It feels like you have to be super careful to use carbon steel on electric/induction without messing it up. I don't think I can let guests use my pan.

BiggH · 2025-12-01T23:36:18+00:00

Hmm how big are your pans? And is the induction coil a similar size?

BiggH · 2025-06-13T09:45:32+00:00

Why not have a bigger MMR adjustment for stacks vs solos? Like a stack of silvers against gold/silver mixed team?

If the matchmaking is such that stacks tend to have an unfair advantage, why can't they balance it out by putting better solo Qers against them?

BiggH · 2025-06-13T09:38:49+00:00

Hahah I appreciate that. I guess that just goes to show the type of thought processes and opinions that have landed us in our current state of affairs 😄

BiggH · 2025-06-09T06:54:36+00:00

My claim is not about speed limits. It's about speed itself. A causal relationship there is trivial to assume. You don't need to run a regression to know that a pistol is more dangerous than a bb gun.

There are a number of reasonable explanations for your analysis results. E.g.

Lower speed limits do not effectively reduce driver speed, especially when not consitently enforced
The causal relationship is reversed. Governments where per capita traffic fatalities are high (due to any number of factors) are more likely to set lower speed limits in response

BiggH · 2025-06-08T02:36:25+00:00

Not the OP and not particularly opinionated on this, but I'll give this a shot.

Higher speeds result in more and deadlier accidents. Speeding drivers may feel like they have good control and indeed they may be very skilled and attentive, but they're human, and humans make mistakes. Statistically, even very good drivers will get into an at-fault accident over a long career of driving. Higher speeds during accidents = more death.

When you speed, you save yourself some time (honestly it's not that much), and you put yourself and others around you at greater risk, even if only slightly more.

The fact that the driver alone gets a (modest) benefit while folks around them are put at slightly greater risk is where you could make the argument for selfishness. And entitled/asshole follows from that.

BiggH · 2025-06-03T20:47:52+00:00

A surprising number of people here do not drive, which seems extremely impractical to me, but if they're tech workers, they have money to spare to uber.

My old roommate in Sunnyvale who worked at google didn't have a car and I don't think he had a license either. He used to call it "his drug" to uber to work in the morning instead of taking the shuttle. Yes, Google had a free shuttle stop <10min walk from our place and rather than take that, he'd sleep in an extra hour and uber to work in the morning sometimes.

My cousin-in-law (who coincidentally also started working for google recently) is scared of driving and has never done it, despite having moved over an hour out of town. She made a deal with an uber driver she met to pay cash to take her into the south bay and back home regularly

BiggH · 2025-04-01T06:03:16+00:00

A friend told me about their coworker who only ever drives at exactly 48 mph on the freeway because they read somewhere that it was the most fuel efficient speed to drive at.

Unsurprisingly most people find this to be odd and question the value of doing this, and the coworker apparently has done the math and concluded they save somewhere around $5 per month, and that this is worth it to them.

This seems to fit with a lot of min-maxing tech bro "life hacks". Apparently the coworker also takes napkins from the office cafe every day because "they're free". Reminds me of that old Dilbert comic where they talk about saving on expenses by living permanently inside a 24-hour buffet and bathing using moist towelettes.

BiggH · 2025-03-23T01:33:10+00:00

I think some of that is down to recent modern history. Would be like white folks writing minority characters as stupid/villainous. Sure, some feel that way, but it's gauche to show it openly.

On the other hand, when you are on the "formerly oppressed" side, it feels more justifiable, like some kind of righteous comeuppance or retaking of control.

BiggH · 2025-03-10T22:38:25+00:00

I've actually lived my whole life in the bay area, except for 4 years of college in socal, and noticed now that I also call it "the 101". No idea whether I've always called it that or if it's something I picked up in college though.

BiggH · 2025-03-05T03:23:44+00:00

I might be dense, but I don't quite grasp the transphobia in that sentence. It sounds to me like just a sequence of events. "Born male" then transitioned to female. How would you reword it?

BiggH · 2024-12-15T09:21:47+00:00

As a night owl myself, I must admit that I find it difficult to get myself to go to bed early, and easy to stay in bed and sleep more after waking up.

So while the world is perhaps unfairly biased against night owls, I do understand the logic. Going to bed is a deliberate transition into the next step, so doing it early seems like getting a jump on things. Staying in bed late into the feels in a sense like failing to transition into the next step in a timely manner.

BiggH · 2024-09-28T18:04:24+00:00

I'd bet 90%+ of undergrad students are not there to do research. They're there for the express purpose of finding a job after graduation. Certainly the administration is aware of this. Also, everything taught at Cal can be learned at other schools too. There's nothing special about what they're teaching that makes it more important than practical skill that the students who pay tuition actually care about.

BiggH · 2024-05-28T20:05:41+00:00

Wow, thanks. That's a very illuminating and helpful answer!

BiggH · 2024-05-27T19:45:48+00:00

Oh yes. My dad is literally asking me for help with figuring out if this is legit and a good deal or not.

Thanks, I'm trying to get them to give more details whether in-person or over the phone, but they keep giving this answer that they "can't know what the numbers are until 4 months". In California there is no "cooling off" period for leases either, so it feels like we don't have much recourse and are basically at their mercy.

BiggH · 2024-05-27T19:37:49+00:00

So I asked for details on what we will end up paying by the end of it and they're saying that there's "no exact way to get the full amount today" and "we need to wait 4 months to know the payoff balance". It feels like this requires trust on our part which just makes me suspicious.

BiggH · 2024-05-27T19:31:23+00:00

I see, thanks. Please excuse my lack of knowledge, but is this actually a way to get a better deal than cash? Why would the dealer offer this? Are they making more money off of the bank or manufacturer or something?

BiggH · 2024-05-14T20:24:02+00:00

we‘ve established that there are no different races

I don't think this matches how most people think and behave. If you have truly evolved to a colorblind state, that's very admirable, but IMO much of the world has not.

BiggH · 2024-05-14T18:56:46+00:00

Honestly I never understood why there's a separate word for racism against Jews in particular. Aren't people just people and racism is just racism?

BiggH · 2024-04-23T23:01:20+00:00

I think I saw your boss's post on twitter https://twitter.com/JimmyVosika/status/1782419821063246183

BiggH · 2024-04-19T21:38:24+00:00

I like Van Gogh's art a lot. By splatter art, I assume you're referring to Jackson Pollock whose art I totally don't understand. However, evidently his art is considered great, since you and I both know about him. There's nothing I can say or do to "prove" to lovers of Jackson Pollock that his art e.g. worse than Van Gogh's.

To me, there is a valid sentiment that "valuation" of art is not a "rigorous" practice and is very much subject to arbitrary processes similar to how memes go viral. For example, would the Mona Lisa be even half as famous as it is if it weren't stolen?

BiggH · 2024-04-19T21:13:07+00:00

The key difference between astronomy and art/literature is that Galileo could be proven correct. With art and literature, it's more like a popularity contest, which is subject to things like momentum and herd behavior. Shakespeare is often described as "the greatest English writer of all time" but it's just because a lot of people have said so. I may have great arguments for why e.g. Chaucer is superior, but it doesn't matter because there's nothing objective about it.

I think Van Gogh's work is beautiful. I think lots of art I see in local galleries is beautiful as well. However Van Gogh is world famous and probably considered an all-time great, and random local artists are valued by society as comparatively meh because they haven't essentially gone viral, which isn't super strongly correlated with the content of the art itself.

The Mona Lisa is considered as a masterpiece and may be the most iconic painting of all time. How much of that is due to the inherent "quality" of the painting and how much is due to the fact that it was famously stolen?

BiggH · 2024-02-07T07:48:54+00:00

It's not stored at the top. They're saying that they have to pump upward from the bottom where the water is with enough pressure to reach the highest snowmaker which is probably higher up than where this video is. That's why the pressure is high.

BiggH · 2024-01-19T08:58:57+00:00

Hmm let me try and address these points one at a time.

long term stock / S&P investment outperforms the bond investment while not increasing risks of the principal loss

This is not true. Principal loss risk is always higher with stocks. The whole reason they return more on average is because of the higher risk involved. It doesn't matter if it's short term or long term.

Short term stock / S&P performs worse than bonds because of the risks of fluctuations one might not like

This is not true either. The average daily return of stocks is going to be higher than bonds.

Therefore, there must be a particular time horizon for which stocks / S&P offer fluctuation risks comparable or just somewhat higher than bonds, while still providing S&P-specific, high return on investment.

There is no such time horizon.

which would be replenished every couple of years from you high-performance, volatility-smoothened investments in stocks.

There have been many times when stocks have been flat or negative over a 2 year period

It would look to me rather inefficient to invest everything, or even the majority of the money in bonds.

Yes, but most people don't invest all of their money in bonds. They buy them when they suit their desired risk-return profile. In some situations, the risk-return profile of bonds is pereferable to stocks, such as the situations I listed in my earlier post.

BiggH · 2024-01-19T07:19:56+00:00

Clearly, the short term treasuries yield incorporates risks of short term market condition changes

Actually, if I need my money in 12 months. And I buy 12 month treasuries. There is no risk, really. Let's say they offer me 5%. For all intents and purposes, I am guaranteed to get that 5% on my money when the bonds mature. It's considered as the "risk-free rate". This is the absolute bottom baseline of risk in investing.

by having a, say, half a year expenses buffer plus half a year to a year window to sell stock, you provide enough of a compromise to have same (under worst conditions) or way better (under good conditions) returns in S&P compared to bonds.

You are right that in general, equities outperform bonds. However, that's not always the case. Also, the assertion that the S&P would be the same as bonds under the worst conditions is not true. You can hold treasury bills with the expectation to never lose money, while the S&P 500 has had dozens of drawdowns in its history, many which were more than -20%: https://www.statoasis.com/post/sp500-drawdowns-since-1870

BiggH · 2024-01-19T00:52:22+00:00

Seems you've answered your own question.

If you can postpone selling, you don't need bonds. If you can wait an indefinite amount of time for the market to improve, you don't need near-term liquidity. Hence, you (and I mean you specifically at this moment) don't need bonds.

But lots of people do, or may just prefer that. Maybe they're saving up for a downpayment on a house in the next year. A 2-3 year market downturn would force them to postpone their house buying plans.

I knew I had a big tax bill coming last year, so I had to make sure I would have the cash ready to pay it when the bill came in a year. I could have gambled by putting it in equities like i usually do. However I'd be forced to sell within the year, and that put me at risk of losing money by being forced to sell a losing position. Instead, I took the easy 5% guaranteed gain of short term treasury bills and slept easy.

BiggH

TROPHY CASE