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[2020-03-09 13:32:14] - no, your link doesn't work. http 403 (permission denied). ~a
[2020-03-09 13:24:16] - a: Oh, yes, the RD article isn't out yet. Scheduled for tomorrow morning. Sorry. -Paul
[2020-03-09 13:23:48] - a: https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/ebc4n4 Does this work? -Paul
[2020-03-09 13:23:33] - link? i see 44. ~a
[2020-03-09 13:22:58] - a: I think it should be 45. -Paul
[2020-03-09 13:22:43] - 43? ~a
[2020-03-09 13:21:34] - a: He's referring to a story told at the end of the most recent podcast. -Paul
[2020-03-09 13:21:09] - dog story? i don't see that. joe biden cannot be allowed to be president of the united states of america? ~a
[2020-03-09 13:12:27] - I'm hoping for feedback on my dog story.
-- Xpovos[2020-03-09 11:47:46] - probably. ~a
[2020-03-09 10:28:55] - a: I'm not planning on retiring in 6-12 months, so I should be good.
-Paul[2020-03-09 10:28:17] - paul: obviously i'm not telling you to put money into the market
this market could keep going down for 6-12 months (or longer). it did in 2008. . . . i'm just saying that i am moving some money around knowing this market could still keep going down a lot. ~a[2020-03-09 10:27:14] - yup. ~a
[2020-03-09 10:04:11] - a: SC2 this Thursday? -Paul
[2020-03-09 09:52:49] - a: I have to check. I have some money in an online checking account that needs to stay there for another week or so to get the sign-up bonus, but it might have to stay in longer than that still (or else they take the bonus away). If I can get access to that, I'll try to dump it into Robinhood (I should use Cash App instead) as soon as I can. -Paul
[2020-03-09 09:51:04] - yeah, i mostly don't either. still, i (for better or worse) can always rebalance some money with gld/bonds and stocks. ~a
[2020-03-09 09:46:39] - a: I have no cash to deploy, so I probably won't even bother checking much today. Next CD doesn't mature until 4/2... -Paul
[2020-03-09 09:46:07] - paul: "trading will resume at 9:49 am eastern time" ~a
[2020-03-09 09:40:57] - paul: i don't know if they help or hurt. i wouldn't argue either way without actually studying the data though. ~a
[2020-03-09 09:39:55] - I wonder if there is any evidence that these circuit breakers help anything. It almost feels like it increases panic to hear that circuit breakers have been tripped. -Paul
[2020-03-09 09:38:46] - this might be a coincidence, but i noticed that as well. ~a
[2020-03-09 09:38:28] - a: Odd that bitcoin is dropping in conjunction. -Paul
[2020-03-09 09:38:17] - a: Yup. The dangers of central banking and fiat currency. These are the things Austrian economists have been saying for like 12 years. Maybe they'll finally be right.
-Paul[2020-03-09 09:37:20] - a: This was mentioned on the RD podcast I pushed out last night: Trump cares about the stock market. A lot. This has to be really annoying him. -Paul
[2020-03-09 09:37:08] - paul: i'm not happy about a low treasury yield. it's a dangerous game to play. if money is free to borrow (or very cheap to borrow), why save it? why earn it? why put value in it? ~a
[2020-03-09 09:36:42] - a: Times like today are when I had cash on the sidelines to deploy, but I at least ticked up my 401(k) contribution some. We're still just back to where we were sometime last year. -Paul
[2020-03-09 09:36:09] - trump's response to the market prices ~a
[2020-03-09 09:35:44] - a: Yeah, I saw the news last night that things were going to be down today. Looks like OPEC is engaging in an oil production war with itself... which is causing the cost of oil to plummet. Bad for oil companies, but ultimately not too bad for most other companies. I'm most excited about the 10 year treasury yield continuing to fall. sub 3% mortgage here we come! -Paul
[2020-03-09 09:34:16] - paul: market down 7% this morning. information on circuit breakers in the us exchanges. yikes. ~a
[2020-03-07 08:10:38] - a/Daniel: Social interaction with my coworkers is something I actively try to avoid. — Xpovos
[2020-03-06 16:43:09] - daniel: yeah, i understand. your situation probably doesn't apply to most teleworking though. if everybody is already remote, you don't "improve" communication by coming into an office. i hear you on your social interaction though . . . i agree with everything you said. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:41:44] - paul: ok, uhhh, i guess i'm fine with disagreeing on whether it's a stupid policy. let me ask, though, do you think ebay should allow anybody to sell anything for any price (assuming no laws are being broken)? ~a
[2020-03-06 16:40:13] - oh you answered that, sorry. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:39:54] - paul: "Whether or not they can go to Google is irrelevant" how? ~a
[2020-03-06 16:36:52] - aaron: actually, the change i got accepted to commons-math was relating to solvers. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:34:46] - aaron: "arithmetic solution" (numerical analysis) is what you're looking for, sorry, i just remembered the word! your binary search is an arithmetic solution. a "solver" is a way to solve a problem like this. in java: "double c = solver.solve(100, function, 1.0, 5.0, AllowedSolution.LEFT_SIDE);" link here. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:31:28] - aaron: there is no trivial solution to your problem. basically like: y=a*b^x+c*d^x, solve for x. like i don't think there's a "closed-form expression" solution to this problem. i think wolframalpha agrees there is no closed-form solution. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:13:03] - a: I telework 3 days a week currently because 95% of my team is currently not in TX so they don't really care where I work from. I'm fine with it. I don't know how I would feel about 100% telework though. I worked from home 100% for Sept 2019 and by the end I definitely could tell a lack of social interaction with peers. -Daniel
[2020-03-06 16:08:55] - brb. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:08:18] - aaron: is there a word? you already said it. binary search. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:07:50] - a: what do you think? is there a smarter way to solve this kind of a problem? or is there a word for my silly algorithm? - aaron
[2020-03-06 16:07:19] - a: but now, a player scores 250 points and you need to calculate... what rank should they be? the most obvious non-mathy algorithm i can think of is to essentially, binary search for it... you might have bounds set for a player's rank, you know it's between 0 and 999... so you try r=500. that gives you a result of 12, it's too small, so you try r=200... r=100. r=50... r=25... r=12... r=18, etc. - aaron
[2020-03-06 16:05:33] - a: imagine you're writing a game where you grade the player based on their score. and you define a precise monotonic function correlating a player's (r)ank and (s)core like 400*0.96^2r + 500*0.94^2r + 35.3*0.96^r = s so you can calculate, okay, a player with a rank of r=1 should be getting a score of about 800. and a player of with a rank of r=10 should be getting a score of about 350 - aaron
[2020-03-06 16:05:32] - a: Sorry, it's irrelevant to whether or not it is a stupid policy. -Paul
[2020-03-06 16:05:20] - "They want face-to-face interactions" face-to-face interactions are usually more efficient. i've done both, and the face-to-face ones are always easier and faster. doing an online-call is fine, but some people don't like that. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:05:16] - a: Whether or not they can go to Google is irrelevant (and as far as I know, Google doesn't operate a third party marketplace?), but it IS relevant to how gay couples can just go to a different baker. -Paul
[2020-03-06 16:04:14] - paul: "for a premium" jeeze, a bit of an understatement. "After this policy, nobody can" you're acting like they can't just go to google. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:03:42] - a: I do not telework. I'd love to. In my case I think that 2 days a week is probably the maximum possible, but there are jobs where that could be increased. I think there is a point of diminishing returns for it, though. And as much as I'd like 100% telework, I think that's impractical. People are too much ... people. They want face-to-face interactions. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 16:03:02] - a: Maybe you're right, there's probably a lot more bakeries than there are online marketplaces. -Paul
[2020-03-06 16:02:26] - a: I'm not asking if you are fine with the general idea of them curating what is sold. I'm asking if you think this particular policy is stupid or not. Before this action, some people could voluntarily acquire sanitizer through ebay for a premium. After this policy, nobody can. That takes away choice. -Paul
[2020-03-06 16:02:07] - paul: those are like two totally different situations. they share almost nothing in common. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:01:24] - the SEC won't let you buy or sell shares of goog at rates that are too high or too low. they'll tell you that you were price fixing and you're probably like breaking the law and shit. ~a
[2020-03-06 16:01:09] - a: And the argument that you can always buy (or sell) somewhere else is a baffling one to me. Aren't you the one who is always arguing that a single bakery can't refuse to bake a gay wedding cake because it puts an undue burden on the gay couple to find another baker? -Paul
[2020-03-06 16:00:48] - paul: . . . curating what is sold? yes, i'm fine with ebay curating what is sold. . . . if someone wants to sell playstations they bought for $1k at $50k because they're hard to find, i'd say "nah". . . . if you want to sell something that harms people and/or at rates that will harm people, i'll say: go to open bazaar. sell there. not on my website. you want to gouge, that's fine. not here though. ~a
[2020-03-06 15:57:52] - a: Wait, so you really don't think it's a stupid policy? So banning something to be sold entirely is better than allowing it to be sold at some arbitrarily high rate that you disapprove of? -Paul
[2020-03-06 15:57:11] - yeah i think we all did. owens (imo) was the only place we could all agree on. i'm sure it was renovated: but that raised area (pictured) is still raised. and the windows are still that shape (obviously, but it's what i noticed). ~a
[2020-03-06 15:56:15] - a: On Owens, I ate there quite regularly. It looks renovated from my memories. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 15:46:47] - paul: "got a flashback to 1983. looks the same!" looks like we aren't the only ones who noticed. ~a
[2020-03-06 15:45:58] - you are. also i'm allowed to think it's not a stupid policy. how is not hiring gays even close to a good comparison? we're talking about selling something for orders of magnitude greater than its cost. you think that's good, and i think that's bad. you think ebay should enable this, and i'm fine with ebay not enabling this. how is not hiring gays related? it's because you think both things should be legal to do? weird connection. ~a
[2020-03-06 15:42:50] - a: Looks surprisingly little changed (Owens). -Paul
[2020-03-06 15:42:02] - a: Yeah, but I'm also allowed to think it's a stupid policy, right? I mean, I feel like you wouldn't be as laissez faire if Ebay was using their freedom to, say, not hire gays. -Paul
[2020-03-06 15:40:56] - xpovos: both. to be clear, i'm not a hardliner. i think it has real positives if it's done once (or twice?) per week. anything more than that has deleterious effects (imo, but i'm not the only one that thinks this way). i think i've struck a fair balance. do you guys telework? ~a
[2020-03-06 15:33:56] - a: On telework, do you "hate it" when they do it? Or when you try to? -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 15:22:30] - does anybody remember this dining room? some things never change. ~a
[2020-03-06 15:21:35] - paul: nobody is getting banned (afaik). they're just only allowed to sell what ebay wants them to be allowed to sell. seriously, if you want perfect freedom when it comes to buying and selling, you want decentralized ebay. ~a
[2020-03-06 15:20:17] - paul: i mean, isn't this the nice thing about freedom? ebay is allowed to curate their content. and you're allowed to use a non-ebay website if you don't like their curation? ~a
[2020-03-06 15:18:55] - a: How about the hand sanitizers? Or people with legitimate needs for those masks? -Paul
[2020-03-06 14:09:54] - that depends. assuming that the face masks don't actually prevent the acquisition of covid-19? with that assumption, it's definitely better to not be able to acquire it at all. (save you money in this case. buy soap instead?) ~a
[2020-03-06 14:07:02] - a: Well, they're free to do whatever they want, but I think it's stupid. Which is worse? Having to pay more for something you want or not being able to acquire it at all? -Paul
[2020-03-06 14:05:59] - paul: without reading the article at all, i agree with their logic. (perspective of ebay
if you're going to charge a dumb high price, that's fine, but you won't be able to use our website to do it. that's like . . . our prerogative. we're allowed to do that. do you think the banning should be disallowed? ~a[2020-03-06 13:40:56] - https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/ebay-bans-sales-of-all-face-masks-and-hand-sanitizers.html Can somebody explain this to me? "We don't want people to get charged too much for these things, so we're just going to ban selling them at all"? -Paul
[2020-03-06 13:10:00] - per mile, "car: lose 50 cents and 18 seconds of life, bike: gain $8.33 and 1350 seconds of life". love it. ~a
[2020-03-06 13:07:49] - paul: "considering how concerned you are with pedestrian fatalities you can understand why". i am concerned with pedestrian fatalities, of course. otoh, bicycling: the SAFEST form of transportation. biking might be dangerous, but at least you wouldn't be in a car. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:50:43] - paul: it's difficult. for many prohibitively so. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:49:31] - a: Well, I'm thinking about previous conversations where you have tried to convince me that biking to work is doable, but yes, in this case I am overall half kidding about all of this. -Paul
[2020-03-06 12:49:18] - i fucking hate lawyers road. no you're not being over-protective. that road is bullshit. i hate it and i'm 38. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:48:41] - a: Maybe it's me being over-protective, but I don't feel comfortable letting Talia walk by herself across Lawyers Road during rush hour. I would imagine considering how concerned you are with pedestrian fatalities you can understand why. -Paul
[2020-03-06 12:48:04] - paul: i know you're probably kidding, but i'll answer you seriously. i wasn't thinking it. i was thinking that we were a weird group. and what's more, i don't think it was random: despite what xpovos said i think one of the reasons a lot of us bike/walk to work because we push each-other. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:47:11] - paul: "I can't even figure out how I would get my kids to school" well it won't work for everybody, but i walked to school in elementary school. middle school i took the bus. high school i actually did bike to school for about half of it. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:46:49] - a: You didn't say it, but I'm sure you were thinking it.
-Paul[2020-03-06 12:46:22] - paul: "you can't imagine why others don't do it" another thing i haven't said. maybe ever. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:46:17] - a: I don't even know what jobs are within reasonable biking distance of me, and I can't even figure out how I would get my kids to school even if I did miraculously have a job close by. -Paul
[2020-03-06 12:45:53] - paul: ah, thank you i understand your point now. "can't understand why the little folk aren't doing something" but isn't that reading between the lines some? i said, "this cool thing is cool, and look, we did it.". i didn't say "this cool thing is cool, and look, we did it. other companies should do the same, and it would be easy." ~a
[2020-03-06 12:45:37] - a: Basically that for somebody who makes a good enough living (or have few enough kids or is lucky enough or whatever), then biking to work might seem obvious and you can't imagine why others don't do it. For somebody like me (won't speak for Andrew, but I suspect he's in the same boat), it would require an almost impossible change in routine. -Paul
[2020-03-06 12:43:47] - a: Uh.... as I understand it, "let them eat cake" basically refers to somebody entitled who can't understand why the little folk aren't doing something without realizing how problematic it is for them. It was half a joke, but also a half serious examination of what Andrew was saying. -Paul
[2020-03-06 12:39:28] - paul: let them eat cake? i'm not sure what you mean. are you reading more out of my words than i intended? ~a
[2020-03-06 12:37:48] - i don't know why i said "on occasion". that's probably an understatement. two people out of six telework two days per week. that's . . . a lot i think. 2 days per week is a lot, but maybe 2 / 6 isn't that many. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:35:54] - xpovos: some of my coworkers telework (on occasion). i hate it. if i didn't hate it, they'd probably do it more. so, that's the reason
~a[2020-03-06 12:35:03] - xpovos: agreed. the practicalities are a problem. i think they can be overcome eventually, but it'll take a huge helping of work, and a smaller helping of more work. other countries have shown it's possible. but i'll agree it wouldn't be easy. i've basically changed my life to curb (ha) my car use. it hasn't been a small or trivial change. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:33:10] - In short, it sounds like, "let them eat cake"?
-Paul[2020-03-06 12:33:03] - a: Related, but maybe a difficult question. Why do people at your company not telework, either exclusively, or in large part? -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 12:32:28] - a: I see your statement as a "this cool thing is cool, and look, we did it. Wouldn't it be nice if it were replicated." Whereas I'm saying it more as, "that's a cool thing that can't be replicated because of the specific situations surrounding it." I can agree it would be cool to replicate, but I guess I'm hung up on the practicalities. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 12:31:19] - a: I agree, it's pretty cool. I just think that the reason that your company is doing something uncommon has more to do with the nature of your company than any surrounding issues. We're talking about the same thing, but from different directions. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 12:23:38] - xpovos: on top of all of that, there is some credit where credit is due. most people travel by car. that we have 67% traveling by non-car, and even more who travel by non-car on occasion, is pretty cool. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:16:24] - xpovos: the flip side of that argument would be: i chose (heh, not really) to start an office that was actually at a *lower* cost of living area than DC. arlington is expensive, but we're close to some (relatively) affordable housing. ~a
[2020-03-06 12:14:45] - xpovos: although you might be right, it's worth nothing that none of my coworkers moved closer to their job when they started working at my company. one even moved further away. ~a
[2020-03-06 11:24:46] - a: You also have a company that pays the employees enough to live close to their place of work in a high-cost of living area. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 10:45:35] - in my company, 50% of the company travels to work by foot / bike every day. 17% of the company travels by public transportation every day. the rest use public transportation and/or motorcycle and/or bicycle on occasion. we have a pretty crazy group! fairly self-selecting, of course, but also i think we might affect each-others behavior. ~a
[2020-03-06 10:44:56] - ooooop. order of operations? yeah, most calculators will do powers first, then multiplication and division, etc. ~a
[2020-03-06 10:43:26] - a: You just have to get your OOP right. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 10:29:38] - xpovos: agreed. i like the "e" format that a lot of calculators/languages understand. it makes math much easier to process. i can just throw 20e12*12*.70/350e6 into a calculator and boom. ~a
[2020-03-06 10:25:12] - This is why using scientific notation is so important. Even I have this problem sometimes. I was doing a GDP per capita calculation and "billions" and "millions" just resulted in me throwing incorrect numbers of zeros into my calculator. I knew my math was wrong, so I switched to scientific and got it right first try. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-06 10:24:27] - justified . . . yeah, i think that's a pretty subjective measure. ~a
[2020-03-06 10:04:55] - a: The top 10% is pretty broad, too. I would wager that you and I might qualify as top 10%. I certainly don't feel wealthy enough where it would seem justified to take all my money to give a house to somebody. -Paul
[2020-03-06 10:03:05] - a: I'm absolutely just ASKING for me to get this math wrong and look like a dope, but Bloomberg has around $58 billion in net worth according to Google. If we take all of his money and give it to the 327 million Americans.... that's like $177 a person. Not quite enough to pay for a new house. -Paul
[2020-03-06 09:41:24] - i guess i would have expected it to be higher than 0.5m. maybe not. i doubt we'll see a wealth tax in this country in my lifetime, but who knows. ~a
[2020-03-06 09:39:08] - "we can easily tax him enough to provide all those things for everybody" well in their defense, *that* math does start to work out. the top 10% have a net worth that's about half of a million per american. (crazy back-of-the-envelope math: country gdp is 20t, assets of americans is 12x of yearly gdp, top 10% hold 70% of assets, 350m americans: 20e12*12*.70/350e6 = 0.5m). ~a
[2020-03-06 09:17:54] - And a level of money that makes funding things like free healthcare and school and houses for everybody feasible. After all, if Bloomberg can afford to blow $1 million dollars per American on a misguided attempt to become President, we can easily tax him enough to provide all those things for everybody. -Paul
[2020-03-06 09:16:48] - a: And I don't want to overstate it too much, but it's not an entirely harmless one. In this political environment with a leader for the Democratic nomination railing against the obscene wealth of the billionaires, that kind of math mistake on a news network like MSNBC probably just confirms in people's minds that some people have WAY too much money. -Paul
[2020-03-06 09:15:18] - a: Yeah, I get how in the heat of the moment, and for a few seconds, a brain might screw the math up that way. Those are also tweets. It boggles my mind that whatever process is involved in putting that tweet up in a news segment saw it and thought it all checked out. How many people made such an egregious mistake? -Paul
[2020-03-06 08:35:56] - paul: actually this is a much better one. it's almost exactly the same math problem! 800m / 350m (ish) = 1m with change left over. i kinda understand the mistake too . . . 800 is more than 300, so that's more than 1m each! except no. ~a
[2020-03-06 08:21:54] - maths. reminds me of this. math is hard. ~a
[2020-03-06 07:41:41] - https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1235808311834021888?s=19 Anybody see this? -Paul
[2020-03-05 14:00:29] - it's adjustable rate and it's a higher rate. those are both disqualifying on their own (imo). together, i just can't understand. ~a
[2020-03-05 13:59:02] - paul: it still doesn't work. ~a
[2020-03-05 13:58:28] - Obviously there are some big caution flags, like losing mortgage interest tax deductions and HELOCs generally being adjustable rate. -Paul
[2020-03-05 13:57:50] - The idea being that the float of money that typically sits in your checking account getting you no interest instead sits in your HELOC and "gets" you interest by preventing you from paying your HELOC interest on that amount. -Paul
[2020-03-05 13:56:22] - aDaniel: Not sure if you two still care, but I got some clarification about the whole HELOC / mortgage thing from before. Turns out I had it all wrong. Apparently the idea is you pay off your entire mortgage using a HELOC (not sure how you even get a HELOC loan that large) and then treat that HELOC as your checking account until the HELOC is paid off. -Paul
[2020-03-05 13:54:29] - mig: Will be interesting to see who (if anybody) she endorses. -Paul
[2020-03-05 13:51:14] - warren taps out. - mig
[2020-03-05 12:58:42] - a: Ideally they won't use them as actual phones. I haven't had that one happen much, thankfully. It's always awkward to ask a voter to not do a thing. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-05 12:57:36] - a: Correct. In Virginia, cell phones can be used by the voter for almost anything. They can't take photos of other people, of other people's ballots, or the equipment, but they can sit and research all day if they want. And in PWC they are permitted to take photos of their own ballot, themselves, etc. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-05 12:19:29] - a: Huh, that's strange and certainly puts a crimp in my master plans. -Paul
[2020-03-05 11:54:23] - maybe i was thinking of dc or maryland. it's not allowed there apparently. ~a
[2020-03-05 11:53:12] - just looked this up, so maybe i was just plain wrong: virginia.gov: "The use of electronic devices inside the polling place is generally permitted." ~a
[2020-03-05 11:51:32] - paul: not sure about xpovos's precinct, but i thought some jurisdictions wouldn't let you use your phone in the booth. (i'm honestly not sure what the reasoning is there) ~a
[2020-03-05 11:10:13] - Xpovos: Well, the hope would be to get people to install the app and just keep it around so it is available for later elections to just bring up when you enter the voting booth. -Paul
[2020-03-05 11:09:24] - Paul: I'm guessing not, for the reasons you stated. It probably depends on the marketing campaign. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-05 09:27:38] - Xpovos: It seems like it should be, but I also wonder if those people who go in not knowing who to vote for would even bother downloading an app like that in advance. -Paul
[2020-03-05 09:27:13] - Xpovos: In your opinion as somebody who interacts a lot with voters: Would an app which helped to tell people how to vote on candidates/issues on the ballot (based on various things like party affiliation or stances on issues or membership to organizations or whatever) be popular? -Paul
[2020-03-04 22:40:05] - a: If she were a Republican, as the official in charge of a "botched" Democratic primary, it could be really bad. As she's a Democrat, it really is either resource misallocation, or incompetence. She has no reason to sabotage her own party and her own constituency. Unless you're in for a internal party struggle over Biden/Bernie conspiracy theories. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 22:38:47] - a: Her excuse for why the lines were long was, "The GOP made us follow a law that negatively impacted our ability to conduct the election." However, if that excuse is actually valid, then they don't have the resources to conduct a general election. It doesn't pass the smell test. Was the GOP angling for any potential benefit by applying a law to the letter when there was no benefit? Probably. But they're entitled to do so. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 16:27:55] - a: I never said it was better, but it would be more understandable as an unintended thing (poorer locations just don't have the money to spend) versus an intentional thing (let's make it so the dark skinned people can't vote). -Paul
[2020-03-04 16:26:40] - paul: why would that be any better? we decided we didn't want the poors to wait in short lines. oh, that's fine then. carry on. ~a
[2020-03-04 15:50:27] - Considering how much we know Trump values how the stock market is performing... how much do you think he is hating today when it is up big because of Biden's big Super Tuesday? -Paul
[2020-03-04 15:29:33] - a: No, in fact, that's kinda what I would expect to see. I was wondering if the more accurate underlying problem is that wealthy areas can afford to spend bigly on their elections and poorer ones can't, and because of the differences in wealth by race in the country, that affluence issue looks like a racial one. -Paul
[2020-03-04 15:21:13] - i'd bet on affluent neighborhoods having shorter wait times. would you bet against it? ~a
[2020-03-04 15:20:00] - I would be curious to see what the average wait time for election venues are not only by racial composition and the party that is in charge, but also by affluence. -Paul
[2020-03-04 14:40:33] - oh i think i get it. you're saying the republicans were doing stuff bad that wouldn't benefit themselves? if i had to guess, it's possible they're playing the long game: fuck up voting shit in preparation for the general. it wouldn't be the first time. ~a
[2020-03-04 14:39:09] - what is "her excuse"? it sounds like you were saying the gop was (possibly) electioneering and misallocating, but then you said you were calling BS on the democrat? i don't think i follow. ~a
[2020-03-04 14:36:01] - a: The Clerk is an elected official out of Houston and is a Democrat. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 14:34:32] - a: If true, this is a combination of electioneering by the Republican party AND resource misallocation by the county. If they don't have enough equipment for a primary, how can they handle a general? Etc. So I call BS, at least partly, on her excuse. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 14:33:49] - a: So, the Clerk is indicating that because the Republican Party of Texas made a choice, to which they are entitled to under the law, despite not really needing to, because there is no a contested election, that the County did not have the resources (particularly machines?) to accommodate the crowds for the Democratic primary. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 14:32:42] - a: I went digging for more information on Texas elections and the problems, particularly in Harris County. Here's an article I found. I'll summarize next. https://www.click2houston.com/decision-2020/2020/03/04/harris-county-clerk-blames-gop-for-refusing-to-allow-joint-primary-causing-long-wait-times-for-voters-on- -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 14:20:56] - Or maybe I'm just the odd one where I've spent essentially my entire professional career in a field of low probability, high impact threats. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 14:18:10] - It's like people are hardwired to not understand high threat low risk scenarios. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 14:17:47] - a/Paul the amount of misinformation, or information misunderstood, or poorly understood regarding Covid-19 is what's particularly alarming. There's a reasonable response in here, but it's impossible to get to because if you talk about how serious a threat it actually is, you get a panic response instead. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 14:05:49] - 3000 deaths in the united states. ~a
[2020-03-04 14:04:19] - yeah it's weird. i guess swine flu mostly stayed out of the united states so i guess i mostly ignored it. ~a
[2020-03-04 13:56:17] - Although it's funny, I stepped out of the office about an hour ago and saw a coworker furiously wiping down their cleared off desk with chlorox wipes and then also saw janitorial staff doggedly wiping down public surfaces in the lobby.... so maybe I need to be a little more aware? -Paul
[2020-03-04 13:54:46] - i grabbed the pen and i was like . . . hmmm. ~a
[2020-03-04 13:51:02] - I'll be honest. I didn't at all think about catching anything when I used the pen provided to me. -Paul
[2020-03-04 13:31:23] - daniel: that's good too (imo). doesn't solve the pandemic problem, but it does solve a shitton of mass-scale voting irregularities. ~a
[2020-03-04 13:30:00] - mine was electronic that produces a paper scantron thing that is then read in and collected to have digital vote with paper trail. -Daniel
[2020-03-04 12:56:46] - paul/xpovos: i use a paper ballot: i only touched a pen. if i had been thinking i would have brought my own pen. then there would have been less touching. ~a
[2020-03-04 12:49:22] - Xpovos: I'm a little surprised it was only one voter with a mask. -Paul
[2020-03-04 12:34:14] - a: I also hope to tell some election day stories on an upcoming RD episode. Should be a good one. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 12:07:19] - a: I had one voter in a mask, and another who notably washed her hands after voting. That's two voters out of well over 500. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 12:06:42] - a: From your article, "Delays were also reported in Travis County, Texas, due to coronavirus after many election workers did not show up, with some citing fears of contracting the virus, according to the county clerk’s office." This happened in my county too. I had all of my officers show up, but I had to send some to other precincts where people did not show up. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:36:09] - Whew... what a wall of text.
[2020-03-04 11:35:03] - "it (severely) needs to be fixed." Absolutely. Cock-up or malfeasance, both are unacceptable. There are solutions. Some of the solutions cost money. Tough. Follow the law. Do better. I'm not going to defend Texas. I'm just not going to accuse them of intentional misconduct to benefit a party or person without substantial evidence. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:33:13] - "I don't agree that the voters are (mostly?) blind." This is an agree to disagree point. It is underlaid by our personal biases to start, but I also have first hand experience of helping literally hundreds of voters with these problems, where the voter all but tells me that they just want to vote the way the Democratic party tells them to vote. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:31:15] - haha, oops. ignore that last one then. ~a
[2020-03-04 11:31:03] - i'd like to hear your opinion on the devices. you don't have a paper-trail in your system or you do? ~a
[2020-03-04 11:31:02] - "they don't use paper ballots in your county?" They do now. In 2012 they did not. The change to paper with a scanning device and away from touchscreen voting devices was another of the reasons we've reduced lines, though it was also done for election security reasons. Win-win, really. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:30:45] - yah. i hear you. that makes sense too. if it were me and i showed up at an empty precinct, i'd be pissed, but i'd figure it out. i'd ask around. or google it. i know i'm not a typcial voter, but i guess my point is that it's a solvable problem and people can't say they weren't informed. ~a
[2020-03-04 11:29:59] - That's a normal part of the process. Could it have been used to discriminate? Sure. Was it? I doubt it, but only because of my own experience, which is not Texas. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:29:31] - They'll have been notified by a mailing, but i personally get tons of mailings that I just throw away. And my house gets tons more that my wife never gives me. And I pay attention to this shit. It is totally reasonable for a voter to be unprepared and uninformed about their precinct changing. I deal with voters like that every election. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:28:15] - ... eg. If the Texas law says 5000 registered voters per precinct, but this precinct only has 500 now, and the next one over has 2000. Closing one and consolidating the two is both legal and probably makes sense. But the 500 voters who don't pay attention except to vote will show up at the old precinct to find it not open, and likely no one to tell them where to go. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:27:51] - xpovos: "normal human bureaucratic cock-ups" i guess i'll agree to disagree: but instead leave with this: it doesn't matter if it's intentional or not. it (severely) needs to be fixed. ~a
[2020-03-04 11:27:01] - a: "closing precincts in neighborhoods of minority populations." This is where my lack of knowledge of the facts in Texas is going to hurt. What does 'closing precincts' mean in this context? Were only a fraction of the precincts open on election day? Were precincts consolidated as part of a recanvass/census process? That happens and causes all kinds of problems for voters, but it's not intentional voter suppression. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:24:37] - However, you asked me if was intentional. I don't believe it is, based on my experience in Virginia. With the caveat that Texas is different and it certainly could be. I'm not in posession of all of (or really any) of the facts. If it is voter supression, I don't believe it to be intentional, and I would require substantial evidence that it's not just normal human bureaucratic cock-ups. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:23:01] - "the voter would have followed along blindly" this assumes some stuff about the voter
i agree that you shouldn't have to get an error for leaving something blank. and i agree the democrats should have probably thought about which answer they wanted. but i don't agree that the voters are (mostly?) blind ~a[2020-03-04 11:22:59] - If the line is 2.5 hours to vote, some people are not going to be able to vote. If they can't vote because of a process problem, that's on the elections staff. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:22:34] - a: "seems a little dismissive. I think some (not all) experts think it's voter suppression." If the effect is voter suppression, even if that's not the intent. Is it voter suppression? Yeah, probably. Therefore, this is voter suppression. I think that's generally the line any expert will take. Intent matters, but practicalities matter more. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:21:10] - OK, that was a lot of info. Let me go back and grab your questions and start to try to answer. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:20:55] - There's also something to be said there about the voter blindly following and perhaps not being well-educated on the matter. But that's not what this is about. Practically speaking, right now, it was a disaster for the system because the process kicked back undervotes and the Democratic sample ballot was undervoted. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:20:13] - My Spanish is poor, but I learned an awful lot that day about how to say a ton of voting terms in Spanish. If the Democrat sample ballot had just picked one of the choices for that amendment, the voter would have followed along blindly, not gotten the error message, and on the whole the precinct would have saved hundreds or thousands of hours. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:19:07] - ... choice blank. The machine would read this as an undervote and throw an error message, "You have more choices that you are entitled to make." And an option to continue regardless, or go back and fix the "error." The language isn't great, and it's in English, which is not the first language of much of anyone in my line. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:18:18] - The process part was that these precincts in Virginia were heavily Democrat. (Immigrant, minority, AA, etc. Deomgraphically and stereotypically Democrat voters). The sample ballot provide by Democratic poll workers outside, which the voter is entitled to recieve and use as they see fit in the booth, failed to mark certain races. The Democratic party didn't have a position on one of the constitutional amendments. So voters would leave that
[2020-03-04 11:17:25] - i far prefer paper ballots. jesus, it's 2020 after all, you'd think we had learned our lesson about having a paper trail. ~a
[2020-03-04 11:16:49] - xpovos: they don't use paper ballots in your county? ~a
[2020-03-04 11:16:45] - We did what we could to reduce that by passing literature in the line so that people would be prepared when they got into the "booth," but they're entitled to go at their own pace. If one voter takes 5x as long, that's slowing the line down considerably. The problem is the devices. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:16:31] - xpovos: "development exploded certain precincts" maybe in virginia they're getting ahead of this, and maybe not. i'm talking about a different problem though: closing precincts in neighborhoods of minority populations. it seems to be a natural thing if a neighborhood is seeing population decrease. it seems like a political/illegal thing if that's not the case. ~a
[2020-03-04 11:15:45] - Finally, there was an equipment part of the problem, and a process part of the problem. The equipment part was that the technology being used for the election couldn't realistically handle turnout at that rate. We had 5 or 6 devices at my precinct. One voter per device for the entire time they were voting. With constitutional amendments to read and parse and debate over, the average vote time was signficant. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:14:23] - ... minority populations. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:14:16] - The problem with the AA community in Virginia was similar, but different, of course. There's a lot of the clustering effect, but in both cases, particularly with the AA community, there's also a socioeconomic impact. The housing that they could find in the price ranges they could afford pushed them into certain precincts. Unchecked, and unplanned for by the electoral board, development exploded certain precincts, again at the detriment of
[2020-03-04 11:13:40] - "built-in reserve of the system" 5000 registered voters seems like a problematic precinct imo. who knows, it might be much worse in texas. (in the general) nobody has this god damn day off, so it's going to have strong peaks right before and right after work. in a precinct with 4900 voters, and a 50% turnout (75% of registered voters), i could imagine 1000 people showing up all at the same time. that seems like a problem, no? ~a
[2020-03-04 11:12:21] - As a result, the population growth, which in this country is very much largely driven by immigration, was clustered in certain precincts. This had the unintentional side effect of also making their election day experience worse, because all of the highly localized growth was straining the built-in reserve of the system, until the system changed. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:11:46] - a: But yesterday people weren't voting R vs D, it was a Democratic primary. The conspiracy theories I'm hearing are the DNC stole it from Bernie. Wouldn't a larger black turnout help Biden in this case? Is the suggestion that Republicans are trying to suppression minority voters to win the nomination for Biden? -Paul
[2020-03-04 11:11:04] - The simplest answer is that particularly in immigrant communities, there's a tendency to cluster. That's true within a household, and even to a neighborhood. People want to live near people who are like them, speak the same language and have the same culture. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:10:09] - So the expansion to more precincts was necessary and proper and the failure to do so earlier, motivated by financial concerns, was the primary driver of long lines throughout the county. But some precincts were only 1-hour or 90-minutes. Why did my minority precinct get so much a longer line? -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:09:01] - I'll note, that my precinct hasn't changed. That's all population growth (of eligible and registered voters) within the boundaries of my precinct. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:08:25] - In Virginia, by law, a precinct can be no more than 5000 registered voters. My precinct and the other problematic precincts were right at the upper edge. That's the simplest reason why we had long lines. After the 2012 election, Prince William increased the number of precincts by about 30-40%. I became the chief at one of the newly formed precincts. We started with about 1600 registered voters. Yesterday my precinct was up over 2000.
[2020-03-04 11:06:44] - "But we do love conspiracy theories". seems a little dismissive, i think some (not all) experts think it's voter suppression. not virginia, to be clear, but in other states. what's more, i don't think it has to be a conspiracy to be racist/voter suppression. but please, do explain? ~a
[2020-03-04 11:06:41] - a: In the Presidential election of 2012, my precinct, which is very heavily minority, particularly with first generation immigrants, had 2.5 hour-long lines from polls-open until polls-close. That was not the longest line in the county, but it was close. Woodbridge (heavily African American) had a precinct with close to 3-hour long lines. Lines were long everywhere, but they were longer in minority precincts. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 11:04:22] - a: I can't speak to Texas, because it's a different state with different rules. I can talk about situations when Virginia has had ridiculously long lines, and how those lines were also not always equitable. It's very easy to explain in a way that isn't racist/voter supression. But we do love conspiracy theories. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-04 09:31:42] - xpovos: thoughts on long lines at polling places? if this was a primary, i have to assume it'll be worse for the general. do you think it's intentional? it seems to be done in a non-equitable way: "certain" neighborhoods have longer lines than other neighborhoods? ~a
[2020-03-04 07:20:19] - this optical illusion kinda broke my brain. apparently the boxes aren't moving. ~a
[2020-03-03 16:59:10] - a: Thats pretty cool. -Daniel
[2020-03-03 16:24:51] - omfg . . . have you guys heard of classicreload? is it emulating windows in a browser? if so, that's pretty badass. they have original wolfenstein, doom2, comander keen, original CIV, original GTA, oregon trail, and a bunch of others. ~a
[2020-03-03 12:19:59] - Daniel: Wins the most delegates? I'm guessing Biden, thanks to a lot of other centrists dropping out and support coalescing around him. -Paul
[2020-03-03 11:18:12] - daniel: probably sanders just not by as large of a margin as was initially predicted. - mig
[2020-03-03 10:50:50] - biden. he's got the joementum. (btw i did not vote for joe, i just think him winning in whatever-state will propel his popularity back up some: tie that with a bunch of people dropping out which i heard was bad for sanders). ~a
[2020-03-03 10:42:27] - Predictions on who wins super tuesday? I'm curious to see if Kloub / Buttig dropping out are enough to boost Biden or if Bernie is all able to pull it out and basically clinch at that point. Thoughts? -Daniel
[2020-03-02 11:35:45] - a: And Pete, well, I liked that he seemed to be the most consistent and strongest voice against the progressive wing (at least since Delaney had dropped out). -Paul
[2020-03-02 11:34:54] - a: Yang and Gabbard seem to largely, and refreshingly to me, be above that kind of rhetoric and not be caught up in identity politics. They seem much more inclusive and willing to reach out to those that they might disagree with. -Paul
[2020-03-02 11:33:27] - a: I similarly hated the Beto/Harris/Castro worldview that seems to want to pit races and genders and... uh... sexualities? against each other in an escalation of who can be the most aggrieved group. -Paul
[2020-03-02 11:32:39] - a: But it's not just the number of issues agreed one, sometimes it's also which issues are important to me or even just more intangible things like rhetoric and how they speak to things. I really dislike the way Bernie and Warren seem to frame their worldview as one that tries to pit everybody against the wealthy. -Paul
[2020-03-02 11:30:46] - a: Well, I was saying Pete was the best out of the Biden/Bernie/Bloomberg/Buttigieg/(maybe Warren?) group that had a shot. Compared to the whole field he would probably be middle of the pack. -Paul
[2020-03-02 11:29:06] - paul: it's weird you mention tulsi and pete: i have them as polar opposites on democrats i agree with (i agree with pete on a lot of stuff, but tulsi not really). ~a
[2020-03-02 10:59:38] - a: Maaaaaaybe Booker too. -Paul
[2020-03-02 10:59:05] - yang gang yang gang yang gang yang gang yang gang
[2020-03-02 10:58:41] - a: Probably Gabbard or Yang (both of whom are on the ballot, I believe). -Paul
[2020-03-02 10:58:14] - Xpovos: He was probably going to be my "hold my nose and vote for him as the best option among the people with a non-zero chance to win the nomination" pick. -Paul
[2020-03-02 10:58:12] - paul: who's the best match? ~a
[2020-03-02 10:57:32] - Paul: You can't possibly have been considering Buttigeg? -- Xpovos
[2020-03-02 10:00:49] - Anybody here have an old Nintendo DS Lite that they're not using and interested in selling it to me? I think my girls might be interested in playing them but I only have one right now. -Paul
[2020-03-02 09:04:54] - Also, now that Buttigieg has (surprisingly, to me) dropped out, it makes my Super Tuesday decision a lot easier. Time to go with the best match and to hell with their chances of winning.
-Paul[2020-03-02 09:03:44] - a: I thought there was an issue when we were planning Machi Koro when your texts were all delayed or something. -Paul
[2020-03-02 09:03:22] - a: Better that he spend his time tweeting than doing almost anything else, no? -Paul
[2020-03-01 18:18:53] - he tweets about everything ~a
[2020-03-01 10:02:50] - "is this why your messages were getting delayed for days?" no, do you mean email? i have lots of problems with email (i hate email), because i host it out of my house . . . people don't like it when you do that especially when you don't have a static ip. ~a
[2020-03-01 08:21:32] - Xpovos: I guess that goes along with it being a... not quite genius level plan? -Paul
[2020-03-01 08:11:46] - a: Awesome, thanks! I'll try playing with those calculations today. Also, I downloaded signal. Do I need to create an account or anything or do I just send a text message to somebody's phone number? Is this why your messages were getting delayed for days? -Paul
[2020-02-29 18:30:41] - In other words, he expected the IRS to be better than MSFT at noticing that something was amiss. -- Xpovos
[2020-02-29 18:30:10] - xpovos: i use it as my only texting program. i text people who don't have signal. ~a
[2020-02-29 18:30:02] - Paul: I think he thought it would be more obvious to the IRS if he bought a house with crypto without having declared the gains somehow under some legal pretense. E.g. gift. -- Xpovos
[2020-02-29 18:29:21] - a: That's cool. My issue with Signal were that I didn't know people who did use it and could figure out how to make it just work like SMS for people didn't. It's supposed to be a thing, but I'm not smart, apparently. -- Xpovos
[2020-02-29 16:57:45] - we've talked about it here before. my whole family, most of my coworkers, and most of the people i bike with, and people who live on my street use it. ~a
[2020-02-29 16:55:47] - i'm surprised you haven't heard of signal. ~a
[2020-02-29 16:55:22] - yes signal is an app for texting. it's like whatsapp, but better with like privacy and stuff. ~a
[2020-02-29 10:02:09] - [all of the below is built on the equation for a geometric series: a * (1-r^n) / (1-r)] ~a
[2020-02-29 10:00:32] - here's the math i use: monthly = principal * (1 - interest) / (interest^-months - 1) . . . interest needs to be divided by 100 and by 12 and you need to add 1!! this is another one that solves for balance: balance = principal * (1 - interest^-monthsLeft) / (1 - interest^-months). and this one solves for months: months = - ln ( principal * (1 - interest) / monthly + 1 ) / ln( interest ). ~a
[2020-02-29 09:58:45] - i don't have a calculator, no. but i'd google it. i'm sure there are tons. (skip past the ads at the top). i usually do the math myself, because then i'm sure i know the assumptions being made (but it's very easy to screw up). ~a
[2020-02-29 08:22:26] - Trying to figure out the balance between saving money but also maintaining flexibility in case times get tough. -Paul
[2020-02-29 08:21:57] - I'm no longer on the HELOC kick, but mortgage rates dropped after this past week so now I'm wondering if we should refinance to a 15 year mortgage at a decently lower rate or just keep our 30 year and make some extra principle payments. -Paul
[2020-02-29 08:21:03] - aDaniel: Hey, sorry for bringing this up again, but did either of you say you knew of an online calculator or something else which makes it easy to compare refinancing vs just paying extra towards principle for a mortgage? -Paul
[2020-02-29 07:08:29] - Xpovos: He filed tax returns on the money he stole? That's... weird, right? -Paul
[2020-02-29 07:06:49] - a: What is signal? Some more privacy heavy version of hangouts? -Paul
[2020-02-29 07:06:10] - Daniel: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/virginia/ Klobuchar would, I think, fall under the "<1% chance of winning the nomination".... or at least doesn't have great numbers in VA. -Paul
[2020-02-28 14:14:35] - a: I wasn't head-boss at my precinct until I was 5 or 6 elections in. -- Xpovos
[2020-02-28 13:18:45] - xpovos: i will!
i think maybe actually this is her second election. i'll ask her if she's the head-boss yet or not. ~a[2020-02-28 13:17:25] - i agree the scale is impressive. and stupid? i feel like most white collar criminals would want to fly under the radar? also "He claimed to be working on a special project to benefit the company" doesn't pass the laugh test. once he started reselling the cards, i think it stopped benefiting the company. once he started buying lakefront property and cars, he continued to stop (!) benefiting the company. ~a
[2020-02-28 13:01:08] - i like the phrase "a house of lies on top of another house of lies", it paints a vivid mental picture - aaron
[2020-02-28 11:53:16] - https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/former-microsoft-software-engineer-convicted-18-federal-felonies-stealing-more-10 Interesting story. Not a smart crime, but the scale is impressive. -- Xpovos
[2020-02-28 11:48:14] - a: You can tell your mother "thank you," for me. It's not entirely thankless, but it can be hard work, and it's certainly a long day, and the system doesn't work without people showing up to help out. -- Xpovos
[2020-02-28 11:47:33] - a: Yeah, it's a best practice for all EOs, but some could, theoretically, vote the same day if they work their own precinct. I don't, for complicated reasons. So absentee is a must for me. Sucks when I forget to. -- Xpovos
[2020-02-28 11:30:23] - xpovos: my mom is an EO (or whatever the pee-ons are called on their first day). she had to vote absentee. ~a
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