birb_cromble
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User ID: 3236
birb_cromble
11hr ago
I've recently been getting into fixed-income investing as a way to learn by doing. I'm investing a little bit of money each month (that I can afford to lose). If my after tax yield is a full 1% higher than I could get from my HYSA over a six month time period, with no principal loss of >5% over any thirty day window, I'll say that I have a layman's grasp on the topic. If not, I'll have to figure out what I did wrong.
So far I've been floored by the complexity of fixed income vs equities. I honestly don't know how people who do it professionally manage.
Does anybody else have an unconventional pastime right now?
birb_cromble
11hr ago
five way intersection
Half assed construction
Tell me you're in Western PA without telling me you're in Western PA.
birb_cromble
2d ago
My 55% serious solution is to redistrict via random parameters every six years, without any human input.
birb_cromble
2d ago
That's an astounding number. I can do a set of 5 400lb deadlifts.
At multiple points in my life, I have been able to run a sub-seven mile.
There is absolutely no way in hell I'd ever be able to do both of those things in succession, much less multiple miles at that pace.
birb_cromble
2d ago
...what?
birb_cromble
2d ago
That makes sense. I've been strength training for about that long and it's a lot easier than running.
birb_cromble
2d ago
How long did it take you to train for a marathon? I was pretty proud of myself for even making it to the end of a 10k last year.
birb_cromble
2d ago
After all the medical expenses and surprise home repairs have settled, spending is $1,039.65 higher than it was at the same point last year.
It's a little frustrating. I've cut my discretionary spending pretty deeply, and I can't seem to get ahead compared to last year.
- I've significantly cut down on eating out.
- No major entertainment purchases (eg: I don't need a new speaker cabinet)
- Groceries are basically just Aldi and Sam's club now.
- I'm traveling less overall.
Unfortunately:
- I've had a few big "block" expenses in the form of medical bills and home repairs.
- The traveling I am doing tends to be long distance, and gas prices are high right now.
I guess all I can really do for now is keep it up and hope I don't get any more big surprises this year, so my attempts at frugality overtake those expenses.
birb_cromble
3d ago
I sometimes wonder if Franklin Roosevelt didn't do more damage to the US than any other president. In some ways he was a proto-Trump. He saw problems, and rather than try to fix the system, bulldozed through it and made up justifications, then the rest of the government had to rationalize things post-hoc to maintain the veneer of a Republic.
birb_cromble
4d ago
That's fascinating. Can you elaborate on how and why that's the case?
birb_cromble
4d ago
I'm not going to go into detail, but the basic gist of it is that exchange ticker symbols tend to be short strings with a lot of overlap. Despite the textual overlap, each one has a distinct identity and they are not interchangeable. While some LLMs deal with that kind of thing better than others, they all tend to have problems that get worse as the context window fills up, and compaction tends to cause problems as well.
As a toy example that isn't much of a problem anymore, BND and BNDW are not the same thing. They have different holdings, different rates of return, and different tax implications. That little W at the end means a lot, but next token prediction can have a hard time with it.
birb_cromble
5d ago
I was always fond of The Secret World.
birb_cromble
5d ago
Successful assassins use sniper rifles
Most successful ones seem to be in conversational distance.
- Sirhan Sirhan: within arm's reach
- Charles Guiteau: inside a subway stop
- John Wilkes Booth: inside a theater box
- Jack Ruby: about six feet away
- Dan White: inside an office
- Gavrilo Princip: inside a car
- Mark Chapman: on the same sidewalk
- Vance Boelter: inside a house
- Carl Weiss: less than six feet away
- Luigi Mangione: on the same sidewalk
birb_cromble
5d ago
It's been a while, but my recollection is that only really happens for characters who are disillusioned by the culture and want to leave it.
birb_cromble
5d ago
I have only read two novels by Atwood, but the thing that seems to run through both of them is that she combines the subtlety of a pulp writer with the pretentions of a literary fiction author. It's a bizarre combination.
birb_cromble
5d ago
Opus 4.7 seems to handle the stock ticker tests I do better than 4.6. I assume it's the new tokenizer. Otherwise the only difference I notice is that it's more expensive to run on the same thinking level
birb_cromble
5d ago
You mean other than changing the core premise?
If forced to work in the framework as it stands, I'd probably need to see a mix of human agency (possibly by resurrecting the early and largely abandoned concept of Referrers), and introducing more AI entities that are less... smarmily dickish? The only AI character who seems to genuinely care about biologicals on a personal and moral level is Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints, who other AI consider to be psychotic.
birb_cromble
5d ago
What are the laws on what constitutes a firearm? I've seen that some Scandinavian countries consider the barrel to be the primary serialized part, because it's pressure bearing and harder to manufacture than a receiver.
birb_cromble
5d ago
The best way I can explain it is that it feels like I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream with better PR.
You have vast inscrutable non-human intelligences that run every aspect of society. It's ok though - they're really looking out for you (as long as you weren't one of the 851.4 billion). Don't worry about the fact that your body was manipulated before your birth to alter things as fundamental as your sexual preferences (which has frequently been a horror trope), or that it wil change your emotions by reflexively pumping drugs into your bloodstream. It's all for your own good. Trust us. You live in a perfectly free society. Agents of the inscrutable beings would never do things like engage in naked blackmail. That would be gauche. Even if they did do it, it's really for the best. Nothing to worry about.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. --CS Lewis
birb_cromble
5d ago
The amount of money they pay for the privilege is eye-watering, so it works out.
birb_cromble
5d ago
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When attempting to judge the political fallout of an American assassin's attempt on an American president's American life on American soil, do as the Americans do.
birb_cromble
5d ago
At $1.99 before Valve takes its cut, that's not going to pay for many billable hours from a lawyer.
birb_cromble
5d ago
For those of you who have read the culture novels - do you consider them to be utopian or dystopian?
I was discussing them with a friend recently and he views them as profoundly utopian. On the other hand, I view them as one of the best examples of a soft dystopia that I've ever read.
birb_cromble
6d ago
I think we recently had to have a stern-yet-loving talk with a customer who was still resisting an upgrade after eleven years.
Thanks!
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