ixacto

Had to deal with the bug where macOS does not login even with the correct password even on reinstall last year on several M1 macs. Frustrating to say the least!

Apple should not be able to control logon/pw of local system at all, especially if they can’t get it right!

-BTC and all cryptocurrencies are banned in the United States -The [low paid] labor shortage continues -Build back better (BBB) doesn't get passed -Roe v. Wade is overturned, resulting in abortion being banned in >1/2 the USA -

Lex Friedman podcast was by far the best This year followed by Freakanomics.

Exactly. Don’t ask about it or collect it. Yes race existed but it should but be the detriment of anything else.

The federal estate tax exemption is still high, but state estate taxes are much lower, like a million to a million and a half. Anyone who has a decent 401k + house will have that on the east/west coasts. I had to help my folks make a trust so we don’t get double estate taxation last summer.

You can still get ACA subsidies if you fall within the income level it's not means tested, they absolutely designed it this way to be gamed. Also qualified distributions from a ROTH IRA are not considered part of modified adjusted gross income.

So do your mega-backdoor ROTH conversion and take out of that and it doesn't count against the insurance-company subsidy.

Get done with college at 22, work 7 years and retire at the age of 29. This is not impossible. Just most people don't want to do it, but it's totally available.

$12000 saved per month for seven years in the stock market S&P500 FZROX or VTSAX will give you ballpark 1-1.5MM inflation-adjusted (10% return yoy - 2% inflation) this is average tho, results could be much higher/lower...

This of course isn't going to be enough anymore due to the US housing market in big cities, but could be enough if you work remote and live in a smaller town or something. We could also have inflation problems, 6% cpi hike is a lot.

So you’re saying that is a gigantic target for China and Russia to go after lol. It would mean some change for the which might not be bad but that’s kinda like arguing for terrorism, which would be illegal and actually have enforcement behind it.

I’d use a Lenovo t400 or t60 laptop that is fully repairable and also pretty durable. Hook that up to a ham radio data network and you’re in business.

Think about what your actual cash outflow categories really are. 5-10% increase in the price of food or household items is nothing when so much of our income is already going to housing costs (like 30-50% housing), which have in large costal cities been YOLOing to the moon for the last couple years.

This actually brings up a really inconvenient point for the FIRE/All in VTSAX crowd IMO--when real estate is drastically beating the market how exactly does your FIRE plan work if you don't own a home and want to live in the same place?

Having 1.5MM in VTSAX is nothing when you want to buy a house but that is 50% of your total assets. The workaround is to just work longer and fatFIRE, so 1.5MM is no longer ok, it needs to be more like 3-4 to be able to put down a 250k downpayment if one is trying to retire in a desirable area. But then you have 250k downpayment in a 6x leveraged asset with no diversification. if you tried to trade stocks with 6x leverage and no diversification, this would be nuts but apparently it's ok to do for housing.

TL;DR I don't care if the price of cfood goes up a bit. Housing is going up 12%YOY and that is the main expense...

Well if you feel like putting something like this music holder above/behind your webcam that will do the trick to hold notes lol.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Plating-502N-Valve-Instrumen...

The whole concept of cheating vs using available resources to solve a problem doesn't really make sense IMO. We have a smartphone with google/wolfram alpha/etc with us at all times as well as stack overflow if something isn't working. Why try to memorize the whole damn dictionary this is outdated and archaic...?

In the real world my learning of a new piece of software proceeds as follows: the github repository/manual of the software -> stackoverflow/biostars -> google with whatever you want to do.

You can also build a good network working on open source software, committing to GitHub and talking to people at meetups.

CS is really unique and wonderful in this aspect as the “means of production” are available to anyone, anywhere.

So why do we need to gatekeep this knowledge for $45k or whatever bc this is…illogical and a barrier to upward mobility for many.

IMO access to a good paying developer career should not be constrained by ability to pay/geographical location/familial status. It’s just there you gotta do the work though.

If you really want a degree there’s WGU in the US or open university in uk/eu.

And this is why I'm not voting for Biden again or any Democrat that supports these monsters in 2024. We have to draw the line somewhere, and if it takes the Democrats losing another election to change their stance on supporting dictators that's totally ok by me.

Alcohol and tobacco are also hugely addictive and harmful. This has been obvious for many years, yet the $$$ from these industries still keeps them afloat.

Why should the government be allowed to tell me what I can and can't do with my body? If you want to meth yourself to death that's not hurting anyone else.

I’d like a monitor with the following specs:

4096x2160 true 4K resolution 24 or 27” 120 or 144hz refresh rate Under $1000

Too difficult to make happen?

Women are already over represented in some stem fields. Men are over represented in others. From pew “ Women make up half (50%) of those employed in STEM jobs, slightly higher than their share in the overall workforce (47%). Women’s representation across STEM occupations varies widely: they are heavily overrepresented among health-related jobs, the largest STEM occupational cluster, and underrepresented in several other occupational clusters.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/04/01/stem-jobs-see...

The article is clickbait catering to that websites target demographic.

Yes. You can get cheaper further out, but traffic can make commuting pretty bad. https://www.redfin.com/city/1387/WA/Bellevue/housing-market

Basically FIRE approach doesn't work in the really expensive parts of the country. You need to be putting a large portion of $$$ income into housing which is not a diversified asset. We are getting 18% YOY growth now, but will not get it for the next 30 years.

It was either 5 or 6 match into vanguard, which is ok but not great. I saved 105% of my income for a couple years as they paid for all my living expenses including food, although I went shopping to get groceries and cooked for them. Also this was not the tech industry…

I carpooled to work so that was also free. The only thing I spent money on was a couple new iphones and alcohol/dates/entertainment, which was paid with through churning maaaany credit cards.

I’m very grateful for that, and would show them my retirement account every once in awhile to prove that I wasn’t blowing my paycheck on stupid stuff.

The only real problem is that it didn’t really work because housing prices have increased much faster than the market so now I need like 1-1.5MM if I ever want to buy a decent house by Seattle and don’t really have that.

Yeah you filter by list of top paid apps.

220k in Roth, early 30s. Should be about 5-15MM USD in the late 2050s with an inflation adjusted rate of return of ~8% and an annual contribution of about $6000, also increasing annually (math works).

This should take me way beyond the point at which the marginal utility of money tapers off. It's really not that difficult to get wealthy(ish) in this country if you think ahead a few decades, but most people are not going to be able to do this. The secret was getting a decent employer match, and living with my parents for a few years to save >100% of my income.

Using tax advantages to incentivize behavior is not the best way to run a government IMO. Just get rid of taxes for most low and middle income people like <300k/yr/family, this would make things much simpler and then there's no gigantic government bureaucracy administering it all.

Also the government should file your own taxes, right now tutbotax & friends currently only exist due to government lobbying.

Third party like Yang is doing or abandon this broken system altogether and form a new government as the founders had suggested. But there are way too many political and business interests that want to keep the status quo.

Agreed. But there is also a Medicare funded residency bottleneck that we also have to take care of.

We could accept doctors from other parts of the world to do residencies here but imo Che fear would then be that doctors get paid less, and the system is against that and wants to keep it broken. We could also make healthcare education free to the student, but only pay in the 150-250 range much lower than current 600-1.2MM range.

This is one thing that most democrats and republicans don’t want to fix. Biden has explicitly came out against single payer universal healthcare as that would go way against what the corporations want.

So why do people keep voting democrat?

Because you are interested in what you are doing? I had no idea how much a developer or sysadmin made when I was 13 and started playing with FreeBSD and Debian...

We should stop having a military that does anything outside the United States.

All that gun control in Mexico is working just great with its low murder rate…oh wait.

Actually no, we don’t even need a shot to lose weight you just eat less.

Also the government is actively promoting obesity by subsidizing cheap unhealthy food via agriculture subsidies like hfcs and soybeans.

So while there are some who have actually spoken out against obesity like Michelle Obama, most are silent as the issue is kinda politically inconvenient for both parties on a macro scale.

It’s disgusting and why I don’t support either major political party in this country.

Actually I’d disagree that obesity is not contagious. Look at many families they’re all obese all the family members. Could be something too it.