rkbabang

It is pretty unlikely we are the only intelligent beings in the universe, but I think it is far more likely that 1) we are the only intelligent beings in the Milky Way Galaxy; and 2) No beings exist anywhere with the technology for intergalactic travel. In which case we are for all intents and purposes very alone.

Back in the mid-90s I worked for NYNEX, now Verizon, as a splice technician in Massachusetts for a summer when I was in college. It was basically climbing poles and splicing large cables together, then installing new drop wires to the houses. They were replacing a lot of the old cables in the city, so the linemen would hang the new ones and we'd go and splice them together then connect the houses, then the linemen would come back and remove the old cables. They were doing the same thing downtown where everything was underground, but as a college student summer hire I wasn't allowed to work on the underground stuff as all the old cables underground were lead jacketed. The guys working down in the manholes would get tested once per month and if their lead levels where high, they'd have to get treated by a doctor and stay out of the manholes until their lead levels were back to normal. There were guys who had high lead levels multiple times per year.

I've been buying and stocking up on lead and copper for years, but not for superconductors.

Exactly. Unexplained things would have been angels or demons 500 years ago, it would of been the Gods 2000 years ago or maybe fairies or gnomes before that, its space aliens now. It is possible likely that our understanding of existence is still extremely primitive and that over the next 500 years we will grow our scientific understanding more than we have in the last 500 years. Maybe Alex Jones's "interdimensional beings" will be closer to the truth of what has visited us than lifeforms from another star system or maybe something else entirely. I have a feeling (based on nothing but my opinion) that intelligent life is rarer than most assume. I base this on the fact that in >2B years we are the most advanced species to evolve on earth and if an comet hadn't punched the dinosaurs ticket it might not have happened at all ever. Also it would be so easy for humanity to wipe itself out even now long before we are capable of interstellar travel and making ourselves extinct will become easier and easier as time goes on. Other intelligent species must hit the point where they can kill themselves off long before they hit the point where they can travel between the stars. I think it is possible we are the most intelligent species which exists in the Milkyway Galaxy at this current time or if there are others they too may kill themselves off before mastering interstellar travel.

The thing I like about Rogan's show is that he interviews a wide range of people from all walks of life and lets them talk. Yeah, he makes a lot of stupid comments and asks some dumb questions, but over the course of a 3 hour show the guests gets a chance to say everything they wanted to say. Rogan admits he's no expert on anything and he doesn't come off as having any type of addenda. Listening to more "polished" mainstream interviewers you mostly get leading questions with no time for the guest to properly respond, the hosts often arrogantly think they know as much or more about the topic as the experts, they often edit the show before airing it so you hear only what they want you to, and of course there are some people that the mainstream shows just won't interview at all because they don't want you to hear the other side of some topics. You can get a lot of value from Rogan's show around a bit of nonsense.

Yes, I would recommend “The Bitcoin Standard” as the place to start. “The Fiat Standard” is also excellent as it contrasts Bitcoin with what we have now. After that if you want a more technical book about the mechanics of it “Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain” by Andreas Antonopoulos is excellent, but maybe more technical than you need.

Exactly what I just said. Look at raven coin. No promises, no issuance, no premine, it is a mined coin just like Bitcoin. There are a lot of coins like this. To say only Bitcoin is not a security is just asinine.

Coinbase CEO Reveals SEC Told the Company To Delist Everything but Bitcoin https://www.btctimes.com/news/coinbase-ceo-reveals-sec-told-the-company-to-delist-everything-but-bitcoin "Armstrong stated that the SEC reportedly expressed its belief that "every asset other than Bitcoin is a security." He added that “we said, well how are you coming to that conclusion? Because that’s not our interpretation of the law.” He recalled the regulator's stance, saying, "we’re not going to explain it to you; you need to delist every asset other than Bitcoin." That is a crazy opinion by any definition. If Bitcoin is not a security, then neither are the Bitcoin clones or bitcoin-like coins such as Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dodgecoin, Ravencoin, etc....

Of course you can't completely discount the theory that this is some type of phycological operation the intelligence industrial complex is perpetrating on the American people for some reason. Such as to distract us from something else which they are doing or something else which is happening. Occam's razor. What's more likely? That UFOs exist and aliens have been captured by the government, or that someone for some reason wants you to think that? I'm keeping an open mind about all possibilities.

Charles Munger is 99 so you could be a billionaire with many decades yet to live.

This made me laugh today. I wasn't sure if I should put this here or in the What are you listening to thread, but I figured it's more funny than good, so here. Zuck tending bar while Musk sings. Sorry to RickRoll everyone but here it is:

NFT's for sure. I think the concept of the NFT will be a useful one someday as a sort of registry of deeds on the blockchain. But the thing you are registering your ownership of is what holds the value, not the NFT itself. If all you are registering ownership of is a bad picture of a cartoon ape, all you will own is a bad picture of a cartoon ape.

No problem. I think it's an important work. If the US doesn't take heed of his advice, I'm sure people from other countries have obtained copies already and have read it. In the real world you can't really put something that has been available for months on the internet into the memory hole.

Prices have gone up for the hard copy on eBay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/256159485450?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=F8a-jiTwTwO&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=s9pZNA71Qqq&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Here’s a downloadable link to the pdf from someone’s google drive. Who knows how long this will be available. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xF6qA8PUHohxn3gwAtzz7oPmR2WGl7vK/view?usp=drivesdk

https://aul.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01AUL_INST/u9e6on/alma995901882406836 Out of print. But the above link connects with an online copy. Interesting. It is still available at the above link, but apparently not at MIT anymore and Lowery has been "ordered" to stop talking about it publicly. https://twitter.com/JasonPLowery/status/1684637080029196288?s=20

I agree. I'm basically thinking the Kuppy+Bitcoin portfolio (home/land/real assets related, oil, uranium, bitcoin) is the place to be the next 5+ years.

The home you live in is different than most investments and needs different accounting. You can do the above with an investment property but not your 1st home. With an investment property you can either buy it or not and put all of the money elsewhere. But with a 1st home you don't have that option unless you plan to sleep under an overpass or in a van down by the river. You need to track and subtract what you would otherwise have had to pay for rent if you choose not to buy the home. And that rent would have increased every year indefinitely.

Making large donations to the Democratic Party really pays off in the end. Think of it as criminal prosecution insurance. Prosecutors Drop Campaign Finance Charge Against Sam Bankman-Fried https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/business/sam-bankman-fried-campaign-finance-charge.html

Yes, it kind of does make sense for a retirement account where no taxes are owed. If you think about it it is the taxable accounts that don't make much sense other than for keeping track of taxes owed according to the US tax code. Those shares don't cost you anything, so why would they have a cost basis? Fidelity marks all dividend reinvested shares as cost basis $0 on all of my tax deferred accounts (IRA, Roth IRA, and 401k brokerage link accounts).

Absolutely. I use my sous vide circulator 1-3x per week. After I'm done getting it to the correct internal temperature I either sear it in a hot pan with a little bacon grease, or with my torch ( https://www.etsy.com/listing/918859663/culinary-cooking-torch-searing-sous-vide ), or my 1500 degree F infrared searer (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089Y1HXSF).

No problem. It's interesting, I've never owned nothing but dividend reinvested shares for any of my positions before in my IRA. It gets the Total Gain percentage wrong. It says "0.00%" rather than "∞%" or just "n/a" or something.

Sold AAPL and bought more FFH. I've now sold all of my AAPL stock that I purchased since 2014 (and then some) and only own some of the shares that I've received from having dividend reinvestment on my account in the last 9 years. This is a little over 150 shares with basically a 0 cost basis (because it is in my IRA Fidelity marks these shares as $0 cost basis). I'm going to hold those forever whether or not I ever invest more in AAPL again. AAPL has been a great investment for me, but the price seems way to rich for me here.

Why a non-revocable trust with huge setup fees and ongoing yearly fees? As stahleyp says above, If your assets are under $10M or so, wouldn't just a regular revocable trust with yourself and your wife as trustees be sufficient? I set one of these up for about $3K in one time legal fees the transferred ownership of both my homes and all of my brokerage & savings accounts into the trust's name. I left my checking account in our personal names because there is never more than a few $K over what we need to pay this month's bills in there anyway. I don't know if things are more complicated depending on which state you live in though. I live in NH with no state income, capital gains, or inheritance taxes to worry about.

I for one support our AI overlords. See you at the beach. https://twitter.com/GhostofWhitman/status/1679713330036875264?s=20