Yup. I like reading and working on coding projects.

That said, sometimes I get a hankering to play a game, but none of the dozens I have installed look interesting, so I'll go play one of my favorites (EU4, C:S, Mount & Blade, etc).

I understand checking when first creating it, but I find it weird to check it after that. I don't even make my avatar in games look anything like myself. It's not that I'm bad looking or anything, I just don't like looking at myself, and that includes pictures, videos, etc.

Europa Universalis IV. There are tons of countries to play, lots of variation each time, and so many options for self challenges (e.g. accomplish goal by year).

The only thing that would get me to stop playing is if EUV is good, and then only a few years and DLC in. Even then, I could see myself coming back to it.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 21 points 14 hours ago

Do comments first. There's so much spam that almost looks legit because of how many upvotes they have.

Man, I hate looking at myself in mirrors or even hearing myself in recordings. I just don't understand people who actually like it.

What are they R&Ding that would drive them to bankruptcy?

It's what they're not R&Ding that would cause them to not be competitive and thus go bankrupt:

  • Restaurants - new recipes to keep customers coming
  • insurance - mostly innovation in marketing and self-service
  • real estate - lower cost materials (for new construction), faster pairing of buyers to sellers, etc
  • farming - better yields (esp GMOs), efficient land and water use, storage, etc
  • radio stations - access to customers outside of radio frequencies (e.g. apps), constantly changing radio programs to differentiate from competitors, etc
  • schools - new teaching methods, adapt to new tech, etc
  • book publishing - marketing(also applies to video game publishing)
  • auto parts dealer - inventory and supply chain optimization, adjusting to changing markets (e.g. EVs), etc
  • grocery stores - supply chain, marketing, faster checkout, more customers per square foot
  • nursing and medical home care - nursing is always evolving, esp geriatric care

Pretty much every company needs to innovate or they'll get outcompeted, that's the way market economies work. The only companies that don't need to innovate are monopolies, and we generally oppose those because stagnation isn't good.

I wasn’t playing Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast against AI openents…

Maybe terminology differs by region, but I absolutely played against AI as a kid. When I set up a game of Command and Conquer or something, I'd pick the number of AI opponents. Sometimes we'd call them bots (more common in FPS) or "the computer" or "CPU" (esp in Civ and other TBS), but I distinctly remember calling RTS SP opponents "AI" and I think many games used that terminology during the 90s.

What frustrates me is the opposite of what you're saying, people have changed the meaning of "AI" from a human programmed opponent to a statistical model. When I played against "AI" 20-30 years ago, I was playing against something a human crafted and tuned. These days, I don't play against "AI" because "AI" generates text, images, and video from a statistical model and can't really play games. AI is something that runs in the cloud, with maybe a small portion on phones and Windows computers to do simple tasks where the network would add too much latency.

It's easy to switch.

That said, I think the comment is constructive. It used to be that websites, textbooks, etc would pay artists or pay for stock photos (which indirectly pays artists), but now they can gen a dozen or so images and pick their favorite.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, but I do agree that art will never be the same.

That's quite the extreme interpretation.

I'm a lead software dev, and when deadlines are close, I absolutely divvy up tasks based on ability. We're a webapp shop with 2D and 3D components, and I have the following on my team:

  • 2 BE devs with solid math experience
  • 1 senior BE without formal education, but lots of knowledge on frameworks
  • 1 junior fullstack that we hired as primarily backend (about 75/25 split)
  • 2 senior FE devs, one with a QA background
  • 2 mid level FEs who crank out code (but miss some edge cases)
  • 1 junior FE

That's across two teams, and one of the senior FEs is starting to take over the other team.

If we're at the start of development, I'll pair tasks between juniors and seniors so the juniors get more experience. When deadlines are close, I'll pair tasks with the most competent dev in that area and have the juniors provide support (write tests, fix tech debt, etc).

The same goes for AI. It's useful at the start of a project to understand the code and gen some boilerplate, but I'm going to leave it to the side when tricky bugs need to get fixed or we can't tolerate as many new bugs. AI is like a really motivated junior, it's quick to give answers but slow to check their accuracy.

The most annoying one for me was management asking us turn our monitors off every day before going home. I hooked up a Kill-a-watt to my monitor and measured the actual electricity it uses and posted a super satirical comment about how much we'd save on electricity (esp given our low electricity prices) and that's the last I heard them mention it.

Hot girls be hot, regardless of skin tone. I assume the same is true for men.

17

I found the graph at 10:55 to be especially interesting because it shows how someone with around the median income ($65k) can make it to the lower upper class by retirement through some discipline (10% saved per year).

As a quick TL;DW, here are the median incomes, net worth, and percent of population for each class:

  • lower - $34k income, $3.4k net worth (many are negative) - 25%
  • middle
    • lower - $44k income, $71k net worth - 20%
    • middle - $81k income, $159k net worth - 20%
    • upper - $117k income, $307k net worth - 20%
  • upper
    • lower - $189k income, $747k net worth - 10%
    • upper - $378k income, $2.5M net worth - 5%

Some questions to spark discussion:

  • Do you agree with his breakdown of the economic classes? Why or why not?
  • What strategies do you think someone in each category should take to improve their situation?
  • If you don't mind sharing, what class do you think you're in, and does the breakdown match your experience?
12
27

Here's what I currently have:

  • Ryzen 1700 w/ 16GB RAM
  • GTX 750 ti
  • 1x SATA SSD - 120GB, currently use <50GB
  • 2x 8TB SATA HDD
  • runs openSUSE Leap, considering switch to microOS

And main services I run (total disk usage for OS+services - data is :

  • NextCloud - possibly switch to ownCloud infinite scale
  • Jellyfin - transcoding is nice to have, but not required
  • samba
  • various small services (Unifi Controller, vaultwarden, etc)

And services I plan to run:

  • CI/CD for Rust projects - infrequent builds
  • HomeAssistant
  • maybe speech to text? I'm looking to build an Alexa replacement
  • Minecraft server - small scale, only like 2-3 players, very few mods

HW wishlist:

  • 16GB RAM - 8GB may be a little low longer term
  • 4x SATA - may add 2 more HDDs
  • m.2 - replace my SATA SSD; ideally 2x for RAID, but I can do backups; performance isn't the concern here (1x sata + PCIe would work)
  • dual NIC - not required, but would simplify router config for private network; could use USB to Eth dongle, this is just for security cameras and whatnot
  • very small - mini-ITX at the largest; I want to shove this under my bed
  • very quiet
  • very low power - my Ryzen 1700 is overkill, this is mostly for the "quiet" req, but also paying less is nice

I've heard good things about N100 devices, but I haven't seen anything w/ 4x SATA or an accessible PCIe for a SATA adapter.

The closest I've seen is a ZimaBlade, but I'm worried about:

  • performance, especially as a CI server
  • power supply - why couldn't they just do regular USB-C?
  • access to extra USB ports - its hidden in the case

I don't need x86 for anything, ARM would be fine, but I'm having trouble finding anything with >8GB RAM and SATA/PCIe options are a bit... limited.

Anyway, thoughts?

86
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works to c/thefarside@sh.itjust.works

Horse styles of the ’50s

32
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works to c/thefarside@sh.itjust.works

For crying out loud, Jonah! Three days late, covered with slime, and smelling like fish! … And what story have I got to swallow this time?

1
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works to c/thefarside@sh.itjust.works

You know what I’m sayin’? … Me, for example. I couldn’t work in some stuffy little office. … The outdoors just calls to me.

4
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works to c/thefarside@sh.itjust.works

Look! Look, gentlemen! Purple mountains! Spacious skies! Fruited plains! … Is someone writing this down?

1
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works to c/thefarside@sh.itjust.works

Sure, I’m a creature—and I can accept that … but lately it seems I’ve been turning into a miserable creature.

126

It has been a while since the last one. So...

Tell us what game you are currently, or recently played, greater than 6+ months old.

If the game happens to be on sale, a link would be a plus.

29
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works to c/personalfinance@lemmy.ml

Here's an archived version of the page.

What follows is largely a reaction to analysts predicting a recession and giving advice on how to adjust your investing strategy. The TL;DR here is: don't, they get it wrong more than they get it right.

Among PF enthusiasts, there's a saying that goes something like this: analysts have predicted 20 of the last three recessions.

Here's a chart for the S and P 500 long term after inflation. As you'll notice, long downward trends are quite rare, and the general trend is upward. In general, you can expect 6.5-7% long term after taking out inflation (~10% before inflation) if you buy and hold a broad stock market index fund. It seems almost every year someone calls for a recession, and this year is no exception. People were calling for recessions staring in 2015 or so, and look how that turned out.

Finance pundits and blogs like saying outlandish things like "recession will happen this year, liquidate stocks and buy X, Y, and Z," and if you're lucky, they'll throw some fancy charts up to make you think they know what they're talking about. But just know that all of this is for attention, they make money through ads or airtime, and some will try to sell you a book or something. The worst ones do a pump and dump scheme where they'll invest in security X, hype it up, and then sell when there's a bump in prices and average investors are left holding the bag.

Everyone seems to think they have some system for beating the market, but few professional fund managers manage to beat the index they benchmark their fund with, and even fewer can do it consistently:

Across all domestic actively managed equity funds, 88.4% underperformed their respective benchmark over the last 15 years, according to an analysis of the S&P SPIVA report.

...

More than 80% of large-cap funds underperformed the S&P 500 over the last five years. In 2019, 79.98% of large-cap funds underperformed compared to the S&P 500, which was just a hair better than the five-year average.

So if you buy a large cap index fund, you'll do better than 80% of professional fund managers over 5 years, and you'll outperform nearly 90% of them over 15 years. So don't listen to their nonsense about changing allocation during a recession (or even whether there will be a recession) because you're statistically better off ignoring it.

To really drive it home, let's look at the linked article about Betty, the world's most unlucky investor, who invested only at the worst possible times (just before every major recession) since the 1980s:

Even though she picked the worst six moments since the 1980s in which to invest, she made an average profit over the next five years of 20% and an average profit over 10 years of 100%. She doubled her money. Despite her disastrous, terrible timing, she was in the black after five years on four occasions out of six, and in the black after 10 years 10 times out of 10.

Today, even though her total cash costs from those six investments totaled just $3,500, her portfolio is worth $17,500. That’s more than five times her investment. And that’s even factoring in losses this year, which have seen the global stock market — and Betty’s portfolio — fall 22%.

Just think of how much better she could've done if she had invested consistently, which means she would've bought at the lows and middles instead of just the highs.

If you instead listen to the pundits, you're likely to buy high (you'll miss the bottom, I guarantee it) and sell low (you'll sell early or late). Do what has worked well historically and buy and hold a diversified portfolio.

I don't know if a recession is coming, but I do know it'll change nothing about my investing strategy, other than perhaps how much I can invest. If you're nervous about the economy, make sure your emergency fund is funded and stay the course with your investing strategy, whatever your desired asset allocation is.

6
[US] End of year PF tasks (www.kiplinger.com)

I like to review my financial situation near the end of the year to prep for tax season, give to charity, etc. For any who cannot access the article or are too lazy, here are the things they recommend:

  1. Tax loss harvesting
  2. Contribute to retirement accounts
  3. Convert IRA to Roth
  4. Reassess risk tolerance
  5. Review RMDs - only for 73+
  6. Charitable contributions
  7. Fund accounts for dependents

I check most of these, but more importantly I look at the new limits for 401k and IRA, as well at HSA limits for the upcoming year.

Is there something you like to do financially at the end of the year?

31

In this post, I'll provide a lot of basic information about investing, with links to additional reading for various concepts. Most of these concepts are not US-centric, though I will be mentioning US-specific details, such as tax-advantaged account types.

What's the difference between a mutual fund, etf, and index fund?

A mutual fund is a financial vehicle where assets from a large number of investors are pooled to be invested as one entity. Mutual funds have strategies, and investors invest based on how well the fund executes that strategy. For example, you may compare two large cap funds, and they have similar returns but one has a much lower expense ratio (the fees for running the fund), so you may choose the cheaper fund. Mutual funds generally can only be purchased after market hours, and only through a brokerage that has an agreement with the fund. If you buy a fund through a brokerage that doesn't sponsor the fund (e.g. if you buy a Vanguard fund from E-trade), you'll pay a fee for each transaction, whereas you'll pay nothing if you buy it from the brokerage the mutual fund is associated with (e.g. a Vanguard fund from Vanguard). With a mutual fund, you generally invest a certain amount of money, and the amount of shares really isn't that important.

An ETF is very similar to a mutual fund, except it is traded like a stock. So if you want to buy a share of an ETF, you'll just pay whatever commission your brokerage charges (often $0), just like you would with any other stock. However, since it trades like a stock, you can generally only trade in whole shares, unless your brokerage allows fractional share trades. So an ETF is essentially a mutual fund that is traded like a stock.

An index fund is a specific kind of mutual fund/etf, where the strategy is based on an index. This means the fund manager has a lot less input on how the strategy is executed, since they're trying to match a specific asset allocation instead of buying winners. For example, one popular index is the S&P 500, which is defined as the top 500 companies in terms of market cap (what the market thinks they're worth), and index funds tracking the S&P 500 will by based on the percentage of market cap a given stock has. For example, let's say Microsoft is 10% of the S&P and Apple is 15%, the fund would buy 10% Microsoft shares and 15% Apple shares, and the rest would go to the rest of the companies in the index in the same fashion. Since there's less analysis of individual companies, index funds can operate on very low expenses.

When comparing funds, focus more on the expenses and strategy instead of past performance, because past performance does not guarantee or even indicate expected future results.

So in short:

  • mutual fund - you invest money, and the manager buys stocks/bonds according to a defined strategy
  • etf - you buy shares, and the manager buys stocks/bonds according to a defined strategy
  • index fund - restricts the manager to a very specific strategy, where purchased stocks/bonds must match a defined index

The vast majority of active fund managers fall behind the S&P 500. So in general, you'll probably be better off with an index fund instead of an actively managed mutual fund.

What is a stock?

A stock represents marketable pieces (shares) of ownership in a company. When a company is incorporated, the owner splits the company into some number of shares, and those shares can be sold individually to raise money to grow the company. The owner of the company is one with more than half of the shares (otherwise called a controlling stake), and if nobody owns a majority of the shares, it becomes a democratic system where each share represents a vote. In practice, only very large shareholders end up voting for board members, and the board hires a CEO that ends up making the rest of the day-to-day decisions.

This is true for both public and private companies, though purchasing shares in a private company cannot typically be done on the market and needs to be done through existing shareholders. When a company "goes public," private shares are converted to public shares and can then be sold on the open market.

If your company offers an employee stock purchase plan, make sure you know how you can liquidate those since shares in a private company can be very difficult to sell.

What is a bond?

At a high level, a bond represents a unit of debt for some organization. Basically, you're lending that org money, in exchange for them paying you back at some rate over some period. Some bonds pay dividends (i.e. you'll get the interest at regular intervals), and others instead are paid off at the end of the bond period in a lump sum.

Bond Ratings

Bond ratings represent the rating issuer's confidence that the organization will repay its debts as agreed. These ratings vary a little by rating org, so I'll be using S&P's rating system here.

Each rating consists of a letter in the range A-D with a + or - sign or number (e.g. A+, A-1, etc), and it works similar to letter grades in schools. The higher the grade, the lower the risk. In general:

  • A-1/AAA+ - investment grade; top possible score
  • A-2/AA - investment grade, strong score
  • A-3/A - investment grade, adequate risk
  • B - speculative, currently meeting commitments
  • C - speculative, vulnerable to default/non-payment
  • D - speculative, in default

Money market funds will stick to investment grade bonds, and "junk" bonds are the bottom two groups (C and D).

The main rating groups are S&P, Fitch, and Moody, and they can use different rating systems, especially for different types of bonds (e.g. a short-term vs long-term bonds can use different systems from the same org, as shown above with A-1 vs AAA).

In general, the higher the rating, the lower the return, but also the higher the probability that you'll actually get the return promised.

Tax implications

There are several types of bonds, like corporate, government, and municipal, and each have different tax implications. What follows is very high-level, there's a lot of nuance in the bond market wrt taxes:

There is a lot of nuance, so look into your local and state tax laws to ensure you understand.

Asset allocation

Your asset allocation refers to how your investments are distributed across different asset classes. The most popular asset classes are stocks and bonds, though there are other asset classes investors may be interested in, such as:

  • real estate
  • precious metals
  • futures - e.g. purchase contracts for commodities (e.g. you could trade barrels of oil)

Asset classes can be broken down further, such as for stocks:

  • market sector - tech vs utilities vs manufacturing, etc
  • growth vs value - value means companies that are likely undervalued, growth means companies that have shown strong returns vs competitors; there's also dividend strategies (i.e. companies that tend to return profits to shareholders instead of investing in the core business)
  • market cap - large cap (massive companies like Microsoft and Apple), mid cap, and small cap (smaller companies, like Jack in the Box, Polaris, etc)

Choosing an asset allocation can be an overwhelming process, and there are a lot of strategies that people claim works. The more important thing is to understand your strategy and stick with it instead of shifting with the trends (if you always buy what recently performed well, you'll be essentially buying high and selling low).

Here are some popular asset allocations (I've listed what I think is interesting below):

  • Bogleheads strategy - buy stocks according to market cap, bonds according to age; three fund portfolio, two fund portfolios; the global market cap is ~55-60% US stocks, 40-45% international stocks; bond percent should be 100 - your age (quite conservative)
  • 60/40 - 60% stocks, 40% bonds - generally recommended for retirees and those close to retirement, though some do it throughout their investment career
  • "Permanent portfolio" - 25% gold, 25% cash (or Treasuries), 25% stocks, 25% bonds - intended for asset preservation and ends up being quite conservative
  • dividend portfolio - buy almost entirely stocks with high dividends (one strategy is Dogs of the Dow, and then plan to live off dividends in retirement

There are a ton of exotic ones as well, such as Hedgefundies Excellent Adventure (lots of leverage in a portfolio intended to match risk of non-leveraged portfolios). Don't do anything like that without fully understanding how all of the pieces work, and even then, I recommend one of the above over anything that uses leverage.

Account types

Most countries offer tax-advantages to encourage residents to at least partially fund their own retirement. This will cover US-specific tax-advantaged account types, though similar structures exist in many other countries, and searching for " " will probably yield articles with information for resources for your region.

Here are the main account types, you may have access to some but not all:

  • 401k - employer-sponsored retirement plan
  • IRA - individual retirement account - available to everyone
  • HSA - health savings account, must have a high-deductible health plan; essentially becomes an IRA once you hit 65
  • 457 - employer sponsored plan offered at many state and local government agencies, and some non-profits
  • 403(b) - similar to 401k, but offered to teachers, private non-profit employees, and some others

There are others, but these are the ones you're likely to run into that are relevant for retirees.

There are two main types of tax advantages these offer, referred to as traditional and Roth, though there are nuances for each account type. In general:

  • traditional - get a tax deduction on contributions, no taxes on growth while it's in the account, pay taxes when you withdraw
  • Roth - no deduction on contributions, no taxes on growth, no taxes when you withdraw

If your tax bracket is the same when you contribute and when you withdraw, Roth and traditional accounts are equivalent. As a quick demonstration, let's say you have a 10% tax rate, you invest $10k, your investments double, and you withdraw everything all at once:

  • Roth (post-tax) - invest $9k ($10k - $1k taxes), grows to $18k, withdraw $18k
  • traditional (pre-tax) - invest $10k, grows to $20k, withdraw $18k ($20k - $2k taxes)

There are limits to how much you can invest in tax-advantaged accounts, and traditional accounts sometimes have income limits to receive a deduction. There are strategies to maximize your tax-advantaged, so if you think you don't qualify, please ask since you may have options (e.g. a backdoor Roth IRA if you're over the income limit for Roth IRA contributions).

Long term capital gains vs income tax brackets

Regular brokerage accounts have no tax advantages, but they do have the advantage that gains are taxed as capital gains instead of income, whereas a traditional IRA/401k/etc is taxed upon withdrawal as income. Long-term capital gains brackets are lower across the board for the same income level vs income tax, and there's a 0% long-term capital gains bracket that corresponds to most of the 12% income tax bracket, then 15% up to the middle of the 32%/35% brackets, and then 20% thereafter. Short-term capital gains are taxed as income, so be careful to only sell assets that qualify as long-term capital gains.

There are situations where a regular brokerage account can be advantageous over taking a tax deduction for a traditional account. Here's an article about why you may want to use a traditional account and invest the tax savings in a brokerage vs a Roth account (target audience is early retirees, but it's applicable to traditional retirees as well). It's a fairly niche case, but applicable to surprisingly many people.

Tax-efficient fund placement

Let's assume you have a mix of assets in the following:

  • Roth account
  • traditional account
  • taxable brokerage account

In general, you'll want to do the following:

  • Roth account - highest growth since it's 100% tax free
  • traditional account - capital gains generating investments with relatively low growth, e.g. bonds and dividend heavy stocks
  • taxable brokerage account - international stocks because of the Foreign Tax Credit (e.g. you get a part of the taxes you paid back), assets with low capital gains distributions, and low need for rebalancing

However, the benefits here are far less than the benefits for using the right account types for you. For example, the Foreign Tax Credit is something like 0.23%/year of your taxable investments if you're invested in something like VTIAX, and you'll be paying taxes on something like 2.8% of that same investment. So use your tax advantaged space first, and then optimize from there.

Conclusion

Investing can feel overwhelming, and there's so much conflicting information available out there. My personal advice is to keep it simple using tried-and-true methods that have consistently had good results in the past. Here's what I do:

  • max my tax advantaged accounts
  • 70% US stocks, 30% international stocks asset allocation - I think the US will continue to outperform, but I want to hedge my bets some
  • buy low-cost index funds, one fund per account to keep it simple; in my case, this gets me close:
    • 401k - 100% US stocks
    • IRA - 100% US stocks
    • HSA - 100% international stocks
    • taxable brokerage - 100% international stocks
  • I don't have any bonds because I'm not retiring anytime soon and I have a high risk tolerance (I didn't panic sell in 2008); I do count my emergency fund as my "bond" portion though, so there's that
  • check on my investments about 1-2x/year to make sure everything is close to my target (if I'm over in US stocks, I'll swap some IRA space to international; if I'm over in international stocks, I'll swap some HSA space to US)

My IRA and taxable brokerage is at Vanguard, and my HSA is at Fidelity. When I switch jobs, I roll my 401k -> my IRA.

This got pretty long and I probably should've broken it up into multiple posts, so please let me know if there's an area you'd like more detail on and I'll consider making a post about it.

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sugar_in_your_tea

joined 2 years ago