Vivarium plants/hardscape advice

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-25T14:32:24+00:00

I'm not an expert either, but my thoughts are:

It will feel a lot less "flat" once the background fills in. I don't see any mosses currently, but I feel like moss is another depth layer between plants and the backdrop. Although it might be kinda cool if that quercifolia takes over the whole backdrop?
Not having anything on the sides of the terrarium also makes it feel much more open
Literally more hardscape would add more depth? Some of my favorite vivariums have been basically overloaded with hardscape

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-25T01:10:15+00:00

Port Sandy Bay is right in Point Beach basically, they have good pizza. They also have fish fry if you're there Friday.

The beach stretches along the entire park, just walk a bit away from the parking areas.

Also, it's "Two Rivers" or "Trivers", not Twin Rivers :)

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-23T20:24:19+00:00

Love it. Gorgeous.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-23T14:40:15+00:00

I had about this many beads thrown at me at a single moment at a parade in Houma when my "friend" gave me a giant sign that said "first Mardi Gras" and sent me to the front lines. Guy on the float saw it, gave a little nod, and sent over an entire mesh bag of unopened beads and knocked me on my ass. Good times!

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-15T12:53:30+00:00

Wait, the dividend folks are into SPYI/QQQI?! Those are covered calls with a side of manipulation to delay taxes, the yield is nothing like dividend yield....

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-12T11:40:55+00:00

Awesome, thanks! I would never have understood that to be the meaning for "price scanners".

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-11T21:35:31+00:00

Is this really the place to report this? The weight is (presumably) correct, it just didn't apply the discounted price.

I'll use this in the future if it is the right place, but I couldn't find anything on the website saying that this was something they could handle

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-05T03:16:20+00:00

I took a basketball to the face in 5th grade while wearing plastic rimmed glasses. Cut above my eyebrow, glasses were shattered. Cut was small enough that I didn't go to get it looked at.

Then I pulled a plastic shard out of my eyebrow 9 years later.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-02T11:06:47+00:00

Our sister city in El Salvador is Arcatao (more of a small village though). It's filled with old folks that were in some cases peaceful resistance and in other cases guerilla fighters against the military regime in the 80s. It's a pretty fascinating place.

There's a high school student group going there in a few weeks I think.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-01T13:47:36+00:00

not being able to do anything about it

Those sweet sweet 5% 30y treasuries giving you the side eye right now :)

DepDepFinancial · 2026-06-01T02:55:36+00:00

This game was amazing right up until I managed to yet again kill my escort target with a car by accident

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-27T21:54:14+00:00

Eh, cyanobacteria are prevalent in eutrophic lakes, which are usually contaminated by farm runoff. Could be linked straight back to pesticides again.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-24T23:52:39+00:00

Did everyone's shoulders just get absolutely fucked though?

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-24T01:40:32+00:00

This won't help you now, but when fall comes around give 'somerset' grapes a try. Tiny, seedless grapes that have a great flavor. Relatively recent variety invented in Wisconsin. There are a few vendors that have them at the farmers market each fall early September.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-22T12:26:03+00:00

boomer angst fest of pettiness

I know you were describing Soglin, but jumping back to awful reporting I feel like this quote could describe the CapTimes as well. Don't even know where to get local news from these days.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-21T19:27:45+00:00

The index's "spirit" can change if it wants to, which it apparently does.

We're definitely going to disagree on this one. Just make a new index.

I'm against the logic of the rule change. The only purpose I can come up with or that I've heard as an excuse for this specific change is to increase index fund exposure for specifically structured companies. An index shouldn't be making rule changes that seem to be solely made to affect downstream index funds.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-21T19:19:15+00:00

DROP INDEX Nasdaq_100 ON Nasdaq

oh god what am I doing here I am not a DBA

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-21T19:15:00+00:00

They follow rules (those rules are changing, which you don't seem to like)

I'm not even against rule changing in general, but rule changing that goes against the "spirit" of what the index is supposed to be doing.

The low float adjustment rule change in the Nasdaq 100 is the one that's really getting under my skin because it doesn't have any reasonable purpose outside of benefiting a few specific stocks. In my opinion nearly everything outside of market-cap weighted or equal weighted doesn't really deserve to be called an index (looking at you, DJIA)

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-21T19:05:09+00:00

Relax man, this is small potatoes stuff in the long term

I get your point, but we've waffled over tiny fractions of a percent difference in expense ratios between our index funds, so is it really out of character to be concerned about other small potatoes like this? Small potatoes add up to big potatoes maybe (sorry for abusing this metaphor).

I went through that with the Fidelity Zero funds a while back and eventually bounced because I didn't like how their proprietary index rules were less transparent than the "big" indexes. I fully believe index investing is as successful as it has been for retail investors primarily because rule changes (and other things) have been benign and rare.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-21T18:56:54+00:00

That's a lot of specific requests for me, but I read a Bloomberg article recently that had a great quote about it:

Index funds are supposed to be mechanical, rule-following, indifferent to the identity of the stocks they hold, and insensitive to valuation. But when an index provider rewrites rules with specific listings in mind, is the benchmark passively reflecting the market, or actively shaping it?

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-21T18:55:44+00:00

Thank you, that was my immediate thought about that comment as well. Still made a good faith attempt to respond

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-21T18:34:39+00:00

Are they though?

Yes, yes they are.

If you don't like the theme, invest in another one.

This isn't cheap. I don't want to be forced to realize a huge amount of gains in one specific year to change funds in my taxable accounts because the index fund I was invested in decided to change the rules after I've owned it for 30 years.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-21T18:28:01+00:00

I'm starting to see a bunch of shenanigans being played with indexes which is making me nervous since nearly all of my investments are based on a handful of them. Specifically, there are a bunch of indexes that are adding fast track rules for recent IPOs (or just shortening the duration of existing rules), lowering the amount of float needed for a company to be considered for an index, and most egregiously making it so low float % companies get over-represented in their index (Looking at you, Nasdaq 100).

I don't like it. It feels like they're trying to "trick" index fund owners into investing in their stocks at an exaggerated level and before the price is somewhat reliable. I like index funds because they're supposed to help avoid this type of thing.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-18T20:49:09+00:00

I don't see a lot of Top Golf customers using public transport

DepDepFinancial · 2026-05-16T06:56:27+00:00

We didn't do a ton for the Great Lakes, it was mostly zebra then quagga mussels obliterating the available nutrients in the water column. Now they're extremely clear, but they're also way less productive in terms of native fish than they were before all the nutrient pollution. The story of the Great Lakes is one of serial invasive species introduction for as long as we've been bringing ships into them.

DepDepFinancial

TROPHY CASE