patience_and_focus

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-delays-cloud-release-of-gemini-ai-that-aims-to-compete-with-openai

This is one of those things that will never be settled given tea leaf reading of intentions and lack of precise information on why something didn't happen. We should move on while acknowledging that scientific work is cut throat competition like many (all?) other fields and jostling for the ultimate prize. https://sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/james-watson-francis-crick-maurice-wilkins-and-rosalind-franklin/ " At King’s College London, Rosalind Franklin obtained images of DNA using X-ray crystallography, an idea first broached by Maurice Wilkins. Franklin’s images allowed James Watson and Francis Crick to create their famous two-strand, or double-helix, model. In 1962 Watson (b. 1928), Crick (1916–2004), and Wilkins (1916–2004) jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their 1953 determination of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Wilkins’s colleague Franklin (1920–1958), who died from cancer at the age of 37, was not so honored. The reasons for her exclusion have been debated and are still unclear. There is a Nobel Prize stipulation that states “in no case may a prize amount be divided between more than three persons.” The fact she died before the prize was awarded may also have been a factor, although the stipulation against posthumous awards was not instated until 1974."

There is open celebration and mural depiction in 2023 in Brampton, Ontario of the killing of then Indian Prime Minister (Indra Gandhi) 40 years back https://www.insauga.com/parade-float-of-indira-gandhi-assassination-in-brampton-slammed-by-indian-government/ The views espoused here are not new, in one form or another going on for decades, a lot of this translates to fundraising and logistics, to say the least, behind the scenes and disregard of it by the Canadian government. It is unfortunate because this liberal and open tolerance only inflames and causes more right wing hardline views and actions from the other side (Indians and their govt). Rationality, empathy and finding middle ground is lost completely. Sikhs and Hindus in India have made peace since those god awful 1980s, they had a sikh prime minister and vibrant democracy in Punjab. But gobbles of money keeps flowing to the radicalized few from the west funding the insurgency (particularly from Canada). Interesting is that the current right wing Hindu nationalist party in power (BJP) frequently aligns with sikh political parties and is a bitter rival of the INC party run by the grandson of Indra Gandhi (Rahul Gandhi). But they are now uniting and taking a hard line on this.

I am not justifying the murder of anyone here. But there are millions of Sikhs in US and India, why target one that is of no real consequence to jeopardize all important relationships between countries. From what I have read across the communique over the years between India and Canada, I am sure the Indian govt disagrees with him having no links to criminal activities and had put multiple requests to extradite him and others for providing material support to insurgents including one request from former Punjab chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh, who is a fellow Sikh, during Trudeau visit in 2018 to India https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-sikh-singh-1.4544790 - "But Singh himself gave a very different account to Indian media, saying that he had raised the issue of support for Khalistan in the Canadian Sikh diaspora and adding that Canada is one of the countries from which diaspora money flows to separatists in Punjab...." Unfortunately for Canada and Indian Canadians, the group related to insurgency (which as per Indian govt, Nijjar was purportedly part of) have history of things like bombing airplanes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182) and killing fellow Sikhs who disagree with them during the decade of insurgency in India in the 1980s. It is incredible that current Prime Minister's father was in power when the plane was blown up and after 20 years of "investigation" they had 1 person charged with manslaughter and nothing much else. An equivalent bombing is Pan Am 103 that everyone in western world know, but hardly anyone knows about AI 182. A vast vast majority of Sikhs in India and Canada are not supporters of violence, but the Canadian govt has for decades turned a blind eye towards the few who are involved in a very active fund raising and logistical support to insurgency that has killed hundreds of thousands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182 "The Babbar Khalsa, a Sikh militant and Khalistani separatist group was implicated in the bombings........ During the 1970s, many Sikhs emigrated to western Canada. These included men who later became leaders and members of the Babbar Khalsa including Talwinder Singh Parmar, Ajaib Singh Bagri, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Inderjit Singh Reyat. By the 1980s, the area around Vancouver, British Columbia, had become the largest centre of Sikh population outside India" https://globalnews.ca/news/9969537/who-is-hardeep-singh-nijjar/ " In 1997, Nijjar came to Canada, claiming he had been beaten and tortured by Indian police. In 1998, his refugee claim was denied. According to his immigration records, he used a fraudulent passport that identified him as “Ravi Sharma.”.................................. In 2014, a few months after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, took office, Indian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Nijjar. New Delhi described Nijjar as the “mastermind” of the militant group Khalistan Tiger Force. He was accused of being involved in the 2007 bombing of a cinema in Punjab. A 2016 Interpol notice against him alleged he was a “key conspirator” in the attack. He was accused of recruiting and fundraising, a charge that Nijjar vehemently denied."

The term "generative model" for ChatGPT like AI models is apt. It did generate cases out of thin air.

Which I keep forgetting!

Oof, this is close enough so if I let go of 3 months of interest, I am getting 5.18 for 3 month for Treasury bonds (nearly the max among any duration). That in total for 6 months is certainly less that if I wait for another reset assuming that treasuries stays around the same in 3 months. Will have to come back again in 3 months to reevaluate.

Makes sense. Thanks!

Why can't the fixed component go higher than 0.4? Agree that if it doesn't and we get mid 3 as the rate I will liquidate also after 3 months of new rate kicking in.

This. IMHO somewhat similar to iPhone /Android apps ecosystem that decimated a lot of niche businesses, this will replace a lot of them. But the lions share might go towards the top dogs like Google, MSFT, etc. Apple is so far a non player it seems like, unless there is a secret internal effort or they buy the talent and product by acquisition.

It depends on what people want (when given a choice - autocracies don't count). Part of Western bias (in middle east) was assumption of wanting western style democratic states. As for India, I have been told by numerous immigrants that people there are very independent minded in the sense that they don't like being told what to do and there is also huge diversity of language (> 25) and culture (like Europe). That is why it's like herding cats. But all in all people prefer their way / subcultures and are allowed to practice that. That is what matters.

+ Well rounded is squarely what Charlie has in mind when he talks about using breadth of knowledge for building mental models and applying them.

Which brings the question of interest rate risk and risk adjusted returns ( hard to precisely compute). Assuming inflation is very hard to predict (especially the timeframe it will last), in benign or low inflation bonds seems to do ok and close to equity. What about high inflation? Just look at Buffet's record in 60s, 70s and 80s (30 years prior to this Coke period).

This is exactly why it is interesting to Microsoft and will be integrated with GitHub's co-pilot.

+1 And even if the intent is to hold till maturity there is opportunity risk. One could argue that the money (not tied up in 2% real returns for 20 years) could be used to intelligently buy equities when they are so beat up that they result in better than 2% real return over 20 years.

It's actually not 1/3 but higher (42%) that don't own stocks. Also out of 58% that do own some amount, the balance is only $25k average. Most of them will own miniscule amount. So it's safe to say more than half the population does not give a shit about stock market and do give a lot of shit about inflation. https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-owns-stock.aspx https://www.fool.com/research/how-many-americans-own-stock/

Existential, really!? Because Ukraine army wants to erase Russian identity and is marching across border into St Petersburg? If Putin uses nuclear weapons, then surely there will be existential threat to current Russian regime.

I am not sure if markets are predicting correctly by how much the rates will rise and for how long exactly. If we look at US treasury bond yields as of today, the 10 year yields (3.97) are lower than 2 year yields (4.30) suggesting that the prediction is for a ball park in early to mid 4 percent. Timewise looking at 3, 5 & 7 year yields, between 3-5 year mark from today the rates will either stabilize or start trending downward. So yeah, "its priced in" by some aggregate (and incomprehensible) "formula" in the stock market. But that does not mean that the prediction and consequently the "price" of s&p 500 is right today. At any rate, unless we are buying s&p 500 index for example, this exercise of predicting an aggregate stock market bottom is of limited value for finding individual stock bargains (which of-course will be affected by interest rate, but is one of the many factors including hodling time). The doldrums of the 1970s with high inflation lasted roughly 9 years (from peak to trough). Yield curve (10 year - 2 year) was inverted for many of those years, even though technically we were not in recession this whole decade. Just saying that it could continue for a while.

I actually 100% agree with what you said. But political defeat is important as well (just ask Russians whose leader will not accept political defeat - although in this case he is also loosing not winning militarily, at least so far). A determined local population (with support from external powers and actors) willing to fight tooth and nail against a perceived invading military force is a bad setup. Even if US did not loose militarily, it was impossible to sustain in the long term. US did not learn from Vietnam going into into Afganistan and Russia did not learn from Afganistan going into Ukraine.

That is why Vietnam was such a great success (to paraphrase Borat) for the US! And seems like Russia is destined for equal success, especially because of current eutopia for men who are being drafted. Draft, in many cases, is a sign of weakness, not strength. I am not sure if that is a strength either, especially in the modern age of declining fertility and aging population. Country without men and working adults in sufficient numbers is not something to strive for. Even if this war ends up distroying Ukraine, Russia will also feel the aftermath for years to come. US, on the other hand, is just watching from far (and supplying resources of-course) without the body bags.

We should have an open mind, why can't it be both - doing a good deed whilst also benefiting from it. Gotta be able to count to more than one I guess. There is a saying - two birds with one stone. I will still admire it because we (they) are all here to make money and in this process if it ends up doing some good, more power to us (them). That is why I also admire (but will not invest with) Elon. The guy single handedly changed the tajectory of EVs and did more good than many environmentalists would, together, in their entire lifetime. But he is also crazy and a jerk from a business point of view imo and could easily blow his (and stockholders) fortune due to his eccentricities. People are complicated, issues are complicated.

Yes. Also great camping / kayaking place in Minnesota is Lake Kabetogama as part of Voyageurs National Park. Absolutely stunning, especially this time of the year.

+1 Not only that there are relatively very few immigrants using social assistance as compared to natives, it is a lie that is being peddled by stating that legal immigrants use up my hard earned tax dollars into programs like SNAP because of the 1996 act severly restricting access of SNAP and other social program benefits to even legal immigrants (see below - this from CATO institute which is a right leaning organization). That distinction belongs to many of our own esteemed native borns. Infact almost all of the tax dollars go to native borns and among them are many, who, despite given opportunities to climb the economic ladder via hard work and opportunity to study the right trade, refused to do so only to come back and blame the "system". This even in the presence of many of their relatives who were making the most of the opportunity provided by this country. https://www.cato.org/publications/economic-development-bulletin/poor-immigrants-use-public-benefits-lower-rate-poor "Low‐income immigrants use public benefits like Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program) at a lower rate than low‐income native‐born citizens. Many immigrants are ineligible for public benefits because of their immigration status. Nonetheless, some claim that immigrants use more public benefits than the native born, creating a serious and unfair burden for citizens. This analysis provides updated analysis of immigrant and native‐born utilization of Medicaid, SNAP, cash assistance (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and similar programs), and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program based on the most recent data from the Census Bureau’s March 2012 Current Population Survey (CPS)" Conclusion Low-income non-citizen adults and children generally have lower rates of public benefit use than native-born adults or citizen children whose parents are also citizens. Moreover, when low-income non-citizens receive public benefits, the average value of benefits per recipient is almost always lower than for the native-born. For Medicaid, if there are 100 native-born adults, the annual cost of benefits would be about $98,400, while for the same number of non-citizen adults the annual cost would be approximately $57,200. The benefits cost of non-citizens is 42 percent below the cost of the native-born adults. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (hereinafter “welfare law”), Pub. L. No. 104– 193, 110 Stat. 2105 (Aug. 22, 1996); and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (hereinafter “IIRIRA”), enacted as Division C of the Defense Department Appropriations Act, 1997, Pub. L. No. 104–208, 110 Stat. 3008 (Sept. 30, 1996).