qes (u/qes) - Readit News

qes commented on Declining quality of consumer-grade products – 2009 fridge compressor autopsy automaticwasher.org/cgi-b... · Posted by u/userbinator

theonemind · 3 years ago

I remember someone who bought a low-mileage used car under warranty. The transmission started acting funny and making strange noises, but the dealer wouldn't do any repairs because it worked. I think he was about 8 months into a 12 month warranty.

He drove in such a way as to make sure it didn't work before the warranty was up, and then they fixed it.

qes · 3 years ago

Surely driving the vehicle in a manner that was certain to break the transmission within 4 months caused no other excessive wear in the vehicle, right? Sounds like a terrible idea, really.

qes commented on The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding believermag.com/the-femin... · Posted by u/unpredict

Blikkentrekker · 5 years ago

The article points out that for visible abdominals one needs to maintain less than 10%, typically 8%, and that doctors recommend between 15% and 20%

10% is at the outskirts of what is generally considered acceptable, it is not a disaster such as the 3% that some body builders go for, but gaining more is definitely better and to achieve 10% one must in general consciously malnutitrion and avoid eating food that the body can use to synthesize fat.

qes · 5 years ago

Just an anecdote, but I've had multiple dexa scans in the 8-12% range spanning across years of bulking and cutting and I've never had better than what I consider mediocre abs - probably much better than the average adult male in the U.S. but never magazine photo worthy or anything like that. Other people did comment on them at ~8%, though, so my own perspective may be negatively biased.

qes commented on Program teaches prisoners coding so they can land tech jobs once released thedenverchannel.com/news... · Posted by u/apsec112

tluyben2 · 5 years ago

I guess if they are significantly cheaper than others, people will hire them. There is a long way to $0 from the salaries people on HN say developers make in the US. I do not know any convicted people, however, I do know jobless people who were 'made redundant' by covid or before that and they would work for very little (enough to get by, but not more than that) if they could work from home as developer. I bet that goes for many people including ex convicts.

qes · 5 years ago

Multiple felon software dev here. I make $250k in Minneapolis.

qes commented on Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility sec.gov/news/public-state... · Posted by u/TeMPOraL

sangnoir · 5 years ago

Short-sellers are part of the free market. They are how the equation balances itself when trying to find the "true value" of a concern, or at least an approximation thereof.

Obviously the person who owns stock, or is set to earn billions when the share price reaches a certain level is going to be adversarial to someone whose actions result in the share price being depressed - even if that is the fair value.

> Large funds making public bets against a company have a material impact on that company's liquidity.

There are always bigger fish - and if the public bet is wrong, someone can, and will earn money at the funds' cost.

Edit: shareholders dislike shorts the same way employers dislike employees sharing salary information; it's a losing proposition for them, but a fair one.

qes · 5 years ago

> Short-sellers are part of the free market

Not when they get to simply turn off the half of the market moving against them they aren't.

qes commented on Climate change: US emissions in 2020 in biggest fall since WWII bbc.com/news/science-envi... · Posted by u/Bender

polka_haunts_us · 5 years ago

Anecdotally as someone in a family all of whom are thriving financially during the pandemic, here are possible reasons it could be true.

* My student loan payments are frozen, I believe the total balance of student loans that are frozen is something like 85% country wide.

* People working remotely = low transit expenses.

* No live events = low entertainment expenses.

* Raging pandemic = low travel expenses.

* Investment = stock market has been very profitable since march. I made 100% last year just on random long term investment.

Basically, if you have a job that was exceeding the minimum threshold of living expenses, any of the extraneous things you were spending money on, other than eating out maybe, have evaporated.

Obviously there is a notable segment of the population that is not doing well, can barely if at all cover day to day expenses, and unemployment has gone up, but that segment isn't necessarily a majority.

That's all just speculation though, I'm not claiming parent is correct.

qes · 5 years ago

Anecdotally, as someone who's work kept on trucking (surprisingly - we sell content for display in public spaces where people pass or congregate) - 2020 was a banner year for my family. We saved more than we ever have before and the price of our various assets soared.

We even had a 20% bump in gross revenue while bringing our costs down, and that's after 2019 was flat for us (prior to that we were hitting 30%+ for a handful of years in a row).

qes commented on Treasury nominee Yellen is looking to curtail use of cryptocurrency arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/xvector

jqpabc123 · 5 years ago

The flow of Tether into Bitcoin generally correlates to the rise in price...

Tether is being used to manipulate bitcoin up and down.

https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2019/attorney-general-james-...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robkniaz/2020/12/16/the-problem...

qes · 5 years ago

Researchers at UC Berkeley disagree

https://voxeu.org/article/stable-coins-dont-inflate-crypto-m...

qes commented on Testosterone levels show steady decrease among young US men urologytimes.com/view/tes... · Posted by u/rasengan

heyoni · 5 years ago

Generally speaking, if your testicles don’t shrink, your production stays the same right? That’s what I’ve seen people do; inject testosterone until they notice shrinkage, then stop.

qes · 5 years ago

> Generally speaking, if your testicles don’t shrink, your production stays the same right?

No, absolutely not.

The size of your testicles is in no way indicative of your testosterone production.

While a shorter period of use generally has a higher chance of your natural production restarting after ceasing exogenous testosterone, your natural production of testosterone shuts down immediately with the introduction of exogenous testosterone.

qes commented on Testosterone levels show steady decrease among young US men urologytimes.com/view/tes... · Posted by u/rasengan

nxc18 · 5 years ago

Completely agree about BMI ranges potentially being too wide.

I just checked Fitbit and was surprised to see I’m now in the “ideal” range. I have man boobs and a muffin top. While I’m rarely the fattest person around anymore, I’m very clearly still overweight.

It’s rare enough to see men that aren’t visibly overweight that it feels like a real exception when I do.

I suspect there are _lots_ of fat men with an “ideal” BMI 18.5-24.9.

qes · 5 years ago

At 6'0", 215 lbs, and 10% body fat (via DEXA scans) I have a BMI of 29.2 - on the high end of "overweight" - almost "obese". I'm a fit, but not especially big, casual weightlifter with a desk job.

qes commented on Tether price manipulation twitter.com/JacobOracle/s... · Posted by u/temp

raesene9 · 5 years ago

Challenge there is that it doesn't fit the narrative that Tether give about the demand being from "institutional investors". That kind of customer tends (IMO) to be very risk averse.

Of course it is possible that Tether are getting custom, but not the kind that wants to leave a bank trail. But if that's the case they're going to fall foul of the regulators sooner or later...

qes · 5 years ago

> Challenge there is that it doesn't fit the narrative that Tether give about the demand being from "institutional investors"

Market makers and trading shops with 7-8 figure funds playing with riskier cryptos or trying to tap worldwide volume.

It's not MicroStrategy and Mass Mutual Insurance using Tethers

qes commented on Tether price manipulation twitter.com/JacobOracle/s... · Posted by u/temp

PragmaticPulp · 5 years ago

> If people want to buy a certain token they first go into Tether. This is usually for bypassing local legislation

That alone should be a red flag.

I know there are a lot of narratives about people in repressive governments using Bitcoin to take their meager savings out of the country or carrying their net worth across borders in mind wallets, but Tether isn't targeting these people.

Tether has very high minimum purchases. They cater (supposedly) to extremely wealthy clients who, for whatever reason, would rather use a questionable intermediary instead of going straight to any one of the major financial institutions offering BTC to purchase their bitcoin. If you had told me in 2015 that it was difficult to purchase BTC as an institution, I would have believed you. In 2021, there isn't much reason to do end-runs around regulations unless you're deliberately trying to launder money and/or dodge taxes.

qes · 5 years ago

> That alone should be a red flag.

That's not the primary use (by dollar volume, it is also helpful to streamline participation in the entire crypto ecosphere regardless of local regulations).

But Tether's for market making. Arbitrators need a way to transfer USD denominated amounts between exchanges to operate.

On top of market making, you'll have smallish (7-8 figure USD) trading shops running strategies across multiple cryptos that just don't have fiat ramps, or they want to tap into volume across exchanges that don't have fiat ramps. If you're one of these customers, you can get in touch with Tether and make redemptions, but you probably don't need to do that anyway because you're working through a prime broker.

This activity doesn't care if the market's bull or bear, so it continues to grow over time in either trend.