RickJWagner

Please explain ‘unipolar world order’.

You’re right. Casinos are exhibit one.

With the right tribal leadership, generational wealth building is a real possibility.

String setters are on the way. They’re far cheaper to buy and run.

Bowlers hate the idea, but bowlers hated synthetic lane surfaces, urethane lane surfaces, and even lacquer surfaces before that. They also loved their old urethane balls, super soft plastic and dodo balls. All those changes went into place against the wishes of the bowlers, but that didn’t matter. Economics wins, every time.

String setters are on the way.

If Magnus concluded every match with a rowing/dancing motion, it would be different.

This may be localized. I live in a LCOL area, my oldest son is 27. He and his wife have modest salaries ( teacher and clerical ), own 2 newish cars and a midsized house. They eat out a lot, subscribe to streaming services, etc.

They’ve got it better than I did at their age.

Maybe it’s worse elsewhere.

There’s a great ( and true ) story about the song “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”.

Art Garfunkel had studied architecture, and asked Paul Simon to write a song about Wright. Paul Simon didn’t know anything about Wright, so instead he made the song about Garfunkel. What Garfunkel didn’t realize was that Simon was singing about ditching Garfunkel and going solo, which is what happened.

Garfunkel has talked about how painful that realization was. He still performs the song, because it’s just a great tune.

Supply chain security is not easy, but it’s an important defense. Red Hat has done some good work in this area.

My favorite gadget watch is my Soundbrenner, with powerful vibrating metronome. I don’t actually use it for practice much ( I use a phone metronome for that ), but if I’m going to be idle for a while I’ll dial up a nice brisk tempo. Just like that, I’m instantly doing no-instrument practice, mapping out songs in my head.

It was chilling how government and courts squashed musical piracy by making very public examples of a few violators.

Here’s an example, a Minnesota woman who was fined $1.9 million dollars for 24 downloaded songs.

I’d suspect lobbying from the entertainment industry was a factor.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/06/18/woman-ordered-to-pa...

Retired Red Hatter here.

When IBM bought Red Hat in the late twenty teens, they offered us a 10% discount on the stock as an ESPP. At the going price, the stock already had a 5% dividend. It seemed like a great deal.

Our internal mailing list ( the late great Memo List ) had a lively discussion. The majority didn’t see the raging bargain ahead of them. Most seemed to like the safe path— buy the stock, then immediately sell it and invest the proceeds in an index fund. It’s not bad advice, but it deconcentrated your bet.

The index has had some fantastic years since. But I think IBM did even better. The stock went from low one hundreds to over 300 for a while. Even after this big drop, you’d still be far, far ahead. You still get the dividend, too.

In this case the only way to lose was to not play.

Reminder: Jack Bogle, the man who popularized the index fund, democratized wealth accumulation, and made more millionaires than anyone in history, has a famous saying for those pondering this situation.

“Nobody knows nothing.”

Should’ve mentioned the famous tv Hemi Cuda driven by Nash Bridges.

I lived for a while in Tucson, Arizona.

Days could be brutally hot ( easily over 100 F ), but there was little humidity. My transportation was a motorcycle ( with additional heat radiating off the engine ), so mid often feel a little uncomfortable, but it was definitely livable.

Interestingly, homeowners often used evaporative ‘swamp coolers’ instead of AC. A big benefit of low humidity.

I read a very interesting AMA from an Indian woman that had lived in India, Canada and the US.

Takeaway:

Canada is great cost wise, but poor in wait times.

India offers a smorgasbord— you can pay very little, or you can pay more for better service. You get what you pay for.

The US is worst cost wise, probably second to India in wait time, but the best if you have anything outside a plain vanilla medical condition.

Congratulations, and welcome to America.

Now you have an interesting story to tell your grateful descendants. :)

It’s starting to look like THC ( found in gummies, too ) causes vascular problems.

Anecdotally speaking, I don’t see this happening.

My oldest son is a teacher, married to a clerical worker. Both salaries are modest.

They have a nice house, two reliable cars, and eat out several times a week. They are living better than I did at their age, considerably.

We do live in a LCOL area, though.

South Dakota, too.

I don’t care if it is poison. Never gonna give yew up.

Have you seen the picture of Alex Pretti kicking the taillights out of a moving vehicle carrying federal agents? The guy was not stable. Who knows what he might have done with that gun?

Protesting is one thing. Going looking for trouble is another.

Noteworthy: since the films release, we have much fewer heat related deaths, polar bear population has doubled, there are fewer hurricanes and less wildfires.

This doesn’t mean climate change isn’t real, of course. It’s just not panning out as predicted earlier.

Ask AI if Reddit has more phony political content from the left or right. Follow up on the sources it gives you.

You should come away with a different point of view.

I think so, too.

An exotic disease breaks out right on top of a lab where disease cultivation occurs. Then government coverups begin.

Future generations will be amazed that anyone dismissed this very, very strong possibility.

Also— in a few years, when the politicization has faded, we need a comprehensive study on which countries took the right steps at the time. ( How much shutdown was beneficial. )

You forgot the /s.

Numerous studies have shown left wing bias at Reddit. Average sub moderators trend significantly farther left than average readers, too.

If they keep writing articles about this, eventually nobody will believe them.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

Two important things missing:

1) You will have technicians working for you that will earn more than you do. They will often act like prima donnas.

2) ( Advice given by a friend that was an IC, then a manager, then an IC again ): “They nip at you from the top, and they nip at you from the bottom.” Meaning that your manager will gripe at you, as well as the people under you griping at you.

Looking at you, Reddit political posts.

Yes, this is a problem. Look at a typical truck from the 90s or so, they are tiny compared to today’s trucks.

The same thing is true of cars. Today’s civic is as big as an accord used to be. There is no Del Sol.

We need to turn the incentive knobs that worked so successfully on consumption so we now work on vehicle size.

Also, about the center of gravity discussion: I used to have an old friend that spent decades in business running a body shop. I asked him once what was the worst animal for causing vehicle damage. ( This was in rural South Dakota. I was thinking cow, horse, maybe bison. ) Nope. He said most animals would go up and over the hood, just like the people in the article. He said pigs were the worst. They stay low, going right into the car and not bouncing over. Often resulting in a total loss for that car.

As a banjo player, I have heard perfect pitch defined this way:

“Perfect Pitch: When you throw a banjo into a trash bin and it lands on an accordion.”

All this at a time when world poverty is in continual decline, medical science reaches continual new heights, crime is in multi-year decline, etc.

It is often said that the average person today has better food, shelter, health services, etc. today than a king had just a short while ago.

Bad news sells, though. Don’t buy it.