madballster

2015 observational study suggests these results are not unique to Covid: ""Our research shows a correlation between hospitalisation due to infection and impaired cognition corresponding to an IQ score of 1.76 lower than the average. People with five or more hospital contacts with infections had an IQ score of 9.44 lower than the average. The study thus shows a clear dose-response relationship between the number of infections, and the effect on cognitive ability increased with the temporal proximity of the last infection and with the severity of the infection." Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150521095016.h...

The linked article did not say climate research is fraud. It says the climate implications of permafrost thawing are complex and very difficult to model.

I found Firefox to be much more response when operating lots of tabs and opening and closing tabs quickly with keyboard shortcuts on Windows. My direct comparison is Microsoft Edge (Chromium based) which is noticeably sluggish on CTRL-W and then trying to type a new address.

Even after days of usage, my Firefox process might grow to 3-4gb of ram usage with no noticeable performance penalty.

Have you found a better alternative for someone who trades a lot? I'd like to drill down into trade results per symbol and get ROI statistics and visualize past buy/sell points.

Spitznagel runs a fund that specializes on so-called "tail-risk events", i.e. he profits from extremely unlikely economic scenarios such as hyperinflation or violent economic crashes. He profits more the more assets he has under management, because he charges his clients a performance fee of probably around 20% of profits. So part of his job is to constantly find new investors by telling them that the worst economic crisis is just around the corner. And how he he just happens ot have the right solution.

This is an old European disease. Corporate profits are often seen as an adverse result; of consumers being taken advantage of unfairly. Taxing excess profits beyond what are already high tax rates is popular amongst voters (e.g. see poll results in the UK, 2022). However, this lowers the appeal for new entrants to enter these markets to compete for these excess profits through better and more efficient products and services. If one wants free enterprise and reap its benefits one has to allow high profits for companies and see if competition takes care of the "problem".

That is a very narrow and frankly sweepingly incorrect description of "CEOs" or "companies". They're not all the same. I for one (alongside many other investors) carefully study incentive programs and compensation oversight executed by the board of directors. There are many thoughtful companies (and CEOs) who e.g. align over very long-term targets, such as '5 year return on capital". Investors have found out a long time ago that incentivizing by short-term measures such as share price (or revenues, or EPS) can bring about very adverse long-term investing outcomes.

I looked through the new features list, but couldn't find the "conversational" threads feature which was on the roadmap for Q1 2023. Is this will coming or am I just missing it?

Ballou's criticism of PE fund managers being skilled in finance but not in operations or engineering is missing the point. A good PE fund manager understands the ins and outs of capital allocation and its long-term effects on corporate performance. A typical engineer or product company founder does not, and those who do are the exception. PE companies are never operators of businesses. They find (ideally) competent management teams and advise them in capital allocation. Ballou alleges PE buys to pillage and throw away the corpse. In truth, PE buys to sell, that's the only way to make good returns.

In a perfect world, they'd buy an under-managed, undervalued company, where necessary throw out management, bring in competent management, perform bolt-on M&A where it makes sense, improve KPIs, then sell a rejuvenated and much more competitive company 5-10 years later at a much higher multiple. Examples? Ingersoll-Rand, Brenntag, SS&C. Unfortunately, Ballou does not talk about the positive outcomes because they don't make headlines.

That however is unfortunately true for quotes from many of history's dark figures, be it Hitler, Stalin or Nero.

While that sounds concerning, I have to question the underlying thesis: Does private ownership always short-change customers, like the subtitle insinuates? "hospice agencies are now for-profit, putting profit maximization over patient well-being."

Do hotels or restaurants put profit maximization over customer well-being? If they do, they will be out of business rather soon. If the hospices have competition and comparability (for patients or their loved ones) then the same mechanism should work over time.

Should normalize this to working days & hours. Germany has up to 6 weeks of paid vacation per year vs. ~10 days in the US.

In parts of popular media, there seems to be an assumption of a very high certainty for an impending "economic productivity revolution thanks to LLM AI". Case studies like this one show the future isn't so clear.

The result of this optimism in big cap tech companies is that many smaller cap shares in industries such as financial services, insurance or industrial distribution are trading for historically cheap valuations. It appears there is very little investor interest in them. I think it's a wonderful time to be a long-term investor.

I absolutely love the immersive background audio and sound FX in the game. It's fantastic listening on headphones.

A slap on the wrist. And the EU will be parading this around as a major win against "the evil tech conglomerates".

It is mind-boggling how this business with $600 million in annual revenues is still barely breaking even on a free cash flow basis.

You have to carefully analyze if you absolutely need to live in Munich - the most expensive city in Germany - in order to run and build your startup once you graduate. Is the extra cost and low quality of life worth it over the long term? There are dozens of smaller cities in Northern or Eastern Germany which offer very affordable living and office space while still being very attractive to young families.

If there is residual value here (as some claim), why can't the owner sell the business? No buyer willing to assume lawsuit risk?

Why - unless you're being sarcastic? Looks to me like the system is working Early warning system pushed the bank to unwind positions before hurting depositors. Regulation appears to be working well, for once.

I vividly recall seeing a feature on TV in the mid 80s where they were discussing future technologies for the year 2000. One of them was the cashier-less store: We'd all put in our grocery items in the carts and then the payment would be automagically calculated, no cashier or manual scanning necessary. They assumed it would be microchip based, the chip embedded in packaging. What ever happened to this? Why did this idea fail?

Stephen Wolfram has a way of explaining and teaching that is unique. What a wonderful read.

I have always wondered if the 'big productive urban center' (like London, or Paris, or Warsaw) is a boon or a curse for the 300 miles around it. Does it soak up young talent and capital from the surrounding areas, leaving the latter behind and exposed to deindustrialization, demographic problems and poverty? Or - through network effects in science, technology and productivity, does the metropolis create excess wealth that indirectly finds its way back into the rural areas, negating negative effects of the pull-effect? What are some good books on this topic?

I'd like to counter the notion the EU today is first and foremost an economic union. The EU can not simply be replaced by "a bunch of free trade agreements". Helmut Kohl has always maintained the EU was also founded to finalize borders and forever rule out another war between member states. Today, it is a union of common values and peace first and foremost. No one (in their right mind) is discussing border disputes between France and Germany - although at least three bitter wars were fought in the last 150 years. Or between other countries for that matter.

It does not matter much on what side of the border one lives. And if it does to someone, they're free to move. Borders are now settled once and for all. If a nation joins the EU this is an accepted fact - and no, an exception like a nationalist, populist Hungary publically dreaming of access to the Adriatic Sea does not invalidate the line of thought.

What I find interesting is nobody complained about Musk's social media antics when he proclaimed himself to be Technoking of Tesla or when he hyped dogecoins with diamond hands. Both evidence of bizarre behavior for a CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation. But only now - after the stock took the proverbial Acapulco cliff-dive - are investors condemning his 'erratic tweets hurting the stock'.

Germany has a floating LNG terminal coming online in December. The author of the article intentionally ignores these.

Could go a long way to explain the “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” figure of speech.

Exactly this. We already have digital currencies. They are called US Dollar and Euro. They exist as numbers in bank accounts, transfers are safe and very efficient.

Many of the "Covid-19 increases risk of XYZ" popular media articles lack baseline comparisons to other virus infections. (Disclaimer: Yes, we know Covid-19 isn't the flu, and it's more deadly.) My point is: how much does heart-disease risk increase post-Covid compared to say post-Influenza? Is it comparable or is the risk magnitudes larger than with other virus infections? This is an important benchmark, I understand scientific journals don't cater to laypeople but popular media does.

From CDC website: "Studies have shown that flu illness is associated with an increase in heart attacks and stroke. A 2018 study found that the risk of having a heart attack was 6 times higher within a week of a confirmed flu infection."

It's only once you compare the performance of Twitter to other tech shares and realize the last 12 years were the biggest tech bull market in history. And Twitter shows zero return.