Pelagic

Most of the homes, especially in the Keys are built to avoid that. For instance where I'm at is roughly 8 ft above see level. And the units are an additional 10-12 ft elevated. Most of the complexes and homes look like the one in this link: https://blog.iese.edu/doing-business/2016/08/22/climate-change-and-the-florida-keys/ End of the day, if you are hugely concerned about global warming and not bullish on dredging/seawall type engineering solutions, its probably not the place to buy property. If you arent, there is hardly anywhere like it IMO, especially of you like fishing, scuba, island life, etc. So, Gregmal how much is the approx. property insurance ( including wind and flood) for your ~ 500k condo? Risk perception is subjective, but insurance rates aren’t, imo. Isn't Florida flood insurance subsidized by NFIP? https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-com-flood-insurance-fix-20190102-story.html It creates an interesting dynamic in Keys real estate to say the least. The list price is identical whether you're buying as a primary residence or vacation home but the price of flood insurance varies significantly as does the allowable rates of increase per year. $10K+ a year for flood coverage for a second home in the Keys is not uncommon. It's a complicated issue since if you advocate for what many view as the logical course of not extending any subsidies to second home buyers, you limit the pool of properties covered significantly and concentrate risk. Like with most other risks associated with storms, new construction practices limit the risk significantly but there's plenty of older houses built on wood stilts that have survived flooding in the keys too. EDIT: This site is kind of interesting, plug in a random address in the Keys from Zillow or something and see the flood risk it assigns. https://floodfactor.com/

It's interesting seeing how the specter of hurricanes is viewed outside of FL. If you're right dead center in the 15 mile or so swath of a major when it makes landfall, it's not going to be pretty and you should absolutely evacuate. But the chances of that being the case are actually pretty low. For instance Key West has only taken one direct hit since the mid 1800s, Hurricane Floyd as a Cat 1 in 1987. A fascinating graphic of all recorded hurricane tracks, I filtered down to Monroe County (Florida Keys) and filtered hurricane intensity to include everything over Cat 1. https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/#map=5.64/24.499/-78.342&search=eyJzZWFyY2hTdHJpbmciOiJNb25yb2UgQ291bnR5LCBGbG9yaWRhLCBVU0EiLCJzZWFyY2hUeXBlIjoiZ2VvY29kZWQiLCJtYXRjaCI6InBhcnRpYWwiLCJvc21JRCI6IjEyMTA3NDYiLCJjYXRlZ29yaWVzIjpbIkg1IiwiSDQiLCJIMyIsIkgyIl0sInllYXJzIjpbXSwibW9udGhzIjpbXSwiZW5zbyI6W10sInByZXNzdXJlIjp7InJhbmdlIjpbMCwxMTUwXSwiaW5jbHVkZVVua25vd25QcmVzc3VyZSI6dHJ1ZX0sImJ1ZmZlclVuaXQiOlsiTWlsZXMiXSwic29ydFNlbGVjdGlvbiI6eyJ2YWx1ZSI6InllYXJzX25ld2VzdCIsImxhYmVsIjoiWWVhciAoTmV3ZXN0KSJ9LCJhcHBseVRvQU9JIjp0cnVlLCJpc1N0b3JtTGFiZWxzVmlzaWJsZSI6dHJ1ZX0= 20 storms since 1852. Yes there's a risk but it should be put into context, and modern construction techniques have gone a long way toward mitigating that risk.

Do lower rates allow insurers to charge higher premiums? Presumably lower rates = healthier economy, lower expenses in terms of mortgage/car payments etc, more consumers seeking insurance on additional assets (boats, RVs, vacation homes, etc.) if consumers have more money available to them are insurers able to capture it in terms of slightly higher premiums? Or does price competition between insurers erase any potential gains?

Signed up for the free trial of Apple TV to watch Greyhound. Tom Hanks brings his A game and it's a good, albeit hurried, snapshot of one encounter during the Battle of The Atlantic. However, what I found on Apple TV and am absolutely loving is their alternate history For All Mankind. It's set in a theoretical world where the space race, primarily the Apollo program, continues on for years in an intense battle between the US and USSR with a rush to set up a permanent base on the moon. Awesome show and an interesting what if that stays within the realm of scientific possibility for the most part.

Congress needs to pass the PRIME act. Vegas had an interesting situation. Apparently many farms around there rely on food scraps to feed pigs. Well with everything closed the pigs were not getting enough food and beginning to starve. Since these pigs were not a specific weight the farms were not allowed to slaughter them for consumption. Instead, they had to euthanize hundreds of thousands of pigs and discard them. This is happening all over and I personally know a farmer who has been dumping milk on the ground because schools are closed and he can't sell the milk directly to individuals legally. And he had to euthanize 2,000 pigs for similar reasons. I helped him spread the milk (now used for fertilizer) on his fields a few months back and good lord there is nothing worse smelling than that. From what I understand, pigs had a similar situation to oil where there was no available storage and with processing facilities closed farmers around the country were forced to euthanize millions of pigs. Pig farmers don't really have a way to store excess pigs since farms specialize in age groups and once pigs age out of the farm they go on to the next farm or to the processing facility. A really unfortunate situation compounded by a number of laws that prevent farmers from selling pigs directly to consumers, butchering them themselves, or for smaller processing facilities to sell to consumers. I think when there is time government at all levels should take a serious look at some of the food laws that have been enacted for our "safety". Federally regulated processing plants are a clear chokepoint in the system.

Doesn't this speak to the quality of troops and leadership in the region on both sides? Why were Indian officers not able to stop their troops from entering Chinese territory seeking revenge? And why did a modern military suffer ~40 casualties to troops armed with blade weapons and batons? Scary to imagine a larger regional war starting over what sounds like it is essentially a local feud between border guards.

The real savings are when you look at what Russia was charging the US to ferry astronauts to the ISS. It was something like $80M per astronaut so $160M per launch with US astronauts. As an American I had heard/read very little about SpaceX's primary competitor Arianespace but the price war between the two is fascinating and it will be interesting to see what Arianespace comes up with. Just the ability for US companies to launch from the Cape as opposed to French Guiana has to translate into significant savings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition

I think it scales if & when autonomous driving takes hold. You buy shares to pass on to your grandkids. edit: I meant re: Uber & Lyft. Why would Uber & Lyft want automated driving? If they have an automated driving fleet, they are going to have to buy automated cars. These cars are not going to be cheap. Then they are going to have to insure them. Then they are going to have to fuel them. Then they are going to to have to maintain them. Then they are going to have to replace them. This is going to cost billions of dollars, perhaps even tens of billions of dollars. Where is Uber going to get all that capital? They sure as $@#% going to do it out of retained earnings. That then leaves borrowing the money OR selling more stock. NOW, Uber's drivers do all of that for them. Uber's drivers are providing a LOT of capital by providing the vehicles. At current pricing, or anything near it, Uber's business model simply does not work. My thought was for a distant future where there are no human drivers and the business of these guys changes to dispatch & operation as a service for whoever winds up providing the vehicles. Just noodling around on a scenario that I'll likely never live long enough to see. It'd still be in their best interest to let suckers like us buy the cars and then let them earn some money through their platform while we're not using them. This would be an ideal scenario for a lot of users where you have total use of your car when you want it but it can also bring in some income when you're not using it. The idea that Uber or Lyft will pivot to be massive self driving fleet owners has always struck me as far fetched. It seems like a massive capital outlay for little if any additional margin on each trip. We already know many drivers are underestimating wear and tear on their cars and barely breaking even when all costs are factored in, why would Uber/Lyft pass up a good thing like this. My cynical theory is that self driving cars and a massive fleet of them will require hundreds of billions more in investor capital a fraction of which will fund salaries for employees and buoy the stock price for a while longer allowing more value to be extracted by current shareholders.

Reminds me of something that happened to me a few years back. Where I live the practice of Santeria is somewhat common. It mostly takes the form of fruit and baked goods placed around palm trees as a fertility offering - I've seen perfectly edible looking cakes from local bakeries that would probably cost $50 placed on the ground. The other, less pleasant, variety comes in the form of sacrificed animals, usually chickens and rarely goats. Accompanying the offering is almost always a bag of coins in cloth or paper bags. When I'm cleaning up an offering someone placed in the street near my house (I worry about my dogs eating them and they start to smell awful) I usually just toss the bag of coins after checking it for bills, especially if it's too gross to separate from the rest of the offering. However one time I was cleaning one up and the paper bag that the coins were in fell apart and out fell not only coins but several hundred dollars, it ended up being over $700 - so yes (hundred) dollar bills do occasionally lie in the streets around here. Aren't religions fascinating?

I've been frequenting stores with self checkout more, and actively choosing locations that have self checkout. Probably irrelevant in the grand scheme of covid risk factors but I figure it's one less interaction, although most stores have placed plexiglass barriers for cashiers. Parks opened back up here for a limited number of activities today. Interestingly the county hired several hundred additional park staff to enforce social distancing in parks. Wondering how long these jobs and the restrictions they're enforcing will last. Catching covid outdoors here would be something of a challenge given 90* temps and very high relative humidity.

Samsung phones have a built in pulse oximeter, in the health section under "stress". There are a couple apps available for iPhones that work as well. They're not perfect and won't have the accuracy of a true oximeter but they will give you a ballpark estimate. Some users who've compared them side by side have said they're quite accurate although I think it comes down to the individual user as the sensor on the phone is quite sensitive to things like the temperature of your fingers and any sweat on them. Either way, they're an easy way for people with symptoms to monitor themselves and if they note a change to seek care. Of course oximeters themselves aren't very expensive, just hard to find or get delivered these days.

The best argument for facemasks, of any kind, regardless of their filtration efficacy, is that they stop people from unconsciously touching their face. Was listening to a doctor from NY being interviewed on the radio and he said the vast majority of community spread cases (as in not family members) came from a person touching their face rather than breathing in droplets. If you're in close proximity to someone with the virus for a prolonged amount of time, yes the aerosolized virus is an issue. However, for the majority of people who are not exposed to infected people more than in passing, a simple mask coupled with an awareness to not touch your face will reduce your risk significantly.

Not only that, but politicians and particularly health & safety politicians seem to have some difficulty understanding the populace. One example: yesterday our mayor in Denver communicates a "stay-in-place" order; the exceptions being essential industries and going out for groceries & medicine. Then he says, "oh by the way, liquor stores and recreational marijuana are not essential industries - so they will be closing tomorrow". So of course, the entire damn city floods every liquor and weed store to stock up. Lines around the block, social distancing be damned. Now I'm not sure I could design a better way to transmit a virus if I tried... Then of course 3 hours later he has to re-classify liquor/weed stores as essential industries. I mean, c'mon. The rationale I've heard from medical professionals for liquor stores staying open as "essential" is basically that they don't want alcoholics going through withdrawals straining medical resources, easier to just keep them open and not have that to worry about.

SARS was a warning that Chinese Communist Party never took seriously. I know you mean "we" as a humankind, but that absolves CCP of any responsibility. No one else was in position to shut down these wet markets. Once this ordeal is over, the world should unite and hold CCP accountable. 100% agreed. This really ties in with animal rights activists who have long advocated for an end to the exotic animal trade (pangolins for instance) and by extension an end to exotic animal markets where those same animals end up. I think once the facts come out once this is over we're going to see a lot of pressure globally and more locally by the younger generation of Chinese to end these practices. Are there other potential vectors of novel viruses in humans? Absolutely, laboratories for testing are mentioned in the original article for instance, and consuming wild animals directly certainly presents risks as well, but few present the same kind of risk to humans that these markets do. When you go back and read literature on SARS and how clear the link was between these markets and a novel coronavirus that presented a major global threat, it's somewhat amazing how unexpected COVID19 has been made out to be.

Thanks for sharing this. I had dug out one of my epidemiology textbooks from college and read the chapter on corona viruses the other day. It too talked about their prevalence in horseshoe bats and how SARS was something of a warning to the world about the possibility of other coronaviruses making the jump to humans but this goes into a lot more depth. The real issue isn't the bats themselves, or even humans eating them per se, it's keeping bats and a host of other animals like civets, raccoon dogs, pangolins, etc. in so called wet markets where viruses endemic to bats have a chance to jump species and eventually make the jump to humans. Most of these viruses would never be a threat to humans if they weren't placed in crowded conditions with a number of species where they can rapidly mutate and become infectious to multiple species. SARS was a warning we never took seriously. Hopefully post-Covid19 we'll see these type of markets have much stricter requirements when it comes to separating different types of animals, if not shut down entirely.

Cruises have long (perhaps unfairly https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/pub/norovirus/norovirus.htm) been associated with norovirus outbreaks aboard. I don't think the cruising public will punish cruise ship operators for covid19 months/years after the coronavirus hysteria is over any more than they have in the recent past for the occasional norovirus outbreak aboard. The lure of a cheap vacation in the tropics is too much for most to pass up. And oil is down big and likely going lower as OPEC+ falls apart so a major cost for cruise operators just got reduced.

I recently found Poldark on Amazon Prime and have been enjoying it. One of the main plot lines is the development of a copper mine in the early 1800s. Even then mining was a brutally capital intensive venture which sets the stage for many of the show's subplots.

I worry that a warming planet may very well exacerbate these very problems. The challenge, admittedly, is we just don't know. My personal view is, why would we risk finding out by doing absolutely nothing. Saw a post on The Economist's Instagram this morning about Malaria. The WHO has a goal of making the world Malaria free in 2030 and estimates it will cost $6B a year over the next decade to do that. Then it went on to talk about mismanaged funds and of late a $3B yearly shortfall toward the goal. It's likely warming would exacerbate infectious diseases, and bring "tropical" diseases to places they haven't been seen in centuries (Malaria was once endemic to London and much of the US SE for instance) but I don't think that's a good enough reason to spend limited funds on delaying climate change when we can make real impacts on the lives of millions. The World Bank estimates something like 150M people could be displaced by climate change by 2050 whereas around 230M people per year are affected by Malaria. It's hard from an investment standpoint in my opinion to make the case for massive spending dedicated toward global warming when there are options that are cheaper and impact more people.

I've always enjoyed Professor Damodaran's valuations, and these two pieces were no exception. I'm just having trouble seeing the fascination with Aramco. Why would someone with choices invest in it over some of the other oil majors or a diversified basket of them. Shell and BP both have 6%+ dividend yields if that's what you're after and you get upside potential if oil should really spike - something the increasing royalty at oil prices over $100 limits with an Aramco investment. I just have trouble seeing the bull case when you could put the same amount of money to work in diversified oil majors with a better yield.

I bet you can, but most honest people wouldn't do that. Keep in mind though that you're effectively charging back Air BNB. Just because you charge it back doesn't mean that you don't owe money anymore. You can, and they're a major issue for peer-to-peer marketplaces since the marketplace itself is paying the full amount of the charge back while only taking in a % of the transaction as a commission. So one charge back eats up the profit from 10 or more real transactions. I own a peer-to-peer marketplace site as a side business and you'd be amazed at the various scams I've heard of from others who run sites. The most common is stolen credit cards, either using them to book services directly through the site or more complex, using them to make cash with the card. Users can create listings and then create separate profiles to book them with the stolen cards. When the card's owner sees it they issue a charge back which the site then has to pay in full and the user who received the money has already disappeared. There are also dishonest legitimate users who will try to get their money back with a charge back on top of legitimate situations like in the article so filtering out who's who in such situations isn't easy for the platform. For smaller startups it's a real issue because they just don't have the budget to cover thousands in charge backs. Here's a twitter thread where the owner of a marketplace startup for musicians booking studios provides some data from his Stripe account into just how common this type of fraud is on their marketplace.

My personal favorite implausible conspiracy theory is that the Saudis invested in the Vision Fund which then invested in WeWork at their behest to buoy existing Saudi real estate investments in major American cities. If it all worked out WeWork's presence in real estate assets would increase their value and they get a nice cash out at WeWork's IPO. The whole thing is a mess. In what world does giving Neumann 1.7B make any sense when the company was desperate for a 4-5B infusion last week just to keep things going.

Kind of like how PayPal offers the get your money now for a small additional fee (think it's like 1%) or transfer it to your bank the conventional way where it will be available in 1-3 business days. I assume the debit card loaded with their earnings is linked to an account they have access to? How would you make balance transfers into say a savings account or to pay for larger items? Could also be a way to attract new employees who really need a job to pay expenses but can't wait the two weeks until their first paycheck.

Would you be open to sharing some of the pro-forma numbers for it in terms of an investment? Occupancy sounds great to start, do you expect to primarily rent it through AirBnB?

One thing I'll recommend to familiarize yourself with a lot of what you mentioned in your first post is Startup School by Y-Combinator. I think the summer session is coming up next week and you can still register. If not all of last year's sessions videos are online on YouTube. They go over a ton of different start up related topics so you can choose the lessons you want and watch them. If you actually sign up for the course you'll have access to their online discussions and be placed in a group with other startups. https://www.startupschool.org/ Congrats on the funding, that's a good chunk of change for a seed round.

I have a bit of experience with recreational radar and I've come to trust it at least as much as my own eyes. If a return is being displayed on the radar screen, there's something there. You may not be able to see it with your eyes for a variety of reasons but if the radar is displaying a return, there's something there. This is what makes these sighting different than the vast majority of UFO sightings. It's not just the pilots who saw them, there were multiple sightings observed through 4 different methods of observation (the pilots eyes, radar, video recording, and IR camera recording). Could any one of these observation methods be wrong? Absolutely. But to think an object picked up multiple times by all 4 systems over the course of multiple encounters was not there defies logic. Do pilots see weird things occasionally? Sure. Do multiple pilots (each F/A-18 has a crew of 2) see the same weird thing multiple times over the course of weeks and observe it with a multitude of onboard systems? No. Fatigue, reflected light, haze, or whatever might explain, and probably does explain, the occasional "UFO" sighting here and there but I think applying a general explanation to these specific sightings fails basic reasoning. That said, it's a big leap from UFO to alien spacecraft. It's very likely that whatever they saw was a man made aircraft they just weren't familiar with. Still a curiosity given the capabilities of the aircraft described by the pilots but not quite aliens exist level news.