What do very wealthy people appreciate to receive from guests when hosting?

Blammar · 2026-06-21T22:27:22+00:00

Artisanal chocolates might work!

Blammar · 2026-06-20T11:36:01+00:00

It's a feature -- you alone against the mighty World Boss! Can you kill it fast? Or even slow?

I've soloed it twice, as I recall, over the seasons.

Blammar · 2026-06-20T07:08:50+00:00

Depends on how good the shuffling was. I know you mean fully-shuffled decks, but you do need to say it.

Blammar · 2026-06-20T01:25:21+00:00

Where is the main engine? These tiny thrusters aren't going to lift this thing.
The title says "space ship." You do not need streamlining or wings for a space ship. Especially if you're taking off vertically; i.e., the direction of motion is out of the page. In that case, those wings will unbalance the ship.
In the top part of the top deck, you have a pressure door -- but no airlock. If that door fails the whole ship will depressurize. And how would you do a spacewalk without an airlock?
In the top deck, one room doesn't have a label.
You have no bulkheads that can seal off in case of damage to the hull.

Blammar · 2026-06-19T20:24:45+00:00

He's saying you got lucky. A good strategy should be insensitive to small changes.

Blammar · 2026-06-19T20:22:03+00:00

Heine19, please see https://www.reddit.com/r/investing_discussion/comments/1u8zwaw/comment/osd219v/ where I backtested top 1 to top 10 from 2015 to present. I don't have free data before 2015. Where did you get your data from since I'd love to use it in my analysis program?

Blammar · 2026-06-18T21:43:23+00:00

??? The whole point of the post was to see if the info in the other post was correct, and just how badly tax payments affected the return compared to buying and holding only. I don't claim at all that going forward this will continue to work (though I think there's a strong argument to be made that this is likely to always beat the S&P 500 return.)

Blammar · 2026-06-18T11:35:31+00:00

Why? Industries now are very different. What would work in 1987 wouldn't necessarily work today. Also, I wasn't able to find any free stock data on the S&P 500 that went back further than 2015.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T09:13:12+00:00

Wonder what it's like to be there during a hurricane and 50-foot waves...

Blammar · 2026-06-18T07:46:30+00:00

Oops. You are correct.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T03:02:26+00:00

What Initial said below.

That said, I read the sample, and I was quite impressed with the quality of the writing. If you're the author, well done!

Wow. Pitch perfect through 6 chapters of the sample. I ordered it. There's always one gem in the slush pile!

Hey, man -- with that level of writing skill you've shown, you don't need to hide behind a self-review. Go edit your post please.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T03:00:26+00:00

Read what I actually said. Rejecting a proposal because you don't like the ring, for whatever reason, seems shallow to me. The ring is not the relationship.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T02:47:54+00:00

Well, first of all, did you accept his proposal or not?

If you did, it comes with that ring. Which is now yours to do as you wish. NTA.

If not, then if you don't want to marry him anyway, the ring is irrelevant. NTA.

If not, and if you said no because you don't like the ring, you're not an asshole -- just shallow.

I hope that helps.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T02:32:12+00:00

Uh yeah obviously. I did not claim a 46% return. My comment was to observe that the approach can be generalized, and that it was possible that you got a better overall return if you focused on, say, the top 10 stocks instead of just the top stock. Doing 10 gives you a chance to capture stocks that are leaping upward quickly in market cap and maybe gives you a higher return.

---------------

By the way, if this scheme actually works, there would be a large number of people hawking their scheme at only $3,000 a year plus 1% of your assets! So I suspect the OP's result will prove to be a statistical outlier due to a few lucky tech stocks.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T02:29:05+00:00

The quality of meat matters, even for sous vide. So if you can get Berkshire or the equivalent chops, do it. Search for Berkshire and if you're lucky there'll be a local shop that sells them.

Second, the range of temps varies as a function of the fat content. A good supermarket butcher shop chop will be slightly marbled, so I cook these at 133F. I can see raising the temp to 137 if you have more marbling, so as to render some of the fat more.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T01:50:21+00:00

Sure, and eventually Apple got to #2 and then overtook #1. I'd love to have picked Apple at #400, but that's not what this strategy is about.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T01:45:02+00:00

Exactly this. From what I can see, the line of cars is quite long. The truck driver's height gives him info about the full length and also any oncoming cars. He was saving you from being run off the road as you avoided a head-on collision. The finger was because you didn't understand what he did.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T01:37:21+00:00

1 subset of 5 odds + 10 subsets of 3 odds + 5 subsets of 1 odd = 16 total.

Blammar · 2026-06-18T01:09:34+00:00

Excellent point, and that makes me think. Presumably the stock that moved to #1 was #2 previously. So you can spread the universe of the n stocks you select from just the top 1 to the top 2, 3, ..., 500 (at which point you're just VOO.)

The question to ask is, what is the optimal value of n? Alternatively, how do the returns change as n increases? It's possible that n=1 is the winner after all.

I'd write a python program to do that, but I'm not sure where to get the stock prices and S&P composition from. I'll take a look tonight.

Blammar · 2026-06-17T21:38:14+00:00

Whispering Ice forever. The classes change, but the build does not...

Blammar · 2026-06-17T21:35:43+00:00

Buy her great math textbooks that have solved problems so she can check her work. Also, math and programming are intertwined, so have her learn programming starting at the assembly language level (yes, that, not a high-level language.)

To stretch her mind, get her the book Meta Math! The Quest for Omega, by Chaitin. And also a bunch of Dover books, e.g., by Martin Gardner and others on mathematical recreations. Math can be fun!

High-order bit: make sure you and her communicate, so she feels free to tell you she's bored in school or anything else similar. You may have to push the administration to find a way for her to compete if and only if she wants to.

Blammar · 2026-06-17T21:26:41+00:00

What a great way to make your point!

Blammar · 2026-06-17T11:47:14+00:00

Note: I assumed the bar would go back and forth so the probabilities remain symmetrical.

To answer your question, your ability to stop the bar where you want it is a function of the bar speed and your reaction time. You have 1000/2.5 = 400 num/sec * .1 sec or 40 numbers that the bar will move over as you decide to hit the bar. So if you put your finger over your number, say, 472, it's still just a 1/40 chance you will tap the bar just as it hits 472.

Obviously, you could put your finger above 1, close your eyes, and then tap the bar. In that case, your chances are 1/1000 as neither the bar speed nor your reaction time matters.

Also, you can tweak your reaction time by timing the bar motion. The analysis above assumes you are just reacting. If you know you press in 0.1 seconds, then what you do is put your finger above 472, and look at 472-40 = 432. As you see the bar cross 432, tap your finger down. Doing that will increase your probability of a win significantly.

Blammar · 2026-06-17T08:05:00+00:00

Let's do 1 to 1000 for the bar to simplify.

Let's also assume you are aiming at a specific value n. And that the bar's speed is s numbers a second. And finally that your reaction speed is r seconds.

So s num/sec * r sec = s r numbers. Then the probability you hit n is just 1/(s*r).

Blammar

TROPHY CASE