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[2021-05-29 12:32:10] - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/27/climate/us-cities-highway-removal.html can removing highways fix america’s cities? obviously not. removing highways must be done in concert with other changes, but it is an interesting progression. add highways, realize that was dumb, then remove highways. ~a
[2021-05-28 21:10:18] - mig: I don't think that is anywhere in the article? Implied or otherwise? It says that facebook is allowing it and someone else that they should be careful that hate isn't monetized. So I think your conclusion that we can't talk about it seems a stretch. -Daniel
[2021-05-28 21:07:19] - paul: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/27/facebook-covid-man-made/ paywalled, but the gist of it is we now can't talk about the lab leak angle because it *might* cause violence against Asians. - mig
[2021-05-27 14:20:38] - https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/26/facebook-ban-covid-man-made-491053 Just circling back to the discussion from a few days ago: This is exactly what I was railing against and why I hated this idea that big tech companies needed to police speech more. -Paul
[2021-05-27 14:04:46] - The media has barely pressed on the Biden admin about this, especially given the still ongoing stonewalling of any attempt to get transparency on what's going on in these facilities. - mig
[2021-05-27 14:04:06] - daniel: sure, it's occasionally been reported on, but not nearly to the extent had this been an R administration. Trump admin facilities got wall to wall 24/7 coverage, and press or congressional access to those facilities weren't denied that I know of. I can only imagine the firestorm if they were at the time. But after the initial reporting, it's been pretty much silence. - mig
[2021-05-27 13:54:10] - Xpovos: No doubt a lot of "retail" investors made a ton of money over the past 12-18 months, although I imagine there's also been a ton who have LOST a bunch of money that we don't necessarily hear about. I also wonder how sustainable it is to ride things like Gamestop, AMC, and Dogecoin... -Paul
[2021-05-27 12:06:34] - Paul: small investors are winning? Some interesting evidence in this journalism. https://www.wsj.com/articles/god-told-me-to-put-money-into-hertz-how-small-investors-are-upending-wall-street-11622113200 -- Xpovos
[2021-05-26 17:38:48] - its being reported on. (it being access). -Daniel
[2021-05-26 17:38:38] - mig: Shrug. I mean its only been like 12 hours so I'd see if it gets picked up. Also while this sounds like a reasonable report I'm not sure that Hannity is the greatest source. Also I don't know if this is abnormal? I know that Congress people have been denied entrance before to these types of places so I'm not sure what the rules are. In googling I did see several articles complaining about journalist access so I do think in general...
[2021-05-26 17:29:15] - https://www.foxnews.com/media/republican-delegation-el-paso-dea-facility-border took a quick look and there doesn't appear to be any coverage of this on CNN, MSNBC or Politico. W-E-I-R-D. - mig
[2021-05-25 20:03:14] - yes. ~a
[2021-05-25 20:02:58] - a: Well, we already knew that based on percentage of portfolio invested in individual stocks, right? -Paul
[2021-05-25 19:49:13] - paul: i think i trust my intuition less than you trust yours. ~a
[2021-05-25 19:48:00] - a: Yeah, looks like my two have a lot of Taiwan Semiconductor, Tecnent, and Alibaba, which is not exactly what I was aiming for. -Paul
[2021-05-25 19:43:56] - paul: yes. yahoo and morningstar also list the top 10 holdings. aapl, amzn, msft, uhhhhh, j&j? ~a
[2021-05-25 19:04:27] - a: A few weeks ago I might have had BTC in my top 5. I'm glad to have done this exercise because it has caused me to re-evaluate if I want VTIAX and VEMAX as that big of holdings. Not sure those funds accurately represent the exposure I want. I'll have to check their top holdings. I assume that's easy enough to see in vanguard? -paul
[2021-05-25 18:25:30] - haha, no this is totally fine. i don't even have btc or gbtc in my top five anymore. i'm honestly happy that we all have at least one vanguard. ~a
[2021-05-25 18:22:59] - My response might get more interesting if we expand it to top 12 (or so). Then we start seeing things like ARKK, TMFC, BTC, and shares of the Motley Fool. -Paul
[2021-05-25 18:18:35] - a: Oh, that's a good point. Maybe it is appropriately aggressive if he intends to retire 5-10 years early. -Paul
[2021-05-25 18:17:46] - paul: or . . . other? (retirement plans can be rebalanced without taxable events?) ~a
[2021-05-25 18:16:28] - paul: 2055 puts him at not-early, right? i assume he either intentionally picked a later date to make things more aggressive, or isn't planning on retiring early? ~a
[2021-05-25 18:14:22] - Daniel: Any concerns that VFFVX might have too conservative a mix of stocks / bonds for somebody who I assume is planning on retiring early? -Paul
[2021-05-25 17:52:40] - dewey, omg he sometimes sounds like a moster when he first joins sc2 hahaha
~a[2021-05-25 17:50:18] - Paul: Yeah everyone asks about the voice
It wasn't 100% the same but its hard to tell going from phone to laptop mic. I mean how different do we all sound in sc2 depending on which mic / mic settings are being used? -Daniel[2021-05-25 17:48:11] - Daniel: That's incredible. Did they sound like the same person? I've heard rumors of similar-ish things where parents would cheat for their newly graduated kids... -Paul
[2021-05-25 17:47:15] - a: Oh, and this isn't counting Gurkie's stuff. I probably should? -Paul
[2021-05-25 17:46:42] - Paul: Definitely same candidate - we only had one in the pipeline though now 0. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 17:42:39] - a: Okay, so I oddly can't find specifics on what my 529s are invested in so I will ignore those, but I think my top 5 (in no particular order) are: SE, SHOP, VTIAX, VEMAX, VTSAX -Paul
[2021-05-25 17:39:55] - "the way the irs would treat it" (sort of? i don't actually know how the irs treats it when it comes to stuff like brk-b vs brk-a, so please don't treat this as financial advice
) ~a[2021-05-25 17:35:03] - paul: yes and yes. and no and no. i did everything by ticker: so vti and vtsax are different because their tickers are different. i.e. the way the irs would treat it. ~a
[2021-05-25 17:33:15] - a: Am I counting 529 accounts and HSA's? Also, should I try aggregating things like a Vanguard S&P 500 fund and a Fidelity S&P 500 one? -Paul
[2021-05-25 17:28:18] - paul: correct, the first one, vtsax is a single ticker in this scenario. ~a
[2021-05-25 17:27:22] - a: Wait, sorry, so would we count VTSAX as a single ticker? Or do we break it down into component parts like X% AMZN? -Paul
[2021-05-25 17:25:59] - a: "non-individual portfolio" So including index funds? Oh man, hmmm. That's going to take some investigating. -Paul
[2021-05-25 17:24:48] - Daniel: Re: Interview. And you're sure you didn't get the person mixed up with somebody else? I'm with Adrian. It's crazy somebody thought that might work. -Paul
[2021-05-25 16:52:56] - a: I'm going to have to go figure out cause I'm not sure but I think VFFVX might be my number 1? Thats a guess before I figure it out. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 16:51:06] - a: You work for the cooler parts maybe? -Daniel
[2021-05-25 16:45:43] - mine are: vtsax, vtiax, tip, vbtlx, vtabx, (31%, 22%, 10%, 7%, 7%) ~a
[2021-05-25 16:45:36] - paul/daniel/etc: your top 5 ticker symbols by holdings INCLUDING non-individual portfolio and retirement portfolio and crypto. go! ~a
[2021-05-25 16:35:18] - i also work for the gov, daniel.
~a[2021-05-25 16:34:44] - Oooo the cloud!!! (We are trying to get our customer to start using cloud) -Daniel
[2021-05-25 16:33:59] - a: I just work for the gov where we use tech from 10 years ago like its new.
-Daniel[2021-05-25 16:33:12] - daniel: reminder that kafka was released 10 years ago. ~a
[2021-05-25 16:33:09] - a: But I get the point of it and it seems solid. Some day I think our app will use it to be that cool but we are a new app so currently are small and self contained. So we just pass messages to ourselves. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 16:32:39] - ah yes. i forgot you were a luddite
~a[2021-05-25 16:32:08] - a: ha - we currently aren't that cool with it yet but my boss wants to be that cool so he made us start using it now so he can try to say how cool we are for using it
-Daniel[2021-05-25 16:29:24] - that's cool you guys use kafka. i've been using it a lot at work and it has been making container-to-container message passing super easy. ~a
[2021-05-25 16:27:11] - Yeah I guess if you do get hired its harder to fire you? Fake it till you make it extreme version? -Daniel
[2021-05-25 16:25:10] - wtf crazy. that's fucked. i can't imagine that being a good plan from their perspective. i mean, i guess it could *maybe* work some of the time. naive me apparently too! ~a
[2021-05-25 16:24:30] - a: So yeah apparently phone interviews are weak interview security I guess? Naive me apparently. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 16:24:05] - a: I had a phone interview with the candidate last Thursday that went pretty well, they were able to talk about a lot of the tech and get into some details. Boss scheduled a video call for today earlier today with the person and asked similar questions and answers suddenly were terrible. Like last week had a whole multi minute convo about Kafka and how it works. Today was like I don't know that. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 16:18:35] - daniel: wow! i figured we mostly moved to video-interviews? it'd def be harder to fake a video-interview i think. how was he/she caught? ~a
[2021-05-25 16:16:52] - I think my boss and I just busted someone for either cheating on an interview or having someone else do a phone interview for them. Kind of sad / crazy that is a thing. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 15:31:12] - https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/1396959823372107779 Back to the whole legitimacy of the lab leak theory, it's apparently legitimate enough for Vox to tweet out updates to articles over a year old. -Paul
[2021-05-25 15:21:45] - mig: Ah, I missed that. Admittedly, I don't often check CNN more than around once a day. -Paul
[2021-05-25 15:06:42] - CNN had an article about the facility yesterday but it's already been pushed off it's main page. - mig
[2021-05-25 14:31:18] - Daniel: I've barely heard anything about it in over a month, I think (and what I do hear comes from non-mainstream sources like Reason). I gave the mainstream media credit earlier for pressing the administration on this, but they seem to have gone silent now. -Paul
[2021-05-25 14:28:53] - mig: Maybe its because I'm in TX but I still hear about kids on the border and the progress they are trying to do. They talk about trying to improve through rate for the minors and getting them out of gov facilities into better places. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 14:19:02] - The TLDR of all of this is that Fauci seems to fashion himself like Doctor Manhattan and I am Rorschach.
-Paul[2021-05-25 14:18:51] - ooof. ~a
[2021-05-25 14:18:00] - a: https://www.axios.com/fauci-goalposts-herd-immunity-c83c7500-d8f9-4960-a334-06cc03d9a220.html Basically, he's been moving the goal posts on what we need for herd immunity based on what he thinks the public needs to hear. "In a telephone interview," McNeil continues, "Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goalposts." -Paul
[2021-05-25 14:16:00] - paul: it's a broken record, but I'll keep repeating it - democrats and media don't give any fucks about the treatment of immigrants as long as it's a democrat in charge. - mig
[2021-05-25 14:13:33] - "it seems pretty obvious Fauci at least fudged numbers about herd immunity" sorry i let this one go, but i didn't hear about this either. he did what? ~a
[2021-05-25 14:10:59] - paul: ah good point, sorry. the cdc was wrong. they weren't lying. my bad. ~a
[2021-05-25 14:10:20] - a: The CDC wasn't wrong about masks not helping? -Paul
[2021-05-25 14:09:57] - Along the "if the other side was worse than my side can't be bad" argument: https://reason.com/2021/05/24/secret-recordings-reveal-officials-discussing-filthy-conditions-of-4632-immigrant-kids-held-in-texas-tent-camp/ We're still treating immigrating children horribly, but I guess there won't be any concentration camp comparisons. -Paul
[2021-05-25 14:09:39] - paul: "It's possible both could be wrong" yes. in this case i disagree that they were both wrong. ~a
[2021-05-25 14:08:45] - a: "the cdc was basically the only part of our federal government that was NOT lying" ??? What does that have to do with anything? Again, you keep bringing this back to Trump as if somehow Trump being wrong about everything means the CDC has to have been right? It's possible both could be wrong. -Paul
[2021-05-25 14:07:49] - a: Sure, the "CDC lied" part is a tiny part of what I am saying, so feel free to ignore that if you want. I think it is pretty likely that there was a point in time when they knew masks would help, but told the public otherwise to try to keep supplies for medical professionals. Likewise, it seems pretty obvious Fauci at least fudged numbers about herd immunity. -Paul
[2021-05-25 14:06:20] - back when the cdc was saying not to wear masks, the cdc was basically the only part of our federal government that was NOT lying. ~a
[2021-05-25 14:05:54] - a: "this was never a black-and-white situation" Then why was it treated as such? They literally went from "vaccinated people should continue to mask at all times" to "nah, they pretty much never have to now" -Paul
[2021-05-25 14:05:05] - a: The harmful part? I tried briefly but also can't find any articles about it. It's entirely possible I am wrong about that and it came from WHO or maybe was just random advice from the internet. Things were pretty hectic back in those days and there was a lot of confusion. -Paul
[2021-05-25 14:04:09] - daniel: "it does seem like the kind of thing to get easily politicized" maybe this is a rephrasing of paul's thought process? part of me feels like he'd get me more on-board if he stopped using the argument that "the cdc lied"
~a[2021-05-25 14:00:04] - Paul: I wasn't aware the CDC was in charge of an eviction ban. I can kinda see the logic for them wanting to keep people isolated in a pandemic to limit spread but it does seem like the kind of thing to get easily politicized. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 13:55:55] - Paul: Re masks for vaccinated people I thought it was because they were initially worried about vaccinated people still being carriers and once there was more evidence about transmission rates thats when the recommendations changed? -Daniel
[2021-05-25 13:54:35] - paul: "masks for vaccinated people shouldn't be necessary and Fauci disagreed" this was never a black-and-white situation. masks on vaccinated people was necessary when the case and death rates were high and the vaccine coverage was low. ~a
[2021-05-25 13:51:00] - paul: "or even were harmful" right, i guess i don't remember that. do you have a link? i'm not being lazy, i've tried really hard to google this, and all of my results are about stuff happening in 2021 instead of 2020. ~a
[2021-05-25 13:47:25] - https://www.axios.com/fauci-goalposts-herd-immunity-c83c7500-d8f9-4960-a334-06cc03d9a220.html Here's some info about the moving goal posts for herd immunity, btw. -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:46:56] - Daniel: And some people have suggested it's because they were worried about unvaccinated people taking advantage and not masking up so they wanted to get lots of people vaccinated first, which would be another one of those cases of prioritizing manipulating the public over presenting factual evidence. -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:46:02] - Daniel: Which, honestly, I believed because Rand Paul has fallen a lot in my eyes recently and he's just an eye doctor and what would he know about infectious diseases? But now it turns out he was right? And I know lots of other people have been making this point for awhile, so why did it take so long for the CDC to change? -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:44:59] - Daniel: Also... I still think the reversal on masks for vaccinated people was weird. I remember Rand Paul had a few heated interactions with Fauci where he was saying that masks for vaccinated people shouldn't be necessary and Fauci disagreed. I never watched those interactions, but the news coverage was pretty unanimous that Rand Paul was being an ignorant anti-science jerk. -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:42:40] - Daniel: And there are just flat out weird things that I have trouble explaining like the pause in the J&J vaccine and that the CDC is somehow in charge of the eviction moratorium. -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:41:53] - Daniel: So, I'll admit I could be incorrectly confusing some organizations with others, but the reasons I say that are: (1) The lying about masks (2) The moving goalposts for herd immunity (3) The changing social distancing requirements after input from teacher's unions... -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:39:48] - Daniel: Same here. I just became a spectre. -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:39:39] - Paul: I think the part about CDC being imperfect is reasonable but then the end of your conclusion I think gets less reasonable " AND prioritizes manipulating the public more than giving out factual information". I think inferring motivations is harder and I'm not sure where this comes from. The mask thing? Or is there something else that supports this? -Daniel
[2021-05-25 13:37:48] - Paul: Yeah I'm playing through ME:LE slowly. -Daniel
[2021-05-25 13:31:54] - mig: I just realized that the council races are kinda racist. They are all pretty similar: two legs, two arms, two eyes, roughly 6 feet tall, no suit for adaptation to other atmospheres... And the humans seem to be next up on the list to join. All the other races left off look significantly different. -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:30:25] - Daniel: Are you replaying ME:LE? -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:30:07] - a: "i guess what the cdc was bad: but, like, only a little bit bad?" and "i agree with you here" Right, I think we're mostly in agreement here. I think the CDC is imperfect and unfortunately affected by outside interests like teacher's unions AND prioritizes manipulating the public more than giving out factual information. -Paul
[2021-05-25 13:26:13] - a: "where's the lie?" Because the initial guidance was for people NOT to wear masks because they didn't do any good (or even were harmful). -Paul
[2021-05-25 03:27:37] - paul: "facebook and twitter and google censoring posts that go against cdc recommendations are a really bad idea" i agree with you here. facebook and twitter and google cencoring things while following their policies, is totally fine. but blindly following the cdc, or any authority figure, is not fine. ~a
[2021-05-25 03:25:23] - paul: "i think you're trying to argue a different point" that is correct. i am trying to argue a different point. i'm trying to argue: i guess what the cdc was bad: but, like, only a little bit bad? and on the topic of lies about the pandemic, there were way bigger lies about the pandemic . . . yes, this is a different point, but a very closely related point. ~a
[2021-05-25 03:12:38] -
i actually read that article when i was drafting my messages below. where's the lie? "he also acknowledged that masks were initially not recommended to the general public so that first responders wouldn’t feel the strain of a shortage of ppe". i guess a lie by omisson? ~a[2021-05-25 02:05:31] - a: Because the CDC can be wrong, whether through lying or neglect or bad science or just best intentions that turned out wrong. And even this "lab origination" theory which has nothing to do with the CDC and could turn out completely wrong is suddenly now at least somewhat credible as a theory. -Paul
[2021-05-25 02:04:04] - a: I am saying that a lot of things I have mentioned are good examples of why companies like Facebook and Twitter and Google censoring posts that go against CDC recommendations are a really bad idea. -Paul
[2021-05-25 02:03:19] - a: "i feel like you're missing the forest for the trees" I think you're trying to argue a different point. I'm not trying to say anything about Trump or his administration (which you've brought up twice). I'm not trying to say the CDC does bad science or should have been right earlier. -Paul
[2021-05-25 01:59:52] - a: https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/502890-fauci-why-the-public-wasnt-told-to-wear-masks It's entirely possible I am incorrectly associating Fauci with the CDC, but this article seems to be doing the same thing. Either way, it seems likely that the CDC's reasoning would be the same as Fauci's. -Paul
[2021-05-25 01:45:40] - paul: "shouldn't people be allowed to speculate on it?" yesof course they should. and if they're speculating on it publicly with zero evidence. or, say, speculating on it for malevolent reasons, people should call them out on it. ~a
[2021-05-25 01:45:39] - paul: i feel like you're missing the forest for the trees. the cdc ppe recommendation was short-term, minor, quickly remedied, and *relatively* harmless. i know you're no fan of the 45 whitehouse either, but those lies are the ones that i think are more reasonable to learn from. i've been re-listening to the 2020 press conferences, and the cdc-anti-mask recommendation was rarely and hardly a topic for a short time. they pivoted. ~a
[2021-05-25 01:39:31] - paul: "the cdc lied about it" they didn't lie. they didn't recommend masks, then later they did. recommendations changed. there was a ppe shortage, but i'm not sure they lied to cover? if you can point me at an actual lie, i'll concede, but i don't think i've seen one. not trying for whataboutism, but the "lies" that we saw in the recommendations at that *same time* from the whitehouse at that time boggles the mind! ~a
[2021-05-25 01:10:31] - a: "i doubt we'll ever learn the lesson that covid-19 was created as a bioweapon, right?" Possibly. But shouldn't people be allowed to speculate on it? -Paul
[2021-05-25 01:07:36] - a: "that *is* right though" I know, and the CDC lied about it. And is the mask guidance for vaccinated people based on case rates? I thought it had to do with the likeliness of vaccinated people spreading it with or without masks. -Paul
[2021-05-24 19:31:27] - paul: maybe if you had some evidence that some studies were done that showed that person-to-person contact outdoors was "no big deal", and the CDC was ignoring it . . . that would be one thing. but i'm not sure i heard about anything like that. the cdc (mostly) did the right thing with the info it had at the time? ~a
[2021-05-24 19:28:48] - paul: "it's not being laughed off as a paranoid delusion anymore" we've still got a long way to go before we learn any lessons here either. i doubt we'll ever learn the lesson that covid-19 was created as a bioweapon, right? ~a
[2021-05-24 19:28:30] - paul: "we should be wearing them" that *is* right though. "then that vaccinated people might not have to wear them" that was a changing condition (drop in case-rate, and an increase in vaccination rates). i don't think paul's made-up unwashed masses were right here either. ~a
[2021-05-24 19:22:59] - a: "how did they turn out to be right?" About masks (both that we should be wearing them and then that vaccinated people might not have to wear them). I'm not saying the "Wuhan-lab" theory is legit, but it's not being laughed off as a paranoid delusion anymore. I don't know if it was CDC guidance, but governments were definitely closing outdoor playgrounds and arresting people running solo on the beach. -Paul
[2021-05-24 19:11:18] - paul: "those unwashed masses turn out to be right and the CDC was wrong but nobody learns any lessons" how did they turn out to be right? i'm not going to learn any false lessons, that's for sure. "I don't trust them to be honest with the public" who do you trust then? ~a
[2021-05-24 18:37:15] - a: It seems like they are more concerned about manipulating the public than informing the public, and I disagree with that approach. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:36:42] - a: Like, I really distrust the CDC right now. I assume they are probably more right than wrong and I am fully aware that things change and our understanding can evolve, but the bigger issue is that I don't trust them to be honest with the public. They lied about masks. They tweaked their suggestions after input by teacher's unions... -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:34:26] - a: I get so frustrated by this "holier-than-thou" mindset of people who are all like "follow the science! Anything said that contradicts the CDC is dangerously wrong and cannot be spoken of for fear of the unwashed masses making the wrong decisions!" and then those unwashed masses turn out to be right and the CDC was wrong but nobody learns any lessons. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:32:48] - a: At a higher level, though, I'm not even trying to point fingers at people right now and bragging about how wrong they are. I just point this out so that maybe there is a little more humility in the future when it comes to things. Maybe not everything that goes against current expert guidance is horribly misguided and wrong and should be censored. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:29:30] - a: "maybe they just have at outsized impact on your feelings" It's not about my feelings, it's about the laws and regulations that get put into place. Governors are refusing to lift mask mandates. Viewpoints that are factually correct are in danger of getting censored. Schools are being kept closed seemingly against the science and hurting my kids and their learning. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:27:03] - mig: yah ok, cool. i think i agree with your (and paul's) assessment regardless: some people want zero risk. i guess i just missed the news on that i guess. i've mostly been watching what's coming out of the WH. they all stopped wearing masks the second the CDC made their recommendation. ~a
[2021-05-24 18:25:28] - I know there was at least 1 wapo piece on it, but paywalls and wapo's search is making it difficult to find. - mig
[2021-05-24 18:24:05] - mig: "teacher unions are not monolithic" dot dot dot "people are scared...meet feer with facts...teachers of this country understand that in-person education is really important"
yeah, seems like he's disagreeing with fairfax county, here, right? i haven't read the whole transcript. ~a[2021-05-24 18:22:40] - fairfax county? that's in virginia, right? ~a
[2021-05-24 18:21:47] - "You've had, you know, Fairfax County is saying they wouldn't recommend teachers going back to school until all kids are vaccinated. Is that -- and some people look at that and say, "Hey, they're moving the goalposts." - mig
[2021-05-24 18:21:34] - a: https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-february-21-2021-n1258472 from an interview with the head teacher union rep. - mig
[2021-05-24 18:18:01] - paul: "they seem to have outsized impact on the discourse and public policy these days" maybe they just have at outsized impact on your feelings. don't let them get to you. some random: "i only wear a mask because i don't want people to think that i'm a republican" this might make you super angry. but some of that is on you, man. i just turn the page. ~a
[2021-05-24 18:16:09] - paul: it was always going to go from "let's flatten the curve" to "let's try to get closer to herd immunity". that's definitely not goalpost moving, in my opinion. do some people have unrealistic expectations? yes. and, i don't care
~a[2021-05-24 18:15:34] - a: I try not to, but... I feel like even though I know they are a small minority, they seem to have outsized impact on the discourse and public policy these days. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:14:49] - mig: yeah, def link me the source there, i hadn't seen anything like that. seems overly cautious to me, but then again i'm not a teacher. ~a
[2021-05-24 18:14:41] - It just seems like we went too easily from "flatten the curve" to "any situation where one person can infect another has to be met with a complete shutdown". If COVID is truly going to be with us for the foreseeable future and we're going to need things like booster vaccine shots... then we need to get comfortable with SOME degree of risk. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:14:00] - if you want to include blue checks, that's totally fine, your point is taken. i mostly meant, yes there will always be dumb people on social media, hopefully you aren't over-counting their opinions. ~a
[2021-05-24 18:13:08] - And to Miguel's point, lots of school systems have had policies in place where a single infection means shutting all in-person learning down. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:12:23] - a: As an aside, why don't Facebook people count? Or even Twitter people (at least blue checkmarks). I get that they can give a skewed view of the general populace, but they're still people who can affect public policy (sometimes in an outsized way). -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:11:57] - a: I'm trying to find the source, but FCPS teachers were at one point demanding 100% vaccination of both teachers and students as a condition to going back to the classroom (and I'm sure they weren't the only one). That kind of feels like a "we must have zero risk" stance to me. - mig
[2021-05-24 18:11:09] - a: "who are these people?" I know some who have seriously questioned the removal of mask mandates (and not just randos on Twitter). I'm pretty sure journalists have too. In their defense (somewhat) is the idea that unvaccinated people are going to be going around maskless. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:08:24] - paul: ok. well then, let's open up schools. i'm down if the cdc is. if your complaint is that we were wrong, and we shouldn't have closed schools in the first place, or maybe that we kept them closed too long, maybe you're right, but like i said before, its an emerging threat. it could be we were too cautious, but it also could be that we weren't cautious enough. ~a
[2021-05-24 18:06:59] - paul: "Lots of people are arguing that we should all still be wearing them all the time even after vaccination" who are these people? i mean, i have heard of some businesses that can't determine who's vaccinated and who's not have some issues. and hopefully you're not talking about facebook/twitter, right? ~a
[2021-05-24 18:06:03] - a: I get how intuitively it seems like a bad idea (and I agree, kids are filthy), but I do believe the evidence (and the CDC) suggests otherwise? -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:05:14] - a: I think that's what we're seeing with the pushback against the new mask mandates, though. Lots of people are arguing that we should all still be wearing them all the time even after vaccination even though it seems like the chances of a mask helping in those scenarios are slim. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:05:02] - *cdc, oops. ~a
[2021-05-24 18:04:36] - paul: understood. ok. honestly i think having kids in school seems like a bad idea, but i'm not an epidemiologist either, so i'll trust what the cds suggests on this. ~a
[2021-05-24 18:03:15] - a: "this seems to be evidence against your position, not for it" Well, I meant when they DO find teachers who caught COVID, it is that they caught it outside of school and not in school. It's not that that exposure lead to an outbreak. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:03:09] - paul: nobody i know (except a bunch of people on twitter and facebook) have been arguing for zero risk. ~a
[2021-05-24 18:02:04] - a: I meant "kids are less likely than adults to spread it". -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:01:28] - a: "did flattening the curve work?" Presumably. No way we can ever prove it, I suppose. The point isn't whether it worked. The point is the moving goalpost from flattening the curve to (for some people) going for effectively zero risk. -Paul
[2021-05-24 18:00:13] - a: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/21/925794511/were-the-risks-of-reopening-schools-exaggerated Here are some studies about in-person school re-openings and the spread of COVID. -Paul
[2021-05-24 17:58:13] - paul: "a teacher going to a grocery store or something" this seems to be evidence against your position, not for it. shutting down the schools would have prevented such an outbreak? ~a
[2021-05-24 17:55:50] - paul: "kids are less likely to spread it" i see an ambiguity here: kids are less likely than adults to spread it? *or* kids are less likely to spread it at school than at home? i'm guessing you mean the first, but the second one seems to be what actually would matter. ~a
[2021-05-24 17:54:06] - paul: "I do think the idea of flattening the curve came from the CDC, though, no?" probably yes. did flattening the curve work? ~a
[2021-05-24 17:53:19] - a: "can kids transmit covid to other kids and adults?" I'm not an epidemiologist. but I believe the data has shown that kids are less likely to spread it and that schools have been one of the safer locations in terms of outbreaks. I think there is even data showing that often time infections that show up in schools get traced to activity outside of school (like a teacher going to a grocery store or something). -Paul
[2021-05-24 17:51:26] - "15 days came from trump, not the cdc or niaid" It doesn't matter much if it came from Trump or the CDC or whoever. I'm talking about any kind of info that was being spread regardless of the course. I do think the idea of flattening the curve came from the CDC, though, no? -Paul
[2021-05-24 17:49:25] - a: "desantis is still a total fuckup" In what way? As near as I can tell, considering all the factors like age of population and job losses and death rates and everything, Florida seems to have had one of the better COVID responses in the nation. -Paul
[2021-05-24 17:48:16] - paul: "racist anti-China hysteria" wait, was any of it anti-china hysteria? if i start with a conclusion, and try super hard to find evidence of that conclusion, sometimes i can get the correct answer, right? ~a
[2021-05-24 17:47:46] - a: "the masks thing is a change is recommendation of a completely new and emerging threat" Two reasons why I think it's a bigger deal: (1) I think Fauci has admitted they actually knew masks helped but lied to the public about it (2) big tech companies started censoring posts that went against CDC guidance, which meant that if the timing lined up, they would've been censoring posts advocating mask use. -Paul
[2021-05-24 17:47:00] - paul: can kids transmit covid to other kids and adults? if so, i think shutting down schools may have prevented millions of extra deaths. ~a
[2021-05-24 17:45:48] - a: Sure, and I'm not even trying to argue that it DID come from some Wuhan lab. I'm more pointing out the VERY different reactions that those theories are getting now versus... what? 14 months ago? when any type of suggestion like that got immediately shot down as racist anti-China hysteria. -Paul
[2021-05-24 17:45:17] - paul: yeah, most of that fake news is still fake news. everything except the cuomo thing gets a giant eye-roll from me. the masks thing is a change is recommendation of a completely new and emerging threat, i dunno who abbott is but desantis is still a total fuckup, and 15 days came from trump, not the cdc or niaid. ~a
[2021-05-24 17:44:31] - https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/09/09/fact-check-is-flu-harder-on-kids-than-covid-19/113718780/ Also interesting to me is when we will reckon with the growing evidence that shutting down schools for COVID may have been a horrible mistake. I know we scoff at the "COVID is just a bad flu" idea, but for kids, there's actual merit to that idea. -Paul
[2021-05-24 17:41:30] - paul: "what [the information] didn’t tell you was exactly why they got sick". this is what's been labeled by wsj as "stronger" intelligence. maybe more will come out, and i'll happily eat my words, but so far, i've seen zero evidence of an origination, an escape, something being engineered, or a bioweapon. i'll agree, though, that evidence is too strong of a word. ~a
[2021-05-24 17:41:28] - a: "what other fake news" Well, the about-face on the whole "don't wear masks, they actually do more harm than good" and "Cuomo is a hero for his COVID response and people like DeSantis and Abbott are killing their constituents" and "we just need 15 days to flatten the curve to lock everything down for a year plus" -Paul
[2021-05-24 16:59:06] - a: https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/us-intelligence-report-wuhan-lab-researchers-coronavirus-origin/index.html Sure, maybe "evidence" is too strong a word, but however you want to phrase it, the idea is getting treated a lot more seriously now. Previously, it was dismissed as a racist conspiracy. -Paul
[2021-05-24 16:32:59] - evidence? where? i see zero evidence it "originated" in the lab, which is already click-bate! 1. if it "escaped" from the lab, it didn't necessarily originate there. 2. there's still zero evidence it even escaped from the lab. 3. originated has a load of unspoken implication and conspiracy theories that there was engineering and intent. (worried i might regret this, but) what else? what other fake news . . . is still fake news? ~a
[2021-05-24 16:10:38] - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/24/gottlieb-says-theres-growing-circumstantial-evidence-that-covid-may-have-originated-in-a-lab.html It's kind of incredible to me how many of the things were dismissed as "fake news" early in the pandemic are turning out to either be correct or have a lot more evidence supporting it now. -Paul
[2021-05-24 16:07:21] - Daniel: I'm not usually tempted by the renegade options. While there are a few interrupts I wish I could do, most seem like needlessly being a jerk. I am ALWAYS tempted by femshep, though. One of these days... -Paul
[2021-05-24 15:56:15] - Paul: I'm making myself do the renegade fem shep this time. Though I had to learn there is a difference between renegade jerk and just saying no to a quest. I don't want to just say no but I want to be as much of a jerk about it as I can. -Daniel
[2021-05-24 15:53:45] - mig: Every time I start ME over again, I think: "Maybe this time I will play Femshep since everybody says she is superior.... nah, I'll play as male Shepard again"... then "Okay, but maybe I'll play renegade this time... nah, I don't like being an asshole"... then "maybe I'll romance somebody else? nah... Tali and Liara make better friends than lovers..." -Paul
[2021-05-24 15:33:29] - paul: naw, sorry that's fine. if others are calculating the nav, they're (probably) using the correct ratio of btc/share. ~a
[2021-05-24 15:32:58] - a: I wasn't calculating NAV myself, I was relying on others. Perhaps a mistake. -Paul
[2021-05-24 14:44:42] - paul: i sometimes multiply "btc per share" by "shares outstanding" and divide that by the total bitcoins. gbtc was at about 1% "market share" for a very long time (2014 to 2019). then during the pandemic, they jumped to ~4%. i have no idea why, but it is interesting to me. ~4% of all bitcoins are held in an, open to the public, very transparent, us, investment fund, that does nothing but hold bitcoins. https://i.imgur.com/llaaPTU.png ~a
[2021-05-24 14:29:17] - paul: be careful how you're calculating the discount. gbtc != 1/1000th of a bitcoin. i go here to look up the holdings per share. search for "BTC per share". they update that every month or so: it follows the 2%/year. gld and those kinds of etfs all work fairly similarly. ~a
[2021-05-24 14:25:48] - a: Ah, that had occurred to me, but I assumed I would be able to. Guess that answers that.
-Paul[2021-05-24 14:25:18] - paul: i'm not sure gbtc allows options. if it does, that's news to me, but i can't seem to look up option data. can you? ~a
[2021-05-24 14:25:09] - paul: the discount is normal. there *should* be a small discount. because of the 2%/year expense ratio. (see "gld" / etc for a bunch of examples of this). the reason there was a gbtc premium for years and years, was because they were the only game in town. ~a
[2021-05-24 13:55:40] - a: Are you familiar with buying calls to get leveraged upside to a stock? I am considering a bet (and I would consider it more a bet than an investment) of buying a long term call on GBTC (which is apparently trading at a discount to NAV?) -Paul
[2021-05-24 13:54:01] - a: I don't appear to be able to read the article, but I am intrigued by the idea of paying people to drive more slowly. -Paul
[2021-05-23 18:03:30] - i kinda hate this idea, but it did make me smile. the idea of speed-cameras being both a carrot and a stick, is smart, but i doubt it would work well in the real world: people will (continue to) slow down only at speed cameras. ~a
[2021-05-23 01:22:03] - mig: Why? I mean, I know it's not uncommon, but I never really understood the hate. -Paul
[2021-05-22 18:02:32] - paul: michelle says she doesn't like Ashley. - mig
[2021-05-21 20:36:17] - So, the real estate market seems to have gone bonkers. How to take advantage (without selling my home)? -Paul
[2021-05-21 00:58:36] - mig: I don't even know anymore. I suspect not, even as I also suspect people would argue Ashley is a white supremacist. -Paul
[2021-05-20 20:46:05] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Brooks
[2021-05-20 20:45:34] - paul: i do wonder though if opinions on Ashley would change if people knew <a href=“ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Brooks”>her voice actress is black.</a> - mig
[2021-05-20 13:02:01] - yah. part of me is like . . . bitcoin is not the end-all or be-all of cryptocurrencies. i also see other cryptocurrencies with interesting features that i like. and, i do, honestly, hold small amounts of some other cryptocurrencies. but at the end of the day, i have like 90% of my crypto holdings in bitcoin. in my eyes its the only serious cryptocurrency. ~a
[2021-05-20 12:57:51] - a: It's funny, I see Doge coin skyrocketing and all these other random cryptocurrencies and think, "How can people fall for this again? We saw the exact same thing just a few years ago." Then I realize that's probably how people feel about bitcoin.
-Paul[2021-05-20 12:57:04] - a: I'm sure that also proves they were right. -Paul
[2021-05-20 12:48:41] - paul: they guessed that it would go up or down. well they were wrong. it was neither. it went up *and* down. ~a
[2021-05-20 02:49:42] - mig: I mostly ignore it, other than to be slightly sad about how our poisonous political climate tries to suck the fun out of everything good in this world. -Paul
[2021-05-20 02:49:07] - mig: And I remember hearing from everybody that Ashley was super racist, although I could never quite figure out why, other than she felt like humans needed to deal with their own problems instead of solving the problems of aliens (which seems like a reasonable "mind your own business" mentality to me). -Paul
[2021-05-20 02:48:05] - mig: Heh, yeah, that's nothing new. I remember when people were pissed because some transgender character in the distant future dead-named themselves.... as if we can force our own standards of politeness on a science fiction future. -Paul
[2021-05-20 02:45:49] - a: Unfortunately, twitter and lots of other social networks are filled with traders and technical analysts if you try to follow investing topics. It's hard to separate them out. -Paul
[2021-05-20 02:45:00] - a: Yeah, I try to be open-minded, but I really don't understand technical traders. It makes no sense to me, and their "analysis" almost always ends up with: "things might go up... unless they go down". -Paul
[2021-05-19 21:32:32] - https://twitter.com/Bolverk15/status/1394768916619141129
[2021-05-19 21:18:49] - I'm seeing some thermo-nuclear hot takes on twitter about mass effect characters (primarily ashley and garrus) and am not sure whether to be super sad or super mad about it. - mig
[2021-05-19 19:41:17] - daniel: yah, its a misnomer if i've ever seen it. its technical just like "numerology" is about math or "astrology" is about stars or "scientology" is about science or "christian science" is about science? ~a
[2021-05-19 19:39:56] - Why is that technical in any way? -Daniel
[2021-05-19 19:39:46] - I don't understand why the word "technical" is used for "technical trading" since it seems very tea leaves-esqe. I made a chart. I drew some lines. I will now draw major conclusions off my lines. -Daniel
[2021-05-19 18:50:12] - really, technical trading pisses me off. ~a
[2021-05-19 18:49:38] - ha. yeah, i hope you put 0% faith in "technical traders". or . . . less than zero? i always figure the opposite of what they say will happen, will happen, unless (like you suggest), they say absolutely nothing, in which case i ignore them. ~a
[2021-05-19 18:48:53] - a: And I'm like... "wow, great analysis... so bitcoin will probably go up unless it goes down?" -Paul
[2021-05-19 18:47:40] - a: I can't get over how many "technical traders" I see in my twitter feed making comments about bitcoin where their analysis is basically: "charts say we could see a big move higher, unless it goes lower, in which case it could go a lot lower" -Paul
[2021-05-19 18:47:29] - "by any reasonably longish term measure it is still up huge" yah. ~a
[2021-05-19 18:46:42] - a: Yeah, I saw the big headlines this morning. I thought about buying more.... but it's still at like 2.5x from my most recent buy, so by any reasonably longish term measure it is still up huge. -Paul
[2021-05-19 18:45:38] - a: I did say a *little* less crazy. Also, this isn't the only person I've seen make these kinds of comments. -Paul
[2021-05-19 18:40:03] - which only brings us back to december 31st. but still, it's fairly dramatic. ~a
[2021-05-19 18:39:05] - the (recent) low (so far) is 31k. ~a
[2021-05-19 18:37:56] - paul: i'm not sure if you've been watching bitcoin today or not. ~a
[2021-05-19 17:10:04] - i guess he's linking to 60 minutes. maybe i should just watch that?
~a[2021-05-19 17:08:18] - paul: "[phillips] appeared on the drudge report, the rush limbaugh show, the o'reilly factor, hannity, and more" no tucker carlson? i mean this is as ad hominem as it gets, but it sounds like we should deeeefinitely trust his interpretations of pentagon reports. ~a
[2021-05-19 17:04:34] - graduated from liberty university. i mean, what? who is this guy? ~a
[2021-05-19 17:03:31] - no. ~a
[2021-05-19 14:34:04] - https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/1394654014596337667 So.... UFOs sightings seem a little less crazy now? -Paul
[2021-05-19 01:57:37] - Daniel: I've gotten a lot less interested in the NBA over the past few years, but I can't blame it much on my team sucking since most of the teams I root for have sucked for a good long time. Was curious if it was entirely Rockets related for you or maybe partially something else too. -Paul
[2021-05-19 01:56:08] - Daniel: I've gotten a little better at spreading my overlords some early in the game to try to scout early attacks or check for proxies. Didn't happen in that game, though. -Paul
[2021-05-19 01:54:50] - a: 90% of the time investing on margin might work. It's the 10% of the time that screws you.
-Paul[2021-05-19 01:54:10] - a: Hah, a few months ago (before it had become super obvious how crazy the real estate market had become), I gave some semi-serious thought to looking into investment properties since interest rates are so low and real estate seems like something that would benefit from high inflation. -Paul
[2021-05-18 17:58:04] - Paul: Mostly the Rockets. Losing Morey / DAntonio / Harden is a short period was painful. I'm not optimistic on our owner which leads to a bleak outlook. -Daniel
[2021-05-18 17:52:35] - paul: buy stocks on margin?
all "excellent" ideas. ~a[2021-05-18 17:49:11] - paul: mortgage. any time you're taking out a loan (which upro and a mortgage do). sell bonds: like, sell bonds you don't have. i.e. write bonds? ~a
[2021-05-18 17:48:00] - paul: upro. ~a
[2021-05-18 17:47:40] - a: Yeah, well, let me know when you find a way to short the USD.
-Paul[2021-05-18 17:46:46] - Daniel: Does the overlord go over the gold on the way to the opponent's base? -Paul
[2021-05-18 17:46:16] - Daniel: "I haven't paid a lot of attention to the NBA this year though" Because the Rockets haven't been good? Or for other reasons? -Paul
[2021-05-18 17:45:53] - that's not shorting the usd though. that's more of a neutral position. ~a
[2021-05-18 17:45:27] - a: "how do i short the usd?" Keep as little money as possible in USD and invest it in things like real estate / crypto / equities? -Paul
[2021-05-18 17:44:21] - a: "personal/property rights should trump states rights" Honestly, I'm not sure how it works anymore. It used to be that there were specific things that the SCOTUS would rule for (specific things the federal government can do versus the state governments), but with the expansion of the commerce clause and everything... you might be right. -Paul
[2021-05-18 17:20:49] - someone ask mark why he sent his overloard that direction. ~a
[2021-05-18 16:59:18] - paul: In theory putting the proxy at the gold would have it discovered way more of the time since that would be where the overlord would fly to go to our base. -Daniel
[2021-05-18 16:58:47] - a: What was frustrating was his overlord wasn't moving towards our bases which is the more "normal" way to send out your overlord. It was just flying off to a corner which normally wouldn't give any info but somehow this time did. UGH. -Daniel
[2021-05-18 16:57:32] - mig: They had a play in game for for the 8th seed last year and it was popular. I didn't realize they were expanding it this year. I haven't paid a lot of attention to the NBA this year though. I think the point is excitement! Trying to capture some of the one and done of NCAA / NFL playoffs. -Daniel
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