metaphor

WTF does "normal interest rates" even mean when public debt to GDP[1] is over 120%, and servicing interest on that debt alone[2] costs taxpayers more than the entire FY23 defense budget[3]??

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A091RC1Q027SBEA

[3] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/32...

> When the page is sufficiently narrow, revealing sidebar items is done via small clickable elements: if the user has never seen those before, I expect they will miss out on them.

Absolutely this!

Upon seeing sidenotes and before reading the article, my first instinct was to see how these elements would react in full v. narrow, and was immediately turned off with how information appeared to wholesale disappear.

Thanks for sharing your blog as a contrasting implementation...so clean and beautifully nuanced.

> The average age of first child for women is now over 30 in the us i think.

Less handwaving, more cites[1].

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/b.htm#agefb

This.

For the unindoctrinated, this concise Typical Tolerances of Manufacturing Processes reference[1] may be useful towards establishing pragmatic expectations for manual processes.

[1] https://mae.ufl.edu/designlab/Lab%20Assignments/EML2322L-Tol...

> Why? Just seems like a barrier to entry to me for no good reason?

The ABA considered the appropriateness in 1964 without a dissenting vote and raised the standard in 1965[1]:

  WHEREAS, There is a lack of uniformity among the law schools approved
  by The American Bar Association as to the name of the first degree in law
  awarded to successful applicants; and
  WHEREAS, Confusion has arisen in the minds of the public as to the dif-
  ference, if any, between the Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree and the Juris
  Doctor (J.D.) degree; and
  WHEREAS, Both of these degrees normally signify a first professional de-
  gree in law; and
  WHEREAS, Graduation from an approved law school requires the successful
  completion of a course of study substantially above and beyond that re-
  quired for the bachelor's degree in the Arts or Sciences: and
  WHEREAS, The course of study in an approved law school is comparable to
  or more demanding than other professional courses of study in which the
  professional doctor's degree is awarded; and
  WHEREAS, It is deemed to be in the best interest of the public and of the
  legal profession that this confusion in terminology be eliminated and that
  the high standards of professional training and the competency of graduates
  of approved law schools be recognized by a uniform practice with respect to
  the title of the first degree in law.
  NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT: The Section of Legal Edu-
  cation and Admissions to the Bar of The American Bar Association recom-
  mends for all approved law schools favorable consideration of the con-
  ferring of the degree of Juris Doctor (J.D.) by such schools on those students
  who successfully complete the program leading to the first professional de-
  gree in law.

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/mis...

> The top options on this list appear to run about 1/20th the cost of Harvard (I'm presuming that the tuition figure is for a full three-year programme, not on a per-year basis, the text makes this ... less than clear).

"1/20th the cost of Harvard" is in the ballpark of what a super affordable undergraduate program at a US public university goes for.

To be sure, your cite lists annual cost of tuition as clarified in Methodology section language.

Their "average program cost" metric is also pretty meaningless; you either pay in-state or out-of-state rates---not some arbitrary arithmetic mean---so ~3x for a rough lower bound of what tuition alone will run you, and that assumes the unlikely scenario of no tuition increases during subsequent years of study.

> Out of interest, how much of that is caused by the law degree being (as far as I understand it) a postgraduate degree in the US?

At face value, the sticker price of grad school will always be more expensive, however, UF[1], UNC Chapel Hill[2], UT Austin[3], etc. are just a few reputable public universities with relatively affordable law programs, in particular, for in-state residents with enough grit to skip on-campus housing.

> Here in the UK you can just go straight to law school if you want without a first degree.

Hasn't been a thing in the US for decades[4].

[1] https://www.law.ufl.edu/admissions/costs-and-financial-aid

[2] https://law.unc.edu/admissions/financing-your-legal-educatio...

[3] https://law.utexas.edu/admissions/tuition-fees-and-expenses/

[4] https://asklib.law.harvard.edu/faq/115308

> What's to do stop someone from just installing the APK?

The manual process of just installing the APK.

> Not necessarily.

Have you considered the structural implications of INTC float held by dividend ETFs alone[1], and how certain fund managers would be compelled to take action if all of a sudden Intel just stopped distributing a dividend? E.g. compare INTC holdings of Vanguard VYM[2] v. VanEck SMH[3] for about 5 minutes.

> It really makes zero difference to the valuation of a company.

Are you sure[4]? This is a bold, unsupported assertion without a single cite, as if to imply that valuation isn't a subjective craft practiced by people from diverse walks of life.

[1] https://www.etf.com/stock/INTC

[2] https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profi...

[3] https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/investments/semiconductor-etf-s...

[4] https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/membership/professional-deve...

Whoa, talk about childhood nostalgia[1]...never thought I'd see one of those again.

[1] https://archive.org/details/hh_nummunch

Interested to learn the source of where you got this 2.5% figure from.

That QE activity peaked circa Apr 2022[1].

The Fed subsequently announced monetary policy circa May 2022[2] to reduce the size of their balance sheet; with respect to agency mortgage-backed securities, that means predictably liquidating assets in the open market at a rate cap of $35 billion per month.

The Fed's weekly H.4.1[3] § 3 reports agency MBS assets are overwhelmingly residential. They were slowly ratcheting down commitments to buy MBS, and effectively reached 0 circa end of Oct 2022.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ZcQw

[2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/mone...

[3] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/20230119/

Is it just me or is the live message feed going ballistic?

Case in point: Blackberry Priv (2015) v. Blackberry Key2 (2018)

Both models are VoLTE compliant. AT&T whitelisted the former supposedly because they once sold/supported this model directly, but told existing users of the latter to replace their phone or GTFO.

I gladly took the GTFO option and switched to T-Mobile...substantially reduced my monthly bill to less than $17/mo per phone and saw improved reception at the office.

Exactly why I cherry-picked that example; it's consistent with the parent's Ohio example in that most transients flying to SF via SFO don't even realize that they're technically in a different city/county.

Similar situation with Julington Creek Plantation and Fruit Cove; both are technically in the same county (St. Johns County) and literally butt up against each other, and yet the former pays Jacksonville (Duval County) sales tax.

> Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide.

Didn't quite pass my seasonally congested anecdotal sniff test. Turns out[1]:

  - 74% (37 states) vary depending on a local rate
  - 18% (9 states) are fixed at a state level
  - 8% (4 states) don't have sales tax

> Not in Ohio, where it can vary by township, sometimes across invisible boundaries.

Ohio isn't really exceptional in this regard; a few examples that come to mind:

  - San Francisco = 8.625% v. South San Francisco = 9.875% v. Oakland = 10.25%
  - Julington Creek Plantation (FL) = 7.5% v. Fruit Cove (FL) = 6.5%

[1] https://www.sale-tax.com/

Biased age disparity in marriage is hardly a "fantasy" or even "taboo". I suspect if you looked at e.g. the top quintile of male earners, or those who married more than once, you're liable to see an even more pronounced gap over the aggregate median. Equally as interesting, how do wealthy divorced/widowed women marry afterwards?

Poking at US presidents that stood out (i.e. more than 5 years):

  | President | Born  | Spouse| Delta |
  |-----------|-------|-------|-------|
  | Biden     | 1942  | 1951* | 9     |
  | Trump     | 1946  | 1970* | 24    |
  | Reagan    | 1911  | 1921* | 10    |
  | Kennedy   | 1917  | 1929  | 12    |
  | Eisenhower| 1890  | 1896  | 6     |
  | Wilson    | 1856  | 1872* | 16    |
  | Harrison  | 1833  | 1858* | 25    |
  | Cleveland | 1837  | 1864  | 27    |
  | Arthur    | 1829  | 1837  | 8     |
  | Hayes     | 1822  | 1831  | 9     |
  | Lincoln   | 1809  | 1818  | 9     |
  | Fillmore  | 1800  | 1813* | 13    |
  | Polk      | 1795  | 1803  | 8     |
  | Tyler     | 1790  | 1820* | 30    |
  | Q. Adams  | 1767  | 1775  | 8     |
  | Monroe    | 1758  | 1768  | 10    |
  | Madison   | 1751  | 1768  | 17    |
  | Adams     | 1735  | 1744  | 9     |
  
  *: latest marriage

This shortlist includes the two oldest (Biden, Trump) and youngest (Kennedy) presidents voted into office. A relevant quote attributed to Jacqueline Kennedy[1], whose second marriage was to a businessman 23 years her senior:

> The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/quotes/10612/

> ...but lost out on underpinning entire future markets.

It's worth a fairly recent reminder[1] what could happen when big companies with acquired ambitions bet big on pinning down future markets but fail to meet expectations before market sentiment decides to swing.

[1] https://seekingalpha.com/news/3896521-meta-dives-24-after-st...

> Are they still in production?

The last official production run was the 15c Limited Edition (ARM7-based, similar to the refreshed 12c around the time) a little over a decade ago. This variant was special enough that it shipped with a CD containing the official PC emulator.

I managed to swoop two of them back then while a broke ass uni student (sold out quick). Ended up reselling one just to make ends meet before graduating, but kept the other just in case my 35s went tits up; I still use that 35s regularly at the office, but CalcTastic[1] makes a very compelling replacement mobile app.

> Is there actually any market for these calculators?

Who are we kidding? Between engineering and finance types, RPN diehards are a dying breed IMHO. Even if a new RPN calculator were to get NCEES approval[2] for use in the FE/PE exams, in practice, very good RPN apps on mobile abound after formalities are out of the way.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shaytastic...

[2] https://ncees.org/exams/calculator/

I wonder how many of those tech companies that you're alluding to have evergreen provisions baked into their capital structure, and what that means from a cost of equity perspective at the prevailing risk-free rate.

> And when the US pays interest on that debt, it just pays it to the federal reserve which then sends it back to the US.

Uhh yeah, about those remittances[1]...

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RESPPLLOPNWW

> So how about imposing on them the discipline of not gambling, at least on base?

When I wore the uniform, it was handled indirectly with constant reminders that failing to satisfy debt obligations is punishable by Article 134 of the UCMJ.

Some places need extra reminders and discipline though, e.g. Nellis AFB (Las Vegas, NV) and Keesler AFB (Biloxi, MS) are two bases I'm familiar with that come to mind.

I wonder if it's just a coincidence that the FAA started accepting public applications today[1] for 12 general engineer vacancies (of the program management office type) in the DC locality.

[1] https://www.usajobs.gov/job/700094300

Is this supposed distinction actually meaningful? I don't know...color me unconvinced.

When I interpret "being constantly ready to immediately take over" language, it's unambiguous that I need to maintain full situational awareness as if I were driving the vehicle.

Physically and mentally transitioning from partial to full situational awareness obviously takes some time, and yet from the graphic in the SAE link, the chart remains entirely ambiguous about the permitted time between "when the feature requests" and when "you must drive".

Furthermore, a quick review of SAE J3016 Rev 2021-04 reflects equally ambiguous language in § 5.4 NOTE 4 (my emphasis):

> NOTE 4: In the event of a DDT performance-relevant system failure in a Level 3 ADS, or in the event that the ADS exits its ODD, the ADS will issue a request to intervene within sufficient time for the fallback-ready user (whether in-vehicle or remote) to respond appropriately.

I'm curious what the normative minimum of "sufficient time" will be in practice.

So from what you're saying, I gather that in a hypothetical USDT -> BTC -> USDC repositioning, even if you were to execute the first USDT -> BTC leg, you wouldn't be able to execute the next BTC -> USDC leg until after this first transaction to BTC has been "confirmed", and each leg of the trade "can easily take 30 minutes to confirm" all the while exposing the position to BTC downside volatility risk?

I find it very strange that crypto exchanges don't handle execution, confirmation and settlement in the same way as traditional markets.

Also, wasn't the major sell point of stablecoins to enable direct crypto-to-crypto transactions without ever needing to first settle in fiat currency, e.g. USDT -> USDC, as opposed to USDT -> USD -> USDC?

How is that exposure material for a typical holder given the supposed "velocity of crypto"?

Or did mean that the implied trade is direct USDT -> USDC?

P.S. Genuine question; I don't dabble in crypto.

So s/luxury/austerity/ which begs the question why the working class majority would want that.

In the U.S., labor force participate rate for women[1] increased from ~33% to ~58% over the same period, peaking at 60.3% circa Apr 2000. In contrast, participation rate for men[2] bottomed at 66.1% circa Apr 2020...for the time being.

Here's some data on aggregate U.S. labor force[3], and breakdowns of men[4] and women[5] constituent components. I'll leave it to the passersby to contemplate.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001

[3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV

[4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11000001

[5] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11000002

> 1930s level of luxury

I can't help but s/1930s/Great Depression/ and wonder what this even means.

Irrelevant and certainly plausible.

Quoting the last 10-K filing[1]:

> As of December 31, 2021, we employed approximately 1,608,000 full-time and part-time employees. Additionally, we use independent contractors and temporary personnel to supplement our workforce.

It's really not difficult to imagine how ~1 in 10 can be chopped while still surviving.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872422...