graedus

> If you carry a $10 balance, you're probably giving up the free float.

Not sure what the mechanics are behind the scenes, but I keep an eye out for interest charges and I haven't seen any for years.

> meaning the balance is only ever zero if you do a massive return or if you have a multi-week spending embargo hit at just the time the credit company pulls your report.

I think I implemented the $10 policy because I wasn't using my cards very much at the time. Your system makes the most sense for anyone who uses their card regularly.

Of course that's possible, but I think more people will avoid that if they know they won't be able to afford food the next day. Easy credit is a big factor allowing people to continue making the bad decision to keep living outside their means for quite a long time without directly feeling the negative effects until farther in the future.

By then they end up with a hefty amount of debt and their lifestyle preferences are ratcheted up; they don't want to downgrade from their BMW to a Honda, move to a less fancy neighborhood and start cooking more meals at home. They are more inclined to keep scraping by with their luxuries, overburdened by debt service.

My understanding is that having 0% credit utilization is slightly worse for your credit rating than having 1%-10% credit utilization. That doesn't mean that you should only pay the minimum. My approach is to regularly pay them down to a $10 balance; it's possible this is pointless because it's rounded down to 0% in their calculations anyway, I'm not sure.

IMO it's objectively superior! I'm fine with queuing-without-queuing as long as it's not abused. Queuing at least makes the order absolutely clear so that people can't as easily change the order, intentionally or accidentally.

I assume you're only pointing out that queuing-without-queuing is a thing, not defending queue-jumping or places where the lack of any ordered system means whoever is strongest pushes to the front.

I'll add my experience with the "PBR Glossy" demo:

Windows 8.1

Chrome: 144fps

Firefox: 144fps

IE11: 72fps

Not sure why IE11 is getting exactly half the framerate of the other two, which are maxing at my monitor's refresh rate. At least none of them hanged or crashed.

Nuclear capabilities will probably not be affected much by cyber attacks over the internet. There are other vectors, but they obviously require a much more serious investment in espionage, spycraft, etc.

Wall St has deeply and thoroughly captured all of the regulatory agencies charged with overseeing it, as well as most of the powerful organs of government, and thus sits comfortably above the law.

I agree, but GS appears to be resilient against bad optics so far. Some negative stories are written about them, some people on the internet call them 'criminal banksters', but no matter what happens they continue to make vast amounts of money and ex- (and likely future) employees seem to reliably find their way into top offices of government, central banks and other powerful institutions.

> I hope that younger people can learn from my example

Thanks for sharing. Would you mind going into a little more detail for the curious? For example, how many (and what type of) energy drinks would you typically drink per day, and what harmful effects did they cause?

Absolutely. Also hilarious to me when a bunch of economists start whining about "stingy consumers" when inflation numbers aren't ticking up as much as the central bank hoped for. Meanwhile over half of Americans don't have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency car repair[0], but apparently they need to stop being so stingy and get out spend more to help the economy.

[0] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-cant-handle-a-500...

> then a lot of the work you did was wasted.

Unless you get enjoyment on some level from the financial security of having a bunch of money saved (i.e. you sleep better at night because of it). It's like purchasing insurance - if you never end up using the insurance, that doesn't imply you made a poor decision (wasted money) in purchasing it.

Likewise, knowing that an expensive medical emergency could come up means that having considerable savings is an appropriate response.

Or you could take the opposite view and arrive at the same conclusion - if you have a healthy lifestyle and expect to remain healthy, you might predict that you'll have a long lifespan, making it prudent to conserve your retirement savings by spending it at a very slow rate.

Seems intrusive to me - wouldn't an email or text message have been a more appropriate channel to deliver that message?

The different costs of housing and living in different areas is of course a valid factor when it comes to comparing incomes. I disagree with your second sentence though.

> Most of the finance guys I know in New York make what I would consider great money... but their lifestyle is such that they save almost none of it.

I don't know, is how well you're doing really based on how much money is left after you choose to spend a bunch of it? If I make $2m/year but have several expensive mortgages to pay and therefore I don't save very much, that means I'm doing "just OK"?

> It's untraceable

Feature of cash, not a bug. It's not the best choice for every situation, but neither is digital, which is why it's important that people have both options available.

> we could end up with a terrible society where the rich feel they have no responsibility to help the less fortunate (by e.g. providing universal healthcare), because they must simply have been lazy

I completely agree with you, but it's curious that you frame this as a hypothetical outcome. At least in the US, this idea has been deeply ingrained in broad swaths of the population for decades - and not just among the rich.

> When I buy a pack of tokens rather than depositing USD or similar into an account, I'm more likely to spend all of those tokens.

In my experience, it's exactly the opposite, since packs of points/tokens are not typically divisible by the price of common purchases. For example, you might have the option to buy 500, 1500, or 3000 points; items then cost something like 740 or 800 or 1600 points. To spend your last point/token you almost certainly have to buy more than you originally intended.

> First thing I do is do the math

Me too, but I guarantee we're outliers. You probably look at your credit card statements sometimes too :)

They could easily choose to make the exchange rate easy (at least in e.g. USD), or even better, forego the fake currency system entirely and allow transactions in the user's local currency. Instead they erect multiple layers of obfuscation to keep you from thinking about the idea that you're actually spending real money. Something tells me they spend the resources on this system because it results in increased net profits.

100%. This looks like the same idea as my old "favorite" example: the xbox live store, where players were forced to convert from their local currency into "Microsoft Points" before buying anything. Of course, the exchange rate was always something weird and difficult to mentally calculate, like $10 = 830 points or whatever, as a further hurdle to clear in order to find out what something in the xbox live store actually costs in real money. Total scumbaggery.

I get what you're saying, especially the Lexus grilles - the designers have gone insane. Audi has some similar bold shapes at the front but they pull it off much better. Also, the side view of modern Audi sedans are perfect - simple, clean, beautiful lines, and impressive unity of design language across the entire lineup[0]. This design of this Tesla is not in the same league IMO.

[0] https://www.audiusa.com/models/

Me too.

It sounds like CPMA's creator arQon hasn't been heard from in a few years, but the source code is held by at least one or two other people[0].

http://www.esreality.com/post/2839396/to-arqon-cpma-sources/...

This seems to be true in my experience. I was stopped in a subway station with a legal folding pocket knife (no assisted opening, blade length <4"). One of the undercover cops took the knife and repeatedly tried to get it to open due to gravity alone but couldn't. While he was doing this, the other one was questioning me: what do you use the knife for? (opening boxes at work) what do you do for work? ("computer guy").

They gave it back to me and told me it's best if I keep it inside my pocket instead of clipped to it.

Even though that ended OK for me, there are a bunch of ways it could have gone worse. If either cop was an asshole, or having a bad day, or if I had darker skin, or was wearing a hoodie, etc. I once read about someone getting locked up overnight despite his knife being legal because he had it clipped to his pocket - the visible clip was deemed by the police in that instance to constitute "brandishing a weapon". Not sure if that's true, but probably best not to take chances.

As far as I know the system I described is manual only on iPhone. That is, if the database file gets updated on another device/computer, you have to manually re-import it from Dropbox to MiniKeePass to see the update there.

On desktops/laptops, if you're pointing KeePass at a database file in a Dropbox-synced folder, then it's automatic.

I do. I use the MiniKeePass app, which is free. You can export your KeePass database (.kdbx) from the Dropbox app to MiniKeePass.

> My favorite book of all time, Blood Meridian

I'm reading Blood Meridian for the second time now - I think I like it even more now than the first time.

Or Short Circuit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkzxP-Wt9oo

Very cool - any thoughts on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the FLIR vs Seek models?

Off-topic but related: Nvidia's Geforce Experience software recently implemented a similar system - you must now create an account and log in to use core functions that previously didn't require any network connection.

This is the slogan of a post-9/11 (and ongoing) MTA campaign that's been borrowed by the Department of Homeland Security and many other agencies around the country and the world since.

I believe the original intent was mostly about reporting unattended bags that could contain bombs, not reporting your neighbor for hosting a socialist book club or whatever. Obviously it's vague and broad enough that it could be bent to more sinister purposes though.

> NAV and market cap are unlinked (as are returns for GBTC vs bitcoin)

Unlinked is putting it mildly. The gigantic rally in bitcoin after the drawdown in January was almost entirely missed by GBTC. For example if you bought on 01/11/17 and sold on 02/02/17, instead of enjoying the 29% gains of bitcoin (~$778 to ~$1004), you were treated to a loss of 1% ($109.50 to $108.50).

> Right, but the USA has a 4.7 unemployment rate

When talking about the headline unemployment rate, it's a good idea to view this seemingly rosy figure in the context of our current ~40 year lows in the labor force participation rate[0]. It's misleading to look at one without the other, IMO.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART