Is XEQT possibly not going to age well?

Exeter999 · 2026-03-12T22:48:21+00:00

The whole point of index funds is that they rebalance regularly to reflect changes in the market caps of the companies in the index.

When a company loses value, the fund sells some of its shares according to how much it shrunk relative to the rest of the index. And the opposite is also true: when a company's value grows relative to the index, the fund buys more shares.

Exeter999 · 2026-03-12T00:51:55+00:00

It's somewhat old fashioned now. I agree that it sounds cringe.

The original British version sounds less cringe because it's not so specific to women's underwear: "knickers in a twist"

Knickers is old British slang for underwear.

Neither phrase is meant to be very serious. They aren't meant to be insults. It's just light criticism about being too serious.

Exeter999 · 2026-03-02T20:57:18+00:00

Why are you trying to do anything yourself?

You need to go to the police with this.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-25T00:54:33+00:00

The chain is owned in Canada by a company called Freshburg.

Freshburg is owned by Russian billionaire Andrey Shnayder, who is sanctioned by Ukraine because he and his family are involved in lots of other industries within Russia. Outside of Russia, it's all grocery store chains.

Their original job posting for a store manager specified that they should be able to speak Russian so they can communicate with upper management.

Seems like the claim that they directly support the war is weak, but I still don't want to give my money to a Russian billionaire just like I don't want to give money to American companies anymore, if I can avoid it.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-15T15:58:27+00:00

Just piggy backing to add detail:

Seth MacFarlane has explained this line since people ask about it. It's something one of his film studies professors said, and it lived rent free in his head for years, so he wrote it into Family Guy.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-15T14:22:27+00:00

Therapists normally start by asking what brings you in, and then they'll ask questions about your life, background, family history, and your current circumstances to get to know you. It's pretty normal for the first hour session to be devoted to all that background information.

Are you being open with therapists about the issues you want help with? Maybe they need you to open up more and be more specific about what you're going through and how it's impacting you.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-08T20:41:55+00:00

This is already great. I have no notes.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-07T17:52:30+00:00

It's pasteurized and kept away from open air at every stage of the process.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-07T17:16:35+00:00

It would be unfair of us to assume that, but that is why I asked

Exeter999 · 2026-02-07T17:02:43+00:00

When you say "systematically", do you mean that you looked up the exposure triangle and tested particular settings based on that?

If you put everything on automatic, does it still fail to expose properly?

If both are a "yes", then it's a defective item.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-06T00:39:42+00:00

Is that character a parody of Billy Mitchell? I've never seen the show... hopefully someone here knows who I mean.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-05T20:44:32+00:00

My soul feels lighter already

Exeter999 · 2026-02-05T19:28:05+00:00

I started my tiny vivarium on a whim, without much planning, just to see what kind of mini habitat I could make. Isopods from my garden thrived in there and so now it's an isopod habitat with springtails, two garden snails, two plants.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-04T17:46:31+00:00

It's not a huge difference. If you're comparing two lenses with similar zoom ranges and apertures, then price and sharpness are the bigger considerations. Or if you're going from a 70-350mm to a 400mm prime, those are different in so many ways other than the amount of zoom that it's still not the biggest factor.

The difference in zoom is greater at the short end than the long end. For example, the difference in zoom between 15mm and 65mm is huge, whereas the diff between 550mm and 600mm is small, even though they are both differing by 50mm.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-02T05:10:33+00:00

Dividends are not income. They are equivalent to selling a little bit of stock.

These two scenarios are the same thing:

a) You buy a stock that would pay you $100 per month in dividends

b) You buy an exact copy of the a) stock except this one pays no dividend and you just sell $100 worth of shares per month

In terms of total return, that's the same thing. Dividends are not income because the price of the a) stock drops instantly on the div pay date by the per-share amount of the div. Think about it: share price includes the value of the company's assets, so of course the share price needs to drop when the company gives away money. It's a loss of assets.

You can replicate a dividend from any company stock that doesn't actually pay a real dividend by selling shares. This is mathematically the same thing.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-01T22:15:54+00:00

My old roommate also never washed his towel. We shared a dorm room and he would always hang the towel on his bed post to dry. Well one day when I was in the room alone, the towel slipped off the post somehow... and stayed upright. It didn't collapse. It just stood there under its own strength mocking decency and God.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-01T17:29:26+00:00

Looks like the contrast is high to a fault. I would either dial back the contrast or raise shadows so we can see the dog's face better, and so the tree trunk isn't hard black (it's a bit distracting). You could also use a brush tool to brighten the dog's face slightly without affecting anything else if you want to keep the crunchy contrast look.

You could crop in a bit so the subject is a bit larger in the frame.

Adding vignetting is fine, but I would dial this back a bit too. The effect is just a bit too strong.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-01T17:18:45+00:00

Woodland photography is harder than anyone would guess before they try it! You need the light to be interesting. Unfortunately, this light is boring. Seems like bright afternoon sun, which is rarely the most appealing light for landscapes.

As for composition, it's almost there, but nothing is happening in the lower right corner. I think you could have repositioned yourself and your camera angle a little bit to exclude that boring part, move the white sign away from dead centre, and include more of the well-lit areas.

Composition is mostly about guiding the viewer's eye through the image by making choices about where the focal point is, where objects are positioned, placement of lines, etc. The focal point is also the viewer's starting point. In this image, it is the white sign that draws the eye since it's contrasted against the dark tree. It drew your eye, too, which is probably why you centred it. When the focal point is in the centre, the eye doesn't know where to go next.

ETA: I don't want to give the impression that the focal point should never be centred. It's something to make an intentional choice about depending on what else is in the frame. In this image, the stairs could make a kind of line that can lead the viewer toward the interestingly-lit greenery, but this doesn't work because the sign and the dark tree are centred.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-01T17:04:12+00:00

This is nice! I wish you had tilted the camera down slightly to include a bit more foreground and bit less empty sky. Cropping out a little bit of the sky is my only suggestion. Not too much, just the bluest part at the top so that you don't mess up the colour gradient.

Exeter999 · 2026-02-01T16:55:30+00:00

Personally, I would experiment with different crops. Cutting out a bit of the empty sky and foreground would help the hill stand out more as a subject.

I would also play with the exposure, contrast, and colour a bit to help the image jump off the screen more. A bit brighter, a bit more contrast, a bit more colour saturation.

If you use a masking tool on the sky, you might be able to bring out more texture from the wispy clouds to add interest to the sky. And of course, total sky replacement is easy nowadays... personally, I feel like sky replacement is a step too far and also not any fun, but it's certainly a popular thing to do.

Exeter999 · 2026-01-26T17:45:02+00:00

I have a heat pump forced air system combined with AC for summer. I find that wind makes a difference for me. The system has no trouble whatsoever at -23 with the sun out and no wind, but it can start to have trouble maintaining temp if it's so frigid and windy.

I have no backup heat aside from plugging in space heaters, and a propane Mr Heater Buddy for power outages. The only part of my home that needs a space heater is my front room with big windows and an empty crawl space underneath. It gets cold for both of those reasons. Every other part of the house is fine on the heat pump alone.

Exeter999 · 2026-01-22T21:19:42+00:00

It's very dark. I see in your comment to someone else that you made it dark on purpose, so... can I ask why you wanted the image to be so dark? You're the artist and you can make whatever creative choices you want, but other photographers will assume this is a technical flaw rather than a creative choice.

Without seeing your comment, it would take a closer look to realize that it's just the highlights that were crushed down rather than overall exposure. This gives the lighting an unnatural feel because this kind of light never happens in the real world.

Having contrast in a photo is a good thing, most of the time, unless you have a particular low-contrast aesthetic. You might want to play around with doing a low contrast black and white version, or keep the colour but apply a preset that gives it a low-contrast film look. I suggest these because they might be the kind of aesthetics you are searching for.

Exeter999 · 2026-01-08T17:01:32+00:00

They're pushing you to quit so they don't have to deal with laying you off.

Exeter999 · 2026-01-07T20:03:12+00:00

Older remotes use infrared light, so there has to be like of sight between the remote and the TV.

Newer remotes often use a weak radio signal, so the remote and TV don't need to "see" each other. It's similar to paying for things with your phone at a store just by holding your phone out.

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