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lyrrad commented on Amazon to end commingling after years of complaints from brands and sellers   modernretail.co/operation... · Posted by u/blindriver
codespin · 3 months ago
I received counterfeit goods multiple times due to this. I set up a subscribe and save order and they would let random retailers fill the order with fake products. Amazon collected the money and just did not care, they need to be held accountable for these things.
lyrrad · 3 months ago
I don't think ending commingling will stop that from happening, since Subscribe & Save is set to switch to a different seller with a lower price by default.

In the US, when Subscribe & Save is set up, it is set by default to receive orders from "Amazon.com and other top rated sellers". If you want to change it, you need to go into the Subscribe & Save page and change it to "Amazon.com only".

I've had an order where I initially placed a new subscription sold by Amazon.com, but a 3rd party seller would lower their price by a few cents, and Amazon would change the seller and I would receive grey market goods.

I haven't found a way to change the default for new subscriptions to always use the same seller that I set up the subscription with, so I need to manually change it for every single new subscription.

lyrrad commented on Lightweight LSAT   lightweightlsat.com/... · Posted by u/gregsadetsky
gowld · 5 months ago
Did you track your progress across practice tests? Did you need 70 tests to reach 178 performance?
lyrrad · 5 months ago
I think 70 tests is overkill. As long as you are able to analyze and learn from your mistakes, you should be able to improve doing a fraction of the tests.

My experience was from almost two decades ago and is atypical. I had decided to write it only just a month before the LSAT, and so I started prior tests only four weeks before the test date. In that time, I did 27 official practice tests. I also read a couple books and tried two unofficial tests.

I tracked my results in a spreadsheet and had a marginal improvement from 173.4 to 176 for the first five and last five tests. But, essentially all improvement happened after just ten tests.

In all practice tests, I did best in logic games, answering 98.1% correct, compared with 93.5% for logical reasoning and 91.4% for reading comprehension.

I was somewhat lucky and got 97/99 on the actual test, enough for a 180 that time (2 incorrect in logical reasoning). I had only got that twice in the practice tests with an expectation between 174 and 180 with a median of 176.

After each test I analyzed every incorrect answer as well as the ones I was less sure about. There were online forums where I could ask about, or see other people's analysis of the problem questions.

I think a strategy aimed understanding wrong answers in your weakest area can be a more efficient use of preparation time.

lyrrad commented on What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?   lumafield.com/article/wha... · Posted by u/walterbell
abhorrence · 5 months ago
They also do recalls. Which I’m certain is more than some cheaper no name brands do.
lyrrad · 5 months ago
I only buy portable Li-ion batteries from manufacturers with a history of product recalls in my country or directly from major retailers that regularly recall defective products.

I also only buy portable battery models that I believe will sell or has sold many thousands of units so any widespread manufacturering defects should become apparent sooner.

lyrrad commented on Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation   ntsb.gov:443/investigatio... · Posted by u/starkparker
hughes · 5 months ago
Part of me wonders if the plug could be designed such that it's obvious when the bolts are missing. Would this have happened if it were impossible to assemble without them, or if it were easy to verify their presence?

Maybe it doesn't matter if a better design is possible - if adequate procedures exist and weren't followed, and oversight fails to catch instances of that, then anything could go wrong.

lyrrad · 5 months ago
I believe that's what this directive is for:

"To the Federal Aviation Administration:" " Once you complete the certification of Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ design enhancement for ensuring the complete closure of Boeing 737 mid exit door (MED) plugs following opening or removal, issue an airworthiness directive to require that all in-service MED plug-equipped airplanes be retrofitted with the design enhancement. (A-25-15)"

This article: https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/boeing-completes-design..., suggests that the design enhancement will add "secondary retention devices" that "prevent installation of the cabin sidewall panels unless they are properly engaged." The article indicates that the existing bolts will also get lanyards that will "'permanently secure the bolts to the plug' and provide a visual indication' of whether they have been installed correctly."

Apparently, if only one of the four bolts was installed, it may have been sufficient to prevent the accident, according to: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/us/politics/boeing-alaska...

lyrrad commented on Double is winding down   double.finance/blog/wind_... · Posted by u/NetOpWibby
ram_rar · 6 months ago
I'm curious what led to the lack of demand for this—was it the friction involved in moving brokerage accounts, or do ETFs already meet the needs of most retail investors? A post-mortem on the limited traction would be quite insightful.
lyrrad · 6 months ago
There is financial friction involved.

As I understand it, this product involved using fractional shares to try to adhere to an index, while using tax loss harvesting to optimize for tax.

Fractional shares cannot be transferred between brokerages and are generally sold when transferring brokerages. If you owned on average, half a share of the largest 250 US companies, you'd may need to sell about $30,000 in shares, which could result in an unexpected tax bill.

There are large brokerages and companies offering similar direct indexing products, generally at a higher cost. However, I expect those products are less likely to be shut down.

lyrrad commented on A $20k electric truck with manual windows and no screens? Meet Slate Auto   arstechnica.com/cars/2025... · Posted by u/mixmastamyk
snailmailman · 8 months ago
I'm very curious how they are managing "no screens". I thought all vehicles in the U.S. were required to have rear-view cameras for safety. I'm curious how they are getting around that.

Edit: I now see that the article speculates that maybe there's a screen in the rear-view window for this. But I can't find anything concrete.

lyrrad · 8 months ago
The Verge reports that the rearview camera will be on "a small display behind the steering wheel as a gauge cluster."

https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric...

lyrrad commented on Uber charges more if you have credits in your account   viewfromthewing.com/uber-... · Posted by u/cwwc
jlund-molfese · a year ago
Probably false, like the urban legend that Uber charges more when a device's battery is low [0].

Claims like this go viral because they're practically unfalsifiable (It isn't in Uber's best interest to make their pricing algorithms public) and generate clicks. But when you take a closer look, it's always some anecdote that can be explained by people selecting different pricing tiers, or by multiple phones looking at the same route implying increased demand (the latter search might display a higher price). A proper experiment would involve dozens of phones under different scenarios making searches in a random order, then trying to correlate the variables with the prices. But for whatever reason, nobody ever does those experiments.

For what it's worth, I checked the price of an Uber with credits in my account against Lyft to the airport just now, and Uber was slightly cheaper.

0. https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/verify/verify-does-uber-ch...

lyrrad · a year ago
I believe data from all New York City trips from companies like Lyft and Uber since 2019 [1] can be downloaded from Taxi & Limousine Commission [2]. This data appears to include information such as the fare, date and time and TLC taxi zones for the pickup and dropoff [3].

I wonder if there is enough granularity in this data to make a determination if there's a large discrepancy/variation in fare in certain taxi zones at the same time with Uber, compared with Lyft or other competitors.

[1] https://www.nyc.gov/assets/tlc/downloads/pdf/trip_record_use...

[2] https://www.nyc.gov/site/tlc/about/tlc-trip-record-data.page

[3] https://www.nyc.gov/assets/tlc/downloads/pdf/data_dictionary...

lyrrad commented on Ditch banks – Go with money market funds and treasuries   thefinancebuff.com/goodby... · Posted by u/kamaraju
ryandrake · a year ago
Buyer availability really isn't a concern, especially for short term bills. I've never had even the slightest problem selling a T-bill one the secondary market. It's almost always as instant as selling 100 shares of a stock.
lyrrad · a year ago
There were liquidity issues at many brokers for short term T-Bills in the days and weeks before the debt ceiling crisis was resolved last year.

Some brokerages may have better liquidity and/or prices than others.

It can be prudent to have multiple cash holding types in case there are issues with some of them.

lyrrad commented on Ditch banks – Go with money market funds and treasuries   thefinancebuff.com/goodby... · Posted by u/kamaraju
lyrrad · a year ago
One issue I have with this article is that it doesn't discuss the distinction between Government money market funds that invest in US Treasury debt and repurchase agreements, and Prime money market funds, that also invest in riskier assets like corporate paper.

I'm comfortable with holding significant amounts in a Government MM fund, but less so with Prime MM funds.

lyrrad commented on Ditch banks – Go with money market funds and treasuries   thefinancebuff.com/goodby... · Posted by u/kamaraju
xhrpost · a year ago
I think it's mostly tax exempt at only the state level, no?

For tax advantage, I've recently found out about BOXX. You get roughly the same growth as a typical HYSA, but the value is added as actual value to the stock rather than dividends. So if you hold for at least one year, you can get HYSA interest but only pay capital gains tax.

lyrrad · a year ago
Note that BOXX had a capital gain distribution this week. It's unclear what portion of future growth will be distributed.

u/lyrrad

KarmaCake day151March 14, 2017View Original