tax-efficient? ~a
[2019-03-11 13:31:06] - a: On a philosophical level, I don't like how taxes are so often tied to making money because it just feels like the government is trying to punish people for making money. -Paul
[2019-03-11 13:28:27] - a: My thoughts on taxing dividends? I hate it. I mean, I hate taxes in general, but the various taxes on investing (capital gains, dividends, etc) seem particularly in your face since it's not hidden and every year you see how it eats into your gains. -Paul
[2019-03-11 13:26:26] - affected oops. ~a
[2019-03-11 13:26:07] - paul: if you rely on the penalty too often though, there are additional punishments. i don't know much about them because they haven't effected me directly, but they have affected someone i know. ~a
[2019-03-11 13:23:45] - paul: yeah understood. i hardly ever pay estimated taxes because my taxes are erratic year-to-year. which is ok, because if your taxes are erratic year-to-year you aren't punished (they float you a loan because they know sometimes income is unknowable). the penalty always looks at the current year and previous year to determine how much you are punished. i think this might be the first year i've ever paid a penalty actually. ~a
[2019-03-11 13:16:54] - a: "i don't follow" So, assume that for 2018 I should pay $30k in taxes. However, during the year, I only withhold $20k in taxes so that in April of 2019 I owe $10k to make up the difference. I've essentially pulled that $10k forward (I shouldn't have had it in 2018 at all, but the government floated me a loan). -Paul
[2019-03-11 13:10:56] - "pulling money forward?" i don't follow. when i owe taxes, i have to pay those taxes with money i don't have in my bank account. so, i have to use taxable savings to pay it. ~a
[2019-03-11 13:09:26] - third thing: dividends. i think dividends are bad now because i have to pay lots more in taxes EARLY even if the dividends are reinvested. this creates a huge tax drag on my investments. what are your thoughts on that? dividends suck, discuss! ~a
[2019-03-11 13:09:16] - paul: i had to make a lot of stock sales to pay taxes for 2017. so it creates like a *recursive* tax debt. where every year i'm paying taxes on the stock sale i made to pay taxes for the previous year. ~a
[2019-03-11 13:09:15] - paul: combination of a lot of things. i usually have lots of unexpected income (or lack there of) because of the company. like, huge checks come in the last week of december (lots of taxes!) or the first week of january (no taxes till next year!) pretty often. so, taxes will always be interesting because of that. ~a
[2019-03-11 12:39:04] - a: It didn't occur to me that you might be talking about investing for a company either. Not sure I understand your comment about paying personal taxes with a 401(k). Maybe you're talking about doing what I am talking about in terms of pulling money forward? -Paul
[2019-03-11 12:38:14] - a: Oh, wow, owing 30k is... a lot. Was it poor planning in terms of withholding or unexpected income or something else? I've owed $10k before but that was partially because I was basically trying to owe as much as possible (ie, pulling forward some money) to take advantage of time. -Paul
[2019-03-11 11:27:40] - paul: none of the above mostly. my company internally uses taxable accounts to hold our cash reserves, because that's all we're allowed to use ( corporations aren't actually people, apparently.
how are companies going to retire when they get old, without a 401k? the injustice. ). also, i can't pay my personal taxes in april with a 401k. i owe like 30k this year, yikes. ~a[2019-03-11 11:05:33] - a: You don't have to answer, but are you NOT in 100% ira and 401(k) because you've maxed out your contributions and/or make too much to contribute? Or because you use those taxable accounts for your emergency fund like we talked about before? -Paul
[2019-03-11 11:04:20] - a: I'm sure you've been tracking it somewhat, but for all the hype your gbtc pick (rightfully) got in 2017, it's "only" up 196% now whereas SHOP and MELI (two of my picks) are now up 161% and 103% respectively. Pretty nice to get triple digit gains like that over the course of about 2 years. -Paul
[2019-03-11 10:47:14] - paul: yeah, i guess we had this conversation when i brought up average-cost cost-basis a year or two ago. since you and daniel are like 100% in ira and 401k, you don't have to deal with short-term vs long-term or cost-basis stuff. well, good for you then
~a[2019-03-11 09:41:42] - a: Wow. That's quite a difference. Nearly all of my investing is done in tax advantaged accounts, so the change has had no effect on me. -Paul
[2019-03-09 12:44:46] - daniel/paul: in many real-world scenarios my tax has gone to zero on taxable accounts where the old method (fifo) would have had me paying huge taxes. ~a
[2019-03-09 12:43:31] - daniel/paul: cost basis: Specific share identification. do you guys use this for anything? it seems like the best of the best when it comes to increasing your cost basis and decreasing the taxes you pay. lots of brokers added this as a feature recently (new law required it starting in 2012), and it seems like it has opened a weird optimization mini-game. my taxes on taxable accounts just decreased dramatically. ~a
[2019-03-08 16:06:00] - Daniel: Yes. Streaming, blogging, and even some other things in real life that are much closer to 'work.' I might as well do motivational speaking. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-08 15:26:02] - Daniel: Nice! If I ever need an oil report I know where to go.-Paul
[2019-03-08 15:17:17] - Paul: Its the side business with my cousin. I think I mentioned it awhile back at some point. https://www.gibsonreports.com/ The main thing is my cousin got laid off from his day job awhile back and threw himself into it full time so it got a lot more time / energy put into it. I made the backend / get the data ready and he makes it pretty with tableau and sells it to people. -Daniel
[2019-03-08 15:09:07] - Daniel: Also, congrats on the side hustle payout! Care to share the circumstances? -Paul
[2019-03-08 15:08:47] - Daniel: I've never bothered running the numbers, because at the time I found out about it, we didn't quite have the cash flow or cash reserves for it to be worth considering. I just find the whole idea weird, though, like it should be illegal somehow or a scam.
-Paul[2019-03-08 14:58:17] - Xpovos: Your side hustles are rampant discourse and podcasting? Do you have others? -Daniel
[2019-03-08 14:56:04] - Daniel: Nice! None of my side hustles are paying yet. Got keep hustling, but it's hard out here for a hustler. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-08 14:38:16] - a: Got paid for the first time from side hustle
-Daniel[2019-03-08 14:23:40] - But if the rates are close or the HELOC is worse then its not really worth it. -Daniel
[2019-03-08 14:23:14] - Paul: If you can get a HELOC at a substantially lower rate then it can be beneficial that way because you move some debt from a higher interest rate bucket into a lower one. But thats not really a fancy concept or tricky or anything. -Daniel
[2019-03-08 14:19:17] - Paul: The thing is if you have extra money in your budget to put towards your mortgage that will save you money. Doing that through a HELOC doesn't really do anything. -Daniel
[2019-03-08 14:18:48] - Paul: There was a guy at my work who tried to sell me on the HELOC to pay mortage off early strategy. I worked out some math and basically its not really a gain. -Daniel
[2019-03-08 13:22:21] - https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/03/chick-fil-a-boycott-liberals-forgot-chicken-too-good.html I still find this fascinating. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-08 12:36:38] - i think i understand. it's definitely weird though. ~a
[2019-03-08 12:34:25] - a: Maybe? I think it does, though because the mortgage interest is front loaded? Um... so it might not necessarily gain you money but it pulls that money forward some? So you might ultimately pay the same amount but now you have some of that money earlier to gain interest from? Like I said, I only half understand it. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:47:50] - "paying principal off early" i don't think that's enough. you're paying off principle early, but if your interest rate is exactly the same, shuffling around the money doesn't buy you anything. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:37:34] - a: Also a little off-topic, but while I realized that front loading interest in mortgages sucked, reading up on these things makes it clearer just how much it sucks. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:34:46] - a: "there's no way the unison people would allow a potential foreclosure to proceed" Yeah, I don't know. The problem is they offer two services (the other one helps people afford to buy a house) and most of their FAQs about foreclosure are unclear which they apply to. I imagine they would be considered similar to the bank in terms of being another lender. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:32:21] - a: So even if you're just shuffling money around on an interest rate neutral basis.... you kinda come out ahead by directly paying principal off early? I dunno. If I half understand it I only feel a quarter able to describe it. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:31:25] - a: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2018/05/07/how-to-pay-off-your-30-year-mortgage-in-a-fraction-of-the-time/#4390c93e231e This is the best description I've found, and I only half understand it. I think the key is that with a mortgage you pay mostly interest early on. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:29:06] - paul: no i hadn't heard of that. how? heloc with a lower rate than your mortgage? ~a
[2019-03-08 11:28:45] - paul: i think it's a form of reverse mortgage because they *will* own the home if some set of things happen (like, imagine, if you lost your job and were risking foreclosure. there's no way the unison people would allow a potential foreclosure to proceed). ~a
[2019-03-08 11:26:19] - a: A little off topic, but have you heard about the weird way to use a HELOC to pay down a mortgage faster? That actually seems a lot fishier to me than this previous thing does. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:23:25] - a: I think most people are hurt by housing downturns. That's why 2008/2009 was so bad. Not easy to short a house and profit from that. Lots of vehicles to profit from house appreciation, though. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:22:11] - a: Understood, and I was skeptical as well, and you could totally be right, but I don't see any evidence at all that this is a reverse mortgage or that they own the home. Everything seems to indicate it's just a different way to structure a HELOC. Either way, I'm happy to concede the point because like I said, I don't think the numbers work out anyway. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:22:11] - i wonder how the reverse mortgage (equity release) people aren't hurt by housing downturns. i guess regular mortgage people too. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:18:07] - a: I can't help but think, though, that a more irresponsible person could and would use this to become a millionaire somehow.... before probably losing it all in some housing downturn. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:17:29] - paul: that is not the fine print. they don't have to be lying for this to be bad for you. they're simplifying. you own the home technically. but if you (blah blah blah) then you owe them (blah blah blah). ~a
[2019-03-08 11:17:23] - a: Either way, the point is probably moot. Like you said, I don't think the numbers work out well and there are too many ways where this could work out badly. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:16:52] - a: I don't think this is a home reversion. I could be completely wrong here, but from what I can tell this is much more similar to a HELOC in that I own the home, and they're giving me a loan based on the equity in my home but instead of charging any interest, they want a piece of the appreciation when I sell. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:15:29] - a: Obviously that's from them and they could be lying, but that would seem to be illegal. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:15:13] - a: "If I partner with Unison, who owns the home? Partnering with Unison You own the home! You control the property and receive the benefits of home ownership, such as occupancy rights and income tax deductions. Unison is not an owner and has no rights of occupancy. We only share a portion of the future change in value of the home, as an investor." -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:14:33] - paul: "the reverse mortgage is a form of equity release" in the united states. that's from my wikipedia link. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:13:05] - paul: "You should always get financial advice before taking out a home reversion plan or any other kind of equity-release scheme" i would take this advice. i think this is a type of reverse mortgage. this is not heloc. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:11:38] - "They don't own my home with this program either" this may be technically true, but did you read the fine print? ~a
[2019-03-08 11:11:08] - paul: this is a dumb idea. i can't think of too many cases where it will help you, but i can think of dozens where it will hurt you. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:11:04] - a: Hmmm, I think HELOC is closer than reverse mortgage. They don't own my home with this program either. They just get a percentage of the appreciation. If the house doesn't appreciate, they get nothing (out of that). -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:10:14] - a: It seems like I should be able to get this to work for us because it seems like it should be easy to find long term investments that beat the rate of home appreciation, but the numbers I am running show it to be too close for my liking unless I can find a way to hack the appreciation process. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:10:05] - heloc is very different. with heloc they don't own your home. with a reverse mortgage, they (sort-of in many cases) do. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:09:34] - paul: which according to wikipedia is similar to the reverse mortgage. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:09:12] - a: https://www.unison.com/homeowner/ This is the program. I thought it was a clever twist on a HELOC (kinda?) and probably could work out well for people with large amounts of credit card debt or situations like that. I even think it could work out for us, but it will be (surprisingly, to me) hard to recoup the amount they get paid. -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:08:44] - paul: home reversion. aka equity release. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:07:07] - i've heard of it (maybe on npr?). i wouldn't consider it. they'll own you in the fine print. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:06:13] - paul: what did they call this scheme? this doesn't sound like a reverse mortgage per-se. but it does sound horrible. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:05:04] - don't do it. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:05:01] - "they get a percentage of your home appreciation" oh i missed this. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:04:32] - paul: don't look at home appreciation. home appreciation is orthogonal so it will skew your answer. ~a
[2019-03-08 11:04:02] - paul: anyways, how much is left on your 500k mortgage? how many months ago did you get the loan? also, is 5% exact? it's 5.0% (amortized monthly)? ~a
[2019-03-08 11:03:57] - a: I'm even thinking of weird stuff like what if you get solar panels right before this to artificially increase the home value (they get an assessment when you get the loan) but those panels help drive down the appreciation of the home over time (since the panels depreciate). -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:03:09] - a: So... I'm making a spreadsheet with some variables to figure out how much this loan will end up costing (based on guesses on home appreciation) vs what I could do with that loan (invest or pay off some principal or something else). -Paul
[2019-03-08 11:01:44] - paul: thinking on this some more, please ignore my last post. if you want to just look at the difference of interest payments, it's maybe possible we could calculate that. ~a
[2019-03-08 10:59:57] - a: Here's the larger (more complicated) picture: Got something in the mail from a company where they essentially offer to give you an interest free loan (the only up-front cost is 3.9% transaction fee on the loan amount). You don't have to pay it back until you sell your house (or 30 years pass), at which point you pay back the loan AND they get a percentage of your home appreciation. -Paul
[2019-03-08 10:58:47] - paul: then to do that you definitely need to look up your interest rate, (not your apr, but i think you can calculate it from your apr), and you also need to know how many months you have left, and you need to know your current principle. you can't figure this out without that information. ~a
[2019-03-08 10:57:35] - a: Right, and it's less of "which option is better" and more of a "how much money would this save me over X years?". Thing. -Paul
[2019-03-08 10:56:12] - (another confounding factor is inflation. it affects the APR and the APY the same, but since you can't get a loan cheaply (without closing costs), i don't know if it ever makes sense to pay down a mortgage. future inflation is unknowable: if it ends up being very high, you'll wish you didn't pay down a low-interest-fixed mortgage.) ~a
[2019-03-08 10:54:24] - paul: if you want a rule of thumb: if you look at your mortgage APR, and compare it to the APY on a CD, do whichever is higher? this is a simplification though, of course. it's confounded by the fact that you can't *WITHDRAW* money back from what you put into a mortgage. but you *can* withdraw money from a CD or whatnot. ~a
[2019-03-08 10:52:13] - paul: the spreadsheet method will work the best because you'll understand it. however, i have a few equations for this, interest = (yearlyInterest/12)+1; balance = principal * (1 - interest^-monthsLeft) / (1 - interest^-months). so in your situation, you'd run this twice, once with your current (remaining) principal. and then again with your current (remaining) principal minus 200k. the difference in the balance is how much you've saved. ~a
[2019-03-08 10:50:52] - Xpovos: But I'm wondering what it looks like for the mortgage. -Paul
[2019-03-08 10:50:29] - Xpovos: Yeah, and I don't want to dig up all of the info necessary to get that done. In essence, I'm trying to figure out if I get a lump sum of money (for simplicity's sake, let's just say $100k), what's the best return I can get on that over X years. I can plug in some numbers for things like CDs (3%) or investing in the market (using 6% right now).... -Paul
[2019-03-08 10:36:18] - Paul: Easy? No. Sounds like a spreadsheet job to me. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-08 09:34:07] - Ugh, is there an easy way to calculate how much money you would save on a mortgage for paying a lump sum towards principal right now? So say I wanted to pay $100k towards my $500k 20 year mortgage at a 5% interest rate. After 20 years, how much less have I paid because of that lump sum? -Paul
[2019-03-07 17:00:06] - Thanks. I'm planning on using this estimate to figure out appreciation 20 or so years out, so assuming things even out by then, I'll use something like a 2% appreciation for now. -Paul
[2019-03-07 16:45:31] - paul: i agree wholeheartedly with what xpovos said. don't use zillow, don't use property taxes (maybe use redfin, in my experience redfin prices are more realistic/lower). i've been emotionally punished by assuming the zillow price was real. maybe you can look at the price of other recent home sales in your neighborhood. i know that's what zillow should be using, but i think it sucks at it. ~a
[2019-03-07 16:38:44] - But that's really subjective, because Zillow also said my home was worth about that same amount in 2013. So if i just looked at the Zestimate in 2013 and again in 2019, the annualized growth would have been 1.1% for those 6 years. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-07 16:35:13] - Assuming Zillow is accurate right now, I'm at about 4.1% annualized. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-07 16:23:09] - Paul: OK, good. Those are limited, of course, and purely algorithmic, rather than a proper appraisal every few cycles. I can bring my data (I've tracked Zillow on my house since I bought) and you can get a longer time span. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-07 16:11:22] - Xpovos: I wasn't even looking at property tax estimates. I was using stuff like Redfin and Zillow. Obviously those are estimates and it's impossible to tell how much my house would go for until it's time to sell, but I figured there should be some general rules of thumb, -Paul
[2019-03-07 16:09:44] - Overall, expect inflation +1% maybe. So 2-3%, I'd guess. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-07 16:09:28] - Paul: Two factors. 1) Property tax estimates are not a good way to actually estimate the value of your property. They're subject to a lot of political machinations to move them up AND to move them down. Typically they don't go up very much for a while, then they go up a bunch all at once to compensate and meet something close to the market. 2) The market itself can be like that too. Very jagged. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-07 15:58:37] - I'm trying to estimate how much I can expect my house to appreciate in value over the coming years, but the numbers I am seeing online (4-5%) seem wildly different from what I've noticed with estimates for my home over the past 5 years (1-2%). Anybody have any good estimates on what kind of yearly return seems right? -Paul
[2019-03-07 15:34:20] - aaron: Yeah, I had one picture where I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the background was supposed to be. There were some others where it looked a little too blurry / generic. -Paul
[2019-03-07 15:24:43] - The ideology / religion / skin color of the speaker does matter, though, it seems. -Paul
[2019-03-07 14:50:03] - https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/07/politics/house-democrats-resolution-vote-ilhan-omar/index.html i'm confused. I thought the rules of wokeness were that intent doesn't matter. - mig
[2019-03-07 14:04:37] - aaron: haha yeah i think some are more obvious than others. ~a
[2019-03-07 14:03:45] - aaron: buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo? ~a
[2019-03-07 13:59:36] - https://i.imgur.com/oNgAUKt.png or one guy is at a wedding or formal event, whereas the other girl is taking a selfie with the tesseract from interstellar - aaron
[2019-03-07 13:56:53] - the "which face is real" game is a lot easier (but cheaty) if you ignore the faces and look at the background... usually one person is at a football stadium, while the other one is surrounded by tan salt crystals that sort of look like human fingers - aaron
[2019-03-07 13:50:14] - https://gist.github.com/lhorie/c0d9fd9b2aa215f4984f3ce1c8fd01bf what's the longest keyword sequence in javascript? "else do return yield delete true instanceof typeof void new class extends false in this"? no... - aaron
[2019-03-07 13:34:34] - I definitely did not go 10 / 10. I got better as a I went on but I missed like 2 out of my first three or three out of my first four. I also kept going cause I thought it would stop me at some point and tell me my grade. Nope just keeps going. -Daniel
[2019-03-07 13:21:19] - a: Yeah, I knew some things to look for as well. I know the oval you're talking about, but I only saw it twice (one was really obvious, though, in that it looked like somebody had an earring on their forehead). Still, if I didn't know what to look for.... I think I probably would've done much worse. -Paul
[2019-03-07 13:04:38] - yeah, i know how to win. i just got 10/10. they have this weird bug where there's like an "oval" shaped smudge in the fake ones. sometimes the ovals are *very* small and sometimes they are huge, but you can see them. still a very good game, they're pretty awesome actually. ~a
[2019-03-07 12:58:53] - I went 8 for 8 in terms of being right, but some were hard and at least two felt like pure guesses. -Paul
[2019-03-07 12:56:46] - http://www.whichfaceisreal.com/ -Paul
[2019-03-06 14:51:27] - a: I suppose I can sympathize. I feel the same way about the number of singing shows on TV.
-Paul[2019-03-06 13:34:38] - paul: herein lies my confusion. any time that number goes over 1B/year, i start getting confused and angry. things were pretty easy in the 90s. ~a
[2019-03-06 13:31:02] - paul: yeah, it shouldn't be confusing. but they're all just superhero movies to me. ~a
[2019-03-06 13:10:33] - a: So the biggest point of confusion is probably that the X-Men movies (made by Fox) are based off Marvel characters but have nothing to do with the Avengers movies and that universe. That is likely to change soon since Disney is buying Fox. -Paul
[2019-03-06 13:09:33] - a: Marvel gets a little iffy in terms of Marvel Cinematic Universe vs other, though, since they had licensed out some of their major characters like the X-Men and Fantastic Four and Spider-Man before making their own movies. -Paul
[2019-03-06 13:08:43] - a: DC vs Marvel shouldn't be confusing. I don't recall any movies that prominently featured them with overlap. Even stuff like the Lego Movie was entirely DC I think. -Paul
[2019-03-06 12:54:37] - i'm constantly confused by dc vs marvel. like aren't there movies with both of them or something? ~a
[2019-03-06 12:52:40] - ah dc comics. ugh. nm. ~a
[2019-03-06 12:52:07] - i haven't read the replies or anything, my first thought of "Marvel's first female superhero movie" . . . i guess wonder-woman wasn't a marvel female superhero movie? *non-sarcastically-confused* ~a
[2019-03-06 11:44:20] - But again, I can totally see how that last one especially can come across as sounding resentful or angry. -Paul
[2019-03-06 11:43:45] - a: https://twitter.com/i/moments/1103274121809588225 Or here, (related to the Brie Larson comments), it could be something like, "I know my opinion doesn't count in this case, but even though I'm a guy, I liked Captain Marvel!" Come to think of it, I probably see stuff like this way more than once a day (especially recently). -Paul
[2019-03-06 10:09:12] - Got my tenses mixed up, the hope would have been for the tone to be... -Paul
[2019-03-06 10:08:53] - a: Yeah, exactly, and while the hope is to have the tone be one of poking fun (as opposed to anger or anything), it's super hard to control how tone comes across on the internet even for people who are clever and smart in this area, which I know I'm not. -Paul
[2019-03-06 09:45:27] - paul: i hear you. your quote rings true with me. but the second part you posted "downsides could outweigh the upside" rings true even more
i sometimes have these thoughts (why do i give a fuck that you aren't rich and you aren't white), but i almost always internalize them because like you say the downside to voicing them is ever present. ~a[2019-03-06 09:31:35] - a: Anyway, it was just a random thought that even I can see how the downsides could outweigh the upside so I'm unlikely to do anything about it. -Paul
[2019-03-06 09:31:01] - a: https://twitter.com/ceciliakang/status/1103284767301210113 For example, I see random stuff like this probably at least once a day on average. So the idea would be to find a way to flip that narrative a bit. So maybe, "As a white person, I can relate to the idea of trivializing prison, but as a male, I don't understand the concept of a meditation retreat". -Paul
[2019-03-05 15:50:50] - paul: there is no person in the whole world like you; and i like you just the way you are. ~a
[2019-03-05 15:44:33] - a: Um... that I'm not a maga voter that hates the non-white people and the queer people and whatnot, but that I'm just an unremarkable white guy who is trying to sound special? -Paul
[2019-03-05 15:43:28] - Best example I can think of is something like King of the Hill, where it's kinda about a conservative Texas family, but it also pokes fun at it and has a fair amount of liberal viewpoints too. -Paul
[2019-03-05 15:43:00] - paul: where is the nuance? ~a
[2019-03-05 15:42:28] - aaaron: Yeah, that's kinda what I expected the reaction to be. I'm not sure most people would be interested in reading/listening long enough to find the nuance and/or if I was capable of pulling off the nuance. -Paul
[2019-03-05 15:12:06] - paul: i also roll my eyes when people point out the opposite. when people on NPR tell me their preferred pronouns, i roll my eyes. this information was not needed and i doubt you're actually helping your cause. ~a
[2019-03-05 15:11:07] - paul: yeah i'm with aaron. i expect you're about to tell me that you're a maga voter when i read that text. *not* because a white-cis-middle-class male is going to be maga voter: *but* because a maga voter will be more likely to point out these things at an attempt at humor. ~a
[2019-03-05 15:02:28] - paul: so i think if your journal were something like, "oh just another privileged white cisgender male's opinion" i think most people's gut reaction would be that you're an asshole pushing an agenda (presumably something like, "white people aren't privileged" or "i'm tired of hearing about transgender issues") - aaron
[2019-03-05 15:01:02] - paul: whenever people include those kinds of adjectives it always begs the question of "what's agenda are they pushing?" like if someone says, well i thought scott pilgrim sucked ass. versus like, well as a black person i thought scott pilgrim sucked ass. or when headlines include frivolous racial/demographic information - aaron
[2019-03-05 14:55:57] - a: I actually think her quote, taken in context, is fine (although I kinda disagree with the premise). But that's the kind of "cringe" that I was thinking could be fun to play around with. -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:54:29] - Straight, cisgender, middle-class white males, and while that is not at all unique, we could turn that "weakness" into a strength by leaning into it and trying to play it self-deprecatingly for laughs. -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:52:53] - I'll provide slightly more context: One of the constant criticisms of Rampant Discourse is the lack of focus. We talk about all sorts of different things. There's no niche we target. We're not special in any way. So what sets us apart? I (mostly jokingly) suggested that maybe what sets us apart is how unremarkable we are in terms of us all being... -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:52:34] - "not that it matters what a white male thinks" cringe? though i think brie's quote has even more cringe. i did like "room" though. did you guys see that movie? ~a
[2019-03-05 14:50:54] - Daniel: Obviously that's a little blunt, but hopefully you get the idea. -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:50:36] - Daniel: Honestly, I was thinking of going the opposite way and being self-deprecating about it. Like, "Here's what I thought of the Captain Marvel movie.... not that it matters what a white male thinks" https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/brie-larson-doesnt-want-you-reviewing-her-superhero-movie-white-males -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:47:55] - daniel: he's not trying to be offensive, he's trying to be edgy. ~a
[2019-03-05 14:47:25] - a: Hmmm, okay. I wasn't necessarily thinking it was "edgy". I just realized that there's a lot of content creators out there where their "group" (whether it's race or sexuality or whatever) is part of the identity that they hope will set them apart. I don't recall often seeing that used ironically. I guess it is in stand-up... -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:47:18] - daniel: to include more of that quote: "middle-income three-person" upper end = household total 135k. ~a
[2019-03-05 14:45:39] - a: Yeah I started googling it after I read Paul's statements and it seems to vary from place to place. -Daniel
[2019-03-05 14:45:04] - Paul: Pointing out that you are those things doesn't seem offensive. I wasn't sure originally what you meant by "promote" in your original question. I think if you stated i am all these things and therefore you should listen to my podcast cause I'm superior then that would be offensive. -Daniel
[2019-03-05 14:42:35] - paul: i watch a lot of stand-up. white men think it's funny to point out. and it was probably edgy when the term "cis" was new (2009?). 2019 not so much. ~a
[2019-03-05 14:41:21] - Daniel: I'm actually shocked that's your response. I could've sworn the reaction (from everybody) was going to be: "That's incredibly stupid and you're going to obviously offend everybody". -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:41:12] - daniel: "the definition of 'middle class' can vary wildly depending on who you ask...pew defines the middle class as those whose annual household income is two-thirds to double the national median, which was $57k/year as of 2016" (cnbc) ~a
[2019-03-05 14:40:46] - a: Really? Where else has it been used? -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:39:13] - Paul: Shrug. Seems non offensive but not really super funny either. Mostly just a shrug. The more interesting takeaway for me is thinking about "middle class" and how thats defined. -Daniel
[2019-03-05 14:38:26] - paul: that joke seems overused. ~a
[2019-03-05 14:31:46] - For example: Starting a podcast that is something like: "Just another middle-class heterosexual cisgender white man's take on current events". The goal would be to stand out (ironically, since it's also about pointing out how much I wouldn't be standing out) and also poke a little fun at both the PC crowd and myself. -Paul
[2019-03-05 14:29:40] - Looking to get a slightly larger group of opinions on an idea I had (just an idea, not something I'm likely to go through with): How bad of an idea would it be to, as a way of attempting to stand out, promote (in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek fashion) the various privileged identities that I possess? -Paul
[2019-03-05 12:33:41] - aaron: Thanks for confirming. The graphics looked wrong, so that's why I was looking for a sequel or something. -- Xpovos
[2019-03-05 11:57:55] - being a 4-player game with 3 rock-paper-scissor resources inevitably resulted in an unbalanced system, which was a good thing -- if two of us are focused making water, then i might switch to flowers because the water price has plummeted. but once i switch to flowers, the same thing eventually happens to flowers, and one or both of us might switch to rabbits - aaron
[2019-03-05 11:56:03] - xpovos: yeah! it was traders! ...cool game! mule's economy was basically smithore/crystite is the best engine, but you need electricity/food to run it. traders engine was sort of a rock paper scissors: to make flowers, you need rabbits initially and water for upkeep. to make rabbits, you need water initially and flowers for upkeep. and, rockets pay your rent - aaron
[2019-03-04 16:13:24] - aaron: I'm trying to find the MULE clone game that you and Vinnie played in college and you showed me. It's not an exact clone, but definitely a spiritual successor. Mid-late 1990s. Had a fat alien that did a lot of weird stuff. Might have been related to "Traders" (like a sequel? https://www.mobygames.com/game/traders-the-intergalactic-trading-game) -- Xpovos
[2019-03-04 15:24:16] - a: it had a really funny (and really inappropriate) final episode too -- an episode the creators made for spite after cosby's lawyers got involved - aaron
[2019-03-04 14:43:03] - aaron: i didn't realize that feet solving was a thing. someone on reddit noticed that the 1982 record time was beaten (later) by a guy with his feet. ~a
[2019-03-02 14:14:24] - house of cosby's. it's from 2005. have you guys heard of this shit? lots of stuff obviously fed right into rick and morty, and by the same guy (roiland). this is basically interdimentional cable, but like a decade earlier. fun. ~a
[2019-03-02 11:19:14] - Daniel: (2) and like I mentioned before, index funds DO often pick stocks (the S&P500 isn't every company) but the holding period is really long, so index funds are actually a little bit like a less discretionary version of what I do. -Paul
[2019-03-02 11:13:48] - Daniel: I thought of two more points: (1) You all why everybody doesn't invest my way if it beats the market. Well, not everybody does passive index funds even though that seems to consistently beat actively managed funds. -Paul
[2019-03-02 08:39:35] - google opened .dev domains for registration, and someone immediately registered https://vim.dev/ and https://emacs.dev/ ...
- aaron[2019-03-01 22:55:59] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/03/01/doping-scandal-rocks-world-bridge/ -Paul
[2019-03-01 22:01:01] - Oof, I really need a better way of dealing with these fantasy investing updates. I have the data in a text file easily enough, but then getting that into Wordpress involves me having to manually re-type it every time because Wordpress doesn't seem to support pasting into multiple table cells at once. -Paul
[2019-03-01 15:29:34] - a: Fair, I suppose luck is always going to be a factor. I guess the better question is if the skill portion outweighs it? Impossible to tell, I suppose. I always come back to the poker comparison. Somebody can be on a lucky streak, but if somebody consistently wins for years, then I have to credit them with at least some skill. -Paul
[2019-03-01 15:13:05] - maybe "only lucky"? i'd say he's not only lucky. ~a
[2019-03-01 15:12:49] - paul: i consider warren buffet to be lucky. he has skill, but he's also made some lucky calls in the past. it can be both. ~a
[2019-03-01 15:02:43] - Daniel: And I'm totally not trying to put words in your mouth and it's not a gotcha question at all. But I do think that if you consider Warren Buffett to be lucky, then we can probably save ourselves some time in the future because I don't think I'm ever going to surpass his record to a degree which makes you think that I have some special skill.
-Paul[2019-03-01 14:42:02] - Daniel: Okay, so would you say Warren Buffett / Peter Lynch / pick your own market-beater was lucky or skilled? It sounds like you are saying lucky? -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:38:00] - Paul: I think to answer 1 clearly there are people that have. As to 2 given the number of players I definitely think its possible to attribute it to luck and I"m not sure how to test that it was skill. Except that given no one has been able to teach the masses how to do it I'm not sure it is a skill -Daniel
[2019-03-01 14:31:46] - Daniel: Actually, I realize I might not know your exact position... I don't want to put words in your mouth, so let me as you a few questions: 1) Do you think it's possible for an individual to perform better than an S&P 500 index fund over the course of 30 years? 2) If yes, do you think that performance would be due to luck or skill? -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:30:45] - Daniel: I feel like a broken record, but I just can't think of any other area in life where it seems accepted that you can either be average in something, or below average, and that's it. There's no way to be above average. -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:28:52] - Daniel: I think there's a decent chance that if you remove fees, then actively managed funds might be competitive. Obviously that's cheating a bit, but it would show that it's not the stock picking that's the problem, but instead paying somebody else to do it. -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:26:48] - Daniel: And we almost never mention this, but there are funds that do beat the market. We tend to be lazy and just imply that all lost to the market, but there is a small percentage that beat it. Also, I've never been able to find out what percentage of funds would beat the market if you don't count fees. -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:24:22] - Daniel: But, like I think I've mentioned before, there are lots of handicaps that funds have that I don't. I 100% control when I buy and sell. Funds can't. I can take small positions in small cap companies without moving the stock price. Funds can't. -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:22:25] - Daniel: Depends on what you mean by "my strategy", but obviously I am/was influenced by the Fool and so I imagine their funds are very similar to what I do. We've argued about if TMFC is active or passive before, but it is beating the market since inception. -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:16:51] - Daniel: Peter Lynch beat the market for years. Buffett has beaten it for decades. I'm positive there are lots of other investors who have also beaten the market for their careers as well. That's kinda irrelevant (except as a counter example to your point about me only having 5 data points). -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:15:49] - Paul: I don't understand why don't think actively managed funds wouldn't follow your same strategy. -Daniel
[2019-03-01 14:14:45] - Daniel: Also, again, you're comparing passive index funds to actively managed funds which I am not. I don't see how that's a relevant comparison. I don't think anybody here is arguing that actively managed funds beat passive index funds. I called it Paul vs the Market, not actively managed funds vs the market. -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:13:29] - Daniel: I think you're conflating a lot of different things here. Let's assume passive index funds have outperformed actively managed since their inception in the 70s. That's 50 years for a market that is over 200 years old. Doesn't seem right to call it "industry wide history". -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:11:29] - Daniel: I mean, I think the problem is that... uh... things always change and there are no ironclad rules? There are always exceptions which can wreck even the most careful strategies. The Japanese stock market peaked somewhere around 1990 and even today, 30 years later, is at only about half where it was then. -Paul
[2019-03-01 14:08:41] - Whole history backs up the past performance part but yeah index funds have only out performed active management since the 70's. Its still industry wide history vs like 5 data points. -Daniel
[2019-03-01 13:58:11] - Daniel: I mean, they didn't always exist, and the S&P 500 index is only like 60 years old, so not sure how that work prior to that. -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:57:21] - Daniel: "Of the entire history of investing in the stock market" That's a big claim. Is that true? I know passive index funds have outperformed lately (ie, past few decades), but wasn't sure if that was always the case. -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:54:47] - Daniel: Hell, even 30 years from now when we're both (hopefully) retired, we really won't be able to say if my outperformance (assuming it holds) is due to luck or skill. You can still throw the "past performance" line at me and be perfectly right about it. -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:53:53] - Paul: Not past performance of a person or a fund. Of the entire history of investing in the stock market. Those don't seem like the same thing to me. -Daniel
[2019-03-01 13:53:29] - Daniel: Maybe take out the "only", but my point stands. I can't "prove" that I have some special reproducible skill that will let me beat the market in the future, but you also can't prove passive index funds will beat me either. Right now the only data we have shows me beating the market in basically 4 out of 5 possible data points (I'll give you a point for the Freedom Portfolio losing after 1Q). -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:51:33] - Daniel: "Past Performance Is Not Indicative Of Future Results" Agreed, but past performance is also the only thing we have to go on. Also, past performance is kinda the only reason people think passive index funds are better, right? -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:50:36] - a: Oh, absolutely. Much like how I wasn't worried about the Freedom Portfolio being down after on quarter, I also don't see any of the stock picking challenges as "proof" of anything. -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:34:33] - Paul: I think that in the realm of active educated investors in the market there are a lot of people who don't follow your strategy. If you think you way will consistently beat the market I'm curious why more of those people don't do the same thing. -Daniel
[2019-03-01 13:33:36] - Paul: "because humans are stupid" - I think this is what I translate into you think you are going to beat the market because you are just smarter. -Daniel
[2019-03-01 13:32:07] - Paul: You and Adrian have done well in the stock picking challenges. Do you think that is proof that you will win the next one? Next five? ten? Cause "Past Performance Is Not Indicative Of Future Results" is the warning on almost literally every thing I've ever seen in the investing industry. -Daniel
[2019-03-01 13:28:38] - paul: "Adrian and I (the two constant stock pickers) have beaten the market every year so far" you might want to cool your tits. we've (possibly) gotten lucky so far. maybe wait another 5 years before you start making prognostications. ~a
[2019-03-01 13:26:13] - Daniel: Even with something like poker, there are established smart ways to play and to win over the long term, but you still find a lot of people who bluff a ton and play lots of weak hands. -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:25:18] - Daniel: Like, we're discussing why people can't understand the nuance of long term investing when something like half of Americans can't even cover a sudden thousand dollar expense or can't answer the most basic questions about interest rates and inflation. -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:24:12] - Daniel: "why aren't they just doing that same thing" Because humans are stupid? Seriously. I'm not trying to be glib. Casinos make a ton of money off slot machines. State lotteries are huge money makers. People are not good with money at all. Most people I talk to about the stock market think it's a scam or they're super into penny stocks and stuff. -Paul
[2019-03-01 13:23:06] - Daniel: "Who will the winners of 2019 be?" Based on early returns in the Fantasy Investing game? All of the non-index fund investors.
I'm half joking, but Adrian and I (the two constant stock pickers) have beaten the market every year so far. -Paul[2019-03-01 13:13:49] - I think the notion of "I'm playing the long game and if only other investors did that too they would beat the market as well" seems crazy to me because if it was true then why aren't more people doing it? I guess for any strategy that you think is successful I'm curious why everyone isn't doing it to make money. They are obviously trying so why aren't they just doing that same thing. -Daniel
[2019-03-01 13:11:45] - Paul: Are there winners? Yes. Who will the winners of 2019 be? Who will be the winners of 2020? Who knows! -Daniel
[2019-03-01 13:11:00] - Paul: There are winners. There are less winners when you consider taxes and fees. The problem isn't that there are winners, its that the winners aren't the same from year to year or time frame x to time frame y and that there isn't a good way to predict who will be the winners. -Daniel
[2019-03-01 11:20:54] - a: Again, I understand it's not a perfect analogy because there are options and fees and everything else. It's certainly possible that, when all of those are considered, maybe it is just everybody losing to the market and that delta is just going towards paying fund managers or whatever. Still, it seems like there could and even should be some winners. -Paul
[2019-03-01 11:19:10] - a: Right, of course, and there are obviously a lot of variables like cash coming in and going out and options and whatnot. Zero sum game probably is the wrong term since it has other implications. I more meant that, if "the market" is average, and all these mutual funds are "below average", doesn't it make sense that there's somebody on the other end who is beating the average? -Paul
[2019-03-01 11:10:40] - paul: in no way is typical stock market investing a zero sum game. i think i know what you mean, but you should probably not call it that. if typical stock market investing was a zero sum game, then the market would make 0% per year. ~a
[2019-03-01 09:40:55] - Daniel: But again, if we assume that investing is in some ways a zero sum game (for each buyer there is generally a seller and one of those is going to "win" while the other "loses", then shouldn't there be corresponding winners for all of these mutual fund losers? -Paul
[2019-03-01 09:39:50] - Daniel: "do you think there aren't A LOT of other people out there playing the same game as you?" I honestly don't know. I suspect the amount of money playing the same game as me is much smaller than the mutual funds that (para-phrasing Jim Cramer) try to beat the market every day, every hour, every second... -Paul
[2019-03-01 09:37:39] - Daniel: Much more than two investors, but I again point out the apples to oranges comparison. I am very different from a mutual fund, even though we both pick individual stocks (as opposed to index funds). Honestly, though, index funds are kinda picking individual stocks too, as we've seen with things like the Fool 100 Index... -Paul
[2019-02-28 16:50:26] - Paul: I agree that you play a different game than like day traders and some actively managed people, but do you think there aren't A LOT of other people out there playing the same game as you? -Daniel
[2019-02-28 16:49:45] - Two investors (Paul and Warren) plus the motley fool vs the entire history of the mutual fund industry... -Daniel
[2019-02-28 15:33:46] - All of which I think are more relevant than the performance of actively managed funds, for reasons I have explained in the past. -Paul
[2019-02-28 15:33:30] - Daniel: And I know you think you have the bulk of evidence on your side in terms of actively managed funds, but I also think I have the bulk of evidence on my side as well. I would point to the track record of pretty much any of the Motley Fool services or the performance of Warren Buffett or my own stock market challenge performances. -Paul
[2019-02-28 15:32:21] - Daniel: Sure, I won't always be right, but I think I can be right more often than I am wrong. I mean, if I actually don't even understand how it would work where everybody always has to lose to the market. Since every trade has a buyer and seller, shouldn't there be winners to offset losers? -Paul
[2019-02-28 15:30:12] - Daniel: If I had to point to one vague concept, it's that I don't try to time the market or so short term trades. I'm not trying to guess if company X is going to beat expectations tomorrow or underwhelm. I'm playing a different game where I'm trying to anticipate if Amazon is going to do better than Sears or Tesla better than Ford. -Paul
[2019-02-28 15:28:38] - Daniel: I doubt that I ever said I was smarter. What do I think I know that other investors don't? I dunno, it's hard for me to pinpoint a single thing. I mean, why do I think I am better than others at fantasy football drafting or poker or board games? -Paul
[2019-02-28 14:19:12] - Paul: I mean if it hadn't would you be doubting your whole investing philosophy? Probably not - for the same reasons that so far you winning the challenges etc hasn't swayed mine. Small samples sizes, single examples, etc. -Daniel
[2019-02-28 14:18:02] - Paul: Ok. Sure. Its not about whether it does or doesn't. Its about what it is that you think you know that other investors don't. Like why doesn't everyone only invest in the exact same companies as you. Other people make different decisions with the same information available. Why? I think your answer was that you were smarter? I don't remember 100% on that front. -Daniel
[2019-02-28 14:08:31] - Daniel: Remember around two months ago when you asked why I was so confident that the Freedom Portfolio would rebound and catch back up to the market? Well, I've been tracking it recently and I think, as of today, the performance of the Freedom Portfolio has officially caught back up to and surpassed the S&P 500 since October 1, 2018. -Paul
[2019-02-27 16:09:21] - Posing as an election officers, or other official, e.g. a police officer, and giving false information could get you in serious trouble, though. -- Xpovos
[2019-02-27 16:08:25] - Paul: I think that one is more complicated. Publicizing something false, like the wrong election date, would probably be illegal. Telling a person in a face-to-face conversation is probably not, but likely mostly because it's just unenforceable, even if illegal. -- Xpovos
[2019-02-27 15:55:19] - I honestly worry that in a few years I won't be able to tell the difference between the Onion and stories like this. Hell, this reads like a parody to me now. I'm not even joking. -Paul
[2019-02-27 15:50:03] - mig: Thats a kind of weird article. The initial post by that lady about going to India doesn't seem racist to me though who knows anymore I suppose. Maybe it makes an Indian person eye roll or think how sheltered but racism seems a stretch. It then just pivots and talks about some of the racism in the overall knitting internet community which doesn't really seem connected to the article mentioned at the beginning. -Daniel
[2019-02-27 15:38:56] - https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/25/18234950/knitting-racism-instagram-stories apparently desiring to visit and learn about other countries is racist now if you happen to be white? - mig
[2019-02-27 14:00:09] - Xpovos: Well, you can't tell people that the election is on some different day, though, right? Or is that legal but just frowned upon? -Paul
[2019-02-27 13:59:16] - Xpovos: Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean so much as legal but just overall what I would consider to be okay vs sketchy. I imagine this is likely an area where people can widely differ too. -Paul
[2019-02-27 13:57:55] - Really, almost any form of campaigning is within the law as long as you're not giving someone something of tangible value for a promise of a vote, or campaigning within a certain proximity of the actual voting. Obviously, election laws may vary by jurisdiction, so this is limited to mine. But I don't think it varies THAT much. -- Xpovos
[2019-02-27 13:56:55] - Paul: Not so grey. You could, within the law, but with questionable value for morals and human decency, drive only people who affirmed they were voting for the candidate of your choice to the polls. Unless you're for hire. -- Xpovos
[2019-02-27 13:30:28] - Xpovos: Interesting story. I've always wondered where the line was between appropriate and inappropriate help. Driving people to the polls seems to be fine, but what if you ask people before they get in your van who they are voting for? Is that still okay? Seems like a huge grey area... -Paul
[2019-02-27 13:16:37] - There is a difference between voter fraud and election fraud. https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/02/19/true_confessions_of_texas_vote_harvesters.html -- Xpovos
[2019-02-27 09:39:20] - Aw, man... I thought about adding to MELI a few days ago. Can't be too upset, though... Getting close to an Enterprise level position now. -Paul
[2019-02-26 16:50:41] - This comic is loosely based around the computer game RimWorld. Its pretty good but hardcore - http://srgrafo.com/comic -Daniel
[2019-02-26 13:54:41] - Daniel: Fair, and I'm certainly leaning away from it as well, but I'm struggling with how to respond to this guy and telling him I won't click on the link because I think he's a scammer.
-Paul[2019-02-26 13:50:32] - 0% chance I click on that link. -Daniel
[2019-02-26 13:18:18] - Anybody know anything about the .xn--- domain? Somebody with a made-up sounding name (or maybe it's Russian, but 5 consonants in a row still seems odd) reached out to me over LinkedIn and is effectively trying to get me to click on a link that ends with that domain. Wondering how much danger I might be in if I click on the link. -Paul
[2019-02-26 00:35:50] - aaron: yes that was the one! his ai taught itself mario bros, and a bunch of others. it didn't do very well but it still was a fun video. I guess I considered it uninteresting because there are so many of them. ~a
[2019-02-25 11:52:38] - a: i saw a very interesting video about an AI playing NES games, where an AI did this with tetris. it made me laugh - aaron
[2019-02-22 12:35:51] - Not sure if anybody is following the big news on the market or the big news in sports, but today seems like a bad day for all things Kraft. -Paul
[2019-02-22 12:34:31] - Xpovos: Wow, so Microsoft is serious about being the Netflix of games it sounds like. If they weren't already so big I might consider investing in them. -Paul
[2019-02-22 12:33:07] - Paul: In more Nintendo news, if leaks are to be believed, the Xbox Game Pass games will be available to play (natively and/or streaming, depending on game) via Switch. It's theoretically like playing Xbox One on your Switch for the games in Game Pass. -- Xpovos
[2019-02-22 11:32:15] - https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/21/tech/bowser-nintendo-scli-intl/index.html They better work this into marketing somehow... -Paul
[2019-02-22 10:01:42] - a: iQiyi baby! -Paul
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