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emkemp

805 karma · joined January 29, 2012

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emkemp··on Peter Thiel Turned a Roth IRA into a $5B Tax-Free Piggy Bank (2021)
"Roth IRAs are as good a retirement vehicle as you can have."

Except that contributions are after-tax, and have a lower cap than 401(k) accounts. So there is a tradeoff.

emkemp··on Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman
Counterpoint: Oracle Corporation.
emkemp··on Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions
True, but in American law at least, some crimes like murder don't have a statute of limitations.
emkemp··on Dennis Ritchie’s page on Bell Labs website
I should add, on the same page, there is an excerpt of an interview with his sister Lynn who set Dennis up with a friend for her junior prom. So he at least dated.

More broadly:

"As a youth Dennis was social and outgoing, then in young adulthood he transformed quite rapidly to become more private and anti-social. Hard to pin down exactly when this would have been happening… except that clues from John and Lynn’s interviews suggest perhaps sometime around February 1968 might be central."

emkemp··on Dennis Ritchie’s page on Bell Labs website
He reportedly was never in a relationship. This comes from unidentified members of the Ritchie family who set up a web site focussed mostly on his unpublished PhD thesis. The site includes some personal information on his life.

From https://dmrthesis.net/story-and-question/ (near the bottom)

"In his adult years Dennis had a reputation for being famously private.... There were topics that were completely off limits with Dennis – mostly having to do with any form of personal intimacy. This was true for his Bell Labs colleagues, who speak of Dennis’ personal life as a kind of private zone where they do not tread, and true with his siblings also. This was just his way.

"As an adult, Dennis lived an ascetic lifestyle. In September 1967, he moved back into the attic of his family home and set up a home office in the basement, where he lived with his parents until 1989. He worked from 1PM until 3AM six days a week, Sundays off for reading. He had no friends outside of his business colleagues, he rarely socialized, he did not have (nor never had) a relationship with anyone, he wouldn’t talk about/acknowledge discussion about emotional issues in any form. (He did have a wonderful family who loved him dearly and whom he loved dearly as well.) It was almost as if he needed to blot out any awareness of his personal life from the world by using the strategy of having no personal life to be observed.

"This affect wasn’t just something neutral, it could be an active force."

emkemp··on Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46
I think labeling it a "show trial" goes too far. Three of the original defendants (Fritzsche, von Papen, and Schacht) were acquitted; and Doenitz was spared the death penalty for his unrestricted submarine warfare orders because similar orders were issued by the victorious Allies. I doubt a full-on show trial would have been as just or merciful.
emkemp··on Own-goal football (2022)
Note for the casual hockey fan: The NHL overtime system is different in the playoffs, since the playoffs requires clear winners and losers.

(Game 1 of the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals featured four overtime periods; and the tie-breaking/game-winning goal was scored after 139 minutes and 47 seconds of total game time, at 1:54 am EDT.)

emkemp··on IRS can get financial info of third parties without notice to third parties [pdf]
That headline doesn't read well. Maybe "IRS can sometimes get taxpayer's financial info from third parties without notifying taxpayer."

The "sometimes" is important. The law normally requires notification, but an exception exists once the IRS has reached the late stage of collecting unpaid tax liability. Petitioners felt the exception only applied "when a delinquent taxpayer has a legal interest in accounts or records summoned by the IRS...." SCOTUS unanimously disagreed, based on the text of the law in question.

emkemp··on U.S. regulator set to take over First Republic
"We could start the cutting with the Defense budget, but I won't hold my breath."

Given events over the last ~15 months in Ukraine, I think this is a bad time for defense cuts.

emkemp··on Sweden launches research rocket, accidentally hits Norway
Or when Britain "invaded" Spain.

https://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/02/18/britain.marines/...

emkemp··on Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
"(fact) America is a single market with a single language with basically a single set of regulations."

I'm probably being pedantic, but: the "single set of regulations" really is an oversimplification. Each state has it's own rules in addition to Federal regulations (trying selling cars in California that meet Federal emissions standards, but not California's). Plus, there are state taxes to consider.

emkemp··on Apple Card’s new high-yield Savings account is now available, offering a 4.15 p
SVB's haircut was from LONG TERM bonds. Not T-Bills.
emkemp··on Binance sees $2B in outflows as troubles compound
This is good for bitcoin. /s
emkemp··on For the first time, the Fed is losing money
"The FED does not loan money."

This is quite wrong.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/discountrate.h... https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/standing-overn... https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bank-term-fund...

In addition, the Fed also borrows money.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/overnight-reve...

emkemp··on For the first time, the Fed is losing money
The trading desk is not for investing by the Fed. That's for influencing interest rates based on inflation/deflation concerns and overall employment.

Investors buy or sell securities to earn a profit. Not the Fed.

emkemp··on Fed hikes rates by 0.25 point despite recent turmoil in the banking sector
"You realize if Harambe had lived, he would have killed himself."

--Trevor Noah, re: 2016.

emkemp··on First Republic, other regional bank stocks sink after failure of SVB
DON"T GIVE THEM IDEAS.
emkemp··on Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout
NitPick: The Deposit Insurance Fund invests in Treasury securities, so technically there is a little taxpayer money from interest payments.

But the contributions to the Fund are all from member banks, not from the Federal budget.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Deposit_Insurance_Corp....

emkemp··on FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank
Nitpick: The Fed isn't selling bonds. Maybe they meant the Treasury?
emkemp··on Men Without Full-Time Jobs Are 33% More Likely to Divorce
Re Kilts, I'm reminded of that scene in _Braveheart_ where the Scots start flashing and mooning the English before a battle starts.
emkemp··on Errors for the Twilio Rest API impacting multiple services
"Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked."
emkemp··on U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
Um, the Air Force still uses the U-2. As does NASA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2#Operators

emkemp··on Why Finland Selected the F-35A (2021)
Fortran 2008.
emkemp··on Tell HN: Twitter Is NSFW by Default?
Use tweetdeck.twitter.com, and set each column to a specific use. I have them set to Home (i.e., tweets and retweets from accounts I follow), Notifications, and User (my own tweets and retweets). This works wonders for me.
emkemp··on Celine Dion shares diagnosis of incurable stiff-person syndrome
A relevant story from 2013:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-mys...

emkemp··on Draft policy proposal would authorize SF Police to use deadly force with robots
Do you want Cyclons? Because this is how you get Cylons.
emkemp··on Z-Library Responds to U.S. Crackdown, Asks Authors for Forgiveness
Obligatory "this has nothing to do with zlib".
emkemp··on Amazon Becomes World’s First Public Company to Lose $1T in Market Value
Long-term capital gains?
emkemp··on Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve
Try tweetdeck.twitter.com.
emkemp··on Chip design shifts as fundamental laws run out of steam
Obligatory SMBC:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-02-17

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