prev <-> next
[2020-04-01 15:00:56] - paul: because we want to stop the virus quicker! ramping up production now of the wrong drug could stop the virus slower. we have things we can do now, that are *actually* effective, and people won't want to do them because a silver bullet sounds more palatable. and because the *actually* effective things we want to do are insanely expensive (to the economy). if it turns out the silver bullet is just a dumb lead bullet, we FUCKED. ~a
[2020-04-01 14:58:28] - a: This seems similar (to me) to the mask thing, where we were kinda making the perfect the enemy of the good. We couldn't prove masks worked, so we encouraged people not to do something that might've done a TON to slow the spread. -Paul
[2020-04-01 14:57:13] - a: Especially since we might need to ramp up production now if we want to have adequate supplies sooner vs later. -Paul
[2020-04-01 14:56:42] - a: I largely agree, but let me play Devil's Advocate and say: Is now the time to prioritize scientific rigor? Considering the lengths that we're going to in order to slow down this pandemic (essentially shutting down the world economy) and that the alternative might be death and the side effects seem minimal.... why not act first and try to prove correlation/causation later? -paul
[2020-04-01 14:51:05] - they are just rumors until someone actually gets around to doing some testing. i'm not sure that has been done. looking at your tweet, the data is promising, but it lacks rigor, which means we shouldn't jump on it just yet. ~a
[2020-04-01 14:50:17] - yeah, i'll trust gates over randoms on twitter. he made a shitty operating system, but in his increasing years, he seems to have become somewhat of a cool guy. ~a
[2020-04-01 14:49:34] - a: Can't they be lucky and right? I honestly don't know what to believe. I'm still not sold Twitter was right about the masks (hence why I asked). If I was convinced they were right, I would've made an effort to get some and/or to make some homemade cloth ones. -Paul
[2020-04-01 14:47:32] - a: I'm super happy to believe the government is incompetent and slow moving and wrong here, but I am also leery of trusting Twitter, even if my feed SHOULD be curated somewhat by the fact that I largely follow people I consider smart and educated and well-informed (ie, not all just randos). -Paul
[2020-04-01 14:47:26] - paul: "so Twitter was right there". 1. so you think twitter was "right"? and not just dumbly lucky? 2. your "..." at the end implies that twitter is right again this time? ~a
[2020-04-01 14:46:25] - a: Ah, my link to some rando on Twitter? Yeah, to Pierce's point about lots of data, I'm having trouble sifting through what data is reliable and what isn't. Lots of people on twitter were touting masks while the CDC was saying not to use them, so Twitter was right there. Now lots of people on Twitter are saying we should use hydroxychloroquine while again the government experts are not so sure... -Paul
[2020-04-01 14:44:42] - i feel like twou should be positioned well too. hadn't thought of that one either. ~a
[2020-04-01 14:43:50] - ah tdoc, i hadn't put that together, duh. that makes more sense now. ~a
[2020-04-01 14:43:17] - can we talk about hydroxychloroquine some more? the president has been talking about it a bunch, and according to paul's link, it's been like 1000% effective at stopping all covid-19 transmission (s). bill gates just told the president today to stop talking about hydroxychloroquine and instead put out a 3-step plan on how to effectively combat the epidemic. gates says C18H26ClN3O working on covid19 is a "rumor"? ~a
[2020-04-01 14:32:51] - a: Yup. Which is why I think my portfolio is holding up better during this pullback versus most other past pullbacks. A lot of the companies I own should be less directly hit by all of this (and some, like TDOC) are getting a big boost. -Paul
[2020-04-01 14:30:45] - paul: amzn and nflx held up well because of the nature of this specific stock drop. people are stuck at home, some of them ordering stuff on amazon for safety reasons, others just because they have more free-time at their computers. and everybody is watching more netflix. we talked about this, but some more companies are just well positioned for this situation: aprn, zoom, grub, work, etc. ~a
[2020-04-01 11:54:29] - a: Then my birthday hit, and tons of stuff dropped (including some of those companies that had hugely outperformed like Redfin), but the Freedom Portfolio surprisingly held up pretty well unlike previous pullbacks. TDOC helped, but also large positions like AMZN and NFLX also held up pretty well. -Paul
[2020-04-01 11:53:04] - a: The Freedom Portfolio in the first quarter is actually best understood by splitting the quarter into halves. The first half my portfolio was just hugely outperforming. Tesla was the eye-popper but companies like Telaria and Redfin and Shopify were also doing amazing (see the Fantasy Investing season). -Paul also
[2020-04-01 11:49:23] - Pierce: It seems like either way, it's not a good look for the CDC. Either they were wrong about masks or they knew and deliberately lied to people to prevent hoarding. -Paul
[2020-04-01 03:15:34] - I've been a "big data" skeptic for a while, and this is my worst-case scenario: we're seeing what happens when we have a lot of information, but we don't have enough of it and we don't know if we can trust the data we have. - pierce
[2020-04-01 03:09:33] - but more importantly, in the current environment I'd say the reputation of the CDC isn't based on how careful they are with their wording, but rather how likely they are to be thrown under the bus. whatever the "objective" truth is, it's polluted by poor data, then by tricky nuance, then by political considerations. - pierce
[2020-04-01 03:06:34] - in theoryland here, that'd depend on how people interpret the guidance, both at the time and in hindsight. if the wording of the guidelines is technically correct at the time it's issued, and the nuance is only obvious once its benefits have already been realized, then (from a PR standpoint) that's pretty defensible. - pierce
[2020-04-01 02:42:20] - Pierce: I can understand the appeal of altering guidance to prevent hoarding of supplies, but I question the wisdom of an organization like the CDC using a tactic like that. Wouldn't it undermine confidence in the CDC if it was found out they lied to people about something like that? -Paul
[2020-04-01 02:25:45] - Daniel: Thanks! -Paul
[2020-04-01 02:25:17] - a: "how did you do it?" Well, considering most of that outperformance came over this past quarter, I guess the answer is: TDOC (up 85% in Q1) and TSLA (up 25%). -Paul
[2020-04-01 00:04:29] - I can technically ssh from my phone, but it's hard to type on this little screen. ~a
[2020-04-01 00:00:53] - and you can't even remote desktop or ssh to it from where you are? - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:59:33] - I'd have changed it already but my laptop is alllllll the way upstairs. ~a
[2020-03-31 23:58:56] - so do you have a JIRA I could post that to, or...?
- pierce[2020-03-31 23:56:55] - yeah that's probably a good idea. no I had not considered that but you're right. ~a
[2020-03-31 23:51:46] - don't know what you were using before last wednesday, but if this was what added HTTP/2 support do you think you'll switch to self-hosting for jquery/fontawesome? - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:48:57] - funny, I saw the nginx thing in the headers and was like "wow, I wonder when he did that". talk about timing
- pierce[2020-03-31 23:48:34] -
~a[2020-03-31 23:48:20] - well I guess it wouldn't be a major release without a quick hotfix right afterwards. - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:46:11] - i've actually been doing a lot of coding on the message board recently. on wednesday, the msgboard moved to mariadb, and nginx, and php-fpm, and threw the whole thing into docker swarm. your one line change was relatively easy. ~a
[2020-03-31 23:42:37] - all is forgiven, I actually feel bad making you do any coding work just because I went AWOL for the better part of a decade. - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:41:35] - yeah, sorry again, pierce. there's a reason for that i think. i forget what it was. ~a
[2020-03-31 23:40:35] - aww, so I guess that processing happens on ingestion rather than display? my comment below still shows the em tags
- pierce[2020-03-31 23:39:03] - (and yes, I know it's the comment syntax) - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:38:37] - oh, #todo? you added hashtag support too? #noice - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:37:25] - pierce: <em>changed</em>: $tags="b|i|u|s|sub|sup|small|em|strong"; #todo: support HTML 4.01 ~a
[2020-03-31 23:36:16] - well at the very least you could add a "TODO: support HTML 4.01" comment in there - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:33:43] - yeah. sorry. i can easily add them. but, pierce, that code hasn't changed since 2003!
~a[2020-03-31 23:32:48] - dammit, I worked so hard to correct my muscle memory to use "strong" and "em" instead of "b" and "i" - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:28:32] - uhhh, sure. here are the "allowed" html tags: $tags="b|i|u|s|sub|sup|small";. uhhh, a href tags are allowed, but you need the url to start with http or https. uhhh, wikipedia links are also allowed (it'll link to the english wikipedia). i forget the rest, but maybe it'll come to me. ~a
[2020-03-31 23:27:10] - can I replay the tutorial, then? - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:24:58] - the former. i tweak lots of stuff every now and then, but that code hasn't changed since 2003. ~a
[2020-03-31 23:24:21] - d'oh, I forgot how to do markup on the message board (or you changed it in the last eight years) - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:23:45] - but for real, that seems counterintuitive (wearing a mask right now feels like it'd be a constant sensory reminder of the pandemic), but it may be true. I'd hope that the post-shortage guidance would reflect whatever the <em>actual</em> individual best practices are, to the best of our knowledge. - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:22:27] - i actually have a bunch of n95 masks (unsealed, so i can't easily donate them to a hospital) i bought years ago. i haven't been wearing them, but i think i might start soon. especially if the cdc changes its recommendation? ~a
[2020-03-31 23:21:46] - i think it's like the bicycle-helmet thing: people who wear them behave more recklessly than people who don't. i know i behave more recklessly on a bike when i'm wearing a helmet. still, i do wear the damn thing. ~a
[2020-03-31 23:20:55] - i always do. ~a
[2020-03-31 23:20:19] - well yeah, if you include halloween in the behavioral data
- pierce[2020-03-31 23:18:11] - pierce: i saw something, maybe it was a link here actually, that people behave differently when they wear masks. when wearing a mask, people don't practice social distancing as well? so there are downsides to wearing them. you may be better off without them? ~a
[2020-03-31 23:14:13] - I don't know whether we're actually in that latter period, though. I still see a lot of stories about hospital workers having to use a single mask all day, or sew their own masks, or go without. the US has really uneven infrastructure for this sort of thing, so the transition point between those two approaches would be different at the state, county, city, or even per-hospital level. - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:14:06] - theoretically, there's then a period where mask production has caught up and the panic has died down. once there are more than enough masks for hospital workers and others in essential roles, it would make sense to expand mask usage as much as can be sustained. even if they're not perfect measures, every infection you prevent pays off exponentially. - pierce
[2020-03-31 23:13:57] - I think it's possible the calculus behind the mask recommendations is shifting. there was a period where the US had few active cases, but lots of people panic-buying supplies. the resulting shortage created a huge risk for critical personnel, especially hospital staff. that's a legit crisis, and it's (arguably) justifiable to give guidance that alleviates that shortage even it puts some people at greater risk. - pierce
[2020-03-31 21:05:12] - SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus, COVID-19 is the disease that it causes. That's my understanding. - pierce
[2020-03-31 21:04:38] - pierce: you need to let us go. ~a
[2020-03-31 21:00:28] - That's all I had to say, though. See you all in 2028! - pierce
[2020-03-31 20:56:40] - Paul: Well done on your portfolio. -Daniel
[2020-03-31 20:56:06] - I'm with Paul - I was more surprised by pierce out of nowhere! WOO PARTY! -Daniel
[2020-03-31 20:55:39] - paul: 4% since 2018-10-01? jesus, wtf. i'd normally look at the annualized gains over the market, but i can already tell you that is some crazy shit. (1+.04)/(1-.11) is beating the market by 17%. yikes, how did you do it? i clicked on your link and it doesn't tell me where the majority of your gains were since each stock is of an unknown percentage of your portfolio. ~a
[2020-03-31 20:50:13] - paul: i figured it was more polite to reply to his message. i guess we should have thrown him a party instead? 🎉 ~a
[2020-03-31 20:48:29] - paul: 8 years, i looked it up. ~a
[2020-03-31 20:46:34] - Wait, what? Are we all just ignoring the fact that Pierce has re-appeared on the message board after years of hibernation? -Paul
[2020-03-31 20:45:19] - https://paulvsthemarket.com/the-freedom-portfolio-april-2020/ "Since inception, the Freedom Portfolio is now convincingly beating the S&P with a positive return of 4% versus a negative return of 11% for the S&P. That’s an outperformance of 15 percentage points over a year and a half." -Paul
[2020-03-31 20:38:30] - pierce: yeah, i was kinda half expecting this to be a lie. how are CoV-2 and covid-19 related? ~a
[2020-03-31 20:36:46] - a: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/testing-in-us.html suggests that the number of tests we've performed is closer to 150k, and a GOP governor contradicted Trump's claim that testing issues are resolved: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/31/coronavirus-larry-hogan-says-trumps-claims-testing-not-true/5093609002/ - pierce
[2020-03-31 14:13:37] - Daniel: I've heard they help prevent you from spreading it to others (keep those water droplets inside the mask) and slightly help prevent you from getting it (mostly because it keeps you from touching your nose and mouth?) -Paul
[2020-03-31 14:05:21] - I think thats what I've read but not 100% on that. I've also seen the stuff that the mandated mask countries seem to be doing better but hard to tell causation / correlation on that one. -Daniel
[2020-03-31 14:04:42] - Paul: I think they help some but not a ton for avoiding getting it cause you just touch your face a ton anyway but I think they are supposed to help you giving it if you have it cause they help contain cough / sneeze etc. -Daniel
[2020-03-31 12:44:19] - And then the CDC said not to wear them, but lots of other countries (who coincidentally seem to be doing better than us) are wearing them and now the CDC might be reversing course? -Paul
[2020-03-31 12:43:41] - Have we figured out yet if we should all be wearing masks (N95 or otherwise)? At first I heard it was silly because the virus goes through it, but then I heard that it's good because it reduces water droplets that help spread it. -Paul
[2020-03-31 12:42:33] - a: Our government is pretty trustworthy... -Paul
[2020-03-31 00:54:25] - daniel: the whitehouse just reported that the us has tested 1m samples. i guess i believe it? ~a
[2020-03-30 22:16:02] - a: There isn't a lack of testing? I haven't been following super close the last few days but I thought there were still people being turned down who wanted to be tested. -Daniel
[2020-03-30 21:53:12] - paul: 1. there's not really a lack of testing. 2. i mostly look at the death data because it can't (as easily) be skewed by testing stats. ~a
[2020-03-30 20:13:06] - a: Nope. I haven't been following much of the news around COVID-19 at all. I have a hard time taking those graphs and stats seriously given what we know about the lack of testing done here and how asymptomatic people aren't necessarily even trying to get tested. -Paul
[2020-03-30 16:57:13] - (to see the daily-delta, click on "death graphs", "case graphs", "more death statistics", or "more case statistics") ~a
[2020-03-30 15:27:05] - have you guys been using worldometers? i like that they update it every day (actually, multiple times per day). and, they let you look at either "cases" or "deaths". and, they let you look at the daily delta . . . instead of just cumulative graphs which are fucking useless. and, they let you look at just-US or individual states like NY/etc. thumbs up, worldometers! ~a
[2020-03-30 08:29:32] - yeah, that's fair. i'd be happy to lose this bet. ~a
[2020-03-30 02:29:18] - a: https://twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1244385850684817409 I have no idea if this is reputable at all, but the idea that we might develop an effective treatment for COVID-19 played a non-zero roll in my prediction of a sub-1.25% CFR. -Paul
[2020-03-29 02:01:27] - a: If I recall, in the other article 0.2% was the low end and the high end was still 1%, so that range isn't TOO dissimilar from NPR's here. -Paul
[2020-03-29 02:00:23] - a: Don't worry too much. There's only like $12 on the line.... unless bitcoin goes crazy in the next 9 months. -Paul
[2020-03-28 17:24:32] - (i guess i should at least admit i'm surprised npr is reporting 0.5%-1%. imo, it makes me a little worried about our bet.) ~a
[2020-03-28 17:19:19] - yes, npr is generally reputable. it's not 0.2% though. 0.2% is crazy talk. you wanna talk about 1%, or even less than 1%, sure, i'll entertain it.
~a[2020-03-28 13:09:47] - a: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/27/821958435/why-death-rates-from-coronavirus-can-be-deceiving "In the U.S., it's likely that the case fatality rate from coronavirus will end up somewhere between 0.5% and 1%" There's your second source. Is NPR more reputable for you? -Paul
[2020-03-27 19:04:23] - a: I didn't even realize it had gotten to 2100.... so no? -Paul
[2020-03-27 19:03:53] - a: I don't know if our bet is an indication of anything when it comes to the actual CFR of COVID-19 considering we don't have the best data on who has been infected. -Paul
[2020-03-27 18:03:10] - paul: the s&p500 entered the 2100s on monday. were you sweating? ~a
[2020-03-27 17:46:22] - . . . this bet is further suggestion that 0.2% is a ridiculous cfr. i guess . . . you *had* said you thought the cfr was 1%. how crazy is that article for saying it's 0.2%? ~a
[2020-03-27 17:44:17] - a: Sure -Paul
[2020-03-27 17:22:55] - 0.002 btc? ~a
[2020-03-27 17:21:14] - a: I'll take the under on 1.25% CFR for the US for 2020.... assuming that wager is still on the table and we have a reliable way to calculate it by the end of the year. -Paul
[2020-03-27 14:18:06] - a: Generally, no. Or at least I care about different things. -Paul
[2020-03-27 14:13:52] - do you even care, paul? ~a
[2020-03-27 13:59:28] - a: It's called the CARES act? I guess I should've known. -Paul
[2020-03-27 13:20:12] - where the covid money is going ~a
[2020-03-27 13:19:52] - yeah, sounds about right. we've heard dumber and more dangerous things than that coming from the president, right? ~a
[2020-03-26 23:37:33] - a: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mexican-governor-poor-immune-coronavirus-69805644 well things here could be worse... - mig
[2020-03-26 15:54:07] - balance is needed. i agree. it's not even an engineering-only problem. in my last job, whenever management would be like: should be do plan A, or should we do plan B? i was always like, i propose a new plan: do nothing. because most of the time, doing nothing was way better than any of their shitty plans! ~a
[2020-03-26 15:51:17] - a: Agreed with that too. Sometimes I worry I lean to far into that camp. Learning new things is good and upgrades aren't inherently bad but I think the balance is needed and sometimes I think people are to upgrade happy. -Daniel
[2020-03-26 15:28:54] - daniel: i sometimes have the opposite problem at work: luddites. people who hate to learn new things because that's hard. ~a
[2020-03-26 15:27:47] - i do it because i love you guys
~a[2020-03-26 15:27:36] - np! ~a
[2020-03-26 15:23:16] - a: Also thanks for providing/hosting a message board! -Daniel
[2020-03-26 15:22:50] - a: Yeah I totally agree - for something like this its definitely what you should just decide to upgrade. Its more in the work place where things get upgraded "just because" or "because its cool" that I shake my head sometimes. -Daniel
[2020-03-26 15:22:26] - a: Only down like 30% the past 3 months. Looking back years is when it gets bad.
-Paul[2020-03-26 15:18:04] - daniel: it's not even a side-gig because 1. i don't even make money off of it. and 2. i do it "for fun". and 3. i put *very* few hours into it (less than 40 hours per decade?) . rules for side-gigs and hobby-projects can be different imo. ~a
[2020-03-26 15:15:06] - daniel: i know my time after-hours is still valuable, but i get something out of upgrading not-broken (or arguably-broken) stuff. ~a
[2020-03-26 15:14:40] - i thought more on what you said last night. i think this is a special case: it's an after-hours special project. the rules for "what should be upgraded/changed" are different. i'm not charging per-hour and its only eating into my watching-tv-time. ~a
[2020-03-26 15:13:55] - daniel: yeah, i believe it. ~a
[2020-03-26 15:13:44] - SO MUCH WORSE! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH -Daniel
[2020-03-26 15:11:21] - for better or worse, i cut-over the new message board. a lot of stuff is probably broken. ~a
[2020-03-26 11:05:45] - yeah, how is it doing of the past 3 months?
~a[2020-03-26 11:05:24] - a: KSHB up over 100% over the past 3 days. B-) -Paul
[2020-03-25 16:23:04] - we better do as he says or people will start killing themselves. does he have any experts in his administration? ~a
[2020-03-25 15:59:54] - i'm testing the message board inside a docker swarm with mariadb instead of mysql, with php-fpm instead of modphp, and with nginx instead of apache, jesus i think i changed my whole fucking stack and somehow it still runs sort-of . . . i will definitely delete the database though, so don't post anything important there! https://test.w.aporter.org/msg/ (TEMPORARY, *will go away*) ~a
[2020-03-25 12:30:40] - Agreement! We win! I'm not sure what we win though but I'm pretty sure that is winning somehow on the internet. -Daniel
[2020-03-25 12:08:56] - Daniel: On this we can agree: Remove the odd (and basically created by government) connection between employment and health insurance. -Paul
[2020-03-25 11:52:53] - Paul: Oddly it seems to be a reason for a different form of healthcare for me since people losing their jobs at a time of a health crisis means double fucked. -Daniel
[2020-03-25 11:48:10] - As a libertarian, that makes me sad. I thought the government reaction to the pandemic so far was a textbook case of why we DON"T want them taking over all of healthcare. It saddens me to see people think otherwise. -Paul
[2020-03-25 11:19:23] - well if you remove trump from the equation, i think the response started criminally late, but better late than never: i approve of dr deborah birx and dr anthony fauci. does that count? ~a
[2020-03-25 10:13:40] - https://www.mediaite.com/news/stunning-poll-finds-60-percent-of-americans-approve-of-trumps-coronavirus-response/ do we just tend to trust leaders during national crisis times? This poll is pretty mind blowing since this isn't just maga country voicing their approval. - mig
[2020-03-25 09:37:39] - a: Got it. Thanks. -Paul
[2020-03-25 09:01:00] - you're right I fucked up. 2130. ~a
[2020-03-24 22:14:28] - a: 19:30 or 9:30? -Paul
[2020-03-24 20:36:24] - a: if you want to feel a little more optimistic, it's not a hard deadline either. "potential", "hope", etc. Not "will", "must". - mig
[2020-03-24 18:22:54] - we'll see how well that goes i guess. ~a
[2020-03-24 17:59:15] - a: sounds like the Trump plan is till Easter (4/12). - mig
[2020-03-24 16:55:11] - bill gates suggests shutdown of 6-10 weeks. a bit different from trump's 15-day-plan. ~a
[2020-03-24 16:46:11] - paul: i fucked up my calendar. i'll be a probable-yes for 19:30 tomorrow. i'll give you a text if i need to move back a few minutes. ~a
[2020-03-24 15:50:24] - from the texas attorney general yesterday. ~a
[2020-03-24 15:25:48] - does trump have this authority? i'm not sure that's how oversight works. i sure that's not how we want oversight to work. what's weird is i was watching that press conference earlier today, and trump make some joke that pissed me off so i stopped watching. it must have been after that point. ~a
[2020-03-24 14:10:32] - paul: no. probably mostly. probably not. ~a
[2020-03-24 14:09:30] - a: 20 years, maybe. But I'm talking 2 years or so. I understand anything can happen, but the Federal Reserve didn't raise rates too much during the longest bull market in history, so I find it hard to believe they will raise it fast over the next 24 months. -Paul
[2020-03-24 14:08:27] - Do we know yet how or why some people can catch COVID-19 and not even know it or show symptoms and others get so critically ill they need a ventilator? Is it mostly age / other medical conditions based? Can we identify those at most risk and isolate them? -Paul
[2020-03-24 14:06:14] - whereas i wouldn't be surprised if mortgage interest rates doubled a few times in the next 20 years. ~a
[2020-03-24 14:05:29] - paul: any plan that includes refinancing your mortgage in the future is hopeful that interest rates will be lower than (say) 4%. ~a
[2020-03-24 14:04:22] - a: Wait, is optimism hoping for higher or lower rates here? I'm saying it seems the rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage will be higher than 5% in 2 years. -Paul
[2020-03-24 14:02:33] - from twitter on sunday. i guess he's having an open discussion about the trade-offs. ~a
[2020-03-24 13:57:36] - paul: that's like predicting the stock market in the future. fairly fruitless guessing . . . regardless, +5% in two years is very optimistic. 5% rate is more optimistic. ~a
[2020-03-24 13:55:27] - a: I agree (although I also can recall thinking that off and on for like the last 10 years and keep getting proven wrong), but it seems unlikely that rates are going to like 10% in 2 years. What's the worst (reasonable) case scenario? 5% in two years? -Paul
[2020-03-24 13:37:37] - "refinance once a year or two" any plan that assumes you'll be able to refinance in the future seems crazy to me. i predict we'll never see mortgage rates this low ever again (3.4% 30y-fixed). i'm not predicting the bottom, but i'm predicting we're near it. ~a
[2020-03-24 11:29:05] - a: Understood that it's variable and could go up, but there's a lot of wiggle room (0.75% plus) before it just gets back to where I am now. The problem remains that this would only help in addition to the mortgage instead of replacing. Unless, as you say, you maybe refinance once a year or two? Maybe cash out to pay back the HELOC? -Paul
[2020-03-24 11:11:19] - now you're free to assume the variable rates won't go up too much, but that's a far cry from arbitrage. ~a
[2020-03-24 11:10:39] - not without getting a new mortgage. which, would again, be variable. ~a
[2020-03-24 11:10:10] - paul: there's no arbitrage because the rate is variable: *and* you can never get money back out of your mortgage. once you've prepaid down your debt, you can't unprepay down your debt. ~a
[2020-03-24 11:08:46] - (x*12) +(y*z) > b Where x is monthly savings during first year, y is monthly savings after first year, z is how many months after first year you stay in the house and b is cost of getting heloc. Something like that?
[2020-03-24 10:49:40] - paul: I think there can be as long as the bank costs don't eat it away and you stay in the house long enough to save enough on mortgage. Would need to do math to see how much saved over how long and if that is worth it. -Daniel
[2020-03-24 10:17:24] - BoA is now offering a 12 month introductory rate of 1.74% for a HELOC with a 3.43% variable APR rate afterwards (likely even lower for me since I get some discounts). Even that non-introductory rate is like 0.75 percentage points lower than my mortgage rate. There HAS to be some arbitrage to work there... -Paul
[2020-03-24 08:03:14] - https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-strategy/index.html I feel like this shouldn't HAVE to be said, but just because the President might say that America is "re-open".... it doesn't mean people have to listen. -Paul
[2020-03-24 07:59:20] - Can't we test people who had it and find out by the anti-bodies in their system? Seems like we could do a random sampling of testing and extrapolate by the end of the year. -Paul
[2020-03-23 23:04:38] - right. I guess I understood that much. I'm thinking we'll be able to (by December) test enough people to get an idea of what the cfr is. People calculating the cfr can (eventually, after testing is ramped up significantly) make some rough estimates of how many of the untested population are positive. ~a
[2020-03-23 22:47:31] - a: I meant that I don't expect that we will be able to test everyone with symptoms in a meaningful way until much later in this crisis. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-23 22:46:24] - Fuck! https://news.trust.org/item/20200323225613-cmq3v Someone gag him. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-23 22:38:45] - also, what is "enough testing"? ~a
[2020-03-23 22:37:42] - xpovos: my phone just autocorrected "xpovos" to "covid". ~a
[2020-03-23 16:40:19] - That CFR is going to depend so much on testing, and I don't think we'll really have enough testing even by the end of 2020, so I'd be more inclined to take the over. If you have to ration tests, you're going to test the most likely cases and triage with other tests the less likely cases. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-23 16:39:51] - fo sho. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:27:38] - a: We can discuss next SC2 meet-up. Maybe Wednesday evening? -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:25:49] - Sure for the first question and I don't know for the second question. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:18:25] - a: Eh, let me think on 1.25%. I still think you would be getting the better end, but I might be convinced. We talking about the CFR at the end of 2020? Is that a thing we would be able to easily find out? -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:15:08] - or i'll take the over on 1.5% in the united states if i get 2:1 odds. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:14:39] - a: https://www.livescience.com/is-coronavirus-deadly.html "about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 patients around the world have died" -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:14:01] - hmmm, i'll take the over on 1.25% in the united states. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:13:35] - a: Yeah, but you said the article was wildly optimistic and the regularly reported numbers are much higher. My completely uneducated guess was going to be 1%. Also, are we talking US only? -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:11:41] - splitting the difference would be 0.55%. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:10:51] - paul: nah, your article said. 0.1%-1%. i'll take the over on 1%. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:10:04] - certainly you can't fault our federal government for being too drastic. up until a week ago, our head of the executive was saying it was totally going to blow over and NBD and please take no precautions. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:09:50] - a: I don't know. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any way of knowing until it's too late. -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:09:30] - a: Same.
-Paul[2020-03-23 16:09:18] - a: What over/under would you take for the cfr? I think I've most often seen 3% in the media, so split the difference and make it 1.5%? -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:08:49] - my grandparents are already dead
~a[2020-03-23 16:08:08] - paul: are the measures we are taking not drastic enough? ~a
[2020-03-23 16:07:30] - a: But instead what I see almost every time is somebody will wonder if COVID-19 really is that fatal or contagious or if the measures we are taking are too drastic considering the lives being saved and the response is just "You're an anti science idiot and you are going to kill your grandparents" without any serious consideration of the trade-offs. -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:06:45] - "it's okay to have a calm and rational and open discussion about the trade-offs" yah. isn't that what we're doing? i asked you if you thought it was the right move. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:05:50] - paul: i threw out the 99.9% of the article when they suggested the cfr was 0.2%. that's something i haven't seen anywhere else and its a number i'd love to re-discuss with you in a few months when we know the cfr with some more accuracy. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:05:11] - a: I mean, there is a trade-off, no? We're obviously ruining many people's lives with the orders/suggestions to stay home. Yes, there's a good reason, and a good chance it is clearly the right reason, but I think it's okay to have a calm and rational and open discussion about the trade-offs. -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:03:50] - a: I didn't even click on the link so I had no idea that's how it ended. Honestly, as somebody who writes for a website (or used to), I would sometimes link to other articles on the same topic without necessarily intending to make a point with the link. I don't throw out 99.9% of the article just because of a link at the end. -Paul
[2020-03-23 16:01:24] - paul: "that's a far cry from the hundreds of thousands" i'm not sure it is a far cry. the 5k in italy is rising 700 *per* *day*. 18k in italy is 100k in the united states (per capita). ~a
[2020-03-23 16:01:14] - regardless. i don't stay home. i leave the house pretty much every day. i stay far away from people (i've been on my bike exclusively). i know if things get like italy, i'll have to change my behavior eventually. ~a
[2020-03-23 16:00:42] - i've been avoiding social media, so i have no idea what attacks you're talking about. sorry, paul (not being sarcastic, i'm sorry paul. i have no idea about the attacks though, so please keep me out of it!
). ~a[2020-03-23 15:59:49] - i'll admit it. because of how the article ended. this is bad for the economy is how the article ended. ~a
[2020-03-23 15:58:05] - a: Pretty much all over social media. Maybe if you don't spend any time on Facebook or Twitter you've missed a lot of it. But even here, admit it, you thought my article was some sort of Trojan Horse for telling people they shouldn't stay at home or something, right? Why else would you have asked those questions? -Paul
[2020-03-23 15:57:13] - i didn't say you weren't staying at home. i asked if we're making the right move. ~a
[2020-03-23 15:55:16] - what attacks? ~a
[2020-03-23 15:54:32] - In the past 8 days or so (since the schools were shut down and I was told to work from home), I've left my hose approximately twice (not counting walks around the neighborhood) and my kids pretty much haven't left at all. My wife has left a few times to get groceries. I suspect we're taking "stay at home" a lot more seriously than most Americans. -Paul
[2020-03-23 15:52:13] - attacks? ~a
[2020-03-23 15:51:52] - Also, I'm not sure why any questioning of doomsday scenarios in the slightest always leads almost immediately to straw-man insinuations and attacks. I couldn't find anything in the article that went contrary to staying home (it advocated "avoiding crowds, limiting social interactions" as voluntary steps instead of government mandates)... -Paul
[2020-03-23 15:48:18] - a: My point wasn't that the CFR is 0.2% or anything like that, more than there seems to be a pretty wide range of possibilities. -Paul
[2020-03-23 15:47:44] - a: Maybe the article is overly optimistic, but have you ever given thought to maybe you (and/or others) are being overly pessimistic? Italy seems to be the poster child for mishandling COVID-19 right now (outside of the US, I suppose), and they're looking at 5k deaths. Obviously that's awful, but that's a far cry from the hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths lots of other people are predicting. -Paul
[2020-03-23 14:46:58] - yah, agreed. ~a
[2020-03-23 14:45:35] - I think its true that its hard to say what the actual numbers for morbidity rate and all that are but looking at Italy certainly seems like a strong case for staythefuckhome. -Daniel
[2020-03-23 14:44:19] - paul: regardless of how (overly) optimistic the article is, though, maybe i should ask you: in your opinion, are we doing the right thing? are we making the right move by shutting down restaurants and ice-cream-shops? are we making the right move asking office workers to WFH and staythefuckhome? or is that a bad idea? ~a
[2020-03-23 14:30:08] - paul: it's doing so for an obvious biased reason: they're worried about the economy: i say this because of how the ended the article. anyone truly worried about the economy would consider what the economy will look like if the R0 indeed turns out to be 2.5x and the CFR ever goes over 1%: both are serious worries. healthcare flooding WILL spike cfr. their 0.2% cfr will look pretty ridiculous regardless. ~a
[2020-03-23 14:29:14] - paul: i hate that article with a steaming passion. it's an overly-optimistic reading of the numbers. for some stupid reason they start quoting shit about the cfr being 0.2%. nobody other than them has ever said the cfr will be 0.2%. they've said it'll be 0.1%-1%, but that is already (old / early-march data) *and* much more optimistic than anybody else's guesses at the cfr. most everybody else has been quoting a cfr of double that. ~a
[2020-03-23 13:49:49] - For example, there are perfectly smart and reasonable estimates that lead to millions of deaths. Slightly tweak the infection rate and fatality rate to other perfectly reasonable and smart estimates and it could turn out to be similar to the flu. Unfortunately, we won't really know until this is all over. -Paul
[2020-03-23 13:48:20] - https://reason.com/2020/03/23/two-reasons-the-worst-case-scenarios-for-covid-19-seem-unrealistic/ A somewhat more optimistic take on Coronavirus. Personally, the big problem with judging how serious this is seems similar to my problems calculating if I am on track for retirement. A slight tweak in some numbers makes huge differences in the end result. -Paul
[2020-03-22 19:40:12] - wednesday and/or thursday. ~a
[2020-03-22 17:44:18] - SC2 peeps: What works well for you all this week to play? -Paul
[2020-03-20 17:25:04] - a: Heh. Pretty good. -- Xpovos
[2020-03-20 16:49:47] - mike judge just posted this pic ~a
[2020-03-20 10:48:25] - i wonder if futures keep trading (lower than the limit) after they hit the limit up. i don't know if that would work or not. ~a
[2020-03-20 10:48:23] - i guess i was more referring to the "breakers" that apply to the normal trading hours. i don't think we have any of those. ~a
[2020-03-20 09:17:04] - those are futures. they have very different rules (but yes futures have up limits. we got them a bunch of times in March). ~a
[2020-03-20 07:32:35] - https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/20/stock-market-live-today.html Apparently the NASDAQ has a limit up. -Paul
[2020-03-19 15:49:37] - a: KSHB up 50%. Just needs to do that another 6 times or so... -Paul
[2020-03-19 15:34:53] - a: That's why I like making bets in btc.
I am regretting not having bought some when it was at $5k.... but stocks were so cheap too! -Paul[2020-03-19 15:33:08] - all i need now is a hedge fund. ~a
[2020-03-19 15:30:02] - yay, now i'm hedging two things. ~a
[2020-03-19 15:29:51] - sure. ~a
[2020-03-19 15:29:19] - a: 0.002 btc? -Paul
[2020-03-19 15:19:28] - $10? ~a
[2020-03-19 15:19:12] - a: I'll take the over for the 2020 low for the S&P 500 being 2000. -Paul
[2020-03-19 15:17:51] - hmmmm. no. i'll take over or under on 70k dead in the US in 2020. how about the over/under on the bottom of the s&p500? i'll take the over or under on the bottom for 2020 being 2000points. ~a
[2020-03-19 15:15:19] - a: Well, my over/under before was 200k dead in the US (I think). Would you take the over? I'll take the under. -Paul
[2020-03-19 15:13:48] - "Maybe we develop a cure or a treatment or a vaccination or the warm weather makes it less contagious." i won't literally bet the farm on either of those. ~a
[2020-03-19 15:13:02] - it's like a possible scenario that's neither worst case, nor unlikely. ~a
[2020-03-19 15:12:44] - "I also think hundreds of thousands is more of a worst case scenario than a likely one" i think it's neither. ~a
[2020-03-19 15:12:42] - a: Maybe we develop a cure or a treatment or a vaccination or the warm weather makes it less contagious. Lots of things could go right too. -Paul
[2020-03-19 15:12:18] - a: I understand the severity and how the numbers work (Andrew and I ran some during that podcast), so I know it COULD get that bad, and I know we as a country aren't responding in the best way, but I also think hundreds of thousands is more of a worst case scenario than a likely one. -Paul
[2020-03-19 15:10:58] - a: "i have *no* reason to believe this is even true with 50% certainty" Absolutely agree. This is a pure guess. "if the death-toll gets into the millions, or even hundreds of thousands, there's no reason to think it won't top 2008/2009" Sure, but my guess (and, purely a guess) is that it doesn't get that bad. -Paul
[2020-03-19 15:04:38] - (to be completely honest, i do go outside a lot. but i've been staying away from commercial areas and avoiding people like the plague. literally. maybe i'm overreacting) ~a
[2020-03-19 15:02:01] - i've mostly stayed at home, but from reports of people going to stores, people have definitely not been practicing social distancing. all the stores/shops are open and people are packing in. we're (maybe) in for an abrupt awakening. ~a
[2020-03-19 15:00:22] - "the bottom is going to be within the next few weeks" i'm buying, so i know that's a possibility, but i have *no* reason to believe this is even true with 50% certainty. "hard to imagine it tops 2008/2009" why? i know (unlike 2008) this is a more temporary problem, and isn't directly related to the economy. but if the death-toll gets into the millions, or even hundreds of thousands, there's no reason to think it won't top 2008/2009. ~a
[2020-03-19 14:57:59] - a: I'm not into timing at all, and my opinion is worth nothing, but I suspect the bottom is going to be within the next few weeks for the market (even if the economy still suffers for a bit). -Paul
[2020-03-19 14:57:07] - a: Worse in what way? Percentage drop from the recent high? Hard to imagine it tops 2008/2009. Fastest drop? Well, it's already that, right? -Paul
[2020-03-19 14:49:23] - yah, it's a volatile time, isn't it! i completely agree with your sentiments. looking forward, i'm more worried about april than march. will this turn out to be the worst US market crash ever? or just the worst of our lifetimes? i'm not making any major moves, i'm buying cautiously and infrequently. but i'm still constantly second guessing myself. ~a
[2020-03-19 14:39:25] - a: I have two stocks up 40% right now and I'm feeling like, "meh" because they're still down a bunch in the past month. That's incredible. -Paul
[2020-03-19 14:23:59] - mig: i can't read your link: audrey has a wapo subscription, but she won't let me use it
i'm no biden fan. reading the title of the article, i'm not so sure i'd disagree with any of it. is wapo saying the "this is their new hoax" quote didn't happen? or are they saying that biden is stupidly manipulating video? i've seen the original video and i'm sure i never saw biden's commercial. ~a[2020-03-19 14:16:43] - a:about that "coravirus is a hoax" quote. - mig
[2020-03-19 12:16:49] - 25% down would have meant 33% up (if shorted). that would have been a nice morning, but at 9:30 i would have been sweating! ~a
[2020-03-19 12:12:42] - ha. i did not. ~a
[2020-03-19 11:53:09] - a: I hope you shorted Blue Apron.
-Paul[2020-03-19 11:22:05] - ah ok i've just been watching the national press conferences. ~a
[2020-03-19 11:21:44] - a: I guess, but I've also seen it with press conferences from various governors as well. It can't just be Trump. -Paul
[2020-03-19 11:09:32] - "trump is a doofus", i'm so courageous, i know. those other people aren't idiots, but they've probably been ordered to say and do some awful stuff over the past few weeks. if i had to bet money, i'd bet on: somebody floated the idea "hey, shouldn't we practice social distancing in the daily briefing? like leading by example?!" and somebody told them to stfu. how many times have you seen trump try super hard to shake people's hands? ~a
[2020-03-19 11:01:45] - a: Right, I get that Trump is a doofus, but do you think he's actively asking people to stand behind the speakers for no reason? All those other people aren't idiots too, right? -Paul
[2020-03-19 10:58:08] - paul: serious answer: yes. not so serious answer: https://i.redd.it/vrw6m26yojn41.png . . . maybe look to other nations governmental heads to figure out what to do and what to not do. ~a
[2020-03-19 10:53:07] - Serious question: Aren't we supposed to be standing 6 feet apart from other people? Why is it that EVERY picture/video I see of government officials addressing the media, there is a crowd of people squished shoulder to shoulder in the background serving no purpose other than to show how not-seriously they are taking their own advice? -Paul
[2020-03-19 10:50:41] - i watched that (yesterday?). it seemed cringey at the time. but whatever, i like that lady, so i have a hard time being mad at her. ~a
[2020-03-19 10:49:57] - https://youtu.be/ZhNOuDYKkzM?t=770 here's the source video. i really thought it was satire, ha ha. the future is weird - aaron
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