140,367 karma · joined July 3, 2007
There's a set of people I always enjoy listening to whenever they're on a podcast, but it's hard to keep track of everything out there.
But the link between testosterone levels and ejaculation frequencys is causal https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12659241/
"The authors found that the fluctuations of testosterone levels from the 2nd to 5th day of abstinence were minimal. On the 7th day of abstinence, however, a clear peak of serum testosterone appeared, reaching 145.7% of the baseline"
What’s the business model for a content production company that doesn’t have such sugar-daddy?
After certain age, reverse mortgages become a potential new source of income, so in short term one would be interested in rapid appreciation of underlying property.
Source? You keep repeating that, but Transparency International ranked Ukraine above Russia https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021
You are correct on the poverty numbers if the peer group is “rest of Europe”, not “rest of USSR alumni”. Is it a reasonable peer group?
Some sample strategies to adopt:
1) Mobile sites only, never apps. Always log out when done to increase the friction of subsequent logins. The most insidious pattern of mindless engagement is when you're bored at the checkout line, waiting in-between meetings with nothing to do, sitting on the toilet.
2) Even better: computer access only, never mobile. Your phone is always around, unlike your PC. Set a time slot (20 min or so) when you know you're around your computer. Social networks really excel at this pattern of usage. You'll get the most important stuff, fluff relegated to the bottom of the feed, which solves the FOMO and shield you from the rest. This can be daily first and then cut down to whatever pattern you feel like (Newport himself claims he catches up on social media once a week).
I am sure I am butchering some of his advice, so worth reading the book.
> “You do not need to do many different exercises to get strong - you need to get strong on a very few important exercises, movements that train the whole body as a system, not as a collection of separate body parts. The problem with the programs advocated by all the national exercise organizations is that they fail to recognize this basic principle: the body best adapts as a whole organism to stress applied to the whole organism. The more stress that can be applied to as much of the body at one time as possible, the more effective and productive the adaptation will be.”
> “There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that produces the level of central nervous system activity, improved balance and coordination, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning than the correctly performed full squat.”
― Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training
Because then you need to test for means, and that means you have to hire new bureaucracy to conduct those tests, and then pay their benefits and pensions and travel expenses, and then you need to hire additional bureaucracy to address occasional loopholes in your checks, and then 10-20-50-100 years later you're back to square one with massively bloated self-serving bureaucracies conveniently appropriating dollars to save pennies.
That's what drives UBI advocates bonkers about the current benefit programs. For example, food stamps benefits. I say anyone with an SSN should be able to apply for one and get it electronically. It helps farmers, helps food availability, and is generally spent locally. Instead we have layers and layers of bureaucracy ensuring Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are prevented from receiving SNAP benefits.
Contrary to public perception, there's no robust investment market for student debt. US government ends up purchasing most of it through Treasury. In theory it's a great deal, as it gets to borrow at low Treasury rates and originate at higher rates.
I don't have a link to the original source, but "In September 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department revealed in its annual report that student loans account for 36.8% of all U.S. government assets." https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/08121...
Edit: here's a more updated analysis of the Treasury disclosures, which puts the figure at 51.2% as of September 2019 https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/2019...
Devaluing those assets (which Treasury marks to market) would significantly dampen (if not destroy) US government's borrowing ability as well as make some government entitlement programs [at least temporarily] insolvent.
Insurance companies have actual fraud departments with investigators clinging onto every hint of over-prescribing, over-billing, over-testing or repeat visit inflation.
Medicare, on the other hand, has low administrative expense that's constantly touted as some kind of incredible achievement when compared to those "bloated" private insurers.
Hypothetically, though, if previous generations (a) did not need as many farm hands, (b) did not need as many factory workers, (c) had access to cheap birth control and (d) enjoyed low child mortality rates, do you think their high birth rates would've stayed as high?
> claimed that Theranos’ products were deployed by the U.S. Department of Defense on the battlefield in Afghanistan and on medevac helicopters and that the company would generate more than $100 million in revenue in 2014. In truth, Theranos’ technology was never deployed by the U.S. Department of Defense and generated a little more than $100,000 in revenue from operations in 2014.
This was not even a forward-looking statement, it was an outright lie in the legal document.
One can do pretty much whatever they wish with accredited investors' money, but it has to be disclosed in the PPM.
Even if you have a line item where all the money will be spend on CEO's dog's private jet travel, accredited investors who have reviewed and signed the PPM have no legal recourse.
In Theranos case it looks like a straightforward misrepresentation of facts, which is a red flag for SEC.
I am too young to remember the pro- and con- arguments concerning this proposition, but it's a little surprise 75.7% of the voters approved.
Looking at a larger picture, cash-starved municipalities are not that exciting to live in, with their dilapidated roads, aging infrastructure, poor public service coverage as far as police, firefighting, libraries and parks, as well as underfunded (and probably underperforming) school districts.
So isn't the issue self-correcting long-term? Places with a larger proportion of Prop 58 exemptions eventually run themselves into the ground, while places with tons of new construction and healthy resale market tax themselves into a nice school district and well-paved roads?
At some point a finance person steps in and introduces a credit lending facility, which overall is a good thing for the health of the economy. Then, in decision to not take on too much risk, the said finance person offloads the loans in a securitized fashion to other wealthy islanders who then benefit from fishing booms and receive below average returns in years that are dry.
Then another finance person figures out the futures contracts, which act as insurance to fishermen and guarantee a reasonable price even at times of market over-supply.
At some point trading the loan securities and fishing future contracts starts paying more than humble fishing, which means that the best and brightest switch into finance, creating a stigma for fishing as less desirable occupation for under-achievers. Majority of island's GDP is now comprised of fishing-related loans and futures, with fishing itself occupying a relatively small niche.
This, of course, collapses at some point, but the problem is that it's hard to point out that one step that's completely irrational and bonkers - everything created by finance industry has found some demand among fishermen and simplified their lives.