crystalmeph (u/crystalmeph)

crystalmeph commented on Windshield pitting incidents in Washington reach fever pitch on April 15, 1954 (2003) historylink.org/File/5136... · Posted by u/psc

j_timberlake · a year ago

This was literally my first thought for the anomalous drones like 2 weeks ago, and it was immediately obvious that the entire NJ police department should not be incompetent enough to fall for something so obvious. The mayors and governor should not be dumb enough to stake their reputations on this when the null hypothesis of "mass hysteria" is easier and safer. Even back then, we knew the sightings do not appear on flight radar apps that show every commercial flight and which any civilian can access.

But since then we've also had airport shutdowns, incursions over airforce bases, drones in no-fly zones. These are easy to Google:

https://www.recordonline.com/story/news/2024/12/16/stewart-a...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/16/us/us-air-force-base-closes-a...

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/article297295919.ht...

Also NJ police report the anomalous drones give off no heat signature like normal drones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K98A4CLMwf4&t=209s

There's a lot more I could post about, but most importantly Chuck Schumer is trying to get Robin drone radar detectors deployed, and I'm predicting that he's the smart guy in the room who will get us answers.

crystalmeph · a year ago

Chuck Schumer is trying to mollify his constituents. The one thing a politician can never tell his constituents is that they are being morons, even when it's true.

Your last link has the officer claiming it doesn't give off heat like regular drones, but just like the OP story where a police officer claimed the "mystery residue" reacted "violently" to a lead pencil, what does that even mean? Can we get an A/B test of what this officer calls a "regular" drone on heat vision versus one of these mystery drones?

And oh yeah, at about 4:30 into that link, the reporter puts up his own "authentic drone footage" that I am absolutely certain is a perfectly normal airplane.

The airport shutdown was real, sure, but that was dumb wannabe sleuths who were going to "solve the problem" using their own drones, thereby becoming the problem, or smart trolls who knew exactly how best to get a laugh out of the gullible public.

crystalmeph commented on Tips for Building and Deploying Robots rodneybrooks.com/tips-for... · Posted by u/dannyobrien

KuriousCat · a year ago

This is solid advice, particularly #4 is the reason I have started building my own bots. I do have one question though, how to design the production pipeline such that it is easy to iterate on the bot design with minimal disruption?

crystalmeph · a year ago

Rapid iteration at the component level would obviously require custom components, and maybe vertical integration, which clearly conflicts with point #1 about riding existing supply chains. But you can still iterate parts of the design that you more or less "have" to customize, such as the body material, axis geometries, and dozens of other factors I can't think of off the top of my head. The collected data can both be used to improve training and as input into the design iterations.

crystalmeph commented on Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say reuters.com/world/middle-... · Posted by u/shmatt

coffeebeqn · a year ago

It is a little odd. I feel like Mossad didn’t do this just for fun? I can only guess what they’re trying to achieve

crystalmeph · a year ago

Demoralization of the enemy. Every single Hezbollah member is now paranoid that every single surface they touch is either listening to them or trying to kill them.

crystalmeph commented on The coming long-run slowdown in corporate profit growth and stock returns [pdf] (2023) federalreserve.gov/econre... · Posted by u/luu

AnimalMuppet · 2 years ago

But if interest rates rise, bonds lose too. That is, the bonds you hold today lose market value (the value you could get if you sold them today). The longer the duration of the bond, the more they lose. So if you expect interest rates to rise, I'm not sure holding bonds (especially long bonds) is the protection you want.

On the other hand, I may be missing something. Ray Dalio's All Weather Portfolio is 55% bonds, and it's supposed to be safe-ish for any market conditions.

crystalmeph · 2 years ago

They lose in the short term, but if you're buying and holding to maturity, you get that money back. If you're worried about losing "market value" in a rising interest rate regime, buy shorter-term bonds. You can buy short-term bond funds, or buy bonds individually on Fidelity, Vanguard, etc.

crystalmeph commented on The coming long-run slowdown in corporate profit growth and stock returns [pdf] (2023) federalreserve.gov/econre... · Posted by u/luu

paxys · 2 years ago

It'll be interesting to see what this analysis looks like today, considering there have been 2+ years of substantially higher interest rates since this paper was published.

crystalmeph · 2 years ago

In five years you might be able to start teasing out the effects of the sudden rise in interest rates. Right now, we're still feeling echoes of the pandemic and subsequent "snap-back" in economic activity.

Look at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCSA, set the units to "percent change from year ago," and zoom out to "Max". The pandemic effect dwarfs anything else in the entire history of the unemployment program. I think future economic research may well have to discard the years 2020-2024 because the circumstances were so unique and the distortions were so severe.

crystalmeph commented on The coming long-run slowdown in corporate profit growth and stock returns [pdf] (2023) federalreserve.gov/econre... · Posted by u/luu

GenerWork · 2 years ago

>Due to the utter hell it's already been for meeting accounting standards they need for their financial disclosures like inventory count of fucking screws in the warehouse needing to be perfect.

Surely this is done on a monthly or quarterly basis instead of a daily basis, right? As in, on day X at XX:XX time you count the screws, and call it good? Or is it more detailed than that?

crystalmeph · 2 years ago

Does it matter? It's a wasteful process, and not the only one that has been introduced into the parent commenter's workflow.

In a private company, you can just say "I don't care if we lose 1-cent screws, just order more when we open the last big box of them." You don't ever have to count them, unless you notice that you're spending an awful lot of money on replacing them.

In a public company that is legally required to keep track of its assets, you have to keep track of stuff that is really not worth keeping track of. Even if that's only on a periodic basis, there are literally dozens, probably hundreds of new "just one more things" you have to spend time on in a public company.

Yes, all those "one more things" keep you honest and accountable, but it has real, and rising, costs that can distort rational economic decision-making.

crystalmeph commented on The coming long-run slowdown in corporate profit growth and stock returns [pdf] (2023) federalreserve.gov/econre... · Posted by u/luu

fnordpiglet · 2 years ago

I call bullshit. Tax rates and interest rates certainly help spur investment and expansion of production but it’s hard to look at the world we live in today, with electric cars that can self drive and hand held devices connected to natural language comprehending oracles of knowledge, JIT industries end to end, starships to mars for colonization in mid to late stages, etc, and think “yep the only value is the value the federal reserve has created” as a federal reserve economist posits.

crystalmeph · 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox. "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics."

There are definitely companies that are winning from the tech you pointed out, sure. The companies that make robotaxis and the companies that sell AI subscriptions are going to make bank.

But at an aggregate level, that robotaxi means a human tax driver is no longer working, and if every sales person has their own personal robot translator for talking to foreign clients, then none of them has a competitive edge over the others, they've just had to invest that money in order to avoid giving up a competitive edge.

That OP paper's argument is basically that the only rising tide that truly lifts all economic boats is being able to keep more of the money you make instead of having to spend it on interest or taxes. So the age-old wisdom of "just buy an index fund" may have run its course, and you will actually have to pay attention to valuations instead of just blindly buying the market going forward.

crystalmeph commented on The coming long-run slowdown in corporate profit growth and stock returns [pdf] (2023) federalreserve.gov/econre... · Posted by u/luu

psunavy03 · 2 years ago

Interest rates have been all over the map over the last 60 years, including double digits in the 80s, and yet low-cost index funds have been a reliable driver of wealth that entire time.

crystalmeph · 2 years ago

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DGS10/

Zoom out to "Max" to get the full 60 year history. You can clearly see a full four decades of declining interest rates running from 1981-2020. That very neatly corresponds with the amazing stock market growth most HN readers, myself included, have grown up with.

The stock market growth is neatly correlated with declining interest rates, not with the actual value of the interest rates currently. That is, until the interest rates can't go any lower. The 10-year yield got as close as I hope it will ever get to zero back in 2020. There's nowhere to go but up from there.

For myself, I'm dusting off the old magic - a 60/40 stock/bond portfolio, with the stocks focused on value funds, plus a relatively small amount in "breakout" funds that could multiply a few times if technology goes the way I think it will. Maybe if interest fall a little bit I'll dial it to a 70/30 mix, but bonds are definitely part of the equation now.

crystalmeph commented on Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content politico.com/news/2024/08... · Posted by u/southernplaces7

andy_ppp · 2 years ago

I love your consideration for the financial problems of some of the most privileged people in all of human history. I just don’t really care that much if they get a big tax bill (I’m sure they’ll find a way to pay) and for a variety of reasons it will be good for society.

crystalmeph · 2 years ago

A large part of the United States' economic leadership is specifically concentrated in the tech startup sector.

Whether or not you think any of the companies funded by YCombinator[0] are actually worth their valuation, you have to realize that there will be fewer such startups if a tax on unrealized capital gains is passed, and that VC activity, along with the future startups chasing their money, absolutely will move to countries without such a tax.

Again, maybe you actually believe the startup scene in the US is worthless, in which case, go ahead and advocate for an unrealized gains tax Just be honest with yourself that it will entirely shut down sectors that others view as critical to the country's future dominance.

[0] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies

crystalmeph commented on Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content politico.com/news/2024/08... · Posted by u/southernplaces7

llm_trw · 2 years ago

>HN is awesome because of the rules and moderation (including bans);

It was awesome. Then it jumped the shark when people realized they could flag posts they don't like with no repercussions.

crystalmeph · 2 years ago

I wonder if something like Slashdot's metamoderation system could be used to tamp down such abuse.

One problem with metamoderation is that once a particular forum becomes an echo chamber, even metamoderation will unconsciously but repeatably ignore "valid" information from the other side and amplify misinformation from their own side. But if the site owners specifically searched for good-faith users from multiple viewpoints to serve as the jury pool for metamoderation, this could be workable.